was ten or eleven, and he used to take me fishing, bike-riding, exploring. I wonder, now, whether he did all that to impress her. He was the brother I never had; I worshipped him. I had two sisters, older, outgoing girls, marvellous. Then suddenly he never came to our house again. I don’t know which of them had the cause for complaint, or why. For years, I was desperate to see him again, hoped I’d bump into him. Never did. When I came across that photo, the other day, I wondered what became of him, and there was no one to ask.’
With some trepidation, I asked, ‘Your sisters?’
‘One’s dead – years ago – and the other, I’m afraid, can’t remember her own name. I hope to God that I don’t go the same way.’
I had first met George in the library, a couple of months ago, in the tiny photocopying room beyond the reference section. Taped to the back of the door was the handwritten puzzle, Do you have your original?, which made sense when I raised the lid and found a local history pamphlet. The cover illustration was an old photograph of what is now the town’s General Infirmary, but the title was The Workhouse.
‘Sorry.’ Someone had come into the doorway, was reaching with a liver-spotted hand for the pamphlet.
I looked back at the illustration, squinted at the familiar but shadowed landmark.
‘You didn’t know, did you, that the hospital was once the workhouse.’ This was a statement rather than a question, but surprised.
I smiled, amenable. ‘I didn’t, no.’
He was tweedy, tidy, balding, bespectacled; his accent was local, rural. ‘Oh, Gawd, yes,’ he winced, ‘I hated going there.’
‘Oh.’ Ah, a madman: the reference room’s resident madman.
‘With my job, I mean.’
I calculated: if he was in his sixties, he would have begun work between forty and fifty years ago. Was there still a workhouse in this town during the ‘forties or ‘fifties?
‘What was your job?’
‘Policeman.’
‘Oh.’ Instinctively, I focused on the room beyond him, on escape.
‘Well, detective.’
I had to admit, ‘You must have seen some things,’ and for a moment I was truly envious.
‘Yes,’ his tone echoed mine; but behind his square, goldrimmed lenses, the pale eyes had a reflective glaze. ‘I was never bored. Sounds odd, because I had some pretty awful jobs – I worked with a coroner for a while – but there was never a moment that I didn’t enjoy. And not many people can say that of their work.’ Folding his arms, he contemplated me. ‘And I liked the people: the villains, I mean. They had some stories to tell; when I think of the statements that I took …’ He shrugged.
‘Must have been hard work.’
‘Oh, no. my father – who was also a policeman, like his own father – said that the force was ideal for men who didn’t want to work. My reason for joining was the house: in those days, we were given a house.’
‘Oh.’ Not a bad reason.
‘But my father was right about the police force as the last refuge for mavericks.’
‘Really?’ I tried to hide my scepticism with a smile.
‘Oh, yes.’
Carefully polite, I ventured, ‘And you’d think the opposite was true.’
‘Would you?’ A widening of his eyes; eyes which, I suddenly realised, had been watching mine ever since he had appeared in the doorway. Was he humouring me? ‘You don’t watch those telly chaps?’
‘You’re telling me that real detectives are like Morse?’
‘Well, to be honest with you, I don’t see many of those serials; only in passing, because my wife watches. But, yes, detectives do everything their own way. Or did.’
‘Not nowadays?’
‘Well …’ he shrugged, ‘there have been changes.’
‘I can imagine.’ I even knew the word: rationalisation.
He stepped backwards through the doorway, apologising. ‘I’ve been rambling, I’ve kept you from your photocopying.’
‘Oh, no, no, not at all,’ and I was surprised that this was true. I wanted him to tell me more.
He asked, ‘Do you work? Or perhaps you’re at home with children?’
‘No children. I’m looking for work.’
‘I don’t envy you. One of my sons has been unemployed for a year, and he’s bored brainless, poor sod. Me, I’m ten months into retirement and finding something to do every day. Somewhere to go or something to do, or to read, to look up.’ He held the pamphlet aloft.
‘Mustn’t keep you.’
But a week or so later, we came across each other in the park, and he invited me to join him in the café.
‘By the way, I’m harmless,’ he reassured me, laughing. ‘Too old to be otherwise.’
Yesterday, Annie left me unsettled, so I decided to drop in on George, hoping for a serene half hour with him in his garden. But when he came to the door, he said, ‘I’ve a chap, here, from London, he’s come for some stories from me.’
‘Stories?’
‘Of work. Of working in the police force. Oral history. He’s taping me.’
I stepped back off the doorstep, but he insisted, ‘No, we’re finishing up, he has a train to catch. Two minutes, and then you and I can make some tea and take a tray into the garden.’
Hal and I followed him into his front room. The historian, in an armchair in the corner, was middle-aged and dressed in a dark suit. Looking up into sunshine, his small round lenses became medallions. He rose, tall amid the armchairs, and George began the obligatory chant, ‘Dr Robinson, Sadie Summerfield; Sadie, Dr Robinson.’
The man’s smile looked like a wince. I wished that he had stayed in his armchair, that George had not been provoked to compere this display; I could have slipped into the room. I dreaded looking down to see the fleece of Hal’s blond fur on those black trousers. The man was holding one of his hands towards me. I hate to shake hands, I become all thumbs; I hate the judgements that people make from handshakes. He said his first name, which I missed because he spoke quietly and I was saying hello. His hand had come and gone from mine before I had noticed.
I sat down; he sat down; Hal went towards him and had his head stroked. The hand was unmarked, ivory; the nails, too. Hal returned to me and lay down, panting close to the microphone on the coffee table. George settled into his chair. The interviewer leaned forward and pressed a switch on the tape recorder.
‘As I was saying,’
