‘I suggested a drink to keep things casual and he seemed happy with that. In fact on the first occasion he only stayed twenty minutes. Said he had a date and rushed off. We met a few more times. Had a meal once at his place, a completely characterless flat in a mansion block near Westminster cathedral. Mainly we discussed the authors we admired. He always talked about books in a purely technical way. He thought you could take them apart, discover how they’d been put together and then assemble one yourself rather like the engine of a car. He didn’t understand their mystery at all. The fact that the best ones had a secret life that forever slipped through your fingers.’
Barnaby shifted restlessly. ‘We seem to be drifting away from the main issue, Mr Jennings.’
‘Not at all. This is absolutely germane, as you will shortly see. He read me a couple of his stories. Rigor mortis, inspector. Neatly typed. A beginning, middle and end and dead as mutton from line one. I did not respond in kind. I’ve never read my work to anyone. To do so would make me feel uncomfortable. Precious. Like one of those dreadful Bloomsburies.
‘These casual meetings went on for about three months. I asked questions, the way one does with a new acquaintance, but he’d answer only grudgingly, a crumb at a time. I discovered he’d been brought up in Kent, the only child of middle-class parents now both dead. That he’d gone to a minor public school and had a dullish job in the Civil Service. I couldn’t decide whether I’d lost my knack of being able to prise people apart and winkle out their secrets or if he was simply a bore with hidden shallows. God knows there’s enough of them about. In any event I came to the conclusion I’d wasted enough time on him and decided to call it a day.’
Callous bugger, thought Sergeant Troy. He could see how the bloke earned a good screw telling stories though. Even though nothing very dramatic had happened so far Jennings had the trick of implying that, any minute now, it just might. Troy said, ‘How did Mr Hadleigh take that?’
‘I didn’t put it so bluntly of course. Implied it was only temporary. Told him I was on a roll with the writing and didn’t want to risk losing it. As I still had my day job and very little spare time that wasn’t an unreasonable excuse. After I told him he hung up. Didn’t say anything at all. There was this rather heavy silence then - click.’
‘I must say, Mr Jennings,’ said Barnaby, ‘you have excellent recall for something that happened so long ago.’
‘I remember it clearly because of what came next. I suppose half an hour must have passed. I was getting ready to go out. I had met Ava by then and was taking her to dinner at the Caprice. The doorbell rang. It was Gerald. He pushed straight past me into the flat. He was as white as a sheet. His face, always so smooth and tight, was all broken up. He looked crazed. His hair was on end as if be’d been tugging at it and his eyes were unfocused. He didn’t seem to see me, just started striding about in a jerky way as if someone was goading him. Then he began shouting, disjointed questions and declarations all garbled up together in a sick sort of muddle. I tried to calm him down. To find out what the matter was. But every time I attempted to speak he drowned me out. Why was I doing this? What had he done wrong? Was I trying to kill him?
‘Then he slumped into my armchair and started gasping. Desolate wheezing sounds, fighting for breath. Up till then, though annoyed at being held up, I must admit I was also rather excited by the eruptive and dramatic nature of the event. But now I became really alarmed. I thought he might be having a fit. I got some whisky, made him drink it and poured another. I suppose I felt that if I got him drunk I could calm him down and find out just what the hell was going on. He gulped the stuff, splashing it all over his shirt and trousers. His clothes already looked as if they’d been thrown on. One of his cufflinks was missing. His shoe laces weren’t properly tied. While I was in the bedroom, ringing Ava, he started to cry.
‘I had left the door slightly open and could see him, reflected in a looking glass, though he couldn’t see me. He picked up a scarf that was lying, together with my coat, over the back of the chair. I remember thinking, he’s going to mop his face with it which just showed how far gone he was, for his manners were always so archaically elaborate as to be almost a joke. But instead he laid the scarf against his cheek and then to his lips.’
Here Max Jennings paused, helping himself to some water, half filling a tumbler. Troy watched, his foxy features screwed up with distaste.
‘You may all,’ continued Jennings, once more seated, ‘have been way ahead of me on this one. I don’t think I was at all unsophisticated, yet it simply never occurred to me that Gerald might be harbouring such feelings. Firstly, there was absolutely nothing in his manner or appearance to suggest homosexuality - at least to a heterosexual like myself. Then there was the fact that, the first time we met, he was with a female date. Anyway, as you can imagine, I was now doubly determined to be rid of him. And, if humanly possible, without provoking any sort of declaration on his part. So I strode back into the sitting room, all brisk and rugger bugger, and said that my girlfriend had given me a hell of a rocket for keeping her waiting and I had to shoot off instantly.