‘So I was but I’m also this. Always was, I guess, but didn’t always do anything about it. Both sides of me exist, both are true. Anyone can be anything. Haven’t I heard you say that?’

‘Probably.’

‘But I suppose a psychiatrist would say it goes back a long way with me. That’s their usual creed, isn’t it? In my case, back to the Welsh valleys of my parents, the council estate I was brought up in, then a choral scholarship to the choir school, then my voice broke and I was sent to the local comprehensive. Imagine that, if you can. Choir school to comp. That was tough. I learned I had to fight for everything in daily life and fight even harder if I wanted to get on. Then getting to university, then getting into the Office, the heart of the establishment, peopled by privileged public schoolboys like you—’

‘Grammar. I come from Buckinghamshire.’

‘Same difference if you come from where I come from. Getting on is something you can take for granted but for me it was what it meant to be alive. The struggle was life, life was struggle. And having got on, you fight to get farther on. There’s no end until you end. You have no idea how much I want – wanted – to be chief, and how much I resented you for getting it. Especially as you’d already left. Fluke, wasn’t it? Complete fluke, you must admit.’

Charles nodded.

‘It would have been the same if I’d got it. I couldn’t stop fighting, you see, struggling to get ahead even when I was already there.’

It was all a bit too pat, too self-exculpatory, as if Gareth had long been persuading himself. ‘But fiddling Timber Wolf’s salary and expenses? Pinching and keeping an illegal weapon? That’s not getting ahead, that’s petty crime. Haven’t been done for shoplifting, have you? Not to mention touching up girls in the Office.’

Gareth put his glass down sharply on the table. ‘I never touched up anyone who didn’t want to be touched.’

‘That’s not what they’re saying in London.’ It fell into the category of necessary lies, Charles decided. ‘Anyway, none of that is the Gareth Horley I knew, thought I knew. The Gareth who ran the Herm, Likely Lad and Red Beret cases. Things we did together.’ He indicated the whisky. ‘Is that what’s happened to you, Gareth? Is that what’s at the bottom of it?’

‘Despite appearances, no, it isn’t. Not fundamentally. Christine happened to me, that’s what happened.’

‘But she’s been happening for quite a long time, hasn’t she? Since Geneva?’

‘You’ve done your homework. Full marks. Grammar-school swot.’