“So you were by the pond.”

“I was pretty close to the pond, and when I was through, I saw this character come by with his arm around a young guy.”

“Were they touching?”

“The character had his arm around him, that’s right.”

“Why do you call him a character?”

“Because he looked like one.”

“What do characters look like?”

“To be honest, more or less like you.” Anderton grinned.

“Like me?”

“Ruffled hair, leather jacket, tall and athletic with dark wrinkles in his face that could scare the shit out of anyone.”

“Just like me, in other words.”

“Right.”

What a find, Macdonald thought. He’s about to drown in grease, but he’s got a sharp pair of eyes in his head. “So you were standing there looking at them?” he asked.

“Right.”

“Tell me in your own words what you saw.”

“Who else’s words would I use?”

“Just go ahead.”

Anderton tilted his cup, looked in it, reached for the teapot and poured. The tea had gotten much darker while they were sitting there, and he grimaced as it passed his lips. He ran his fingers over his balding scalp, the skin red where it had been stretched. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t especially curious. It’s just that there was nothing else to look at. But I said to myself, this character is twice as big and twice as old as the kid, and they sure as hell aren’t father and son.”

“But he had his arm around him?”

“Like I said. But it was mostly him who was doing it.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was obviously more interested than the kid.”

Macdonald looked down at his blank notepad. The less I write now, the less irrelevant stuff I’ll have to sort through later, he thought. “Was he using force?” he asked.

“Where do you draw the line between force and affection?” Anderton asked, as though he were giving a philosophy lecture at the University of London.