Written in Blood (43 page)

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.