“Are you OK, Robin?” asked Liz.

She got no answer. I closed the newspaper, dropped it onto her desk and picked up the message she’d taken just before two o’clock the previous afternoon. Or maybe just after. Mrs. Bryant rang on a matter of urgency. She will call back. “Is this really all she said?” I demanded.

“Yes. She was only on for a minute or two. Said it was urgent and personal. When I explained you were out, she sounded disappointed. I suggested she call back. She said she would. Then…”

“Then what?”

“She rang off.”

She rang off. And walked the short distance from the call-box to the bridge. She must have used the kiosk on the Clifton side. I could remember passing it with her that day in November 1991 when I’d gone up to Bristol at Sarah’s urging to help Rowena forget the mystery of their mother’s death. We’d talked of her suicide attempt a few days before; of how good it was to be alive; and of the strange appeal death could still seem to hold. For a moment, for an hour at most, she’d said, death had seemed more attractive than life. And now it had again. But an overdose was neither certain nor instant. Whereas a leap from the bridge-

“It doesn’t make any sense,” murmured Liz. “She said she’d call back. I’m sure of it.”

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t to know.”

She looked up at me gratefully. “I don’t suppose anybody was, were they?”

I wanted to agree, to affirm wholeheartedly that this was a bolt from the blue nobody could have predicted or prevented. But something stopped me. Rowena’s own words-her irrational sense of guilt for the fate that had overtaken her mother-stood between me and the denial of responsibility I’d otherwise have been glad to utter. “It would be possible to rerun the events of the seventeenth of July a hundred times and produce a hundred different results. A lot of times-maybe a majority of times-Mummy wouldn’t die. Wouldn’t even be in danger. Just because of some tiny scarcely noticeable variation. Like what she said to me. Or to you. And what we said in reply.” I’d persuaded her then to agree that, even if this was so, nobody could foresee or be blamed for the fatal variation. But perhaps I hadn’t really believed that any more than her. Perhaps we’d both known better, but hadn’t dared to say so. For fear of what it meant.

“Can we really change anything, do you think?” Yes, Louise. I could have saved you. And I could have saved your daughter. If I’d refused Seymour his interview. If I’d been more careful about what I said. If I’d given him no scope to finesse the result. If I’d gone to Rowena straightaway. If I’d called to her across the harbour. If I’d been in the office to take her call. If I’d told her the truth all along. If I’d simply trusted her as she wanted me to. If I’d only made one right choice instead of a dozen wrong ones. Then-and only then-it might have been so very different. But it wasn’t going to be. Any more than Rowena was going to call back. Not now. Not ever.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I’m not sure now how I got through the rest of that day. For most of it, I was shut away in my office, struggling to articulate a response to Rowena’s death. I knew contact with Sarah at this stage would be counter-productive. She’d be bound to blame me for what had happened. Although I longed to ask her how Rowena had come to see the video, to do so was to all intents and purposes impossible. Paul was a virtual stranger to me. To approach him in the midst of his grief was inconceivable. Bella was a possible go-between and I did risk a call to her in Biarritz, only to be told she and Sir Keith had already left for England. So I was left in limbo, unable to act because every action I considered led me nowhere.

One decision I did take was to play along with Seymour, though for my own reasons. I instructed Liz to tell any journalists who rang that I was out. She heard from several. But they weren’t going to hear from me. An interview had started all this and I knew public recriminations would only prolong it. If Sarah wasn’t prepared to believe the explanation I’d given her face to face, seeing a garbled version of it in the tabloid press wouldn’t make any difference. I let Seymour imagine what he liked, though. I was out to him as well. And meant to go on being.

I went home as early as was consistent with a pretence of putting in a day’s work, but didn’t stay there longer than it took to change my clothes. I dreaded the telephone ringing with Sir Keith or some muck-raking newspaperman on the line, yet knew I’d have to answer in case it was Sarah offering me an olive-branch. To walk myself into a state of exhaustion round the lanes and hangers was preferable to an agony of suspense at Greenhayes, so out I went. I finished up at the White Horse, an old haunt of Thomas’s on the Froxfield plateau, where I was mercifully unknown and could drink steadily away until the demons were dulled, though scarcely banished.

It was nearly midnight when I got back to Greenhayes. But the telephone rang before I’d so much as locked the door behind me. And I was too drunk to hesitate before picking it up.

“Robin?”

“Oh, Bella… It’s you.”

“I’ve been trying to contact you all evening.”

“Sorry. I was… out.”

“I assume you’ve heard about Rowena.”

“Oh yes. I’ve heard.”

“Is that all you can say?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I should have thought we were owed an explanation from you at the very least.”

“I’d be happy to give one. If you thought it would be listened to.”

“I’ll listen, Robin.”

“But will Keith? Will Paul? Will Sarah?”

“Probably not, no. Can you blame them? They think you and this Marsden bitch are partly responsible-if not chiefly responsible-for what Rowena did.”

“And no doubt you agree with them.”

“What I think isn’t very important at the moment. Now listen to me. Keith’s spending the weekend with Sarah and Paul. But I’m coming down to Hindhead tomorrow. I’d like to see you. Come to The Hurdles at… say… four o’clock?”

“All right. If you think it’ll serve any-”

“Just be there, Robin.” And she hung up before I had a chance to prevaricate any further. Not that I would have done. I had as many questions for her as she had for me.

I reached The Hurdles halfway through a blazing hot summer’s afternoon. The lawn was loud with grass-hoppers. The plop-plop of a tennis game could be heard from beyond the neighbour’s fence. And a distant growl from the deep blue sky as a light plane towed a glider up into the thermals. Death seemed as remote as winter. But death was what had brought me there.

Bella greeted me with a complaint about the heat. “I’d forgotten how humid it can be in England,” she said. “God, what a time for this to happen.”

“Could there be a good time?”

“You know what I mean. Do you want a drink?”

“Why not?”

“There’s a beer in the fridge. About all there is in the fridge. Bring it onto the terrace.”

I fetched a can and a glass and followed her out to the rear of the house, where she’d arranged a couple of directors’ chairs beneath the pergola. She already had a drink, something cool and lemon-coloured, with a straw in it. A sheaf of ripped-open letters beside her chair testified to the length of her absence. And she didn’t look happy to be back. She was smoking, which wasn’t a good sign. Nor were the sunglasses she hid her eyes behind. I might have betrayed her husband and stepdaughter. But I’d inconvenienced her. A heinous offence indeed.

“Sarah told me you’d claimed to be a victim of selective editing.”

“It’s true. I was.”

“Bullshit. I’ve seen the tape, Robin. What did you think you were doing?”

“Trying to tell it how it really was.”