I couldn’t find any words to express my reaction to what he’d said. Everything I’d assumed-everything I’d deduced-about Louise Paxton’s death had been overturned in a matter of minutes. A man claiming to have killed her was sitting next to me on an isolated hillside as a wet September night closed about us. If I believed him, I should have been afraid for my own safety. And I did believe him. Not because of the note of sincerity in his voice. Rather because of the unmistakable impression of relief conveyed in his manner and bearing. And that’s also why I wasn’t afraid of him. He sat beside me, hunched and defeated, a man whose store of lies and evasions was long since exhausted. All he seemed to want to do now was speak freely about himself. He was no longer a threat to anyone.

“The police won’t believe me at first, of course. They won’t want to. I’ll be an embarrassment to them. But they’ll come round in the end. When I’ve told them the whole story, they’ll realize it’s true. But before I go to them, I’d like you to hear it. All of it. So you can tell Sarah and her father before they read about it in the newspapers or see it on television. I haven’t the courage to face them myself. I thought I might have, but I’ve woken up every morning this week meaning to go to Sarah and then failing to. It can’t go on. That’s why I’ve turned to you. Not quite a friend. Not quite a stranger. Perhaps that makes you the perfect confessor. If you’re willing to listen, that is.” He paused. I saw his head droop in the shadows. Then he pulled himself upright and sighed. “Are you?” he asked huskily.

“Yes,” I replied. “I’ll listen.”

And so, as the rain spat at the windscreen and the dark damp smell of the night crept in around us, Paul Bryant began his story. I listened to him in silence. And long before he’d finished, I realized nothing would ever be the same. Now his confession had been heard.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

My parents met in the bank where they both worked. Dull decent ordinary people. Never been abroad. Never committed adultery. Never sworn in public. Never dreamt of being more than they were. My sisters and I were all conceived in the same bed in the same room in the same semi-detached house in Surbiton. Made in our parents’ unaspiring image. So they must have thought, anyway. If they ever did think about such things. And I suppose they were right about my sisters. A few holidays in Majorca and one divorce between them doesn’t change an awful lot, does it?

“I always wanted more, though. More travel. More culture. More company. More variety. And it turned out I had the brains to get what I wanted. Winning a place at Cambridge didn’t just round off a good education and enhance my employment prospects. It got me out of the stifling tedium of my suburban adolescence. Cambridge had more than its fair share of poseurs and idiots, of course. But it gave me something I’d never had before. The conviction that life contained limitless possibilities. The belief not only that I could have whatever I desired if I put my mind to it, but that I deserved to have it. Elitism. Egotism. Supreme self-confidence. They came in the water. And I drank of them deeply.

“Too deeply, I suppose. I mean, it was all a charade. Of course it was. I know that now. A game of froth and gaud in which the key to winning was to take yourself deadly seriously while pretending to treat everything as a joke. I played the game. But I mistook it for the real thing. So the shallowness of the other players baffled and enraged me. They didn’t seem to understand that arguing an academic point and appreciating a fine painting in the Fitzwilliam were the same thing: a celebration of individual superiority. I soon came to believe that I felt more, sensed more, understood more, grasped the essence of being and doing and thinking more, than the whole trivial pack of them put together.

“It started from that. My dissatisfaction with the people I got drunk with or went to bed with. It turned into contempt for their lack of maturity. I longed to escape their puking and prattling. I longed for older wiser friends to debate the virtues and vices of the world with. But they weren’t to be found in Cambridge. I felt like a hungry man offered a shopful of candyfloss. Like a philosopher put to work as a baby-minder.

“Then, during the Lent term of my second year, I met Sarah. We went out a few times. It didn’t come to much. Not even sex. But I happened to be the man she had in tow when she went along to the private view her mother had arranged to launch Oscar Bantock’s exhibition. I nearly didn’t go. She actually had to come and get me when I didn’t show up at her room. Things were cooling off between us pretty rapidly by then. Besides, I hated Expressionism. I also had a fixed mental picture of the artist and his patroness. A raddled old bohemian running to fat and some horse-faced socialite offering cheap wine in exchange for cheap compliments. That’s what I expected. And in Oscar Bantock it’s more or less what I got. But Louise? She was a different story altogether.

“The gallery was a small but exclusive place. Crowded that night, of course. A grinning mob of so-called aesthetes expelling enough hot air to steam up the windows completely. We pushed our way in. Sarah made straight for her mother. To ensure her presence was noted, I suppose. That’s when I first saw Louise. It was like an electric shock. I mean, it was instantaneous. She was so beautiful. She was so… mind-blowingly lovely. I just gaped at her. I remember thinking. ‘Why aren’t these people looking at her? Can’t they see? Don’t they realize?’ You met her once yourself, so maybe you understand. She was incredible. She was the woman I’d been longing to meet. And in that instant, before Sarah had even introduced us, I knew I’d have to have her. To possess her, body and soul. It was as simple as that. Over the top, of course. Absurdly unrealistic. Totally mad. But I never questioned the instinct for a moment. It was so strong I felt certain it had to be right.

“I only spoke to her for a few minutes. We didn’t discuss anything profound or meaningful. But that didn’t matter. The tone of her voice. The movement of her hair when she laughed. The haunting coolness in her eyes. It was as if they were branded on me. I’d have done anything for her. Gone anywhere to be with her. I was in her power. Except she didn’t know it. Which left my infatuation to feed on itself. Outright rejection at the start might have nipped it in the bud. But she was too polite-too sensitive-for that. I managed to muscle in on a lunch she had with Sarah the next day. I contrived to be hanging around Sarah’s staircase when Louise called on her to say goodbye the day after. I was the archetypal bad penny. Louise probably thought I was trailing after her daughter. That must be why she suggested I visit them in Sapperton during the Easter vacation. But Sarah was having none of it. After her mother had gone, she made it obvious she didn’t want to see me there.

“I went home at the end of term assuming I’d soon forget about Louise. But the sterility of life in Surbiton only reinforced the yearning to be near her. I knew they had a town house in Holland Park. So I went up there one day and called round. To my surprise, Louise answered the door. She was alone. Sarah was out with friends. Rowena was at school. Sir Keith was at his surgery. I claimed to be in the area by chance. She invited me in. Offered me coffee. Said she didn’t know how long Sarah would be. I said it didn’t matter. And that was true. The longer the better, as far as I was concerned. Just to be with Louise, just to look at her across the room and listen to her speaking, just to feel her attention resting on me when I was speaking… It seemed like a glimpse of paradise. And having her to myself, however briefly, seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t afford to let slip. When she went into the kitchen to fix me another coffee, I followed her. And that’s where I told her. In the time it took the kettle to boil.