by Francis - TO THE HILT

'No problem. Numbers one, three, seven and eight.'

'They deny they touched you.'

I gave Vernon a glowering come-off-it glare. 'You saw them yourself in that garden. You arrested them there.'

'I didn't see them in the act of committing grievous bodily harm.'

I closed my eyes briefly, took a grip on my pain-driven temper, and said, on a deep breath, 'Number three wore boxing gloves and caused the damage you can see in my face. He is left-handed. The others watched. All four assisted in compelling me to lie on that hot grill. All four also attacked me outside my home in Scotland. I don't know their names, but I do know their faces.'

It had seemed to me on other occasions that the great British police force not only never apologised, but also never saw the need for it: however, Inspector Vernon ushered me politely into a bare interview room and offered me coffee, which in his terms came into the category of tender loving care.

'Mrs Benchmark couldn't identify them for certain,' he observed.

I asked if he had talked to Sergeant Derrick in Scotland, and to Chief Inspector Reynolds in Leicestershire. They had been off duty, he said.

Bugger weekends.

Could I use a telephone, I asked.

Who did I want to talk to? Long-distance calls were not free.

'A doctor in London,' I said.

I reached, miraculously, Keith Robbiston; alert, in a hurry.

'Could I have a handful of your wipe-out pills?' I asked.

'What's happened?' he said.

'I got bashed again.'

'More thugs?'

'The same ones.'

'Oh… as bad as before?'

'Well, actually… worse.'

'How much worse?'

'Cracked ribs and some burns.'

'Burns?'

'Nothing to do with "Auld Lang Syne".'

He laughed, and talked to Inspector Vernon, and said my mother would kill him if he failed me, and pills would be motor-biked door to door within two hours.

If nothing else, Keith Robbiston's speed impressed the Inspector. He went off to telephone outside. When the coffee came, it was in a pot, on a tray.

I sat and waited for immeasurable time, thinking. When Vernon returned I told him that number seven in the line-up had been wearing what looked like my father's gold watch, stolen from me in Scotland.

'Also,' I said, 'number seven didn't relish the burning.'

That won't excuse him.'

'No… but if you could make it worth his while, he might tell you what happened to a Norman Quorn.'

The Inspector didn't say, 'Who?' He went quietly away. A uniformed constable brought me a sandwich lunch.

My pills arrived. Things got better.

After another couple of hours Inspector Vernon came into the room, sat down opposite me across the table and told me that the following conversation was not taking place. Positively not. It was his private thanks. Understood?

'OK,' I said.

'First of all, can you identify your father's gold watch?'

'It has an engraving on the back, "Alistair from Vivienne".'

Vernon faintly smiled. In all the time I spent with him it was the nearest he came to showing pleasure.

'Number seven in the line-up may be known as Bernie,' he said. 'Bernie, as you saw, is a worried man.' He paused. 'Can I totally trust you not to repeat this? Can I rely on you?'

I said dryly, 'To the hilt,' which he didn't understand beyond the simple words, but he took them as I meant them: utterly. 'But,' I added, 'why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?'

He spent a moment thinking, then said, 'In Britain one isn't, as you may or may not know, allowed to make bargains with people accused of crimes. One can't promise a light sentence in return for information. That's a myth. You can persuade someone unofficially to plead guilty to a lesser charge, like in this case, actual bodily harm, rather than grievous bodily harm, GBH, which is a far more serious crime, and can carry a long jail sentence. But some authorities can be perverse, and if they suspect a deal has been struck, they're perfectly capable of upsetting it. Follow?'

'I follow.'

'Also the business of what is and what isn't admissible evidence is a minefield.'

'So I've heard.'

'If you hadn't told me to ask Bernie questions about Norman Quorn I wouldn't have thought of doing it. But Bernie split wide open, and now my superiors here are patting me on the back and thinking of going to the Crown Prosecution Service - who, of course, decide whether or not a trial should take place - not with a GBH involving you, but with a charge against Oliver Grantchester for manslaughter. The manslaughter of Norman Quorn.'

'Hell's teeth.'

'At this point in such proceedings everyone gets very touchy indeed about who knows what, in order not to jeopardise any useful testimony. It wouldn't do for you to have heard Bernie's confession. It could have compromised the case. So I'll tell you what he said… but I shouldn't.'

'You're safe.'

He nevertheless looked around cautiously, as if listeners had entered unseen.

'Bernie said,' he finally managed, 'that they - the four you call the thugs - all go to a gym in London, east of the City, which Oliver Grantchester has been visiting for fitness sessions for the past few years. Grantchester goes on the treadmill, lifts a few weights and so on, but isn't a boxer.'

'No.'

'So when he wanted a rough job done, he recruited your four thugs. Bernie was willing. The up-front money was good. So was the pay-off afterwards, though the job went wrong.'

'Quorn died.'

Vernon nodded.

'Grantchester,' he said, 'told them to turn up at his house in the country. He told them the name of the village and said they would know his house because it had Christmas lights all over the driveway, and he would turn them on, even though it would be daylight and not Christmas. Grantchester arrived at his house with an older man, who was Norman Quorn, and he took him through the gate in the fence into the garden. The four thugs tied the man - whose name they didn't yet know - to the same tree as they tied you, but they didn't belt him, like you. Grantchester lit the barbecue and told Quorn he would burn him if he didn't come across with some information.'

Vernon paused, then went on. 'Bernie didn't know what the information was, and still doesn't. Quorn was shitting himself, Bernie says, and Grantchester waited until the fire was very hot, and then he threw the grill onto the grass, and told Quorn he would lie on it until he told him - Grantchester - what he wanted to know. Quorn told him he would tell him at once, but Grantchester got the four thugs to throw Quorn onto the grill anyway, and hold him there, and although he was screaming and hollering that he would tell, Grantchester wouldn't let him up, and seemed to be enjoying it, and when he did let him up, Quorn dropped down dead.'

Vernon stopped. I listened in fascinated horror.

'Bernie,' Vernon said, 'was near to puking, describing it.'

'I'm not surprised.'

'Grantchester was furious. There was this dead body on the ground and he hadn't found out what he wanted to know. He got Bernie and the others to put Quorn into the boot of his car in the garage, and in the house he made them put their hands round empty glasses, so that he had all their fingerprints, and he threatened that if they ever spoke of what they'd seen they would be in mortal trouble. Then he paid them and told them to go away, which they did. Bernie doesn't know what Grantchester did with Quorn's body.'

After a while I said, 'Did you ask Bernie about Scotland?'

Vernon nodded. 'Grantchester paid them again to go to your house and beat you up a bit until you gave them something to give to him. He didn't tell them what it was. He just told them to say, "Where is it?" to you, and you would know what it was. Bernie said you didn't give them anything, and Grantchester was furious, and told them they should have made sure you were dead before they threw you down the mountain.'