He was looking better now; we’d shared a bottle of claret, and now he lit a Gauloise, and handed me one. I knew he smoked, but he never did where people from work might see him. Eric, always wary of losing favor with the management, had long ago decided that smoking was bad for his career.

“You ought to have done the same,” he went on, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Let the past stay in the past, instead of making a fool of yourself.”

“I assume you’re talking about the Harry Clarke affair,” I said. I didn’t want to argue with the old idiot, especially not in the current circumstances, but I couldn’t let that pass unchallenged. “Harry was innocent,” I said. “That trial was a travesty.”

Eric made an impatient sound. “He may not have murdered anyone. But as for the rest of it,” he said, “everyone thought there was something bizarre about the way he encouraged the boys in his form to hang around him all the time, even come to his house, for God’s sake.”

“I never thought it was bizarre,” I said. “He enjoyed their company. And boys would come to him for advice. There was nothing sexual there.”

“Don’t be naive,” Eric said. “Charlie Nutter denied it because he was besotted with him. Harry denied it because he knew what would happen if he confessed. And let’s face it, Straitley, it wouldn’t be the first time a Master has taken advantage.”

I shook my head. “Not Harry.”

He laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh—in fact, he sounded a little drunk. “Not Harry,” he repeated. “God, what was it about that man that earned him so much loyalty? You think that because he was your friend, because you liked him, because you used to go to the pub with him, that you know all about him? How well do we really know our friends? How do we know what they’re hiding? He was fucking the boy, Straits. Fourteen, and Harry was fucking him. That isn’t consensual, you know. That’s grooming. That’s abuse. And that’s the real reason they put him away. They knew he was dangerous.”

“Eric,” I said. “This isn’t you. This is your grief talking.”

I was trying to keep my cool, but in fact, he’d shocked me deeply. Not simply because of his use of a word I didn’t even realize he knew, but because of the harshness in his voice. I’d always known he could be abrupt, but deep inside, I knew him to be a kind and sensitive person—at least, I thought I knew him—but as Eric had told me himself, how well do we ever know anyone?