‘It’s all a big joke to you, isn’t it? But this is our son we’re talking about, with his whole life ahead of him. He could do anything, that boy. He could really make something of himself. And I’m worried that he won’t. He’ll mess it all up. He’ll go wrong. He’ll end up like you.’

There. Sophie had said it and now it couldn’t be unsaid. There was a brief silence between us before I answered.

‘Has it ever occurred to you that he might be acting like this because he doesn’t want to go to America?’

She put the phone down on me.

Tuesday November 20th

I took another look at the postcard. It must have been handwritten by Toby Salt as a promotional giveaway at his book launch. There would have been similar postcards inserted in other copies, too. All the same, there was something about it that struck me as significant. I re-read the poem:

A rock for a jail

and nothing but the wind for company.

O Aeolian confidante! Dry my salty locks

and whisper the world into my ear.

The latest stockmarket news.

A child strangled. The shaming of a politician.

The pounding of the letterpress.

The jangle of my jailor’s keys as they bounce upon his hip.

But no. These chains. This rock.

What do you bring exactly? Only betrayal.

The dread beat of accipitrine wings,

the shooting pains,

and my ripped-out liver

shining at my feet,

surrounded by rock pools, ruby-red.

A queasy feeling of déjà vu washed over me as I remembered the hours I’d spent trying to understand it earlier in the year. But I’d got nowhere with it then and I got nowhere with it now.

Wednesday November 21st

DI Lansbury had returned and his beard was in an interrogative mood. It was Sergeant Tuck’s day off.

‘These eleven days that are missing from your diary. Can you tell me again what you were up to?’

‘I can’t really remember. Just this and that, I suppose.’

‘This and that? Can’t you be more specific?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘My mind’s a blank. Like my diary was. That’s why I ripped the pages out. I wasn’t in the mood for poetry.’

‘It must have been a difficult period for you. No job. No money. Alienated from all those around you. And there was Toby Salt, a man riding wave after wave of success. You must have resented that?’

‘What exactly are you insinuating?’

‘Nothing at all, Mr Bilston. Perhaps, though, if you were to be a little more forthcoming, it might help us in knowing where best to focus our efforts in this investigation.’

He left. I stroked the cat thoughtfully and wondered whether I should tell him.

Thursday November 22nd