‘Jealous of Peter, were you?’

‘Why should I be jealous of him?’

‘You’re telling us that you didn’t know he was sleeping with her?’

‘With who?’

‘Don’t play the funny man, son. Just answer the questions. You’re in a lot of trouble. You can do it the hard way or the easy way.’

The light in the narrow window had faded. Since the morning I had been sitting in that room.

‘I’m hungry,’ I said.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Get him a sandwich – no, I’ll go.’

He got up and stretched. The man who had been standing silent sat down. The one who had been questioning went out.

The new one sat with a pencil turning it on the table. The door opened and another two newcomers appeared. One sat down and took over from the fat man. The fat man yawned and left.

‘I want to piss, too,’ I said.

‘In a minute. Tell me first about Margaret.’

‘You must have heard – I’ve said all there is to say about her.’

‘Tell me again. When did you find out about her and Peter?’

It must have been an hour later when I remembered about the sandwiches. Nobody had brought me any. But the room gradually filled up. More men kept coming in. Some were in uniform. Two or three would ask me questions taking it in turn. The men in uniform were not constables – I didn’t know what ranks but they looked important.

It was just after I felt the strangeness of this roomful of men that the last one arrived. I was being asked a question and it stopped abruptly. The new arrival closed the door and waited as if he wanted to gather every eye. I watched him as if I too had been waiting for news.

He nodded – Yes. Yes.

There was a release of breath, a mingled sigh and snarl, like the purr of a hunting cat. Then every eye turned back to me.

The man who had just come in bent over and whispered to one of my interrogators and another one got up and he took his place.

Everything changed then. Although I had been frightened before, I could make sense of what was happening. Now the questions made no sense to me.

Had I ever been a member of a political party?

Where had I met Kilpatrick?

How did I feel about the Royal Family?

Had it been in a club I met Kilpatrick?

Some kind of society or organisation?

What group did I belong to?

And then over and over again:

Where had I gone during the night – while Margaret Briody slept – before I climbed into her bed – God, they knew about that – where had I gone? What time had I slipped out? Where did I go? Did I know – this house, that street, this hotel?

Had I been inside that hotel?

Riggs Lodge – but, of course, I had. It was the hotel I had worked in as a relief porter at Christmas.

When I said that, there came another of those strange sighing chuckles, fat and satisfied and at the same time hungry.

My watch had stopped. It felt like the middle of the night. I had at the back of my mind the thought – this is wrong; and I thought that I would say nothing more; I would insist on something to eat. Dully, I realised that I wasn’t hungry any more. I was tired. The questions kept coming and I answered them while behind their distraction I conducted with myself this other argument – that it was wrong; but until I settled it what else was there to do but keep answering?

Earlier when it was still daylight they had taken my fingerprints.

‘No,’ I had said.

Two big men looked at me incuriously.

‘You don’t want to be printed?’

‘No’, I said in a small voice.

‘Up to you,’ one stone face said. ‘Case last year in Edinburgh. Fellow felt the way you do about it. They broke one arm on the Tuesday and the other one on the Wednesday. Thursday the Court said that was reasonable force. Thursday afternoon he got his fingerprints taken. Right?’

Right.

‘You know what this is?’

A large sheet of stiff paper crackled out between us. A meaty hand spread it flat. There was a bruising across the knuckles that reminded me of Primo’s hand on the apartment door, the fat swollen pressure of blood and offended tissue. He put a finger down on the paper.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘You know what this is?’

It was a plan of some kind. A blueprint: the sheet was covered with detail. I understood enough to see that it was a building and that it must be very large.

The finger tapped, tapped.

‘Here. Stop bluffing. You know what this is.’

I didn’t; I knew nothing about reading plans. When I bent closer, it dissolved into a jumble of lines.

‘Through that door, right? And then up the outside.’

Somebody leaned over his shoulder and said, ‘They’re sure.’

The one who was asking the questions looked up at him irritably and that let me understand it had not been a statement aimed at me, but a question, ‘They’re sure?’

Now he stared down at me.

‘Possible,’ he said. ‘He’s a big fellow. But, Christ!’

That started them off on a new line.

What sports did I play?

Climbing? Had I done any climbing? In the University Mountaineering Club, wasn’t I?

‘I’m afraid of heights.’ The admission of something I had always been ashamed of angered me. Even watching those old movies where the comedian teetered on a ledge above toy cars and people scurrying like ants, I would tense up and have to look away.

In or out of uniform, they were all bulky men, beef to the heels, with a lot of beer bellies hanging out in front. The room wasn’t all that big and the temperature had climbed. Spreading patches of sweat darkened the shirts of those who had taken off their jackets.

A red misshapen face lowered over the table at me when I admitted my fear of heights. ‘You’ve been told,’ he shouted. ‘You’ve been warned about the funny stuff. You’ve had it easy. Don’t think this is the only way. Do it easy or do it hard. Open your mouth and get it over with. If you get turned over to the heavy squad, you’ll think we’re angels.’

He went on too long. Not that I didn’t believe in his heavy squad, just that he went on too long. I had been questioned and shouted at for hours.

‘Why don’t you,’ I said quietly, ‘go and play with yourself?’

After that I did not answer any more questions. To everything I shook my head. No more words. After a while, they stopped. People discussed in whispers; there was a general movement out.

Soon there were only two of them left. It was like when we had started so many hours ago.

‘. . . of that of that none of that none of.’

I sprawled and gasped, came up like a bad dive in the pool, ears sore, pain in my chest. Someone shook me by the shoulder.

‘None of that. This isn’t a fucking doss-house.’

I wrenched myself out of his grip.

‘Just keep awake.’ He had an unpleasant grin. ‘A guy like you shouldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep if I’d done what you did.’

‘I’ve done nothing.’

‘Hey!’ he said. ‘He’s found his tongue again.’ He leaned over me. ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it? Nobody here but us. All the big brass away. Tell me about it and we’ll get a statement. Then you can have a sleep.’

He had lowered his voice in an elephantine gesture towards friendly persuasion. I shook my head for the millionth time. Routine.

Except that he lost his temper – or was a natural actor. A hand like a bunch of rocks bunched the front of my shirt. What must have been his thumb pushed into the hollow of my throat until I choked. I writhed back but the chair swayed and I was held off-balance.

‘Nobody here but us,’ his voice said in the distance. It echoed in the dark that washed over me. I got both hands on his and tried to pull it away but could not move it. I had not eaten. Even if he was a strong bastard, it was also true that I had been weakened by lack of food.

The hand came away. Slowly the room settled. By the door, another man was standing. The one who had been massaging my throat swung round and then came to a kind of attention. His trousers wrinkled across his fat rump. The man by the door looked vaguely familiar as if he might have been one of the onlookers in the room earlier. He was in plain-clothes but wore them like a uniform; grey hair, a big beaky nose, about fifty; you could tell he was an officer and a gentleman.