Written in Blood

Liam’s Story

In the end it had simply been a stroke of luck. A motor-cycle policeman, himself a passionate admirer of the Mercedes Benz and the proud owner of a G-registered 230TE, had taken special note when the search had been first registered. Idling by the lights in the town of St Just he had seen the car, facing in the opposite direction, doing likewise. There was a couple inside and the man was driving.

As soon as he was able the patrolman wheeled round and pursued it, keeping a discreet distance, waiting to see if the driver had business in town or was merely passing through. The car took the road to Botallack. The policeman was about to radio in its exact position when the Mercedes suddenly turned left and disappeared down a narrow side lane. He followed, cutting his motor-cycle engine to coast silently.

They had parked outside a small cottage quite close to the furiously pounding sea and were unloading cardboard boxes from the boot. The wind blew the woman’s scarf about and she had to keep pulling it away from her face.

Max Jennings expressed puzzled surprise (so Barnaby was later told) at an unexpected visit from the police, consternation at the reason for it and definite displeasure at the news that he would need to travel back to the Home Counties to answer questions rather than be interrogated in Cornwall.

‘Surely,’ he was now saying in the interview room of Causton CID, ‘I might have gone to the station in St Just. Or, failing that, couldn’t we have talked on the telephone?’

‘I’m afraid that is not possible, Mr Jennings,’ said Chief Inspector Barnaby. ‘The case is being handled here.’

‘I still can’t believe it. How appalling.’ Jennings reached out for his polystyrene beaker of station coffee and sipped with plain lack of appreciation. He took a deep breath as if to speak, moving his hand in emphasis, hesitated, then simply repeated himself.

‘Appalling. Christ - what a terrible way to go.’

‘Are you quite sure you knew nothing of this matter until today?’

‘I’ve already told you. The cottage has no telephone, radio or television. It’s very basic.’

‘But surely your car has a radio.’

‘Today was the first time we used the car. We took food and everything else we needed down with us. It lasted till this morning, when we ran out of milk and bread.’

He’d got everything off pat. And so he should have with six hours on the motorway to work it all out. Not that it couldn’t have happened precisely as he described. If he had reached Cornwall before the evening after the murder, and not bought a paper since, his surprise could be genuine. Unless of course he was guilty, in which case he’d had even longer to get everything off pat.

Jennings opened a dark green leather case lined with pale brown gold-banded cigarillos. On being informed of the No Smoking rule he put the case away without comment, but did not look best pleased. Troy was impressed by the elegance of both case and contents. Far more than by Jennings’ female companion, now shredding her hankie to bits in the outer office. Straight brown hair, frumpy camel coat, hardly any make-up. You’d have thought a famous writer could have done better for himself. In fact the only good thing you could say for her was that her name was Lindsay and not Barbara.

‘So - what is it you want from me?’ Max Jennings glanced at his watch, which was as stylish as the rest of him, with an air of slight impatience.

‘I’d like you to tell us all you know about this matter.’

‘Well, that won’t take long,’ replied Jennings. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

‘It does appear that you were the last person to see Mr Hadleigh alive—’

‘The last bar one, chief inspector. Let’s stick to the facts, shall we?’

‘I hope we shall both do that,’ said Barnaby and received a sharp-eyed glance for his impudence. ‘Could I ask first when precisely you left Plover’s Rest?’

‘Plover’s what?’

‘Mr Hadleigh’s cottage.’

‘I don’t honestly know. Lateish.’

‘Do you remember when you arrived home then? Perhaps we could work back from there.’

‘Eleven, twelve. I’m hopeless with time. Ask anyone.’

‘Were you the last to go?’

‘As far as I recall.’

‘And how did you leave Mr Hadleigh?’

‘Alive and well.’

‘And in good spirits?’

For the first time Jennings paused. He looked down at his olive-green walking boots then across the room at a crime-prevention poster showing a disembodied hand creeping into an open handbag. ‘Hard to say, really. He didn’t strike me as someone who gave a lot away.’

‘What did you talk about? After the others had gone.’

‘Writing. That is why I was asked.’

‘Do you often accept this kind of invitation?’

‘Not as a rule, but Midsomer Worthy was quite near. Also I thought it might be amusing.’

‘And was it?’

‘No. A positive Valhalla of tedium.’

‘Perhaps you could tell us—’

‘For heaven’s sake! What on earth have my impressions got to do with this shocking business? We’ll be here all night at this rate.’

‘As an outsider, Mr Jennings, you have a viewpoint that could be uniquely helpful. I’m not only interested in your opinions of individual group members but also in any cross currents or tensions you may have picked up during the course of the evening.’

‘Relating to Hadleigh, you mean?’

‘Not necessarily.’

Max regarded a poster on the other wall, this time seriously and at some length, as if gradually coming to terms with the notion that Neighbourhood Watch could change his life. Sergeant Troy, who had been leaning against the door, picked up an orange vinyl chair and sat just behind his chief. The room was very quiet. Just the hiss of tape and the occasional scraping of a chair leg as Jennings fidgeted about ...

‘In your business,’ Barnaby nudged the conversation back on the rails, ‘you must need a keen eye and ear. Your raw material aren’t they, people? Surely you must have noticed something.’

‘There was a woman with red hair - I’m afraid I forget her name - who was in love with Hadleigh. And extremely unhappy about it. A ghastly little man called Clapton. Hopelessly ineffectual and, I suspect, completely un-talented, with his poor squash of a wife. A sweet old chap so distrait it hardly seemed safe to let him loose without a keeper and a fearsome, barking-mad woman with legs like Nelson’s column and a quite Laurentian idolatry for what she kept calling “true English blood”.’ He looked back and forth between the two policemen. ‘Is the theory then that one of them came back later and did him over?’

Barnaby admitted to some surprise at this suggestion. ‘You’re the only person I’ve yet spoken to who didn’t assume the murder was the result of a break-in.’

‘Oh, no writer worth his salt’s going to settle for that. Far too tame. Where’s the plot?’

‘Why did you go and visit this group, Mr Jennings?’

‘I’ve already been asked that.’

‘Your agent was frankly disbelieving. She implied it was the sort of thing you’d never do.’

‘Talent? What on earth have you been talking to her for?’

‘We were trying to trace you. After your wife had told us—’

‘You’ve been to my house?’ The words emerged in a tangled skein as if the man’s tongue was so stiff it could not shape or separate them properly.

‘Obviously. Mrs Jennings seemed to think you had gone to Finland.’

‘Jesus Christ. What did you tell her?’

‘At that stage there was nothing we could tell her. And in any case she was hardly in a condition to take much in.’

‘It was your Mr Stavro,’ said Troy, ‘who described your movements. According to his statement you asked for an early call, saying you had to drive to Heathrow. He also mentioned that you got home on the night in question at one a.m. and not, as you have just suggested, between eleven and midnight.’

‘I told you. I never know what time it is.’

‘Rather a waste of that beautiful watch then, sir.’

Jennings seemed not to have heard. ‘Have you ... ? Did you go back to the house? Talk to my wife again?’

‘No.’

‘So, as far as she knows ...’

‘You’re still pussyfooting around Helsinki.’

Even as he spoke Barnaby wondered how true that was. He recalled the woman’s bitter, wasted smile and eyes that could take no more yet knew that more was surely on the way. Saw her coppery limbs, banded with cold fire, cleaving through the water; up and down, up and down, like some glittering, cruelly constrained tropical fish.

Jennings’ infidelities were his own affair (unless they had some bearing on the present case) and should have been a matter of complete indifference to Barnaby. Yet, momentarily, he felt both pity and disgust which he made no attempt to conceal. To his surprise, for the writer had struck him as self-contained to a fault, Jennings immediately started to explain and justify himself.

‘It’s not what you think.’

‘Really, Mr Jennings?’

‘If you’ve been looking me up you’ll perhaps know that my wife and I had a son who died when he was small. He would have been nine this year. His death affected Ava terribly. Everything about her seemed to change. She became morose and occasionally violent. Spent some time in a mental hospital. She wouldn’t let me near her physically or emotionally. I couldn’t comfort her and I had no one to comfort me. It was my child too.

‘I’m not the philandering type but eventually, more out of loneliness than anything else, I became involved with someone. Over a long period of time we’ve grown very close and, I must admit, I now can’t bear the thought of life without her. I wanted to tell my wife, but Lindsay wouldn’t hear of it. She said Ava had had enough misery already to last a lifetime. We’ve been together, if one can so call snatched hours here and there and a few weekends, for five years. This is the first time we’ve attempted anything like a real holiday. The cottage belongs to Lindsay’s friends. I was very happy there, but she couldn’t settle. Kept fretting, sure something would go wrong.’ Jennings picked up his beaker of coffee, by now quite cold, peered into it and said, ‘God - what a mess.’

It was only too plain what mess he meant. The murder of Gerald Hadleigh seemed hardly to engage his interest at all.

‘I hope this can be kept out of the newspapers, chief inspector. It’s not as if it’s relevant to your investigation.’

‘That’s really not in our hands, sir.’

‘I can’t believe that.’ Then, receiving no response, he rose wearily to his feet, saying, ‘Well, if someone will show me where you’ve parked my car ...’

‘I hardly think you’ll need to know that just yet, sir.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Jennings, already moving towards the door, turned back in some surprise. ‘Isn’t that it then?’

‘Not by a long way, I’m afraid.’

The chief inspector, more entertained than annoyed at this impromptu example of faux naivety, gave the machine the precise time and situation and switched off.

‘In that case I must talk to Lindsay. Persuade her to go home.’

‘You can have five minutes,’ said Barnaby thinking, as Troy had done, thank God, Lindsay not Barbara. ‘But I’m afraid it won’t be a private conversation.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Rules and regulations.’

‘I’ve never heard such arrogance. I shall complain about this. And at the highest level.’

‘By all means. But I think you will find that such a procedure is quite in order.’

When Jennings returned, in rather more than five minutes, he looked both unhappy and distracted. It was plainly an effort, when Barnaby once more switched on the tape, to drag his attention back to the matter in hand. When asked if he wished to have his solicitor present he hardly seemed to register. It was repeated.

‘No thanks. At one fifty an hour I keep him for high days and holidays.’

Barnaby chose his first question purely for its shock value. ‘Tell me, Mr Jennings, had you met Gerald Hadleigh before last Monday evening?’

‘What? I didn’t quite ...’

He had heard. He had heard perfectly. Barnaby kept his eyes on his suspect’s face watching the play for time, and simultaneously guessing at the selection/rejection thought processes now whirring away in Jennings’ mind. Why had that old buffer refused to go home? Could Gerald have possibly asked him not to? If so what reason had he given? Was my name mentioned? The police would have talked to St John by now - what had he told them? Alternatively, was there perhaps some letter or paper - perhaps and old diary - in the dead man’s effects that proves some connection between us. Better play it safe.

‘Yes, I knew him. Very slightly. Some years ago.’

‘Was this perhaps why you accepted the invitation?’

‘Partly. I suppose I was a bit curious as to how things had gone with him. You know, the way one is.’

‘So that’s why you made a point of staying behind? To catch up on old times?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not then, as you stated earlier, simply to talk about writing?’

‘That as well. It was something we had in common.’

‘Hardly to a comparable degree.’

Max Jennings shrugged. ‘Writing’s writing.’

‘You seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to bring about a meeting of so little moment.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I understand you stayed behind long after most of the others had gone, made a show of leaving, then virtually tricked your way back inside the house.’

‘What dramatic nonsense. I forgot my gloves.’

‘So why was it necessary to bolt the door?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘And, if you only went back for something you’d forgotten, why were you still there over an hour later?’

‘We got talking. All right?’

‘About the past?’

‘Largely.’

‘Did Mr Hadleigh get upset?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Then I’ll put it more plainly.’ Barnaby leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the edge of the table. Bringing his face closer. ‘Did you reduce him to tears?’

Max Jennings stared at Barnaby then skewed his head round to look at Troy. He regarded first one man and then the other, all the while struggling to project the image of someone utterly bemused at this preposterous notion that had been so crudely thrust upon him. But he did not answer and his eyes were bright and extremely concerned.

The interrogation started in earnest. Both officers took part and the rhythm was hard and relentless.

‘Why were you so determined to get Hadleigh on his own?’

‘Why was the murdered man afraid of you?’

‘He wasn’t—’

‘So afraid that he begged St John not to leave the house under any circumstances until you did.’

‘Everyone had commented on how tense he was.’

‘Hardly spoke.’

‘Wound up.’

‘Like a watch-spring.’

‘Been drinking.’

‘You can hardly blame me for—’

‘Why did you lie about the time you arrived home?’

‘I didn’t. It was a mistake—’

‘Why did you lie about going to Finland?’

‘I’ve explained that—’

‘When did you discover that this cottage, supposedly belonging to your mistress’s friends, would be available?’

‘The exact dates, Mr Jennings. When did you learn those?’

‘A while ago.’

‘How long a while?’

‘A couple of months.’

‘Before you accepted Hadleigh’s invitation?’

‘Well ... yes.’

‘Convenient.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘To just be able to vanish like that.’

‘After a murder.’

‘I’d call that handy.’

‘Very nice.’

‘Why did you take all the clothes you wore that night away with you?’

‘It’s an outfit I’m comfortable in. I wear it a lot.’

‘What happened to the brown suitcase?’

‘The brown ... ?’

‘Belonging to Hadleigh.’

‘Missing from his place. Not found at yours.’

‘Why on earth should it be—’

‘Where is it, Mr Jennings?’

‘Dump it on your way to “Heathrow”?’

‘What did you take from the chest of drawers?’

‘I don’t recall a chest of—’

‘In the bedroom.’

‘I was never in the bedroom.’

‘Is that a fact?’

‘I didn’t go upstairs at all.’

‘Why didn’t you get in touch with the police once you knew of Hadleigh’s death?’

‘I didn’t know—’

‘That’s your story,’ said Sergeant Troy. ‘Your girlfriend might be singing a different tune.’

‘My God!’ Jennings sprang to his feet with quick aggression, as if he had been physically invaded. ‘If anyone’s treating her like you’re treating me I’ll wring their bloody neck.’

‘Sit down.’

‘I feel like standing up. I assume I’m allowed to stand if I want to?’ He glared at the two policemen in turn, his eyes and hands in perpetual motion. Then he sat down again in a curious, stiff way, balancing on the very edge of his seat as if to underline the transitory nature of his presence.

‘Look at it from our point of view, Mr Jennings,’ said the chief inspector and although the words might have been construed as conciliatory there was no hint of appeasement in his voice, which was unemotional to the point of coldness. ‘Hadleigh was known to be afraid of you to a degree which led him to ask for what might well be construed as protection, albeit from a rather fragile source. In spite of this, and due entirely to your own machinations, he found himself in the very position that he wished to avoid at all costs. The following morning he is discovered dead and you, the last person to see him alive, have disappeared. And this after giving your wife false information about your whereabouts. By some freakish coincidence you then find yourself shut away in a cottage, miles from anywhere, which just happens to be minus all the usual lines of communication to the outside world. Really, you must think we were all born yesterday.’

Jennings received this dispassionate summing-up in silence and did not respond for some time. When he did speak he sounded nervy and uncertain.

‘I do realise how extraordinarily things seem to have fallen out against me. But that in itself, though unfortunate, is hardly a proof of guilt. Isn’t all of it what’s known as circumstantial evidence?’

He was right, but Barnaby who was not running a comfort station had no intention of saying so. Instead he offered a mildly encouraging smile and turned the conversation around once more to face the past.

‘Given that all these events could, by wildly stretching the bounds of possibility, have happened coincidentally, there is still the matter of your earlier connection with Hadleigh. I presume you’re no longer going to keep up the fiction that you knew him only slightly.’

‘Our past relationship has nothing to do with this case. I give you my word.’

‘I’m afraid your word isn’t good enough, Mr Jennings. And, even if what you say is true, the fact remains that you are the only person known to us with any knowledge of Hadleigh’s background. I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to deliberately obstruct a police investigation.’

‘Naturally not.’

‘Especially when it is so plainly in your own interests to help us in any way you can.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’ His face folded in on itself. Barnaby watched him weigh and balance, assess a chance here, a dead end there, all behind a frown of deepening uncertainty. It was like watching someone trying to read a map in the dark. Eventually Jennings said, ‘All right. But I need a smoke, a wash, something to eat and, if that was the best coffee you can produce, a cup of decent tea.’

It was almost half an hour later. Jennings had been escorted to the men’s lavatory, where he had washed and shaved and smoked a couple of his cigarillos. Troy had gladly accepted one when it was offered, but found it a sad disappointment. Bitter, with a fragrance rather like rotting leaves. He smoked half, then, minding his manners for once, flushed the rest discreetly down the loo.

Settled once more in the interview room a WPC entered with a tray holding two rounds of sandwiches, three cups of tea and a fresh jug of water. It was a large tray and obviously extremely heavy, but Troy made no move to take it from her. If equality was what they wanted - the tray descended with a crash to the table - equality was what they could have.

Jennings ate a little, drank his tea and settled back, arms folded, looking more relaxed. ‘So,’ he said, ‘where do you want me to start?’

‘From the beginning,’ said Barnaby, apparently not at all discouraged by his interviewee’s renewed insouciance. He moved his chair slightly so that the remaining sandwich was outside his line of vision, for he was extremely hungry and had no wish to be distracted. ‘From when you first met Hadleigh.’

‘Right.’ Jennings paused, his expression reflective and quite grave. Yet there was something anticipatory about it, too. He looked pleased that it was within his gift to unlock and unravel the mystery of another man’s life.

‘I met Gerald at my thirtieth birthday bash. A girl from Barts, where I was working at the time, brought him along.’

‘Barts?’ repeated the chief inspector. ‘You mean the hospital?’

‘Bartle Bogle Hegerty.’

‘Ah.’ He was none the wiser.

‘The advertising agency. I was one of their copywriters. Had a garden flat in Maida Vale.’

‘And you became friends.’

‘Not spontaneously. In fact I didn’t see him again for some weeks. Then we ran into each other - accidentally on purpose as I discovered later - in the booking hall at Warwick Avenue underground. I can see him now, feeding money into the automatic ticket machine. Knife-creased flannels, navy blazer, open-necked shirt and cravat. Barely forty and he looked like some retired colonel from central casting.

‘We discovered we were travelling in the same direction and started talking about writing. We’d touched on this at our first meeting but only briefly, parties being what they are. Gerald was attending Creative Writing classes at the City Lit. I, in common with just about everyone else in advertising, was wrestling with my first novel. Before he got off, at Kensal Green, he asked if we could meet and talk further.

‘My first inclination was to refuse. I don’t really think there’s much point in discussing the actual process of writing. It’s a peculiar and essentially solitary business and you have to do it yourself to get the feel of it. Like swimming or riding a bike. But there was that about him which intrigued me. I can best describe it as a hugely concentrated carefulness. He was the most watchful man I ever met. So I agreed, largely out of curiosity. I wanted to find out more about him.

‘I suggested a drink to keep things casual and he seemed happy with that. In fact on the first occasion he only stayed twenty minutes. Said he had a date and rushed off. We met a few more times. Had a meal once at his place, a completely characterless flat in a mansion block near Westminster cathedral. Mainly we discussed the authors we admired. He always talked about books in a purely technical way. He thought you could take them apart, discover how they’d been put together and then assemble one yourself rather like the engine of a car. He didn’t understand their mystery at all. The fact that the best ones had a secret life that forever slipped through your fingers.’

Barnaby shifted restlessly. ‘We seem to be drifting away from the main issue, Mr Jennings.’

‘Not at all. This is absolutely germane, as you will shortly see. He read me a couple of his stories. Rigor mortis, inspector. Neatly typed. A beginning, middle and end and dead as mutton from line one. I did not respond in kind. I’ve never read my work to anyone. To do so would make me feel uncomfortable. Precious. Like one of those dreadful Bloomsburies.

‘These casual meetings went on for about three months. I asked questions, the way one does with a new acquaintance, but he’d answer only grudgingly, a crumb at a time. I discovered he’d been brought up in Kent, the only child of middle-class parents now both dead. That he’d gone to a minor public school and had a dullish job in the Civil Service. I couldn’t decide whether I’d lost my knack of being able to prise people apart and winkle out their secrets or if he was simply a bore with hidden shallows. God knows there’s enough of them about. In any event I came to the conclusion I’d wasted enough time on him and decided to call it a day.’

Callous bugger, thought Sergeant Troy. He could see how the bloke earned a good screw telling stories though. Even though nothing very dramatic had happened so far Jennings had the trick of implying that, any minute now, it just might. Troy said, ‘How did Mr Hadleigh take that?’

‘I didn’t put it so bluntly of course. Implied it was only temporary. Told him I was on a roll with the writing and didn’t want to risk losing it. As I still had my day job and very little spare time that wasn’t an unreasonable excuse. After I told him he hung up. Didn’t say anything at all. There was this rather heavy silence then - click.’

‘I must say, Mr Jennings,’ said Barnaby, ‘you have excellent recall for something that happened so long ago.’

‘I remember it clearly because of what came next. I suppose half an hour must have passed. I was getting ready to go out. I had met Ava by then and was taking her to dinner at the Caprice. The doorbell rang. It was Gerald. He pushed straight past me into the flat. He was as white as a sheet. His face, always so smooth and tight, was all broken up. He looked crazed. His hair was on end as if be’d been tugging at it and his eyes were unfocused. He didn’t seem to see me, just started striding about in a jerky way as if someone was goading him. Then he began shouting, disjointed questions and declarations all garbled up together in a sick sort of muddle. I tried to calm him down. To find out what the matter was. But every time I attempted to speak he drowned me out. Why was I doing this? What had he done wrong? Was I trying to kill him?

‘Then he slumped into my armchair and started gasping. Desolate wheezing sounds, fighting for breath. Up till then, though annoyed at being held up, I must admit I was also rather excited by the eruptive and dramatic nature of the event. But now I became really alarmed. I thought he might be having a fit. I got some whisky, made him drink it and poured another. I suppose I felt that if I got him drunk I could calm him down and find out just what the hell was going on. He gulped the stuff, splashing it all over his shirt and trousers. His clothes already looked as if they’d been thrown on. One of his cufflinks was missing. His shoe laces weren’t properly tied. While I was in the bedroom, ringing Ava, he started to cry.

‘I had left the door slightly open and could see him, reflected in a looking glass, though he couldn’t see me. He picked up a scarf that was lying, together with my coat, over the back of the chair. I remember thinking, he’s going to mop his face with it which just showed how far gone he was, for his manners were always so archaically elaborate as to be almost a joke. But instead he laid the scarf against his cheek and then to his lips.’

Here Max Jennings paused, helping himself to some water, half filling a tumbler. Troy watched, his foxy features screwed up with distaste.

‘You may all,’ continued Jennings, once more seated, ‘have been way ahead of me on this one. I don’t think I was at all unsophisticated, yet it simply never occurred to me that Gerald might be harbouring such feelings. Firstly, there was absolutely nothing in his manner or appearance to suggest homosexuality - at least to a heterosexual like myself. Then there was the fact that, the first time we met, he was with a female date. Anyway, as you can imagine, I was now doubly determined to be rid of him. And, if humanly possible, without provoking any sort of declaration on his part. So I strode back into the sitting room, all brisk and rugger bugger, and said that my girlfriend had given me a hell of a rocket for keeping her waiting and I had to shoot off instantly.

‘He took not the slightest notice. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bring myself to touch him. To try and coax him out of his chair and through the front door. And I certainly wasn’t going to leave him there. I decided to call a cab, thinking if I said he’d been taken ill the driver might help me shift him. But when I picked up the phone Gerald leapt up, ran across the room and snatched at the receiver. He cried out, “Don’t send me away”, burst into a positive avalanche of tears and fell to the carpet grasping me round the knees and practically knocking me over. It was ludicrous and pathetic and also a bit unnerving. I mean, he was a big bloke.

‘I said fatuous things like, “Come on now, Gerald” and, “Pull yourself together” - all the while trying to walk away with him bumping on his knees after me. Then he seized my hand and when he did that everything changed. Because there was nothing even remotely sexual about it. It was simply desperate, like someone hanging from their fingertips to the edge of a cliff. I stopped feeling threatened and helped him to his feet. We went into the kitchen, where I sat him down and made some coffee. Before he had a chance to launch into any sort of declaration I made it plain that the idea of being loved by another man was wholly repugnant to me. And that if he spoke a single word along those lines I would have nothing more to do with him. Of course this was my intention anyway but I could see he’d never go if I said as much.

‘Once I’d made the decision to give this bizarre and rather unpleasant incident as much time as it took to sort it out and clear it permanently away the whole atmosphere lightened. Gerald became more relaxed, if still very anxious. He was by then extremely drunk. If he hadn’t been I doubt very much if what followed would have taken place.’

‘And what was that, Mr Jennings?’ asked Barnaby.

‘He told me all about himself,’ said Max Jennings. ‘But this time it was the truth.’

At this point in Max Jennings’ revelations the tape ran out, illustrating, as he himself was the first to remark, a grasp of narrative technique that many a human storyteller might envy.

Barnaby inserted the new one in a highly ambivalent state of mind. He found it difficult to take Jennings’ measure. The man seemed to be talking freely enough, but was that only because he had been pushed, almost threatened, into doing so? And although what had been said so far sounded convincing it had to be remembered that Jennings told convincing lies for a living.

Even so the chief inspector could not deny a slightly queasy frisson of expectation at the thought that the true life story of Gerald Hadleigh was (perhaps) about to be unrolled before him. He girded his attention and marshalled his wits. Concentrated listening, especially to an extended monologue, is a tiring business. The chief inspector was surprised to find he still felt quite crisp and wondered briefly if this could in any way be connected to his spartan diet.

As he started the tape, giving the date and time of the interview and listing those present, Barnaby watched Jennings closely. He had once more shifted to the edge of his seat, where he perched trembling slightly. His shoulders were hunched and his hands, fingers loosely meshed, lay motionless in his lap. There was no attempt to re-establish the previous ‘candid’ eye contact. This time, as he began to speak, he stared fixedly at the floor.

‘The Gerald Hadleigh who came to my party was an invention. Even the name was false. He was born Liam Hanlon in Southern Ireland. The only child of a poor family. Literally a potato patch, a pig and a shotgun for the rabbits. His father was a monstrous man, a drunkard who beat his wife half to death on more than one occasion and the child too if he got in the way. As you can imagine, during this wretchedly cruel existence the boy and his mother grew very close, though they were careful never to show affection for each other in front of her husband. Somehow they both survived. The neighbours, such as they were, for it was a scattered community, knew what was going on but didn’t interfere. If a man’s fist sometimes slipped - well, that was between him and his wife. The priest, the Garda, all knew and did nothing.

‘There was a single bright spot in Liam’s miserable life. He had a friend. An older boy, Conor Neilson, who lived on a farm a few miles away. Hanlon would drag his son over there when animals were being slaughtered, not all that humanely by all accounts. This was supposedly in order to “make a man of him”. Of course it was just sadism. Once Liam cried when a lamb was killed and his father emptied a bucket of blood and intestines over the boy’s head.’

‘Bastard!’ Troy was compelled into expectorating speech. He did not apologise for the irrelevant interruption, but compounded his felony by adding, ‘I’d string the bugger up.’

Barnaby understood, even appreciated, his sergeant’s intemperance. He too would rather not be listening. There was something dark and inexorable in the setting and unravelling of this already tragic tale. When bad paths were badly trod what good could ever come of it?

‘Conor, by all accounts, was a strange plant to be growing out there in the bogs. Quiet and withdrawn, a great reader. When Liam could escape they’d roam round the countryside watching birds and other creatures. Sometimes Conor would draw - plants, flowers, pebbles in a stream. Naturally Liam’s father despised the boy and his own parents weren’t that far behind. Obviously,’ (here Max Jennings looked up) ‘I’m telescoping here. The next event I’m about to describe, which was to have such a traumatic effect on Liam that it changed the whole course of his life, took place when he was nearly fourteen and Conor three years older.

‘It was a spring evening. Hanlon’s fist had slipped even more savagely than usual and his wife had to be taken to the hospital. She was kept in and Conor’s parents were asked if they would look after the boy. Liam was surprised and immensely relieved, for he had dreaded being alone with his father. He slept on an old canvas truckle in Conor’s room, crying himself to sleep every night. Lonely for his mother, terribly afraid he’d never see her again. Eventually Conor took the boy into his bed. Cuddled and comforted him, kissed his tears away. One thing led to another.

‘Liam believed, and persisted in believing in spite of all future evidence to the contrary, that Conor was moved on that first occasion solely by affection and pity. One can see why the poor little devil needed to think so. His sense of self-worth must have been virtually non-existent. How could he be expected to take on board the notion that the only friend he had in the world had taken advantage, at a moment of great desolation, to use and betray him? So, passively, out of affection and gratitude, Liam let himself be used. This dangerous union - for that’s what it was, bloody dangerous forty years ago and in that community - continued. Even after Liam was back at home. Of course it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.

‘His mother returned, but Hanlon didn’t kick out the village girl he had installed when his wife was away. And it was she who saw the two boys one evening at dusk, “at it like otters” behind some corn stooks. Liam’s father went after them with his shotgun and was never seen again. “Sucked into the bog” was the general opinion and nobody would have minded much had not the two boys also vanished. The Garda did some sort of search - not trying too hard, I imagine.

‘After years of physical and mental cruelty the loss of her son tipped the balance of Mary Hanlon’s mind and she became deranged, stopping people at random, staring with wild accusation into their faces, pleading that they return Liam. Sometimes she would hammer on doors or scream through letter boxes demanding that whoever was inside bring him out. Eventually she was committed to an asylum.

‘The two boys, like thousands before them, ran away to the big city. In this case, Dublin. Here, at least for Liam, things went from bad to terrible. It wasn’t long before he and Conor were working the streets. And not much longer than that before it became plain that Liam’s youth and beauty - for he was, in those days, extremely beautiful - meant that every waking hour could have been spent turning his back on opportunity. Conor quickly took full advantage of this situation. Soon no one came to the young Ganymede but by him. The rates were as high as the market would bear, but Liam only received food, a small clothing allowance and pocket money. This state of affairs continued for nearly three years.

‘It may seem odd to you,’ Max Jennings unmeshed his fingers and turned his palms upwards, as if to illustrate his own past unbelief, ‘that Liam put up with all this for so long, but Conor kept him on a very short leash. The business took place at their flat, which meant opportunities to make other friends were virtually non-existent. And Conor would get very angry if Liam suggested going out and meeting other people. This was all that was needed to keep the boy in line for, not surprisingly, he was terrified of violence.’

For the first time ever Sergeant Troy, listening intently, found himself forced to think of an arse bandit - i.e. the rising scum on society’s cesspit - with some degree of perceptive sympathy. This unsettled him considerably. Put out to a degree that rapidly became both irritating and uncomfortable, he was finally rescued by having resource to his ‘Cliché For All Occasions’ file. As always, it did not let him down. Under E (for excuses) there it was: Exception proves rule, the. Phew! Metaphorically, Troy mopped his brow. Things had seemed a bit unclear there for a moment. A touch on the complicated side. Relieved, he returned his attention to the story.

‘Then, just a few months before he was seventeen, Liam met Hilton Conninx. Perhaps you may have heard of him?’

Even as Barnaby shook his head he experienced a distant tremor of acknowledgement far too faint to be called recognition. In any case a wander from the point was the last thing he wished to encourage. Outside it was by now pitch black. The rate things were going it looked as if they were going to be there all night.

‘Conninx was an artist specialising in portraits. Extremely successful commercially he was poorly regarded by the critics though two of his paintings are in Dublin’s National Gallery. A sort of Irish Annigoni. Having had Liam’s remarkable looks glowingly described by a friend, Conninx made an appointment to visit the boy. The painter was not interested in what that same friend was cute enough to call “spreading the cheeky bits”. Though homosexual, Conninx was by then in his seventies and hoarded what energy he had with careful scrupulosity to spend at his work.

‘He knew straight away that he wanted Liam to model for him - in his autobiography, Painted Clay, he describes his first sight of the boy better than I ever could - the problem was Conor. He asked a large fee for each sitting, which wasn’t a problem, but also insisted on not only delivering Liam and taking him home but staying in the studio thoughout. Purely to protect his protégé, or so the explanation went, from “that evil old pederast”.

‘In truth Conor could not afford to let Liam wander far and certainly not in the company of anyone as wealthy, intelligent and successful as Hilton Conninx. For it was only by constantly invoking their common memories of a cruel and poverty-stricken past, which he implied had equally cursed them both, that Conor maintained his hold on the boy. Both of them were in the gutter and one of them had better not be looking at the stars.’

Here Jennings broke off for a minute or two, resting his forehead in his hands as if the telling of the story was too much for him. When he started to speak again it was more quickly, giving the impression he couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over and done with.

‘But in the end greed overcame Conor’s struggle to maintain the status quo. As Liam’s manager, or pimp, he had demanded a hundred guineas for each sitting. Conninx had indicated that at least twelve would be necessary. But, in the middle of the second session, Conninx suddenly put down his brush and said he couldn’t possibly continue with a third person present. He would pay for both sittings, of course, but that must be an end to it. Liam discovered much later that this was all bluff. And that if Conor had called it, or even doubled the rate, Conninx would have given in. But twelve hundred guineas was a hell of a lot of money in the late fifties, particularly when you didn’t have to lift a finger to put it in your pocket.’

Barnaby quelled a strong feeling of distaste at this latest exchange of a boy, already sold God knew how many times, as if he were a piece of meat. The chief inspector could not shake off the feeling that somewhere in this last heartless transaction a child was still present making mock of the words ‘age of consent’.

‘It was the beginning of the end for Conor. Within a few visits Hilton Conninx had discovered Liam’s appalling history and started to persuade the boy to break free. It wasn’t easy. Liam had been in Conor’s thrall for so long he found it almost impossible to imagine surviving without him. He had no other home and next to no money. But Conninx persisted. The painter had plenty of clout and not only financial. Conor, who had been living on immoral earnings ever since he arrived in Dublin, was in no position to call any shots. One evening Liam did not return from his sitting. Conninx’s chauffeur arrived to ask for his belongings. These, such as they were, were handed over and that was that.

‘Liam remained with Conninx for fifteen years and was treated in a manner that he had never known in his life before. That is, with kindness and respect. I am,’ Jennings began to speak more quickly sensing (mistakenly) exasperation gathering in the breast of the man facing him, ‘compressing as much as possible. Hilton tried to teach Liam about art and music without, it must be admitted, much success and also encouraged him to read. Many portraits of the boy were produced during their first four or five years together, when Conninx still had his sight. It was his conceit never to paint a sitter in contemporary clothes and Liam was portrayed as a Victorian cleric, a French zouave, a pasha, a Persian lutenist - that’s one of the two in the National.

‘He became Conninx’s companion, amanuensis and friend. Though their relationship was never a sexual one there seems to be little doubt that Conninx cared deeply for the boy. Liam’s reaction was more constrained. He was thankful, as I suspect deprived children remain all their lives, for the smallest affection shown, but he was not able to respond in kind. Perhaps his loving apparatus, if one can so describe it, had been irreparably damaged. Perhaps Conninx’s attempts at healing never really reached the spot. Certain sufferings are untouchable, don’t you agree?’

Barnaby had never thought about it. Now, doing so, he decided that Jennings was probably right. This conclusion depressed him beyond measure. Troy spoke into the deepening gloom.

‘Did you say this Mr Connings lost his sight, sir?’

‘Yes, some years before he died. Liam did everything for him after that and when Conninx became ill - at over ninety - he cared for him at home until he died.’

This didn’t sound to Barnaby like a man incapable of love, but he had no wish to dam up the nicely running stream by saying so.

‘When the will was read Liam was the sole beneficiary. He inherited the house, plenty of money and quite a lot of paintings. As is the way of things after an artist’s death, the critics discovered just how versatile and under-rated Conninx had been and within weeks the value of his canvases went shooting up. Then something rather awful happened. The word on Liam’s good fortune was round, of course. Dublin’s not that big a place and in any case the bequest was published in the Irish Times. The day after this was done Conor turned up. Half of everything, or he threatened to tell the police that Liam had not only connived in his father’s murder and helped to bury the body but had actually fired the shot that had killed him.’

‘And had he?’ asked Sergeant Troy.

‘He swore not. His story is that he hid in the barn next to Conor’s house while Conor went inside, supposedly just for some money and a change of clothes. But he was gone nearly three hours. When he returned it was to say that Hanlon wouldn’t be bothering them again. He’d be drawn no further. No doubt Liam was so relieved to have escaped he didn’t much care how dearly this freedom had been bought.’

‘But surely,’ said Barnaby, ‘having been under-age when all this happened he would have had nothing to fear from the police.’

‘Nothing serious,’ agreed Max. ‘He knew that and Conor must have known it too. But actuality, rationality if you like, had little to do with how Liam reacted to this new situation. It was the reintroduction of the past, you see. The terror of it. What frightens us as children frightens us all our lives.’

‘So how did he handle this new turn of events?’

‘Well, things were different this time round. Liam was older, pretty rich and with a widish circle of acquaintances, one or two of them quite influential. But Conor had also prospered, though not in ways that would perhaps bear close scrutiny. And his acquaintances were very unpleasant indeed. As to how Liam handled it ... he did what he had done all those years before. Stalling Conor for as long as it took to put his own affairs in order, he ran away, this time making a thoroughly professional job of it. He went to England, chose a new name and completely re-invented himself.’

‘That’s a bit drastic, isn’t it?’ asked Sergeant Troy.

‘You wouldn’t think so if you’d heard him tell the story.’ Here Jennings broke off and drank a little water. Momentarily he looked preoccupied, as if distracted by a quite different train of thought. He put the glass down and brushed at his forehead as if brushing away some irritating insect.

‘This transformation was not only for reasons of concealment. He seemed to hold a rather touching belief that by determinedly altering external details and behaviour he would somehow be psychologically transformed.’

‘Every day in every way ...’ quoted Barnaby.

‘Exactly. Up to a point, and on a fairly shallow level, this may be possible, but the wounds Gerald had received were far too deep, and deeply infected, to be even adequately cleaned by such simplistic methods. But, as everyone you must have spoken to must have confirmed, as far as the outward shell was concerned he did a brilliant job. By the time I met him he looked and sounded like your quintessential Englishman. Any gentleman’s club would have been proud to sign him on.’

Don’t know about that, muttered Troy silently. Catch him on an off night in his frilly nix and saucy veil and you’d have all the old gaffers in intensive care. Mine’s a triple by-pass, doctor, and easy on the rhino horn.

‘Obviously, the telling of this story was spread over some weeks. Gerald made it longer than was strictly necessary embroidering, offering up extraneous scenes like tempting titbits. Dropping Irish names that neither I nor, I imagine, anyone else much had ever heard of. It was plain he saw himself as a Scheherazade. As long as his unhappy tale held my attention we would continue to meet. When it ended ...’ Jennings made a sudden awkward gesture of brutal farewell.

‘So he made no further physical approach?’

‘Of course not.’

‘But if he had fallen in love with you—’

‘He loved me, which is rather different. Said he had never cared for anyone is such a way before and, at the risk of sounding vain, I believed him.’

‘Did he discuss sex at all?’

‘Once, in passing. He described it as a degrading itch to be scratched in degraded places with degrading people.’

‘Sounds as if he might have been in the habit of cottaging,’ said Segeant Troy.

‘Not with you.’

Too bloody right not with me mate. ‘Picking up men in bars, parks, public lavatories.’

‘Perhaps. I think when it was a matter of really letting his hair down he went abroad. Certainly this aspect of his life was something he attempted to conceal.’

‘Can’t see why,’ argued Troy. ‘Not as if it’s still illegal.’

‘Because it was a matter of shame and misery to him,’ cried Jennings angrily. ‘I’ve just told you his life story. Christ - can’t you work that out for yourself!’

Troy flushed angrily at this not entirely unfamiliar representation of himself as token insensitive clod. When he spoke again sheer perversity coarsened his voice.

‘So what happened to break up love’s young dream then, Mr Jennings? Turn you into the sort of person he was frightened to be left alone with?’

Jennings did not immediately answer. He seemed to flinch from a reply and Barnaby saw his mouth twitch and then tighten as if to trap any rogue words that might slip out. His eyes were watchful and his neck and shoulders unnaturally still.

Afterwards the chief inspector wondered at the provenance of the remark that he himself next made. He tried to trace its source. Had someone in the group talked to him about Jennings’ books? Had Joyce? Perhaps they had been filmed and he, dozing before late-night television, had unconsciously absorbed some image or vision of a bleak landscape which was now prompting uneasy feelings of déjà vu. Whatever the reason, a conviction was growing in him that could not be put aside. He decided to test it out.

‘Was Hadleigh aware, Mr Jennings, that you were writing everything he told you down?’

‘No.’ He looked up with tired resignation, as if they had reached this point, this mean, inglorious point in their discussion, only after long and weary argument. He said:

‘Do me justice, Barnaby. I never pretended his story was my own.’

They took a second break there. More refreshments were ordered and this time the chief inspector succumbed. He was ravenous. He had been in the interview room for three hours, listening hard, and all on a pathetic helping of assorted greenery that wouldn’t keep a rabbit up to snuff. In any case (some long-forgotten snippet vaguely connected with bedtime stories came to mind) wasn’t lettuce supposed to be soporific? Couldn’t have his concentration slipping.

And the sandwiches were so good. Thick shavings of rare roast beef, ham off the bone with orangebreadcrumbed rind and French mustard, Red Leicester and sweet pickle, all between satisfactorily thick slices of white or granary bread spread with pale butter.

‘Are these from the canteen, sergeant?’ said Barnaby, carefully pulling out a sprig of watercress and laying it to one side.

‘’Course they are,’ said Troy, with some puzzlement.

‘Incredible.’

‘Really?’ He watched the old man sinking his gnashers into sarnie number three. Troy himself had managed to snaffle only half a round before the remaining fatly bulging triangles had vanished. It had struck him as a perfectly ordinary sandwich. Jennings once more had eaten little.

‘Must be somebody new on the job. Right.’ Barnaby pushed his plate aside and turned once more to matters of moment. ‘Do you feel refreshed, Mr Jennings?’

‘No.’

‘Excellent.’

As Troy stacked the tray and put it on top of the filing cabinet he remembered that the point at which the conversation had broken off had left him floundering. He didn’t like that at all. Being lost. Ahead of the game was where he liked to be. Or alternatively (rock-bottom basic minimum) running level with the other players. It seemed to him the goal posts had suddenly been moved, which was just not on. He sat down, tightening the level of his attention, hoping at least to spot the ball. Or rather, if he remembered correctly, the book.

‘If you remember,’ Jennings was saying, ‘I mentioned at the beginning that I was working on a novel when I first met Gerald. Wanting to make lots of money, I was tackling formula fiction; stock situations, cardboard characters. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t inject a flicker of life into it. Gerald’s history, on the other hand, fired me. He didn’t tell it well, yet I was completely involved from day one. I filled in all the emotional gaps, created the sour, black bogs and Dublin promenades. Wrote dialogue for Liam, and Conor too, knowing it was absolutely right, even through I’d never met the man. As soon as Gerald left I’d get it all down, cramming one notebook after another, whereas before I’d hardly been able to fill a page. By the time it came to an end I’d got two hundred thousand words.’

‘At what point did you tell him what you were doing?’

‘At no point. Don’t you see ... ?’ Jennings, noticing Barnaby’s expression of ironic distaste, became extremely defensive. ‘He would have simply clammed up. This was the first time Gerald had told the truth about himself. I don’t need to tell you how important, how therapeutic, that step can be.’

‘I’d have thought,’ rejoined the chief inspector dryly, ‘that rather depended on the integrity of whoever they were talking to. And what that person did with the information received. A betrayal of the magnitude you were contemplating—’

‘You have no right to say that! I had no such plan. Not then. In fact I tried to persuade him into proper analysis. I knew a couple of excellent people and he could have certainly afforded it.’

‘How did he react to this suggestion?’

‘He got terribly upset. Said it was absolutely impossible for him to ever tell anyone else. He only told me because he sensed I was on the point of abandoning him.

‘I transcribed the notebooks into the form of a novel. It didn’t take long. They were so fresh and full of life. I couldn’t wait to get home after work and sit down at my typewriter. I became convinced, even before I was halfway through, that someone would buy the results. I tested Gerald out. Told him I’d taken a few notes - purely as an aide mémoire - after our meetings and did he mind? He immediately demanded to see them. I handed one of the notebooks over and when we met again he told me he had burned it.’

‘So you were not unaware of how strongly he felt in this matter?’

‘No.’

‘Surely, then, that should have been an end to it?’

‘Easy to say. Look,’ his whole manner became more urgent. Imbued with the need to convince. ‘There was no way he could have been connected with this book. All the names had been changed. And the—’

‘Aren’t you being a trifle ingenuous, Mr Jennings? That all sounds very logical, but theft is theft.’

‘Writers spend their lives stealing. Conversations, mannerisms, incidents, jokes. We’re completely amoral. We even steal from each other. Do it in the movies and it’s called an hommage.’

‘A very sophisticated argument I’m sure, but the fact remains that it was his story.’

‘A story belongs to whoever can tell it.’ He was becoming restless with irritation. While making an obvious effort to remain courteous, he was starting to sound like an instructor faced with a particularly obtuse pupil. ‘Gerald had neither talent nor imagination. That wonderful tale would have been lost. Wasted. Far Away Hills made him famous. If there is such a thing as anonymous fame.’

Barnaby did not respond. Jennings’ theory seemed to him both horribly feasible and subtly corrupt. Troy however, who had by now not only caught up with the game but spotted a chance to score, said, ‘Seems to me, sir, all due respects, you made yourself famous.’

‘So when did you finally tell him?’ asked the chief inspector.

‘I didn’t. I tried. Many times. But my nerve always gave out.’

‘I can’t say I’m surprised.’

‘In the end I sent one of my advance copies round by courier.’

‘Good God, man!’

‘With a letter, of course. Explaining, as I have to you, why I’d done it. Asking him to try and understand. I was expecting him on my doorstep within the hour, either livid with rage or suicidal. But he didn’t show. I rang and got no reply. I thought perhaps he was away for the weekend. I wasn’t sorry to put off the evil moment, to tell you the truth. But after about ten days I started to get worried and drove round there. The porter said Gerald had left in a great hurry. “Vamoosed” was his word. The furniture had been put in store and there was no forwarding address. I never saw him again. Until last week.’

‘But surely you tried to trace him?’

‘Of course I did. I put advertisements in The Times - even the Gay Times - the Telegraph, the Independent. I thought about employing a private detective, but it seemed a bit like hunting him down. I discovered later he’d been in a hotel round the corner.’

Barnaby pictured Hadleigh receiving his parcel, perhaps the very first gift from ‘the only person he had ever really cared for’. Tearing the wrapper off, gradually comprehending the brutal ferocity of his friend’s betrayal. Then hiding away from further hurt in some soulless hotel room. The chief inspector said, almost to himself, ‘Poor bastard.’

‘When the book came out I tried again. There was so much feedback, you see. Hundreds of letters. Supportive, concerned, totally understanding. Broken children grown into maimed adults trying somehow to make sense of the experience. They wrote so lovingly, wanting him to know he was not alone. I know this would have helped. But there was no way I could reach him if he didn’t want to be reached. And that’s how matters stayed until, as you are aware, I recently heard from him again.’

‘Do you still have the letter?’

‘I’m afraid not. I run a lean filing system. Everything but essential business correspondence and contracts gets answered and junked straight away.’

‘You must remember the details, surely, Mr Jennings,’ said Troy. ‘After what you’ve just told us it must have been a bit of a bombshell.’

‘Hardly that. Ten years had gone by. I’d published several more books and garnered my own share of personal misery. It occurred to me once that perhaps my child’s death was some sort of repayment for what I’d done to Gerald. Though that seems a bit hard on Ava.’

Not to mention the nipper, thought Troy in his corner.

‘Anyway, as far as I recall, the note simply said that in his capacity as secretary he had been asked to invite me to give a talk. The rest of it was devoted to persuading me against the idea. “Painful memories, impossible situation, sleeping dogs”. His prose style hadn’t improved. At first my inclination was to take the hint and not go. But the more I thought about it the more certain I became that, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, this was not what Gerald wanted. So, as you know, I accepted.’

He was looking extremely tired now. Strained and somewhat lost and perturbed, as if he had followed a certain path and it had led him to a surprising and unwanted destination. His smooth, tanned skin was mottled and chalky and stretched too tightly over his skull. The line of his nose jutted, sharp as a knife. Violet lines crisscrossed the fine skin beneath his eyes as if it had been savagely pinched. When, in answer to Barnaby’s next question, he started to speak, his voice was quite without colour. He sounded almost bored.

The chief inspector wondered whether Jennings was genuinely exhausted or deliberately conserving his energy so that he would be alert throughout this, the most crucial stage in the whole interview. Barnaby had paused before speaking, withdrawing his attention momentarily from the immediate present to dwell briefly on the extraordinary tapestry that had so recently been unrolled before him. Namely, the tragic life and times of Liam Hanlon aka Gerald Hadleigh.

This burdensome knowledge, coupled with a recollection of the all-too-detailed blow-ups on the incident-room wall, stimulated in Barnaby’s mind feelings of the keenest pity. In what a poignant light did the small child - escaping from one terror only to find, crouching at the end of his life another, unspeakably worse - now appear. And if you were responsible, Jennings, vowed the chief inspector, for twice stealing that life I will have you. By Christ I will! None of this showed on his face, which was entirely noncommittal.

‘I assume, Mr Jennings, you will now be offering us an entirely new, or perhaps I should say “re-written”, version of what happened on Monday evening.’

‘I’ve nothing to change regarding the first half. Everything was exactly as I’ve previously stated, except for my feelings of course. I was surprised at how moved I was at my first sight of him. Driving over I’d felt nothing more than mild curiosity as to how he was keeping, coupled with a vague hope that I could somehow make him understand why I had done what I’d done all those years ago. Yet, though I was never conscious during our relationship of feeling affection, this latest meeting did evoke precisely that response. Gerald, on the other hand, hardly looked at me. But I was determined to speak to him. I’d arrived early hoping to do just that but St John was already there. As you know, I accomplished it eventually by getting him out of the house and bolting the door.

‘I went back into the sitting room and what happened next was very distressing. He just went to pieces. Backed off from me, flailing his arms and shouting, “Go away, go away”. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘Why not just do as he asked,’ said Troy and was swiftly frowned on for interrupting.

‘I started talking quietly. Saying how happy I’d been to hear from him, to see him again. That I meant him no harm and just wanted to explain things. Eventually he calmed down a little and slumped into one of the armchairs. I drew up a stool and sat with him. And then I told him what I’ve told you. I described my disappointments, my sad marriage, my lost child. I said if he had spent years thinking my life was nothing but success and happiness and all at his expense he could not have been more wrong.

‘And then I talked about the letters that came after Far Away Hills. Sent to me but written to him. I had kept a few and offered to bring them over for him to read. Above all I tried to explain that I’d stolen his story to give it to the world, not for my own advancement.’ Absorbed as he was in his narration, Jennings did not miss the sudden gleam of mockery in the chief inspector’s eyes. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘self-justification if you like, but not only that. I was trying to do something about his hurt, perhaps repair some of the damage. Give me some credit.’

Barnaby saw no reason to respond. Certainly he had no intention of demonstrating a shred of understanding, let alone approval. Jennings continued:

‘Eventually I realised I was just saying the same things over and over again. He was still in the chair. His position hadn’t changed, but he’d put his head in his hands, covered his face as though he couldn’t stand the sight of me. Then I saw moisture rolling over the inside of his wrists and down into the cuffs of his shirt in a steady stream. I was so ... I took one of his hands in mine. It was like a stone, cold and heavy. Tears splashed everywhere. The hollow of his palm was brimming with them, like a little pool.’ He repeated himself, shaking his head as if this was still not quite within the bounds of belief.

He slipped then into a silence which seemed to have something of genuine shame about it and not a little mystification. His face was crowded with emotion. The silence continued for some time.

‘It was this single moment that turned my thinking completely round. I understood then, for the first time, what a terrible thing I had done. For I had other stories to tell - even now my head’s full of them - but Far Away Hills was all he had and the theft of it broke his heart.

‘We sat there ohh ... God knows how long. I asked him if there was anything, anything at all I could do to put things right, even as I knew there couldn’t possibly be. Eventually he told me it was of no importance. His actual words were, “Who steals my life steals trash”. Then he asked me, begged me, to go away. But I couldn’t bring myself to. So, after a little while, he did. Quietly disengaged his hand and went upstairs. He looked so bloody lonely. And battered, as if he’d just climbed out of a boxing ring. Yet of the two of us he was the one with dignity. He’d had the courage to see my offer for the shoddy hypocrisy that it was and spit in its eye. I waited half an hour - by this time it had gone midnight - till it became plain that he was not going to come down, then put on my coat and left.’

‘Pulling the front door to?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re positive it was properly fastened?’

‘Positive. I made a point of slamming it loudly so Gerald would know I’d gone.’

‘Did you see anyone at all when you left the house?’

‘At that hour? In that weather?’

‘Just answer the question, Mr Jennings,’ said Troy.

‘No.’

‘Perhaps in a parked car?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Did you go upstairs during the course of the evening?’

‘No.’

‘What about any of the other rooms?’

‘No.’

‘The kitchen?’

‘Hell.’ He got up and poured some water, the glass clinking, trembling against the rim of the jug, then returned to his seat. ‘What is all this? What do you want me to say? I’ve told you the truth.’

‘You have told us two totally conflicting stories, Mr Jennings.’ Barnaby leaned forwards and once more rested his elbows on the edge of the table. His thick neck and wide shoulders blotted out all else from Jennings’ field of vision. ‘Why should we believe the second any more than the first?’

‘Oh God ...’ Fatigue had made him apathetic. He opened his arms and turned his hands upwards in resigned disbelief. He reminded Barnaby of the cauliflower man in Causton market chanting, ‘You want my blood, lady? It’s yours.’

‘Think what you like. I’m finished.’

‘There are one or two more questions—’

‘Totally wacked. You’re flogging a dead horse here, Barnaby.’

‘Did you know that Hadleigh was married?’

‘Married?’ Bafflement and incredulity combined to revive Jennings’ energies somewhat. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘There’s a wedding photograph in his sitting room.’

‘I didn’t see that.’

‘Put away before you came.’

‘Must be a fake. A prop to flesh out the background. Where’s the lady supposed to be now?’

‘Dead of leukaemia.’

‘Very convenient.’

‘According to Mr Hadleigh, just before he moved to the village, which would be in 1982.’

‘That’s when I knew him.’

The chief inspector congratulated himself on his decision not to waste yet more man hours chasing up Hadleigh’s marriage certificate or details of Grace’s death. Jennings’ suggestion would also explain why the dead man found it easy to tell anyone and everyone about this supposedly deeply painful episode in his life.

Jennings continued, ‘I suppose that’s why the picture was concealed. Because I was in a position to give the lie to such a story.’

‘Presumably. The second point I’d like to clarify is rather more complicated. We’ve reason to believe that Hadleigh occasionally dressed as a woman. Appeared in public like this. Is that something you knew about?’

‘How extraordinary.’ But even as he spoke and gave a negative shake of the head Barnaby could see Jennings was preparing to qualify this response. ‘Although ... I did talk to a friend once, an analyst, about Gerald - anonymously of course - and he asked me a similar question. Did I know if the respectable middle-class civil servant was the only fake persona this man had adopted? He said living a lie, to this extent and degree, imposed tremendous strain and often the people who were doing so needed desperately to escape. As returning to their true selves was psychologically dangerous they would create a third personality, usually quite different from the first two. Obviously this chap used fancier terminology, but that was about the gist of it.’

Barnaby nodded. This sounded, given that they were discussing behaviour most people would regard as completely abnormal, not an unreasonable proposition. Someone came in to remove the tea tray and ask if they needed any refills. Replying in the negative the chief inspector got up and crossed to the window, opening it a little, breathing in the cold night air. As if in response to this move Jennings rose as well, commenting on how late it was and asking for his overcoat.

‘I’m afraid there is no question of you returning home tonight, Mr Jennings.’

Jennings stared in amazement. ‘You’re keeping me here?’

‘That is the case, sir, yes.’

‘But you can’t do that. You have to charge me or let me go.’

‘Easy to see you don’t write crime stories, Mr Jennings,’ said Sergeant Troy. He grinned as he took down his black leathers. Middle-class outrage when the forces of law and order had occasion to tweak aside the velvet glove never failed to entertain. ‘We can hold you for up to thirty-six hours. And apply for an extension if necessary. This is a serious, arrestable offence we’re talking about.’

Jennings sank back on to his hard shell of a chair. He appeared numb with shock and was mumbling something that Troy did not quite get. He asked for clarification and was far from surprised when it came.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said Jennings. ‘I want to see my solicitor.’