Stephen Fry - The Liar

'That's mine! I've . . . I've saved it. I've never had anything to do with drugs. I promise!'

'But I look down at my notes and I don't see any names. All I see is "Hugo Bullock nicked in possession of a quarter ounce of best Bolivian Marching Powder." No one else for my charge-sheet. Just Hugo Bullock. I need the name of the man you collected it from and I need the name of your friend, don't I?'

Adrian shook his head.

The detective sergeant patted him on the shoulder.

'Lover is he?'

Adrian blushed.

'He's just... a friend.'

'Yeah. That's right. Yeah. How old are you, Hugo?'

'Eighteen next week.'

'There you go. I think I better have his name, don't you? He corrupts a nice well-brought-up young kid and he sends him to pick up his cocaine for him. The court will weep big tears for you, my son. Probation and sympathy.'

Adrian stared down at the table.

'The other man,' he said. 'The man I got it off. I'll give you his name.'

'Well, that's a start.'

'But he mustn't know that I told you.'

He had a sudden vision of a Godfather-like revenge being wreaked against him. Adrian, the man who grassed, beaten to a pulp in a prison, a brown-paper parcel of two dead fishes sent to his parents.

'I mean he won't ever know, will he? I won't have to give evidence against him or anything?'

'Calm down, Hugo, old lad. If he's a dealer we put him under surveillance and we catch him in the act. Your name never comes into it.'

Sergeant Canter leant forward, gently raised Adrian's chin with a finger, and looked into his eyes.

'That's a promise, Hugo. Believe me.'

Adrian nodded.

'But you'd better start talking quick. Your boyfriend is going to be wondering where you are by now. We don't want him to call his dealer friend up on the blower, do we?'

'No.' ,

'No. He'll be out of it quick as shit off a shovel and then Hugo Bullock will still be the only name on my list.'

'He . . . my friend won't miss me until the evening.'

'I see, what's his job?'

'Look, I said. I'm only going to tell you about the other man.'

'My pencil is poised, Hugo.'

After Adrian had signed his statement they brought him a cup of tea. A detective inspector came in to read through it. He glanced at Adrian.

'Looks like you're in a bit of luck, Bullock. Zak is not exactly a stranger to us. About five nine, you say?'

'Well I said I thought he was about the same size as Sergeant Canter.'

'Stud in the left ear?'

'I'm pretty sure it was the left.'

'Yeah. We lost the bastard a couple of months ago. If he's where you say he is you've done us a bit of a favour.'

'Oh well. Anything to help.'

The detective inspector laughed.

'Get him charged and sorted out with a brief, John. Possession.'

'What's a brief?' asked Adrian when the inspector had gone.

'Solicitor.'

'Oh. I thought . . . you know, legal aid. Don't you provide one?'

A boy like you . . . your parents are going to want to appoint one.'

'My parents?'

'Yeah. What's their address?'

'I'd I'd much rather keep my parents out of it. They don't know where I am you see and I've put them through enough really.'

'They file you as a missing person?'

'Yes ... I mean, I think they did go to the police. I bumped into my godfather and he said they had.'

'I think they'd be happier knowing where you are then, don't you?'

But Adrian remained firm and was led to the desk to be charged as Hugo Bullock.

'Empty your pockets on the desk, please.'

His possessions were examined and itemised in a ledger.

'You have to sign so that when you get them back you know we haven't robbed you,' said Canter.

'Oh lordy lord, I trust you,' said Adrian, who was beginning to enjoy himself. 'If a chap can't consign his chattels to an honest constable without suspicion then what has the world come to?'

'Yeah, right. We'll need your signature anyway. Oh, and there's one other thing, Adrian.'

'Yes?'

'Ah,' said Canter. 'So it's Adrian Healey, is it? Not Hugo Bullock.'

Damn, shit, bollocks and buggery-fuck.

D.S. Canter was holding up Anouilh's Antigone. Adrian's name was written on the fly-leaf.

'Clever lad like you, falling for a trick like that,' he tutted. 'No Bullock on the missing persons list, you see. But I bet there'll be a Healey, won't there?'

II

A bell rang in the corridor, doors slammed and voices rose in anger.

'Watch yourself, Ashcroft, one more sound out of you and you're on report.'

'But what did I do?'

Adrian shut his eyes and tried to concentrate on the letter he was writing.

'Right! I warned you. Loss of privileges for a week.'

He took a piece of paper and spread it flat on the table. A cold wind blew outside and the sky had darkened to gunmetal grey. Snow was on the way.

'Please Mr Annendale, may I get a book from the library?'

'If you hurry.'

Adrian picked up a pen and began.Dear Guy, I have been meaning to pluck up the nerve to write to you for some time. I was finally pricked into action by seeing you in The Likeness the other night. You were brilliant as always. I loved you in both parts - though the Good Shelford reminded me more of the Guy I Know (up in the gallery) . . . I wonder if you found out what happened to me? I have a feeling that you imagined me skipping off with your money. But perhaps you heard the truth. The fact is that after I had been to see your friend Zak I was arrested by the police in possession of your end-of-shoot cocaine – you were just finishing The Red Roof if you remember. You'll be pleased to know, by the way, that Zak wasn't ripping you off– the haul was described in court as seven grammes of highest quality Andean flake. It may be that you've been suffering from a guilty conscience about my innocent involvement in the whole affair, but if you have, I can now cheerfully relieve you of that burden. I was treated well and never put under pressure to reveal any names.The old parents rallied round with character witnesses - godfathers, bishops, generals, even my old Housemaster at school would you believe? – and with squads of armed and dangerous solicitors. What chance did the magistrates stand? It was only by calling on all their reserves of pride and self-control that they managed to summon up the nerve even to put me on probation. I think one of them was so overcome by my quiet dignity and round-eyed innocence that he came within an ace of recommending some kind of civilian award for me.Since then I have been to a crammer's in Stroud, passed exams and find myself filling in time teaching at a prep school in Norfolk before going off to St Matthew's College, Cambridge – not quite poacher turned game-keeper . . . slave turned slave-master? Something like it. Boy turned man, I suppose.My name, as you probably know, is as far from Hugo Bullock as a name can be without actually falling over, but I won't bother you with it. This is just to wish you well and thank you for a month or two of unsurpassable fun and frolic.I hope you are now treating your nostrils as well as you treated Your very own Hugo Bullock

There was a knock on the door.

'Please, sir, can I ask a question?'

'Newton, I distinctly heard with my own two ears - these, the ones I put on this morning because they go so well with my eyes - that Mr Annendale gave you permission to go to the library and get a book. I did not hear him give you permission to come to my room.'

'It's just a quick question . . .'

'Oh, very well.'

'Is it true, sir, that you and Matron are having an affair?'

'Out, out! Get out! Out before I slash your throat with a knife and hang you dripping with blood from the flag-pole. Out, before I pull your guts from your body and stuff them down your mouth. Out, before I become mildly irritated. Go, hence, begone. Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once. Run! run quickly from here, run to the other side of Europe, flee for your life nor give not one backward glance. I never hope to see you again in this world or the next. Never speak to me, never approach me, never advertise your presence to me by the smallest sound, or by the living God that made me I will do such things... I know not what they are but they will be the terrors of the earth. Flee hence, be not here, but somewhere in a vast Elsewhere to which I have no access. Boys who rub me up the wrong way, Newton, come to a sticky end. Be removed, piss off, heraus, get utterly outly out.'