An Individual Will

by J.G. Ellis

  *

  Picture me, then, alone in my office in front of a computer, somewhat dispirited, surfing sites dedicated to young people recently deceased. I had dispatched DS Brightly and DC Neil Taylor to pursue the pointless investigations mandated by Superintendent Wilson. I knew – or was fairly sure I knew – that the site dedicated to Emma Mansfield’s writing had been set up by Martha Bottomley. So what? Who could reasonably object to that? Who would want to write a young woman’s writings out of history? I phoned Martha out of interest and curiosity and asked her the question directly. She acknowledged the site as her work, and added that she fully expected to take some flack for it: from those who imagine they have a right – god-given or secular – to tell others how to think.

  I asked her if she knew about the sites that linked to hers. There was, of course, no reason why she should. No-one could be blamed for the sites that chose to link to theirs, though it was relatively easy these days to know who did. She said, “The diplomatic answer to that is no, Chief Inspector – and, as I’m sure you’re already aware, I’ve only added links to literary sites that might be of interest to young people. Nothing to help the authorities in search of a scapegoat.”

  Ron Turner put his head round the door, saw me on the phone and immediately withdrew. He returned a moment later with a large green post-it note, which he stuck on the desk in front of me without speaking. In black felt pen: Samantha Johnston found. DI Richards, Burlington-on-Sea, and, below that, a land-line and a mobile phone number. This minor absurdity had to do with Superintendent Wilson’s directive, or decree, that all information concerning this case was to be passed on and up immediately, and no-one, myself included, was to stray from the prepared position – which differed depending on rank and role in the investigation – when commenting to the press. There was no off the record where this case was concerned. I could be as cynical as I wanted, but I was to make sure my team got the message. I was getting the message that Superintendent Wilson was loitering with intent on the outskirts of panic.

  I finished my call to Martha and phoned the land-line number for DI Richards. He answered the phone after four rings and announced himself. I reciprocated by announcing myself. It was – and is – no more or less than a formality, but I had an image of us reading off top trump cards in which I had won on rank. I added that I believed he had some information for me regarding Samantha Johnston.

  “Yes, ma’am. We have a body fitting your description and a suicide note with that name. There’s a copy of the suicide note on her weblog, and it’s reasonable to assume that she put it there. I’ll send you the details, ma’am, but I’ve been told to emphasise that we haven’t officially ruled out foul play yet. We think she tied herself to the end of a groyne in the very early hours of the morning, got very drunk, and waited for the tide to come in. She was probably listening to music at the time – we found earphones connected to her mobile phone. It’s too early to tell if drugs were involved or how drunk she was. She may have been unconscious at the time. Let’s hope so.”

  “Where did you find the suicide note?” I asked.

  “Notes, ma’am,” he replied. “There was no shortage of them. There was one on her – wrapped in plastic. There was one in a bag on the promenade with a link to the online version, and she also left one in the guest house she’d been staying in. The landlady phoned us as soon as she found it, or so she said. We’ve no reason not to believe her, and we acted as soon as she’d called us, which, incidentally, was about half an hour before we got the alert from you.”

  Two emails appeared in my in-box at the same time – one from my present interlocutor, the other from Superintendent Wilson, who had marked the message high priority and had requested a receipt. I opened it while still on the phone, and my heart – not literally – sank. It was more in the manner of a communiqué than a personal email. A meeting, presumably urgent or considered so, would be held in an hour to discuss the social impact of recent events – these being the recent suicides of young people in Amberton and our – our! – wider community. Attendees: Superintendent Wilson; myself, being the officer in charge of the case; Lauren Coleman, billed as an expert in teenage psychology; Adam Towler, Melinda Markham’s constituency “Chief of Staff”; Ian Foster, the council’s education director; and incredibly – or, at any rate, distastefully – someone called Jeffrey Lamp from the local Chamber of Commerce. I couldn’t help wondering who’d come up with this little initiative. Probably someone in the police authority with political ambitions, likely prompted by our parliamentary representative.

  DI Richards asked if I’d received his email. When I acknowledged that I had, he asked if there were anything – other than the death of a young woman, that is – that he ought to be worrying about. In other words: What’s your interest, ma’am? I told him frankly that her younger sister had also committed suicide, and mentioned that we were investigating the deaths of other young people.

  “Connected, ma’am?” he asked.

  “That’s something we’re worrying about, Inspector. Thank you for your help.” I put the phone down and opened the link to Samantha’s suicide note. Black font on a lime-green background. It was titled My last post… hopefully.

  I should be dead if you’re reading this – otherwise it’ll be embarrassing. I had to go. I really did. I mean, how was I supposed to learn to like this ugly world? They – that’s mostly you, Daddy – were always telling me I should, that I needed to grow up – that if I was miserable I could always buy myself something to cheer myself up. Retail therapy – ha ha! Mummy dear, you must be really, really miserable.

  I feel I ought to say something earth-shatteringly significant, something that explains how awful it was for me. Have you ever been somewhere and thought “If I had to live here, I would die”? I mean, really? Well, that’s how the world is for me. Every day. All the time. Torture.

  Goodbye, my wonderful, amazing, beautiful sister. You deserve to walk with angels. Goodbye, Mother. You said I’d feel differently when I got to your age, but I never will.

  Sorry about the mess, but it’s worse for everyone if you just disappear.

  Her previous post a week and a half earlier was a short angst-ridden rant entitled, unambiguously enough, Selfish greedy ugly world!

  Selfish greedy ugly world! Through the window on the screen – sold with sex and perfume-scream. Want your money and your life. Grope your mistress, fuck your wife! Grab everything that you can get, and never mind what you upset.

  It’s a rollover, takeover, fuckover forever world!

  On TV, watch the thrill of the kill on the hill. Brainy bombs and friendly fire burning down the house and school! Know the drill! Do the deal! Handshake happen! Make it real! How much is this, how much for that? Keep on spending while the cats get fat.

  Someone calling themselves KatYarn had left a comment. It read: Jeez, Sam, you sound really pissed off. Hope you feel better soon. Hugs.

  In the post preceding that, written a week earlier, she reflected on school being a prison, one you don’t really know you’re in until it’s too late. Something inflicted on you by your community and your parents. In the early days, you cling to another prisoner and try to work out what happened to you, and why your parents allowed it to happen. Then you look forward to leaving, only to discover when the time draws near that you’ll be moving on to an adult prison called work.

  So – the search for signs post-mortem, and the dubious attribution of significance. The two posts prior to her suicide note – what, if anything, had they portended? Was it reasonable to believe that someone or some authority should have intervened based on thoughts she expressed in a blog or elsewhere? I find this a rather chilling prospect, since it implies that there’s a healthy or unhealthy – a right or wrong – way for people, in this case, teenagers, to think, and that some expert can and should be the arbiter of this. It’s a short walk from concern to control, and the path is often paved with dubious intentions.

 
; I was preparing for the meeting, fearing something in the way of a politically motivated ambush, when I had a phone-call put through to me from Lisa Markham. She said, “Hi. How’s my favourite lady policeman?”

  “Busy,” I said.

  “Well, I won’t keep you.” A slight hint of, possibly affected, huffiness. “I just thought you’d like to know that Mummy’s been taking quite an interest in l’il ol’ you recently – asking all sorts of people all sorts of questions about you. Senior police officers, local journalists, business people – those sort of people – and a lot of damage can be done in the nature of the asking, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. I mean – well, they’re bound to wonder why their local MP’s asking these questions. They might even get the impression that you’re not exactly her flavour of the month – that, just maybe, she doesn’t have confidence in you, though it wouldn’t quite do to come out and criticize a police officer publicly, especially one heading a sensitive investigation.”

  I said, “Why are you telling me this, Lisa?”

  “Short answer – because I like you, Barbara, and I hate her. I don’t care if you believe me; just watch your back.”

  I said hurriedly, for I thought she was about to hang up, “Does she know about your part in the investigation?”

  “No, she doesn’t.” There was a hint of amusement in her voice. “Odd that.”

  “Can I take you’d prefer if it stayed that way?” Meeting in 15 minutes appeared on my computer screen.

  “Actually, I couldn’t care less, Barbara,” she said; “I really couldn’t. But as cards go, it would have to be considered one of the face ones, wouldn’t you say – if played carefully, maybe even an ace? Take care, Barbara.”

  As she hung up, an email appeared in my in-box from Kelly Draper, the reporter from BBC local radio. It read: Hi Barbara, Lots of interest in your case now. Must be difficult when an investigation takes on a social/political dimension! Give me a ring. It would be nice to hear from you. Hugs. Kelly. Influenced, no doubt, by Lisa’s phone-call and the fact I was in a hurry, I read this as heavy hint, of the friendly variety, that there was political interest in the case. It was only later, after the meeting, that I considered how well crafted the email was. She had warned me without saying anything that could be used – or spun – against her, and could argue, if pressed, that she was just tentatively angling for a story.

  The meeting was scheduled to take place at a time when most people would be home, or returning home, from work, which should perhaps have rung alarms bells with me. The venue was a meeting room on the floor above Superintendent Wilson’s office – dizzying, nosebleed territory rarely visited – a place to fret about strategy and funding, or to worry about the service’s current standing with the press and public. Is it possible to have an unvague sense of uneasiness, I wondered, or is uneasiness by its nature vague – or, at least, inchoate? I had, anyway, a sense that something was amiss. And the lift didn’t work. It had – temporarily, at least – packed up, and there was something premonitory about the laminated out of order sign that had been affixed to the door. There being little choice in the matter, I took the stairs, which were mostly used during fire drills. I was on time, and did not expect to find people waiting for me. But so they were. Bizarrely – or so it seemed to me – everyone had seated themselves and appeared to be awaiting my entrance. I thought perhaps I should drop a bob and say, “Evening, all.” Instead, addressing Superintendent Wilson, I said simply, “Sir.”

  He said, “Thank you for coming, Barbara.” Then, to the room: “Perhaps we should begin by introducing ourselves.”

  The room was windowless and utilitarian. Colourless save for the mahogany table. Sharply black and white, marker pens like splashes of cartoon colour in a monochromatic film. The table had seating for twelve: five on either side and one at either end. Superintendent Wilson sat at one end, the head presumably – though, again presumably, the foot would have become the head had he chosen to sit there instead. There was no designated seating, as there sometimes is, especially when meetings have been scheduled some time in advance. I sat down in the vacant seat immediately to the right of Superintendent Wilson, fearing that the politically minded would make much of it if I put any distance between myself and him. Next to me but one sat Lauren Coleman, the psychologist, a thirty-something woman with a slightly Oriental appearance. She was wearing fashionable, I happily assumed, thick-rimmed spectacles and a white button-down dress patterned with green fractal-like fronds. Next to her but one sat Adam Towler, a council member who had run Melinda Markham’s election campaign and now ran her constituency office. He was groomed and dressed for television and doubtless entertained parliamentary ambitions of his own. Opposite Adam Towler sat Ian Foster, the council's Director of Education. He was in his fifties and had cultivated an academic look. His black hair was greying and longish and wavy, maybe even a little tousled, and he sported a full-face beard that had rather more silver in it than his hair. Round-framed tortoiseshell glasses perched halfway down his aquiline nose ready to be pushed eye-wards or removed at an apposite moment. He was wearing a dark-blue shirt with a narrow burgundy-coloured tie – the knot pulled down a little from the collar – and a slate-grey corduroy jacket. Next to him but one – opposite Adam Towler – sat Jeffrey Lamp, who was Chair of the local Chamber of Commerce, and therefore purportedly represented the interests of business in the area. He was shiny and bald – with a hint of pinkness – and wore a dull business suit that suited him perfectly.

  I introduced myself: “DCI Barbara Black. In charge of the investigation into the death of Adrian Mansfield.”

  When it was obvious that that’s where I intended leaving it, Ian Foster smiled and said, “I think you’re rather under-selling yourself, Chief Inspector.” He removed his spectacles and placed them – unfolded – on his notepad. “Perfectly understandable in the circumstances. I’m Ian Foster by the way, Director of Education for this borough. Since, as you should be aware, the school will be carrying out its own investigation amidst an ongoing police investigation, you may expect me to be discreet to the point of opacity.” This effectively announced that the meeting had not been called at his behest – indeed, that he doubted and questioned its usefulness.

  Adam Towler said, “This meeting isn’t, as I understand it, about particulars. Nor should it be. What I hope we can achieve here this evening is some agreement on a broad, multi-agency approach to a community problem. Our community – our very good community – is in danger of being labelled by the media as somewhere where young people are so despairing that they see suicide as a viable option. This kind of reporting does untold damage, and is something that it is in all our interests to avoid. Sadly, the press, if given the excuse – and we shouldn’t be naïve about this – will be only too happy to print headlines about suicide epidemics and a loss of hope amongst our young people. And that wouldn't be fair or representative of our town and community.”

  Lauren Coleman smiled and said, “Well, I’m Lauren Coleman.” Fingers splayed gently on her chest, drawing attention to the fact that Adam Towler had not felt the need to introduce himself. “I’m head of adolescent studies at East Chiltern University. We run a counselling and support clinic for adolescents suffering with or from depression – which, incidentally, society is often reluctant to acknowledge in young people. We glibly assume that the young have nothing to be depressed about, and are unhappy with the idea that we might have some responsibility as a society for their mental well-being. This is especially true of the compulsory education system, which a good many young people find difficult – sometimes impossible – to navigate.” She stopped talking – perhaps fearing that she’d gone on too long too early – and made a handing over gesture, fingers pointing to Jeffrey Lamp, who had yet to speak.

  Lamp shifted in his seat – to a more upright position – and cleared his throat with a fist over his mouth. “Jeffrey Lamp. I represent the local business community. I also run a company that empl
oys a hundred and fifty people.” His tone suggested that we should all be very grateful for this. “If you ask me,” – which presumably we were, at least implicitly – “the problem is the absurd expectations of our younger people. Most of them don’t actually want to work. They’d rather be unemployed or reality TV stars. They’re not interested in training for the real world. They’re not equipped for the needs of the economy, locally, nationally, or globally. And this is a problem with the education system, which is not teaching its students the skills needed for the modern workplace.”

  Ian Foster yawned conspicuously, clicked his pen, and rolled his eyes. “It’s a rather limited and limiting view of education, don’t you think – a sort of conveyor belt for the economy? Isn’t education supposed to be at least somewhat ennobling – not just a set of skills, a toolkit, to be flogged to the private sector? That’s not what you’re saying, surely: train your children well and make them useful to us, and we will buy them in the market place; then we can all get on on with the business of exploiting them in the name of GB PLC and the bottom line? Is that really your view of education? I think I’d prefer to be cultivating absurd expectations.”

  Lauren Coleman said, “I agree wholeheartedly with that. Pragmatism in education – which sadly seems to have become quite fashionable – is pernicious. It manifests itself in ugly questions like ‘What’s the point of teaching children poetry – they’re never going to use it? What use is it to them?’ And, sadly, children and parents often unthinkingly buy into this. No-one should be conned into consenting to having their horizons, or those of their children, narrowed. The idea that education should be economically useful is distasteful because it promotes a view of human beings – children, indeed – as units of work, or units of work in the making.”

  Lamp twitched, or flickered, with irritation, but Towler cut across him before he could speak. “I don’t think we should devote too much time to arguing our differing views of education, do you, Jeffrey?” he said, a hand hovering over the table in a politically calming gesture. “That’s not really why we’re here, is it?”

  “Why are we here exactly?” Ian Foster contemplated his spectacles at arms length. “To protect the local economy – and certain political careers – from the regrettable and inconvenient fact of teenage suicides?”

  Towler said, “It’s about trying to do one’s best in a sad and difficult situation, Ian. We do need a strategy for the press here. I make no apologies for saying that. We have the other pupils of the school to consider as well as their parents and the wider citizenry of our community. It’s easy to sneer and portray politicians as acting only in the interests of their careers. It’s fashionable and possibly justified given the regrettable behaviour of some politicians, but ask yourself the question: do you want the media running stories about suicide epidemics and a sense of hopelessness amongst our young people? I don’t. I don’t think anyone does. Who is served by that except the media?”

  Lauren Coleman said, “You do accept, presumably, that the pressures produced by the environment in which these young people grew up and lived had something to do with their suicides? You’re not seeking to absolve everyone of everything – or, to put it another way, sweep it all under the carpet? Politicians do like to bang on about parental responsibility when it suits them – usually when it’s convenient to shift responsibility from society onto the individual. They’ve even been known to mention the education system when they think there’s political capital in it.”

  Adam Towler said, “The precise circumstances surrounding the suicides should be a matter for sensitive investigation, not an opportunity for the press to increase circulation. We have a problem – and we may as well recognise this – with so-called tribute sites. It must be a concern that they encourage other young people to take their own lives, to say nothing of the pain they cause to surviving relatives and friends. I think they should be taken down, and I’m optimistic that we can get the co-operation of the various companies that host them.”

  “I fundamentally disagree with you,” Lauren Coleman said; “and I hope you don’t get the co-operation you so glibly assume will be forthcoming. Do you really want to deny to these young people – some of whom are dead – the right to have and write their own history? Worse than that, are you seriously proposing erasing it for political and social convenience? That’s a disgraceful and indefensible position. And why are they so-called? Why describe them in such pejorative terms? Imagine if I described a site set up by friends to mourn a dead soldier as a so-called tribute site – and argued that it must be a concern that it encourages young people to glorify war and death, and promotes a cult of the fallen hero? But don’t worry; we think we can get the co-operation of the host to take it down.”

  Ian Foster smiled and said, “I think you’ll find Mr Towler happy to draw a convenient distinction between the two.”

  Jeffrey Lamp, who was visibly becoming irritated, said, “Where’s the common sense in all this? Not much point having a history, I wouldn’t have thought, if you don’t have a future. They’re spoilt and self-indulgent. They need to learn that the world doesn’t owe them a living.”

  Ian Foster laughed. “I wondered how long it would be before we had an appeal to good old-fashioned British common sense. Hard work and straightforward black-and-white thinking; it’s the British way – with a little hypocrisy thrown in just to oil the wheels. Maybe they have learned, and that’s why they’re killing themselves.”

  Lauren Coleman, smiling, said, “You’re very quiet, Superintendent.”

  “Yes, Ms Coleman.” He seemed amused. “Unless anyone has anything specific they want me, in particular, to address, my role here is entirely facilitatory. I called this meeting at the behest of the police authority, who – without wishing to be cynical – must surely have been politically prodded, presumably – with respect to Mr Towler, who may or may not wish to confirm this – by our local MP, whose duties on the national stage doubtless keep her from being with us in person.”

  Towler said, “It’s not unreasonable for an MP to take an interest in what’s going on in her constituency.”

  “No, indeed,” Ian Foster remarked. “Some would argue it’s a novelty that ought to be widely essayed.”

  Superintendent Wilson said, “I can’t help wishing that her interest had been more directly and discreetly expressed, Mr Towler. There is now an impression among the police authority and some sections of the local media that there is political dissatisfaction with the investigation. That’s obviously unhelpful from a police perspective.”

  “I hope you’re not suggesting any impropriety.” Towler’s composure had slipped a little. He had not, I felt, expected to be so directly challenged.

  “I am surprised to have come under political pressure quite so early in the investigation, Mr Towler – particularly since the investigation has been so carefully handled. I can assure you – and Ms Markham – that I’m more than sensitive to the possible and actual media interest in this case. Media interest in teenage suicide clusters is not unprecedented.”

  Lauren Coleman said, “Indeed, the cluster can be a media event created by a feedback loop that blurs the line between cause and effect.”

  Jeffrey Lamp, irritably: “Isn’t that also true of the online media they create themselves – which you’re so against taking down? They glorify someone’s suicide, and then another one decides it’s a good idea, and then they’ve got two to talk about. That leads to another site or page or video, or whatever, and more discussion, and then another one decides it’s a good idea. Isn’t that an event created by – what did you call it? – a feedback loop?”

  Ian Foster said, or quipped, “Much better, no doubt, if they all talked – positively, mind you – about the dull jobs most of them will end up doing.” He mimed typing at a keyboard. “Don’t despair, kids; Mr Lamp is hiring.”

  Lauren Coleman laughed openly at this, and Superintendent Wilson and I made only token efforts to dis
guise our amusement. For a second, I thought Jeffrey Lamp might be about to get up and leave. Instead, his emotional struggle – resentment iced with indignation – played out on his face. He said finally, and with some effort, “Are we sneering at job creation now?”

  Lauren Coleman said seriously, “No, we’re sneering at your making a virtue of it, Mr Lamp. The distinction is an important one. I wouldn’t dispute that jobs have been created as a result of your economic activities, but the jobs created are incidentals. You’re not creating jobs for philanthropic social reasons, but simply for your own economic betterment. If you could make yourself twice as rich by halving your workforce, then that’s what you’d do. It’s corporate and political slight of hand to suggest we should be grateful to you for creating jobs, since presumably you don’t expect any moral censure when you cut jobs. Rather, you’d expect us all to accept it as a regrettable consequence of an unfavourable economic environment. Isn’t that what business means when it seeks to lecture us on living and working in the real world – that we don’t have a right to a living or a job?”

  “Jobs are important, Ms Coleman.” Adam Towler asserted this with the slightly worried tone of someone forced to defend his orthodoxy against a left-field attack. “Young people need jobs.”

  “Whether they want them or not, presumably.” Lauren Coleman turned to him with a smile. “My issue was not with job creation per se, Mr Towler, but rather the suggestion that those who create them do so out of some kind of moral mission, as opposed to the less laudatory promptings of economic self-interest.”

  “Yes. I have to say I doubt the usefulness of prescribing what we think is best for young people, since they’re unlikely ever to agree with us anyway.” Superintendent Wilson – sounding rather august. “We have to deal with the situation as it is, not how we’d like it to be. You might think the provision of jobs is the way forward, Mr Lamp, but how do you convince a young person of that, particularly one who’d rather be unemployed, or dead, than do one of your jobs? A dull job is, after all, a dull job notwithstanding political and business admonitions to the contrary. It may provide someone with a living and the means to contribute to society by way of staying off benefits and paying taxes, but it probably does precious little else. Indeed, arguably, it diminishes the person as an individual. It seems to me absurd to send someone to university and then expect them to fill shelves, which is where we appear to be going as a society. And many of the jobs we force young people – and, indeed, unemployed people in general – to do tend to be humdrum and low paid. It’s right and proper that young people should dream, and surely no human spirit can be satisfied filling shelves or breaking boxes. I’m not sure what purpose is served by pretending otherwise, and yet that’s what we seem bent on doing. Is it cynical to suggest that it has something to do with political expediency – rather like the convenient fiction that poverty has nothing to do with crime? I’m not suggesting these jobs aren’t necessary, nor indeed that someone shouldn’t do them – merely that it’s absurd to suggest that anyone should want to do them.”

  Adam Towler, testily: “I don’t think that’s a particularly helpful view, Superintendent. Young people need leadership and guidance in their lives.”

  “To what purpose?” Lauren Coleman demanded. “To – if you’ll forgive the colourful expression – accept what’s coming to them; to acquiesce, to surrender uncomplainingly to their plight? To be grateful for the scraps thrown from the corporate table? No politician supports young people against the business community; there is no sense of obligation towards them. On the contrary, we live in an age where our politicians are busy selling us out to the highest corporate bidder. Business, with the help of political connivance and cowardice, has turned the workforce – particularly the young and unskilled – into courtesans engaged in a Dutch auction. Young people who protest are characterised as troublemakers and delinquents. It’s practically impossible now to protest legally, since a legal protest has come to be defined as one that can safely be ignored by those in authority and power.”

  “I have an image” – Ian Foster, delicately, histrionically, putting his spectacles back on – “of the government as an Neanderthal pimp beating the workforce into submission for its high-rolling business clients. Terrible bore, of course, when the whore decides to kill herself. Can really spoil someone’s weekend that – especially if they entertain hopes of a knighthood or MBE for services to self-aggrandisement.”

  I had the feeling then, and filled in the details later, that Adam Towler had lost control of an agenda he had initiated, probably at the plausibly deniable behest of his political mistress. Superintendent Wilson hadn’t played ball in quite the way it was – rashly and condescendingly – assumed that he would. Possibly, probably, he knew something I didn’t – to do with the politics of policing and/or the policing of politics. Adam Towler had, it seemed, approached a friendly body on the police authority, who had then persuaded enough of the others to press for the meeting. Towler, of course – or in fact – was not in a position to dictate who attended the meeting. This was notionally left to the Chief Constable, who briefly consulted with his senior officers on strategy before delegating. They then consulted amongst themselves and delegated, and so it fell to Superintendent Wilson to arrange the meeting. Presumably there where subtle signals to do with rebuffing political pressure to which I was not privy. Perhaps Towler had hoped the meeting would be chaired by a more senior officer, one more remote from the investigation and therefore more likely to countenance criticism of its handling.

  I insisted on a word with Superintendent Wilson after the meeting, though both he and I wanted to go home. I said, “Am I missing something, sir?”

  “Missing something?” He seemed amused.

  “The meeting?”

  “Ah, I see. Politics, Barbara; you’re missing politics: what people with less moral fibre than you are prepared to do to get on and up. Mr Towler believes his ascent up the greasy pole can be hastened by going above and beyond for his political mistress. His problem is he doesn’t have the full picture, and neither does she. And, rather obviously, she doesn’t entirely trust him, which, rather obviously, he knows. They’re both in politics, and that’s the problem with being in politics.”

  “You’re being rather Delphic, sir,” I said. “Does Melinda Markham want me off the case?”

  “Melinda Markham, I believe, has some inkling that her daughter might be involved in the investigation and worries that this might damage her flourishing political career. What to do, Barbara? What would you do?” He smiled. “You will have to imagine yourself differently morally constituted in order to effectively answer that question. What she does is mention to her favourite lieutenant that she’s worried about the social impact of an investigation going on in her constituency and hints that she’d like to learn more about it – off the record and unofficially, you understand. She will not have mentioned her personal interest for fairly obvious reasons. Adam's her go-to guy for as long as he continues to benefit her political career, and his loyalty to her is similarly conditional. Of course, you don’t get to quote me on any of this to anyone. To answer your question directly, Barbara, I don’t know. I don’t know how much she knows about you or how interested she is in you. If she knew you, she’d certainly want you off the case. Politicians like people who can be relied upon to put personal ambition ahead of integrity and the greater good – or at least blur the edges between personal interest and public good – and you’re not one of those.”

  I said, “That’s a good thing, sir, isn’t it? Just checking.”

  He laughed. “Go home, Barbara. Don’t worry about the politics. I’ll tell you if you have anything to worry about on that front. You don’t. I hope that’s sufficiently unambiguous.”

  I walked home and went through to the kitchen, where I poured myself a large glass of red wine, which I drank, or gulped at, in the sitting-room. Paul was asleep on the sofa with Midnight curled up on his lap, and Barney
and Maggie curled up together next to him. He had been reading a book on Linux, but was now snoring gently. It amused me to think the book might be responsible, but it was more likely the wine – a Spanish red, three-quarters consumed, stood on the table in front of him – and the contentment that comes with cats and a comfortable couch in a centrally heated room. I left them to it and went up to bed, where I finished my wine and read a popular science book for a quarter of an hour. I must have slept like a log, or top or rock, soundly anyway, for I had no memory of Paul coming to bed, which he must have done, for he was there in the morning when I woke up. I kissed him on the forehead before leaving for work.