you, and he didn’t identify him to the police. In fact, Paul pretended he was in Surrey when you were attacked.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘And,’ I said, ‘Paul tried hard to prevent you from talking to me or to Robbie, or anyone else, until he was sure you remembered nothing about the attack.’
Dorothea’s joy faded somewhat but, underneath, remained.
‘He changed a bit,’ I said. ‘I think at one point he almost told me something, but I don’t know what. I do believe, though, that he was feeling remorse over what had happened to you.’
‘Oh, Thomas, I do hope so.’
‘I’m sure of it,’ I said, more positively than I felt.
She thought things over quietly for a while and then said, ‘Paul would burst out sometimes with opinions as if he couldn’t hold them in any more.’
‘Did he?’
‘He said… I didn’t like to tell you, Thomas, but the other day – when he was here with me – he burst out with, “Why did you ever have to make your film?” He was bitter. He said, “I would never have been attacked if you hadn’t stirred everything up.” Of course I asked what you had stirred up and he said, “It was all in the Drumbeat, but I was to forget what he’d said, only if anything happened to you it would be your own fault.” He said.. I’m really sorry… but he said he would be pleased if you were cut to ribbons like me… It wasn’t like him, really it wasn’t.’
‘I did bolt him out of your house,’ I reminded her. ‘He didn’t like me much for embarrassing him.’
‘No, but… well, something was worrying him, I’m sure of it.’
I stood up and wandered over to the window, looking out aimlessly at the institutionally regular pattern of the windows in the building opposite and the scrubby patch of garden between. Two people in white coats walked slowly along a path, conversing. Extras playing doctors, I thought automatically – and realised I often saw even real life in terms of film.
I turned and asked Dorothea, ‘While you’ve been here in the hospital, did Paul ask you about a photo album?’
‘I don’t think so, dear. Everything gets so muddled, though.’ She paused. ‘He said something about you having taken Valentine’s books away, and I didn’t tell him you hadn’t. I didn’t want to argue, you see, dear. I felt too tired.’
I told her I’d found a photo among Valentine’s possessions – which I had retrieved from her nice young friend, Bill Robinson – but I couldn’t see that it was worth the damage to her house or to herself.
‘If I show it to you,’ I said, ‘will you tell me who the people are?’
‘Of course, dear, if I can.’
I took ‘The Gang’ photo out of my pocket and put it into her hand.
‘I need my reading glasses,’ she said, peering at it. ‘That red case on the bedside table.’
I gave her her glasses and she looked without much reaction at the picture.
‘Did one of those people attack you?’ I asked.
‘Oh no, none of those. He was much older. All these people are so young. Why!,’ she exclaimed, ‘that’s Paul! That one at the end, isn’t that Paul? How young he was! So handsome, then.’ She let the hand holding the photo rest on the sheet. ‘I don’t know any of the others. I wish Paul was here.’
Sighing, I took back the photo, replaced it in my pocket and produced the small memo pad I habitually carried.
I said, ‘I don’t want to upset you, but if I draw a knife will you tell me if it’s the one that might have been used on you?’
‘I don’t want to see it.’
‘Please, Dorothea.’
‘Paul was killed with a knife,’ she wailed, and cried for her son.
‘Dearest Dorothea,’ I said after a while, ‘if it will help to find Paul’s killer, will you look at my drawing?’
She shook her head. I put the drawing close to her hand and, arter a long minute, she picked it up.
‘How horrid,’ she said, looking at it, ‘I didn’t see a knife like that.’ She sounded extremely relieved. ‘It wasn’t anything like that.’
I’d drawn for her the American trench knife from the Heath. I turned the paper over and drew the wicked Armadillo, serrated edge and all.
Dorothea looked at it, went white and didn’t speak.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said helplessly. ‘But you didn’t die. Paul loved you… He saved your life.’
I thought of the cataclysmic shock in Paul’s face when he’d come to Dorothy’s house