Before the Poison

5

Famous Trials: Grace Elizabeth Fox, April 1953, by Sir Charles Hamilton Morley

Kilnsgate House stands, proud in its isolation, close to the end of a rough, unfenced lane about a mile and a half from the nearest road. The house is almost hidden from the laneway by trees and long grass, and it seemed well befitting a successful local GP when Ernest Fox brought his new wife to live there in 1936. By January, 1953, it had been their home for over seventeen years, and their only son, Randolph, had been born there. Tragically, Ernest Fox was soon to die there. The Yorkshire Dales is an area well known for its natural, if somewhat rugged, beauty, and in addition to the major dales, valleys carved in the landscape by the retreating glaciers many thousands of years ago, there are numerous small, hidden dales, many scarcely inhabited. Such was Kilnsgarthdale, where Kilnsgate House was built by Sir John Metcalfe in 1748, and inhabited by his family until their fortunes dwindled in the 1850s. After that time, a succession of owners took possession, but nobody remained there for long. Perhaps the remoteness drove them away, though Richmond was easily accessible, either by road or by country footpaths. Dr. Ernest Fox certainly never let the isolation restrict his social existence. He rode with the local hunt, was an active member of the golf club, socialised regularly at the many public houses in the area, drove every day to his practice in town, where he often lunched with the mayor and other local dignitaries, and made house calls among the many Swaledale villages. Dr. Fox was a very busy man about the dale, and beyond. Though Grace Fox was a keen member of the Richmond Operatic Society and was renowned for her sweet mezzo-soprano, she perhaps led a more lonely existence after giving up nursing, especially when Randolph was sent to boarding school at the age of five, and the strain of boredom on one whose nerves were already somewhat frayed may have been a contributing factor to her subsequent behaviour. Whatever the reason, in July of 1952, Grace Fox took as her lover a young local odd-job man and would-be artist by the name of Samuel Porter, then aged nineteen, and as inappropriate a companion for his social standing as for his youth. Thus began the endless round of deception, sin, secrecy and guilt that was to end, as such things inevitably do end, in tragedy. Grace Fox was thirty-nine then, yet there was no doubt regarding her youth and beauty. With her long dark hair, her hourglass figure, and her beguiling eyes, Grace Fox was a remarkably attractive woman, with perhaps the only blemish on her appearance being a slight coarseness of complexion, apparently the result of overexposure to sunlight during her nursing duties overseas. This, however, was easily obscured with a little cosmetic powder. We must not forget what part Kilnsgarthdale’s isolation, and the dreadful weather of that January, played in our tragedy. On the fatal night, a winter snowstorm of such magnitude blew in so quickly from the north that the snow drifted to heights of six feet or more. Roads soon became impassable, and going out on foot was a sure invitation to a cold and icy death. As four people sat to eat, warm and sheltered in the dining room of Kilnsgate House, celebrating the new year, a fire crackling in the hearth, protected from the wind howling and snow blowing all about them outside, little could they know that one among their number would seize the moment to put into effect a dastardly plan that had been forming in her mind for some time now.

October 2010

If I wanted to find out any more about Grace Fox, I realised, I could always go to Paris and talk to Sam Porter. But was I willing to go that far, to expend that much time and money for a passing interest in a long-dead murderess? Some people would probably think I was crazy, but that didn’t really bother me. The money wasn’t a problem, either, but what about my piano sonata and my life at Kilnsgate? Well, I thought, the one would benefit from a little travel and fermentation, and the other was a long-term matter. A brief absence would do no harm. I had already promised Graham that I would visit him and Siobhan in Angouleme before Christmas, and it would be no problem to stop off in Paris on my way. In fact, it would be a genuine pleasure. There was no reason why I shouldn’t simply drop in on Sam Porter while I was there.

Bernie Wilkins, a London art dealer, worked as a consultant on one of the films I scored a few years ago about an art forgery ring. He had never been to California before, so the studio flew him over, and I showed him around Hollywood, even introduced him to a couple of minor movie starlets I knew over lunch at the Ivy, in Beverly Hills, and judging by the smile on his face the following morning, he got lucky. I thought I knew him well enough to call on him for a favour. He would know where I could find Sam Porter. But first, there was the dinner party.

On Saturday morning I drove into town and parked at the Co-op because the open-air market had taken over most of the square. As it was the third Saturday in the month, the farmer’s market was there, too, so I was able to buy fresh local meat, cheeses and vegetables for the evening’s dinner. There would be no mahimahi – not that I could find any in Richmond, anyway – but a hearty game pie with roasted root vegetables.

After I had picked up the fresh food, I called at the local bakery and found some crusty baguettes, then I bought my stack of newspapers at Mills’s, picked up a few staples, such as tea, cream, chocolate, wine, bread and coffee, at the Co-op, and headed home. I was able to spend some of the afternoon sitting out in my back garden sipping chilled Pinot Grigio, listening to the birds in the trees and reading through the various news and arts sections until it was time to prepare the meal.

I had everything organised and under control by the time my guests arrived at half past seven. I had dressed casually, the way I usually do, in light tan chinos and a button-down blue Oxford, but Heather looked ravishing in a long clinging, bottle-green dress of some silky, flowing material, cut just low enough to reveal a hint of pale, freckled cleavage. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders and halfway down her back. Derek seemed a bit stiff in his Burton’s best, striped tie and all, and Charlotte was attractive in a blonde, healthy, sporty way, with short hair, simple blouse and skirt, rangy figure and graceful, measured movements, like a dancer. She also proved to be intelligent and polite enough to have found out a bit about me and my work. She had obviously watched a couple of DVDs over the last week and was able to make informed comments on various themes and ask me why I had done certain things with the music. Heather had chosen well; Charlotte was good company.

It wasn’t warm enough to sit outside by then, but nor was it cold enough to light both fires. I settled on the one in the dining area for atmosphere. We first sat in the living room to enjoy the champagne, with Angela Hewitt playing Bach softly in the background. A sacrilege, really, but music has many purposes, as I, of all people, should know. I love the Who and Bob Dylan, too, but I would hardly play Live at Leeds or Blonde on Blonde at a dinner party.

The grand piano was an obvious talking point, and I let myself be bullied into picking out a theme or two from my repertoire, just to show them how good it sounded now that it had been professionally tuned. I threw in one of Satie’s Gymnopedies to prove that I could also play music people wanted to listen to, and it sounded a lot better than it had on my previous attempt. My audience of three applauded politely, but I could see that Heather was genuinely impressed.

‘That was lovely,’ she said. ‘You should have been a concert pianist.’

‘Not good enough,’ I said. ‘Oh, my teachers said I had the makings, but I didn’t have the confidence, and I was too lazy. I didn’t have the dedication or the stamina it takes to make the grade at that level, either. Besides, I was more interested in composition.’

‘Then maybe you should have been a composer?’

‘I am.’

She blushed. ‘You know what I mean.’

Derek laughed. ‘There you go, darling, putting your foot in it again,’ he said in a haughty manner. I recognised a put-down when I heard one. Heather’s lips tightened. There was a definite atmosphere.

I picked up my glass, walked over to the armchair and smiled to let her know I wasn’t offended. ‘Yes, I do know what you mean,’ I said. ‘“Promising young composer tempted away by the siren song of Hollywood”. That’s what one of the newspapers wrote when I left.’

‘Was it true?’ Charlotte asked. ‘Was it the money and the fame that lured you away from your true path?’

‘No. It was a load of bollocks, really,’ I said, perching on the arm of my chair. ‘I wasn’t all that promising. I’d had a couple of minor works performed, but that was as far as it went. Anyway, what was I supposed to do? Starve in a garret? Teach? I loved movies, loved the music. I knew it was something I could do well. It was a challenge.’

‘Well, bravo for you,’ Heather said, without irony. ‘And we’re fortunate enough to have you to play for us in your living room, too.’

When it was time for dinner, we adjourned to the dining area by the crackling fire at the other end of the room, where it was easy for me to slip back and forth from the kitchen whenever I needed to. I sat next to Charlotte and opposite Heather. I dimmed the lights and put candles on the table. The flames from the fireplace cast silhouettes over the walls and ceiling, creating a slightly eerie effect.

Inevitably, somewhere between the main course and the salad, conversation turned to Grace Fox. Heather knew I was interested in the case, and she was determined to tease me about it; I could tell by the mischievous glint in her eyes. I think I had just been in and out of the kitchen to deliver the roasted vegetables while people helped themselves to the game pie when she said, ‘Of course, in Grace Fox’s day there would have been a cook or a servant to help you at a dinner like this. You wouldn’t have had to do it all yourself.’

‘Hetty Larkin,’ I said.

This clearly surprised Heather. ‘Who?’

‘Maidservant. Chief cook and bottle washer. Whatever. Hetty Larkin was her name. She was the one who helped Grace and Ernest Fox around the house.’

‘My, my, you’re a fast worker. Who told you that?’

‘Wilf Pelham.’

‘Wilf Pelham!’ Derek exclaimed. ‘That old tosspot. I’d think twice about believing a word he says, mate. He’s just a useless piss-artist.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said, rather coldly. ‘But I like him, and I don’t think he was drunk when I talked to him. And it’s hardly the sort of thing you’d lie about, is it? I mean, why? Hetty Larkin worked at Kilnsgate House as a general maidservant, and sometimes she stayed overnight, when they had guests for dinner, or if she had extra work to do, and so on. She was there on the night it happened.’

‘Can you imagine the scene?’ Charlotte said, the candlelight flickering in her lively brown eyes. ‘A group of people sitting at dinner, just like we are now.’

‘In the same spot we are,’ I added.

‘Oh, come off it,’ said Derek. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘It’s an informed guess. I don’t think that this part of the room, or the kitchen, has been structurally altered. I think this always was the dining room, though it was probably separated from the living area by a wall. There may even have been two or three large rooms at the back of the house in Grace’s day, and since then someone has knocked them into one. Besides, it makes sense, with the kitchen door being here, by the dining table. It’s a very old door. You can see that much. No sense walking the long way around to bring out the food.’

‘And the piano?’ Heather asked.

‘I think it was Grace’s,’ I said. ‘Back then, it was probably in a room of its own. The music room. Between here and the living room. At least, that’s my guess. The tuner said it was old, 1930s probably. It makes sense. I know that Grace was an accomplished amateur musician. There’s sheet music inside the bench with her notations on it. A woman’s hand, at any rate, by the looks of it.’

Heather rolled her eyes.

‘All innocently eating their dinners and talking,’ Charlotte continued, glancing from one to the other of us with wide eyes, ‘just like we are, but with the snow falling outside, then all of a sudden, one of them clutches his chest and drops dead.’ She mimicked clutching her chest and slumping sideways.

Even I had to laugh. ‘I don’t think it happened quite like that, Charlotte,’ I said, ‘but it’s an interesting image.’

‘Can’t you just imagine the music?’

‘Discord. Crescendo. Tympani!’ I said. ‘But seriously, you’re right. They would most likely have been eating here, exactly where we are. The decor would have been a bit different, of course, wallpaper, and the table and chairs. But no doubt the fire was lit. It was a cold winter’s night.’

Charlotte gave a little shudder. The candles flickered in a draught and the shadows danced.

‘So Grace played the piano, did she?’ Heather said.

I poured more wine. Everyone had helped themselves to extra game pie, and the dish was almost empty. It was good, if I say so myself. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Was it an accomplishment?’ Derek taunted. ‘Did women have accomplishments back then?’ By the sound of his voice, he had already had too much to drink.

‘Longer ago, I should think,’ I said. ‘A Victorian thing. But I’d imagine it was still quite an accomplishment. I should think she had more time on her hands to practise than her husband did. He was a busy doctor.’

But Derek wasn’t listening to my answer. His attention had wandered to the ceiling.

‘But how do you know all this?’ Heather asked, flashing her husband a withering glance.

‘Wilf told me. Grace was very active in the local music societies. He’s heard her sing and play.’

Heather wrinkled her nose. ‘Cheat.’

She was a bit tipsy, too; I could tell by the way she spoke. I wondered who was going to drive. Charlotte, perhaps. I sensed a growing distance and coolness between Heather and Derek, and the general snappishness you find between married couples who aren’t getting along very well. I was sure that by now Charlotte must have noticed it, too, if she hadn’t before.

‘Anyway,’ I added. ‘Maybe it would also surprise you all to know that Sam Porter, Grace’s young lover at the time, is still alive and living in Paris.’

‘Never,’ said Derek. ‘I told you, most of the time Wilf Pelham’s so pissed he can’t remember what day of the week it is.’

‘It can be checked,’ I said. ‘I’m going there next week, so I think I’ll go and have a chat with him if I can find him, and I think I can.’

Heather was quiet, looking at me in a peculiar way, her eyes narrowed. ‘To Paris? You’re certainly going to some lengths in this business, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘What is it all about? Have you fallen in love with a ghost?’

An awkward silence followed, then I said, ‘That sounds like an idea for a really bad movie.’

‘With terrible music,’ Charlotte added, then we were away from dangerous waters, laughing, imitating a bad soundtrack, back sailing on calmer seas. ‘Did you sell Chris a haunted house, Heather?’ Charlotte asked. ‘How careless of you.’

I had known from the start that Heather was trying to set me up with Charlotte, but the odd thing was that it became clear as the evening went on that the real attraction was between Heather and me. Even Charlotte could see that. Derek, I’m not too sure about. Husbands can be remarkably thick sometimes, and my feeling was that Derek was thicker than most. Besides, the impression I got was that he saw only himself.

I had to disappear into the kitchen a while later to plate the desserts, and I hadn’t been there more than a minute or two before I heard the door from the dining area swing open and shut behind me.

‘I thought I’d keep you company,’ Heather said. ‘They’re talking about the stock market.’ She made a face and leaned back against the fridge. One long strand of hair trailed over the front of her dress. She’d brought her drink with her, and she sipped some wine. ‘Do you like Charlotte?’

‘She’s very nice,’ I said.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘She’s very nice.’

‘You…’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand you. This thing about Grace Fox. She isn’t real, you know. She isn’t a real, warm, living human being. She doesn’t need anything from you. There’s nothing you can do for her.’

I had to get some ice cream from the freezer, and when Heather saw me coming closer, she held her ground and looked me in the eye. I could tell from her body language, the way she seemed to move, to open for me, that I could have taken her in my arms at that moment and kissed her. Our lips were that close, and I think she wanted me to. I think we both wanted it. I could smell the wine and game on her breath and feel her heat, the sparks jumping between us, the sap stirring. I was that close.

You could say I bottled out, but her husband was in the dining room, and I was still a grieving widower. I’m no saint, but I’m not that much of a bastard, either. Heather obviously didn’t agree. When she saw that nothing was going to happen, she slipped away sidewards and headed out of the kitchen in a huff, towards the toilet, I guessed, without a word or a backward glance, slamming the door behind her.

Back in the dining room with cheese and dessert, I noted that the atmosphere had changed, and I could tell that Heather was angry and embarrassed. She accepted a generous measure of cognac, as did Derek, though Charlotte turned it down, preferring coffee. Everyone was full, so most of the cheese remained uneaten. No matter; it would do tomorrow, along with the last sliver of pie. We heard the rain start pattering against the windows.

Heather checked her watch. ‘Is that really the time?’ She knocked back the rest of her cognac and turned to her husband. ‘We really must be going. We’ve kept Chris up far too late already.’

‘Not at all,’ I said.

‘Perhaps he has a tryst with his ghost?’ said Derek.

Everyone ignored that.

They picked up their coats in the hall. Derek tottered a little, putting his on. I offered umbrellas, but nobody wanted one, the car they had all come in being just outside the gate, and the garden path sheltered by trees. Besides, it wasn’t raining very hard. Heather stumbled slightly as she headed down the uneven path, and I heard her and Derek start arguing about who was going to drive. Sensibly, Charlotte stepped in and took the keys from Derek. I waved as she drove them away and breathed a sigh of relief. That was one group I wouldn’t be hosting again in a long time. Then I shut the door behind me and leaned against the wood.

Maybe I shouldn’t have turned Heather down. God knows, it had been a long time since I had felt a woman’s body warm and soft against me, and it wasn’t that I had no interest in her. But where would that kiss have led? A hotel room? An invitation to come with me to London and Paris? Afternoon delights here at Kilnsgate House? Either way it would mean deception, secrecy, guilt. The usual machinery of infidelity. No, I told myself firmly. I had done the right thing. If I was going to find another woman, I was going to find her on my own, and she wouldn’t be married to someone else. Magnetic attraction happens all the time – it’s a fact of nature, pheromones, or whatever – but it can be resisted, and resist it I would. The last thing I needed right now was to be stuck in the middle of someone’s marital problems.

I thought about Heather’s taunt. Was I really in love with a ghost? Maybe I was, but it wasn’t Grace Fox’s, though perhaps somewhere in my mind I was mixing up Grace with Laura. After all, I had so little of meaning in my life – at least until this interminable cloud of grief passed and let the light in again – that my piano sonata and my ‘investigation’ of Grace Fox’s story had become the mainstays of my existence. Heather was jealous, I concluded. Simple as that. Jealous of a ghost.

Perhaps it was the booze, but that night I had the most terrible dream I had experienced so far in Kilnsgate. When I awoke with a start at about half past two, my heart was hammering in my chest and I was covered in sweat, but I couldn’t remember what I had dreamed about that was so frightening. I lay for a moment, deep-breathing, trying to orient myself before getting up. I knew there was no point lying there. I had to do something, make some tea, watch a movie, anything.

As I finally stumbled towards the stairs, I noticed that the door to the bedroom opposite mine, the guest room, was slightly ajar. I could have sworn I had closed it after my tour of the house, and I hadn’t been back there since. Puzzled, I wandered over and gave it a gentle push.

I couldn’t be certain that I saw it, but just for a moment I thought I glimpsed a figure reflected in the wardrobe mirror. I knew it couldn’t be me because the angle was all wrong. It wasn’t a frightening figure; in fact, I had the impression that it was a beautiful woman in a long satin nightgown. She was standing still, as if deep in thought, or shock, staring at something, then suddenly she dashed away, simply disappeared.

It was all over in a split second, and when I tried to piece it all together afterwards, I decided it must have been a carry-over from my dream. There were shadows in the old house. The curtains weren’t closed, so perhaps I had seen the reflection of a tree branch silhouetted by the moonlight? I didn’t know. Whatever it was, it unnerved me enough to make me switch the landing lights on before I ventured downstairs.

I certainly didn’t want any more alcohol, so I settled on a cup of cocoa, a habit I had got into with Laura when we went to our cabin in Mammoth for the skiing in winter. Though there was no snow outside, the wind was howling, and the cocoa smelled and tasted good. I settled down in my viewing chair, tried to put the strange reflection out of my mind and started watching Diana Dors and a young George Baker in Tread Softly Stranger. The music was dreadful, melodramatic and instrusive, but the satanic industrial landscape more than made up for it.

On Sunday, I drove into town just before lunchtime, bought three hefty newspapers, then headed up to the Shoulder of Mutton and enjoyed my roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in the cosy dining room. The place was filled with bric-a-brac on the shelves and in recesses around the walls: an old black telephone, a pair of binoculars, ancient spectacles beside a worn leather case, a possing stick just like the one my grandmother used to use, empty bottles of Nuits-Saint-Georges, Beaujolais Nouveau 1999 and various other wines, and a painting of a Vins de Bourgogne shop and a Chateau d’Yqem poster. The rough stone walls were covered in framed prints and local landscapes for sale. A large group took up several tables pulled together, about three generations, by the looks of them, celebrating a grandparent’s birthday. The children were well behaved, but some of the older folks got a bit rambunctious after a couple of pints.

I worked at the Sunday Times crossword and tried not to think too much about the previous evening’s social disaster, or the bad dream and its aftermath. It was possible that the former would all be forgotten when Heather sobered up this morning. But somehow, I didn’t think so. She would avoid me from now on, which might be difficult to do in such a small community. I wondered what Charlotte thought of it all, whether she would say anything, either to Heather or to me. She must have noticed the tension. Only time would tell.

Squalls had blown in from the North Sea by the time I got home, so I spent the afternoon sprawled on the sofa in the living room reading the newspapers, Mahler’s Eighth on the iPod dock. It sounded a bit thin, and I thought I should invest in a decent stereo system. Mahler has plenty of meat on his bones, and he cries out for powerful amps and big speakers.

Mother rang at about four to ask whether I was settling in all right. I told her I was and asked her when she was planning on visiting me. The only place she was going before the weather got better, she told me in no uncertain terms, was to Graham and Siobhan’s for Christmas. An old woman like her, she said, had to be careful. Just one nasty fall could put her out of action for ever. I told her she was as tough as old shoe leather, but she would have none of it.

I read through the music, film and book reviews then nodded off over my still-unfinished crossword. When I awoke, I found myself, out of the blue, in a deep depression. It happened sometimes. I felt listless, hollow, sad and self-pitying. Moving around did no good; it didn’t matter which room I went into, I still felt the same. I knew from experience that there was nothing to do but weather it out, which took me the best part of the following two days.

During that time, I didn’t care about my piano sonata, I didn’t care about Grace Fox, I didn’t care about eating or drinking, and I certainly didn’t care about Heather or Charlotte or Derek. All I cared about was my own all-consuming, all-enveloping sense of loss, guilt and misery, the years I felt I’d been cheated out of by Laura’s death.

Even at the best of times, I couldn’t come to terms with losing Laura, with the three years of illness, the cycles of hope, remission and relapse, desperation and misery, and in the end, her death, as if it had been inevitable from the start. I couldn’t rationalise it the way some people did. I envied others their religion; I had nothing like that to make me feel better. I didn’t believe that we would be reunited one day and that Laura was waiting for me in heaven. I had no feeling whatsoever of any greater purpose or plan in what had happened, of any meaning in it, let alone any way it might be for the best, or that it had happened for a reason. I couldn’t even feel, as many of my friends suggested I should, that I ought to feel blessed to have known her for as long as I had, to be grateful for the wonderful years we had together, the good times. Grateful to whom? God? And why?

Many was the day I had wished I could let go of my pain and anger, but I couldn’t. I grabbed on to memories like a drowning man would grab a log wrapped in barbed wire just to stay afloat, to stay alive, and the barbs skewered into me and fuelled my rage and pain.

But now I didn’t even have my rage and pain, just a numb sort of nothingness.

In retrospect, I don’t know what I did with my time. Probably nothing at all. I suppose I wallowed in self-pity. I saw the future, when I saw one at all, as a huge gaping emptiness, days to be got through rather than lived, survived rather than enjoyed. I could have been anywhere – Santa Monica, Bournemouth, Leeds, London, Paris. Location didn’t matter. The only relief was sleep, which came fitfully and at odd times. There were no dreams to console or distract me. If the strange night noises continued through all this, I didn’t hear them.

And then, on Tuesday morning, it was gone almost as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had begun. There may have been a catalyst. In my desperation, I put on Doctor Zhivago, which for many reasons is my favourite movie of all time. I thought it might at least relieve the despair for three hours or so.

The scene where Komarovsky takes Larissa to a posh restaurant while the revolution is brewing in the snowy streets outside has always been one of my favourites because it reminds me of the first time I ever saw Laura, and even this time my numb mind was drawn in by the images, the music and silence, the colours, the contrasts. And the memory.

I was in Milwaukee to talk at a convention, and I was staying at the lovely old Pfister Hotel, sitting in the lobby bar – all polished wood and brass – enjoying a pre-dinner whisky and a cigarette – you could smoke in such places back then, and I did – watching the heavy snowflakes drift down outside, when this vision suddenly spun through the revolving doors and floated towards me.

She was wearing a full-length fur coat and matching hat, and when she took the hat off and shook her hair, a few snowflakes fell on her face and started to melt. I wanted to lick them off. Her smooth cheeks were flushed red from the cold, and her eyes were bright blue. As her blonde waves tumbled free around her shoulders, I found myself, without even realising what I was doing, uttering, ‘Lara.’ I thought I had said it under my breath, but immediately she looked in my direction, smiled and said, ‘No, it’s Laura, actually.’ Then she disappeared around the corner towards the elevators. Wrong movie.

I saw her again later that evening, after I’d been to a boozy dinner with fellow conventioneers, and I felt sufficiently emboldened to approach her. I can hold my liquor as a rule, so I don’t think I made an ass of myself – at least she agreed to have lunch with me the following day – but it was months before she finally admitted to me that she had known exactly what I meant when I said, ‘Lara.’ Doctor Zhivago was one of her favourite movies, too, and she remembered the scene, the combination of old-world luxury, dancing, polished oak, etched glass, brass and the falling snow, then the blood, the horses, the glinting blades, the furs.

Somehow or other, the memory of that Milwaukee winter’s night drove away the black dog. I won’t say that I immediately started jumping for joy, but bit by bit, as when your arm’s gone to sleep, or you get a cramp in your foot, life slowly started to come back into me.

First I felt hunger, so I ate some bread and cheese, then I realised I needed a shave and a shower, and after that I had a burning desire to get out of the house, go for a walk. By the time I’d been up to the racecourse and back, I was ready to take on the world. Not that the world knew or cared. Instead, I spent about three hours at the piano and sketched out a part of the adagio that had been troubling me for a week or more, a long, sad, slowly unravelling melodic line in B flat, and for the first time I didn’t hate what I’d written when I played it back.

That was enough for one day, I thought, exhausted. I opened a bottle of wine and contemplated the contents of the fridge for dinner. There wasn’t much. Just a little leftover game pie. Take it slowly, I told myself. Step by step.

The next thing was to ring Bernie Wilkins in London. If anybody could help me to find Sam Porter, Bernie could.