It wasn’t just a way out of the barbarization of Timariot & Small, though. What sweetened the pill for me was knowing I could be beachcombing on some South Sea island by the time the news broke of Shaun Naylor’s innocence and Paul Bryant’s guilt. The press hadn’t got wind of the story yet and until they did an eerie calm seemed likely to prevail. Files and reports shuttled back and forth between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, between Sarwate and the Criminal Appeal Office, between the servants of the law and its dispensers. Shaun Naylor counted the days in his cell at Albany Prison. Paul Bryant read the Bible in his house beside the water. And we all waited.
But some weren’t prepared to wait. It was the last Saturday in November when Jennifer telephoned me in considerable excitement to report an encounter with Bella during a Christmas shopping trip to Farnham. “She’s left her husband, Robin. Told me so quite bluntly over a cup of coffee. Back here for good and contemplating divorce. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, they’ve only been married a couple of years. But she doesn’t seem to have any compunction about it at all. As for sympathy, forget it. She doesn’t need any. Do you know what she said when I asked, as tactfully as I could, why it had come to this? ‘You wouldn’t understand, my dear.’ How patronizing can you get?”
I thought I understood perfectly well, of course. As I made clear when I called at The Hurdles the following morning, to find Bella reluctantly reacquainting herself with the dullness of an English Sunday. “I didn’t think you’d move as quickly as this, Bella. Aren’t you in danger of jumping the gun?”
“Not at all. Keith’s solicitor has been monitoring developments on our behalf and reckons Naylor will be released on bail before Christmas. The police have caved in, apparently, and the prosecution won’t be offering any evidence when the case comes to appeal. So, I’ve been left with no choice in the matter.”
“You could have chosen to stand by your husband.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew how he’s been behaving lately.”
“I imagine he’s been under a lot of strain.”
“I’ve been under a lot, as well.”
“Of course. But-”
“You wait and see, Robin,” she said with sudden intensity, stabbing out her cigarette in an ashtray littered with the broken-backed corpses of several others. “When all this comes out, you won’t think so badly of me.” But that I found hard to believe.
As family ruptures go, ours was a pretty cordial affair. There didn’t seem much point bearing grudges now everything was settled. And the wanderlust that grew in me as the final break approached drained the event, if not the experience, of much of its bitterness. Merv Gibson, my successor, turned out to be a milder and more sensitive soul than any I’d thought could thrive in Harvey McGraw’s empire. It was almost possible to persuade myself nothing much was going to change at Frenchman’s Road under the Bushranger umbrella. Almost, but not quite. The fact was that however dexterously appearances were managed, an era had ended.
At least I didn’t have to stay and watch the start of a new one, though. Timariot & Small and I came to the parting of the ways on Friday the seventeenth of December. The staff gave me a more rousing send-off than a mere three years as works director really justified. I think they were saying goodbye to their past along with mine, as their farewell gift to me-a watercolour of Broadhalfpenny Down commissioned from a competent local artist-tended to confirm.
That day also saw the appearance of the first newspaper articles heralding Naylor’s release from prison. They struck a cautious note for the most part, referring to “indications that Shaun Naylor may be set free following an appeal hearing next Wednesday” and “speculation which a police spokesman failed to deny that an as yet unidentified person has confessed to the murders for which Naylor was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1991.” But if the press were being uncharacteristically diffident, my brother Simon wasn’t, especially after several drinks at my leaving party. “What the bloody hell’s all this about, Rob? And don’t try to tell me you don’t know, because I’m bloody certain you do.” Playing a dead bat to Simon when he was cruising towards inebriation being out of the question, I tried bafflement instead, which worked a treat. “My lips are sealed, Sime. Ask Bella, though. She might be able to enlighten you.”
By the weekend, a little more had seeped into the public domain. West Mercia Police and the Crown Prosecution Service were still being tight-lipped, but Vijay Sarwate had given an interview and said as much as he evidently felt he could. “I can confirm we will be applying for leave to appeal against Mr. Naylor’s convictions at a hearing on the twenty-second of this month and that the basis for the application is a full and voluntary confession of guilt by the real murderer of Oscar Bantock and Lady Paxton. I understand the police have satisfied themselves as to the accuracy and veracity of this confession and the prosecution will therefore not only be raising no objection to the appeal going ahead but also offering no evidence when it does so. In those circumstances, I anticipate that an application for Mr. Naylor’s release on bail pending the appeal will be favourably received. You will appreciate I am anxious to do all I can to reunite Mr. Naylor with his wife and children so they can celebrate a family Christmas together for the first time in four years.”
Sarwate must have found it difficult to keep a straight face while painting this Cratchit-like portrait of the Naylors, but, as an embellishment of the case for bail, I suppose seasonal sentiment was too good to resist. The newspapers were evidently confused by the turn of events. It didn’t suit either lobby in the affair to have Naylor acquitted for reasons unconnected with the only coherent argument the media had ever advanced for his innocence. Yet since a contract killer hired by Oscar Bantock’s accomplices in the forgery game was hardly likely to want to clear his conscience at this late date, it must have been obvious to all concerned that they’d got it badly wrong. Their unanimous response to which was a retreat behind sub judice reticence. This definitely wasn’t the stuff of outraged leader columns.
Nor was it going to be the stuff of my future, however near or far I looked. I’d booked a Christmas Eve flight to Rio de Janeiro at the start of what I intended to be a slow and utterly relaxing meander through the Americas, finishing-according to my hazy estimate of a schedule-amidst the blazing foliage of a New England fall. I didn’t anticipate meeting anyone on the way who’d ever heard of Shaun Naylor. And I didn’t anticipate wanting to.
A week of solid packing still lay between me and the footloose life, however. I’d agreed to let Jennifer, Simon and Adrian put Greenhayes on the market in the New Year, so all my possessions had to go into store. There were actually precious few of them compared with what remained from my mother’s day. But the exercise still turned into an exhausting chore, as I’d known it would. Which wasn’t the only reason I’d left it as late as I could. I’d also dreaded the psychological effect of sifting through the detritus of mine and my parents’ lives. It drew my thoughts back to my childhood, when Hugh used to take me for hair-raising rides round the lanes on his motorbike and Jennifer’s boyfriends all dressed like Frank Zappa, when Simon’s laugh never needed to be rueful and Adrian was the master of nobody’s destiny, even his own. It lured me, as I’d feared it was bound to, into introspection and nostalgia. And it left me ill-prepared for the reminder that came my way on Monday of how much easier it is to get into something than it is to get out.