‘So Tony killed Gerald?’

Stephen laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, dear. Tony’s hands are clean. But he has friends in low places, shall we say. It’s not difficult to get someone killed, if you have money and influence. Life is really quite inexpensive.’

‘But why Mervyn?’

‘I told you. The police need a conviction.’

‘Why don’t they go after the real killer?’

‘Oh, that. Didn’t I mention? Tony’s on very good terms with the Metropolitan Police. I believe he plays golf with the Commissioner. And of course he provides them all with girls.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t look so surprised. Many’s the pair of police boots that have been parked under beds in Tony’s flats. So of course nobody’s going to give Tony trouble. He makes sure the boys in blue are well entertained, he gives generously to police charities, if you know what I mean, and he takes his wife to the dinners and dances. It’s a very civilised arrangement.’

‘He’s bribing them.’

‘Oh must you be so direct?’

‘And so he makes it look like Mervyn’s killed Gerald, and they let him get away with it.’

‘Exactly. And they get a nice story in the paper about how they’ve cleaned up the West End, one less dangerous criminal on the streets of London, we can all sleep safer in our beds.’

‘So Mervyn goes to prison, and Tony just carries on as normal.’

‘Not exactly, no. He’s getting out of the vice game. Too risky, and the margins are too low. I mean, all those flats to keep up, all the photographers and the mailing lists and the printing and so on. Not to mention the girls. Oh! Don’t get me started on the girls. So he’s moving on. He’s cleaning up his act. He’s going in for drugs. Much easier, less fuss, huge profits.’

‘It’s hopeless, then.’ I sat forward, my head between my hands, imagining Mervyn after a twenty-year stretch, bitter, middle-aged, hating me.

‘That’s not like you, Michael.’ Stephen put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Come on, dear. Never say die.’

‘Oh, and you have a plan, I suppose? What were you going to suggest? That you and I set up a florist somewhere in Chelsea and get matching poodles?’

‘I shall pretend I didn’t hear that, because I know you’re upset.’ He got up, and rummaged under the sofa. ‘There.’ He placed an exercise book on my knee, orange cover, stapled at the centre, ruled.

‘What’s that?’

‘You’re not the only one who keeps notes, you know, dear.’

I flicked through the pages: dates, times, names, addresses, figures.

‘If National Service taught me one thing, Michael, it’s that desperate situations require desperate remedies. And under the circumstances, I am willing to do something that goes against the very nature of my being.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Tell the truth.’

11

I haven’t blogged for so long that it feels quite strange to open a new document and start writing about myself all over again after all these months. It’s an activity that I associate with the bad times – the drug come-downs, the lonely nights unable to sleep, tapping away in a room lit only by the glow of the screen, pouring it out to an indifferent cyberworld. And these last months have not been bad times. They’ve been happy, and as Jonathan likes to remind me, I’m so boring when I’m happy.