‘That was what surprised me,’ he said. ‘Seemed like he’d lost sight of what he was writing. Seemed like he had just got into the habit of nosing about. He was forever asking questions.’ Nixon stopped. Sucked his lower lip. ‘It wasn’t a good time to be nosey. Not when there’s war still in people’s memories and the Russians were after every secret they could steal. Somebody from the base must have reported his interest. He was white as a sheet after they had a word with him. Some men in suits, that’s what he told me. Told him to stop nosing.’

I waited. Raised my empty cup to my lips and then put it down again. Looked at his feet, clad in mismatched socks, and wished I had known his friend.

‘What are you saying?’ I asked.

‘There’s no profit in asking questions, that’s what I learned from Fairfax. You understand?’

I stared at him, suddenly realising where this was going.

‘Are you trying to frighten me?’ I asked, angry. ‘Because if that’s what you’re trying to do then you need to be a lot scarier …’

He hit the table. I expected the mug to jump but he pulled the blow at the last and it ended up being a feeble slap at the wooden surface.

‘I heard you was asking questions,’ said Nixon, infuriated with the way the conversation had played out. ‘Ray said you walked in the bar last night bold as brass. And John’s wife Felicity, she told him you spoke about a body on the grass at the church. Says that’s what Fairfax was doing when he crashed that blasted silly car.’

‘And?’

Nixon screwed up his face; wrinkles forming into mountain ranges at the corners of his eyes. ‘He bought that car because it looked like a drawing his son had done. Did you know that? He would do owt to feel close to that lad. It were years ago the men in the suits told him to stay quiet but when I heard he’d died, that was the first thing I thought. I knew it were silly – my wife said as much. But when Ray said you’d seen him and that you were acting suspicious …’

‘Is that what I was doing?’

‘There’s stuff you don’t know,’ he said, and his breathing was heavy. He was scratching at his hair as if ants were biting his scalp. ‘Do you know about the camp? About the lads during the war? The stories Fairfax heard – they were too much for him to publish, I reckon. Too raw. He’d got to the stage where he wasn’t asking questions for a book – he was asking questions for the sake of it. He wanted to know everything about people. Had got it in his head there were all these secrets to be unearthed.’