The guard backed away to the door, out of earshot of low voices, close enough to step in if there was trouble. I stuck out my hand.
‘Cliff Hardy.’
He ignored the hand and stared past me.
‘Mr Braithwaite says hello.’
‘What do you want?’
I studied him; it was hard to believe he was the same man as in the photograph I’d seen, I had the feeling that the thug was an act and that this composed character was the real man. I was pretty sure Wakefield planned to exploit him in some way and I was prepared to play my own game if it came to that. On the other hand, he didn’t look like a victim.
‘You must be having a bloody great time in here, Johnnie,’ I said.
That reached him. His pale eyes screwed up and his thin lips twisted into a sneer. ‘Yeah, I’m doing great.’
‘It’s funny,’ I said. ‘I was told you had charm.’
A transformation came over him. He squared his shoulders and expanded his chest; he patted his hair into place, smiled broadly and slapped some colour into his grey cheeks.
‘Now, Mr Hardy,’ he said in a pleasant, almost tuneful voice, ‘it’s a great pleasure to meet you. Sorry I can’t get you a drink or perform a few other civilities. How’s the world treating you today?’
I nodded. ‘I get the point.’
‘Do you? Charm is bullshit. I could always turn it on and off like a tap. Look where it got me.’
I wasn’t going to let him snow me. ‘I understood drugs and booze got you here.’
He laughed, still in his positive, engaging pose. ‘They helped, they certainly helped, but I’m not blaming them.’
‘You’re going to do well with this act at the parole hearing. When’s that again?’
Some of the brio went out of him. He slumped a bit in the chair but much of the animation stayed in his face. ‘Why’re you here? Old Courtenay gave up on me a long time ago, I thought.’
‘He’s the one who said you had charm, but this is about something else.’
He tensed, looked suddenly alarmed. ‘I’ve got you now. You’re the private eye who tried to blow Paul Brewer away and would have if the gun had fired. He’s in here. He talks about you.’
It had happened a few years ago. Brewer had killed my lover, Lily Truscott, and I’d tried to kill him. It was one of the things that had cost me my licence. I hadn’t expected to come up against those memories again. I’d slotted them well away, I thought. It was Twizell’s turn to put me off balance.
‘That’s right,’ I said slowly. ‘I... was off my head at the time. I didn’t know Brewer was here and I don’t give a shit about him now.’
‘You used Braithwaite to get in to see me. The Tanners—’
‘Relax, it’s nothing to do with the Tanners, at least not directly.’
‘That doesn’t sound too comforting. What the fuck is it about?’
I felt I couldn’t just put Wakefield’s questions to him without any context and I had the outline down pat now after telling it to Megan and Braithwaite. I gave Twizell an even more edited version, stressing his family connection to an important historical event without being specific. The animation he’d shown stayed with him more or less and he listened intently.
When I’d finished he leaned back and smiled.
‘Are you telling me I’m related to some aristocrat and in line to be Lord Twizell of Twizell fucking Hall? Always thought it was a weird name. Wasn’t there some guy way back tried to claim a fortune that way?’
A film about the Tichborne claimant had been on television not too long ago. I’d seen it and so, apparently, had he. A young aristocrat on his way to Australia in the nineteenth century had gone missing, believed drowned, and a man had turned up years later claiming to be him. He had supporters, but was eventually exposed as a fraud and went to gaol.
‘No,’ I said, ‘nothing like that, but there’s talk of some kind of document, a letter or a journal or some kind of writing, that’s historically important. I have a client who wants to find it and if you can put him on the right track there could be money in it for you.’
‘Not much use to me now.’
‘When you get out. You know and I know that getting back on your feet after a gaol stint is ...’
‘A slippery slope to climb.’
‘Nicely put. The ancestor we’re talking about is said to have had a way with words. Maybe you’re a chip off the old block.’
‘Don’t... what is it?...patronise me,’ he said. ‘You’ve given me the first thing to interest me in this fucking hole apart from what the Tanners had in store for me. I was trying to close every fucking thing out. We’ve still got a while. Tell me more.’