Nevertheless, I found myself walking in the same direction as her. And at the same pace. Keeping track for as long as our routes ran parallel. Hers down past the Unicorn Hotel to the Arnolfini building at the corner of the quay. Mine to where the colonnade ended and a permanently moored ship got up as a floating pub blocked my view of her. Hurriedly, I went aboard, ordered a drink I didn’t want and took it to the starboard window. But Rowena had stopped at the quayside opposite me, almost as if she’d known I’d need a few moments to catch up. She couldn’t see me, I was certain. Not with the sun in her eyes as it was. She seemed to be looking for something, squinting out across the water. She took a step closer to the edge and for a second I was alarmed. But there was no need. She tossed her head, setting her hair bouncing across her back, then turned and walked away towards the swing-bridge across the harbour.

She’d soon be out of sight. Distance would claim her as one of its own. I watched her cross the bridge, then turn to the left, heading further away from me than ever along the wharves on the far side of the harbour. A pale speck amidst the visual chaos of masts and rooftops, speeding cars and sprawling crowds, glaring sky and sparkling water. A few seconds, as my eyes strained to follow her. A farewell flash of sunlight on her hair. Then she was gone. I waited to be certain. But there was no longer any trace of her. Not so much as a blur.

I left my drink and walked off the ship. There, opposite me, on the quay, she’d stood only a few minutes before. I could have hailed her. I could have urged her to wait while I hurried round to join her. And if she’d still been standing there, I believe I would have done. But belief can so often be self-deception. I’d had the chance. And I’d turned it down. Now there was nothing to do but to walk away.

I heard nothing from Sarah between my return to Petersfield and the Benefit of the Doubt broadcast. She’d had ample time by then to play and replay the video until every word of mine Seymour had used was imprinted on her memory. But her only response was silence. Perhaps, I thought, that was to be my punishment. My exclusion, so far as she could engineer it, from Rowena’s life as well as hers. My forfeit of the confidence they’d once invested in me.

I recorded the transmission myself, but I didn’t watch it. I’d seen it too many times already. The awareness that I couldn’t force Seymour to admit he’d deliberately distorted what I’d said any more than I could force Sarah to acknowledge he’d done so dragged my exasperation down into exhaustion. Until a show of indifference was the only riposte I felt capable of.

Adrian had got hold of a couple of tickets for the opening day of the Lord’s Test and had offered them to Simon and me, claiming he was too busy to go himself. Simon and I both realized it was more in the nature of a bribe, with the company’s response to Bushranger’s bid still formally unsettled. But that didn’t stop us accepting. In my case, it was just what I needed: a day’s refuge from any possibility of an irate call from Bella or Paul or Sir Keith about my interview on Benefit of the Doubt the night before. Simon gave me his opinion of it, of course. “I said you should never have got mixed up with that in the first place, Rob. You should have listened to your big brother.” All of which was thoroughly predictable. As well as being uncomfortably close to the truth. But as soon as the champagne started to flow, he gave up lecturing me and a moratorium on the subject of Bushranger meant we had an enjoyably light-hearted day. Even if Australia’s dominance of England did seem to point a dismal moral for Timariot & Small.

I got back to Greenhayes late that night, overslept and reached the office nearer ten o’clock than nine the following morning, my hangover made no more bearable by the knowledge that Simon’s was probably worse. A pile of messages had accumulated in my absence and I was sifting aimlessly through them with one hand while trying to prise a Disprin out of its foil wrapper with the other when my secretary put her head round the door to announce she had Nick Seymour on the telephone.

“That’s the Nick Seymour,” she said, apparently impressed.

“What does he want?” I barked ill-temperedly.

“He wouldn’t say. It couldn’t be anything to do with what’s in the paper, could it?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen a paper.”

“Oh. You don’t know, then.”

“Didn’t I just say that?”

“Sorry,” she said, bridling. “It’s just-”

“Put the Nick Seymour through, Liz. Without wasting any more time, eh?” I waved to her dismissively and she took the hint. A few seconds later, the telephone rang.

“Mr. Timariot?” It was Seymour all right, a grain of apprehensiveness scarcely denting his self-assurance.

“Rung to apologize, have you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know very well.”

“Listen, I haven’t got time to play games. I’m simply trying to make sure we take a consistent line on this. In both our interests.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on. The Paxton girl. Or Bryant. Whatever the right name is. The tabloids are trying to blame me for what’s happened.”

“What has happened?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I did, would I?”

“I thought you must do.”

“Just tell me.”

The tone of my voice silenced him for a moment. Then he said: “Lady Paxton’s younger daughter committed suicide yesterday afternoon.”

“What?”

“Threw herself off Clifton Suspension Bridge, apparently.”

“Rowena’s dead?”

“Yes. And the newspapers are trying to say she only did it because she’d seen my programme on Wednesday.”

“Oh my God.”

“So you see it’s vital we stick together. The papers may not contact you. But, if they do, you’d be well advised to-”

I cut him off before he could say any more and slowly replaced the handset. Beneath me, amidst the confetti of Liz’s neatly typed messages from the day before, was one that was shorter than most. Mrs. Bryant rang on a matter of urgency. She will call back. And there, in my mind’s eye, was the sunlight flashing on her hair as she turned from the quayside.

I jumped from my chair and ran into the outer office, clutching the scrap of paper in my hand. Liz looked up in surprise. “What’s wrong?”

“This message.” I slapped it down in front of her. “When did you take it?”

“Mrs. Bryant,” she mused. “Oh, I remember. Said she was in a call-box. Sounded anxious.”

“When?”

“Er… during the lunch hour. Yes. Just before two. Or just after.”

“Let me see your paper.” Her Daily Mail was poking out of the desk drawer beside her.

“You don’t mean… Rowena was the Mrs. Bryant who phoned you yesterday?” Horror began to dawn on her. “I never-”

“Give me the paper!” She handed it over and there was the headline, staring at me from the front page. DAUGHTER TAKES LIFE THREE YEARS AFTER MOTHER’S MURDER. The daughter of one of the victims of a double murder three years ago yesterday took her own life in a fatal dive from Clifton Suspension Bridge, the notorious Bristol suicide spot. My eyes scanned the paragraphs in search of the information I both wanted and dreaded. Rowena Bryant, a twenty-two-year-old married student at Bristol University, is said to have become depressed over recent weeks. It is thought her suicide was prompted by seeing a video recording of Wednesday night’s Benefit of the Doubt programme, in which controversial presenter Nick Seymour aired doubts about the guilt of the man convicted of the rape and murder of her mother, Lady Paxton, in July 1990. Shaun Naylor, 31, is serving a- But where was the time-the precise time? When did it happen? Onlookers were amazed to see Mrs. Bryant walk calmly to the middle of the bridge shortly after two o’clock yesterday afternoon, climb onto the railings and- Shortly after two o’clock. So it was even worse than I’d feared.