Free Borrowed Time by Robert Goddard

hesitated a long time before writing this. I learned of your existence from Henley Bantock. He did not know your address and the police, though very kind, said they could not release such information. But they did offer to forward this letter to you.
    If it reaches you, I do hope you will agree to meet me. It is more important to me than I can properly explain to learn as much as possible of my mother’s state of mind during the last day of her life. My sister saw her that afternoon, but I had not seen her in over a week. I am having particular difficulty coming to terms with that fact. I am not sure why.
    Something about not saying goodbye, I suppose. But you did say goodbye to her, in a sense. It really would help to talk to you about how she seemed and what she said. Could we meet, do you think? It need not be for long. And I will happily travel to wherever causes you least inconvenience.
    If you are willing to meet, please ring me on Cirencester 855785, or write, if you prefer. Either way, I would be very glad to hear from you.
    Yours sincerely,
    Sarah Paxton.
    The appeal was simple and direct. I could try to help her cope with her mother’s death. Or I could ignore the request. She didn’t know where I was. She had no way of tracing me if I didn’t want to be found. I was safely out of reach. All I had to do was pretend I hadn’t received the letter. Screw it up and throw it away. Burn it. Forget it. She’d cope without me. There was nothing we had to say to each other. That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway. Until I picked up the telephone and dialled her number.
     
    To my surprise, she insisted on coming to Brussels. I suggested she wait until my next visit to England. But, even if I’d been able to say when that would be, I doubt she’d have thought it soon enough. There was an urgency—a hint of desperation—in her voice that made me regret contacting her almost as soon as I’d done so. And there was a resemblance to her mother’s voice that worried me even more. It wouldn’t have taken much to imagine I was actually talking to Louise Paxton. As a result, in the days that passed between our conversation and her arrival in Brussels, I could only picture her in my mind’s eye as a younger version of her mother: an idealized re-creation of a dead woman.
    That, I suppose, is what I set out apprehensively expecting to meet the following Friday night. She’d come for the weekend and was staying at the Hilton on boulevard Waterloo. We’d arranged to meet in the foyer at six o’clock. This turned out to be a bad choice. The place was filled with clacking quartets of jewel-draped women. I cast around amongst them, looking for one young face in the middle-aged crowd, still subconsciously expecting to recognize her. But there was nobody there who even remotely looked the part.
    I was on the point of giving up and seeking help from the concièrge when somebody said from close behind me: “Robin Timariot?” I knew at once who it must be.
    Sarah Paxton had her mother’s slightness of build and much else about her that was immediately reminiscent of the woman I’d met on Hergest Ridge. Yet the differences seemed to amount to more than the similarities. Her hair was darker and cut much shorter. Her eyes too were darker, their gaze less open. She was clearly young—twenty-one or twenty-two I’d have guessed—but the freshness of youth was overlaid by something else. A hardness not of feature but of mind. An earnestness amounting almost to a warning. She wore little make-up and no jewellery bar a silver locket on a chain around her neck. Her dress was simple and practical: a plain blouse, loose calf-length skirt, flat-soled shoes; and unpretentious satchel-style handbag. She had enough of her mother’s looks and bearing to turn heads if she wanted to. But her expression implied a wish to do no such thing. It could have been the visible effect of bereavement, of course, but somehow it seemed too