Page 119 of Marble Hall Murders

‘We’ll ask your neighbours. It’s always possible that one of them may have seen them coming in or out. We’ll also get in touch with Amazon.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You were holding an Amazon package when I arrived.’

‘Oh, yes. It had been posted through the letter box.’

‘If a courier came to the door, he or she might have heard or seen something. It’s probably worth following up.’

The waiter came and took our plates away. ‘How many children do you have?’ I asked.

‘A girl and a boy. Tom’s at university. Lucy’s studying to be a lawyer.’

‘Criminal law?’

‘No. She’s more interested in human rights. Tell me about Alan Conway.’

I could tell that Blakeney didn’t want to talk about himself. We were bouncing the conversation about like a ping pong ball, but he was in complete control. And he still hadn’t said if he believed I was a dangerous criminal. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘What sort of man was he? He’s been dead for quite a long time, but he still seems to be having a malign influence on your life. And from what you’ve already told me, Eliot Crace may have been as much Alan Conway’s victim as anyone else’s.’

‘That’s true.’

‘You believe the answer to everything that’s happened canbe found in the book Eliot was writing. More than that, if we can work out the identity of the killer in the book, we’ll know who killed Eliot in real life. Is that how it works?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Then take me into Alan Conway’s mind. Give me an idea of what I’m supposed to be looking for.’

The main courses arrived and, as I fiddled with my spaghetti, I spent the next twenty minutes doing exactly that. I was glad to be able to focus my mind on something other than the thought of DC Wardlaw rifling through my flat or poor Hugo lying in the vet’s surgery on a drip, and it helped that DI Blakeney had read the books. It made it easier to explain how they mirrored real life, how Alan had distorted people he knew, turning them into often unsympathetic caricatures that he forced into the narrative. Even as I spoke, I had to wonder if any modern writer had done so much harm with what was meant to be an entertainment.

‘So what you’re effectively saying is that the killer inPünd’s Last Caseis the same person who killed Miriam Crace.’

‘That’s exactly what I told you when you first came to my house, Ian. It will also tell you who ransacked my flat.’

‘Assuming it was the same perpetrator.’

‘Perpetrator. Now that’s a word you don’t hear very often.’

He smiled for the first time. ‘Perhaps I’ve spent too long with the police.’

Somehow, we had managed to get through the main courses while I had been speaking and we waited while the waitress cleared away the plates. Neither of us wanted desserts. I ordered a coffee. He asked for a builder’s tea with milk.

‘So, how long have you been with the police force?’ I asked.

He didn’t need to work out the answer. ‘Thirty-two years.’

‘Man and boy …’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was that what you always wanted to do?’ I was asking him partly because he interested me and I wanted to know more about him. But I was also afraid that he was going to dismiss everything I had said and I was putting off the moment for as long as I could. I felt safe in the restaurant with its warm lighting, white tablecloths and views of Crouch End through the plate-glass windows. Once I left, I would be re-entering the maelstrom that my life had become.

‘Yes. I knew I wanted to go into the police when I was at secondary school, although the other kids laughed at me.’

‘Where was that?’

‘Brighton.’ I didn’t say anything, waiting for more, and eventually he obliged, speaking slowly and in a matter-of-fact way. ‘I can’t really explain it to you, Susan, but it was just something I wanted to do. My father was an accountant. My mother was the manager of a private-car company … minicabs, limos, couriers. They’re both retired now, living in Eastbourne. I was their youngest child. I have a brother and a sister. But the thing was, I just thought there was a lot wrong with the world. There was plenty enough crime in Brighton – drugs, vandalism, disorderly conduct and worse. But even when I was very young, I had this sense that all over the country there was a failing of morality and I wanted to do something about it. So when I was eighteen, I decided to skip university and applied to become a PC.’