Will was still thinking about that—the night, the words, the way Kim had looked—next morning, with a whole lot of complicated thoughts and feelings that evaporated like spit on a stove when he went out to get the papers.

ARREST IN SYMPOSIUM CASE: CHINGFORD CHARGED WITH MURDER

LORD CHINGFORD UNDER ARREST

CLUBLAND MURDER: MARQUESS’S HEIR CHARGED

“Bugger,” Will said, and got back to the shop sharpish.

There wasn’t much to be gleaned from any of the reports since the papers had to be chary what they said now. There was, however, a background piece in the Daily Mail by the journalist who’d come to his shop, calling Will ‘a taciturn, hard-faced man’, with details of his military career that concentrated a lot more on the killings than the medals. They used that damn photograph from the inquest again, and included a story of his time in the Yoxall Raiders that baffled Will until he realised that one of his old comrades had run his mouth to a journalist, probably for money.

He bloody hated this. He wouldn’t call himself a sensitive man, but to have people put him in the newspapers without a by-your-leave, as though his life was theirs to write and publish, for gawpers to discuss him over the dinner-table and come to conclusions about him and talk like he was public property...

Kim would have had it so much worse, and feel it so much more. Will had no idea how he had borne it. No wonder he was desperate to make this go away.

He wondered about calling, or even going round, and decided against it. The Press would be there in force and Kim had said to wait.

Will could do that, and he did, albeit with very little grace. He was polite to the first reporter in an impressive act of self-control; he told the third to piss off out of his shop or be kicked out; and he didn’t even look up when, after lunch, someone walked up to his desk and said, “May I have a word, Mr. Darling?”

“Not one you can print.”

“I’m afraid I need to talk to you.”

“Sod off, sunshine. I’ve nothing to say.”

“I think you do.”

Will looked up then, to see a vaguely familiar man in his late forties or so. “Who are you?”

“Bill Merton. We met briefly in March, if you recall.”

Will did now. This man worked for the Private Bureau, and he’d been one of those at Etchil after Lord Waring’s death. He sprang up. “Right, yes, hello. All right, we’re closing,” he added to the shop at large and ushered out a couple of protesting customers. “Sorry about that. There’s been a lot of journalists.”

“Tiresome for you. What are you up to, Mr. Darling?”

“Me? Nothing.”