During the long hours when he couldn’t sleep, or was simply alone, Harry’s thoughts turned to the novel he had intended to write if he hadn’t escaped from Lavenham.
He began to make outline notes of the characters that must turn the page. His detective would have to be a one-off, an original, who he hoped would become part of his readers’ everyday lives, like Poirot, Holmes or Maigret.
He finally settled on the name William Warwick. The Hon. William would be the second son of the Earl of Warwick, and have turned down the opportunity to go to Oxford, much to his father’s disgust, because he wanted to join the police force. His character would be loosely based on his friend Giles. After three years on the beat, walking the streets of Bristol, Bill, as he was known to his colleagues, would become a detective constable, and be assigned to Chief Inspector Blakemore, the man who’d intervened when Harry’s uncle Stan had been arrested and wrongly charged with stealing money from Hugo Barrington’s safe.
Lady Warwick, Bill’s mother, would be modelled on Elizabeth Barrington; Bill would have a girlfriend called Emma, and his grandfathers Lord Harvey and Sir Walter Barrington would make the occasional entrance on the page but only to offer sage advice.
Every night, Harry would read over the pages he’d written that day, and every morning his wastepaper basket needed emptying.
Harry always looked forward to Sebastian’s visits. His young son was so full of energy, so inquisitive and so good-looking, just like his mother, as everyone teased him.
Sebastian often asked questions no one else would have dared to: what’s it like being in prison? How many Germans did you kill? Why aren’t you and Mama married? Harry sidestepped most of them, but he knew Sebastian was far too bright not to work out what his father was up to, and feared it wouldn’t be long before the boy trapped him.
Whenever Harry was alone he continued to work on the outline plot for his novel.
He’d read over a hundred detective novels while he was working as deputy librarian at Lavenham, and he felt that some of the characters he’d come across in prison and in the army could provide material for a dozen novels: Max Lloyd, Sefton Jelks, Warden Swanson, Officer Hessler, Colonel Cleverdon, Captain Havens, Tom Bradshaw and Pat Quinn – especially Pat Quinn.
During the next few weeks, Harry became lost in his own world, but he had to admit that the way some of his visitors had spent the last five years had also turned out to be stranger than fiction.
When Emma’s sister Grace paid him a visit, Harry didn’t comment on the fact that she looked so much older than when he’d last seen her, but then she’d only been a schoolgirl at the time. Now Grace was in her final year at Cambridge and about to sit her exams. She told him with pride that for a couple of years she’d worked on a farm, not going back up to Cambridge until she was convinced the war was won.
It was with sadness that Harry learnt from Lady Barrington that her husband, Sir Walter, had passed away, a man Harry had admired second only to Old Jack.
His uncle Stan never visited him.
As the days went by, Harry thought about raising the subject of Emma’s father, but he sensed that even the mention of his name was off-limits.
And then one evening, after Harry’s doctor had told him that it wouldn’t be too long before they released him, Emma lay down next to him on the bed and told him that her father was dead.
When she came to the end of her story, Harry said, ‘You’ve never been good at dissembling, my darling, so perhaps the time has come to tell me why the whole family is so on edge.’
43
HARRY WOKE the next morning to find his mother, along with the whole Barrington family, seated around his bed.
The only absentees were Sebastian and his uncle Stan, neither of whom it was felt would have made a serious contribution.
‘The doctor has said you can go home,’ said Emma.
‘Great news,’ said Harry. ‘But where’s home? If it means going back to Still House Lane and living with Uncle Stan, I’d prefer to stay in hospital – even go back to prison.’ No one laughed.
‘I’m now living at Barrington Hall,’ said Giles, ‘so why don’t you move in with me? Heaven knows there are enough rooms.’
‘Including a library,’ said Emma. ‘So you’ll have no excuse not to continue working on your novel.’
‘And you can come and visit Emma and Sebastian whenever you want to,’ added Elizabeth Barrington.
Harry didn’t respond for some time.
‘You’re all being very kind,’ he eventually managed, ‘and please don’t think I’m not grateful, but I can’t believe it needed the whole family to decide where I’m going to live.’
‘There’s another reason we wanted to talk to you,’ said Lord Harvey, ‘and the family have asked me to speak on their behalf.’