Peter Lovesey - The Last Detective

'No problem,' she said. 'Didn't Dougie make this clear? I won't ask you anything about it. After we screen the interview we'll mention that you're planning to hold the exhibition in September. That's all – a little advance publicity. We can drop it if you like.'

'No, it ought to go in.'

Today's item is just about the uses the Assembly Rooms have been put to over the centuries. All we want from you, Professor, is something about what went on here in Jane's time.'

'You mean behind the pillars?'

A look of disquiet crept over Sadie's features. She said, 'We were rather expecting that you would stress the more formal aspects, the dress balls and so on. I'm recording two more interviews to bring out the slightly more disreputable uses it was put to in more recent times. Apparently it was used as a cinema between the wars.'

'A cinema?' Still with a straight face I said, 'I can't imagine anything more disreputable than that.'

Every television interviewer dreads a wisecracker. Sadie eyed me without amusement and said firmly, 'Everything will be edited, by the way. It doesn't have to go out until Friday. Dougie wants at least two takes in case of a problem, so if you cough or anything, you needn't worry. It won't be transmitted.'

'My dear, I never worry.'

Sadie wetted her lips, turned away and said, on a lower note that I think was directed at the crew, 'You worry me, ducky.' She nodded to Dougie, the director.

'Quiet please,' he said. 'We're going for a take. Take one -and action.'

We didn't get past Sadie's first question before Dougie said, 'Cut'. Something was amiss with the sound. While they checked it, I awarded myself a short break. I left the firpelace, strolled across to a row of Chippendale chairs that the crew used between takes and picked up a newspaper someone had left there, the Bath Evening Chronicle. The headline ran: SHY HERO IN WEIR RESCUE.

I sat down and read on:

An unknown man plunged to the rescue of a drowning schoolboy at Pulteney Weir yesterday afternoon and hauled him to safety. The boy, Matthew Didrikson, twelve, of Lyncombe Rise, a day pupil at the Abbey Choir School, was unconscious when brought to the bank, but his rescuer revived him with the 'kiss of life' method of resuscitation. He was taken to the Royal United Hospital suffering from shock and water inhalation, but was not detained., Matthew's rescuer, a well-dressed man of about thirty-five, left the scene without identifying himself.

Mr David Broadbent, a retired optician, saw the entire incident from Grand Parade. He said, 'The boy was playing with two others beside the weir and he started to walk out to the centre. The current was strong after all the rain we've had lately. The lad appeared to wobble and slip and the next thing he was in the water below the weir. The man must have seen it from Pulteney Bridge or thereabouts because he came running down the steps by the bridge and jumped straight in. He didn't hesitate. He swam to the weir and went in after the lad. It was heroic because people have drowned there in the past. Somehow he got a grip on the boy and they were washed to one side, and he climbed out and dragged the boy on to the bank and gave him the kiss of life. I think the Royal Humane Society should be informed, because that man deserves a medal.'

Dr Rajinder Murtah, who attended Matthew at the hospital, said, 'The boy undoubtedly owes his life to the prompt and sensible action of this unknown man.' Matthew's mother, Mrs Dana Didrikson, who is employed by Realbrew Ales Ltd as a driver, said, 'I would dearly like an opportunity to thank the brave man who saved the life of my son.' Matthew, apparently none the worse for his adventure except for superficial grazing, will return to school tomorrow.

A police spokesman said, 'At least three people have drowned at Pulteney Weir in the last ten years and there have been any number of incidents involving swimmers or canoeists. People don't realize that it's so deep below the weir that you could sink a double-decker bus there. For anyone caught in the undertow, it's a deathtrap.'

A voice at my shoulder said suddenly, There's no escape. I've tracked you down.'

'What?' I slapped the paper face down.

Sadie said, 'We're going for another take.'

On the evening the interview was screened I was caught up in a Board of Studies meeting, so I missed it. Gerry saw it and thoughtfully switched on the video-recorder, which she failed to notice was tuned to Channel 4, so when I got in I sat through ten minutes of a gardening programme before I realized what had happened. But it was meant as an olive branch after the shindy we'd had about my visit to Dr Bookbinder, and I thanked her for making the attempt.

'It's funny,' she remarked. 'You always look different when I see you on the box – almost dishy, in fact.'

'Dishy?' I said, pretending to take umbrage. 'We were discussing the social mores of Bath in Jane Austen's era. That was my donnish look.'

'I wasn't taken in by that,' she said. 'It's just an act, isn't it? Greg Jackman putting it across that he's the professor, just like some actor hamming it up as Julius Caesar.'

There was more than a germ of truth in her comment, but I didn't much care for the analogy.

Some time after ten that evening, when I was sipping a cognac prior to checking that the doors and windows were locked, the phone rang. Gerry was taking a shower, so I picked it up, expecting to find myself talking to one of her many friends who called at all hours with titbits of gossip.

'Is it possible to speak to Professor Jackman?' a woman's voice asked.

'Speaking.'

'I thought I recognized your voice. I'm sorry to be calling so late. Is it terribly inconvenient?'

'Well, you found me at home,' I said cautiously, trying to work out whether this was one of my students wanting to contest a grading. 'Do I know you, then?'

'No. My name is Abershaw – Molly Abershaw.' She paused as if I might have heard of her, then resumed, 'From the Bath Evening Telegraph.'

I said, with more tact than I usually employ, 'Now that you mention it, I believe I have seen your name in the paper.'

'And I saw you on television earlier this evening.'

That was why she had recognized my voice. I felt more comfortable with the call now that I had some idea of its provenance. 'You picked up the reference to the Jane Austen exhibition, I suppose?'

'Yes, indeed. That's in September, I gather?'

'Correct,' I told her, refraining from adding that it scarcely merited a ten o'clock call this evening.

'You'll be wanting to publicise it, I'm sure,' she went on. 'We'd like to run a feature nearer the time.'

'Fine,' I said, not wanting to prolong the conversation now that the necessary goodwill had been exchanged. 'It's early days yet, but I'll be happy to co-operate. And as you obviously have my home number as well as the university's, there should be no difficulty getting in touch.'

'I'd like to ask you something else,' she put in quickly. 'I don't know if you know my paper. It probably gets pushed through your door twice a week. It's free, but we have a very good name for our news reporting. Earlier this evening I was speaking to the young schoolboy who was almost drowned at Pulteney Weir on Monday. He saw you on Points West tonight and thinks he recognized you. He believes you were the man who saved his life. Are you able to confirm it, Professor?'

I hedged. 'Why exactly are you asking me this, Miss Abershaw?'

'I thought that was obvious. It's a matter of public interest. It was a very brave act and it deserves to be written up.'

'But it was written up, on the day after it happened.'

'Yes, in the Evening Chronicle. They weren't able to reveal the name -'

'… of the shy hero.'

'Exactly.'

'And you're hoping to get an exclusive?'