'They're interested in a poet who catches murderers, or a policeman who writes poetry, not in the verse.'

'What does it matter as long as they're interested? And don't tell me that the Commissioner wouldn't like it. That's an old cop-out.'

'AH right, I won't, but he wouldn't.'

And there was, after all, nothing new to be said. He had heard the questions innumerable times and he had done his best to answer them, with honesty if not with enthusiasm. 'Why does a sensitive poet like you spend his time catching murderers?' 'Which is the more important to you, the poetry or the policing?' 'Does it hinder or help being a detective?' 'Why does a successful detective write poetry?' 'What was your most interesting case, Commander? Do you ever feel like writing a poem about it?' 'The love poems, is the woman you've written them to alive or dead?' Dalgliesh wondered whether Philip Larkin had been badgered about what it felt like to be both poet and librarian, or Roy Fuller on how he managed to combine poetry with law.

He said: 'All the questions are predictable. It would save everyone a great deal of trouble if I answered them on tape, then you could broadcast them from the bus.'

'It wouldn't be at all the same thing. It's you personally they want to hear. Anyone would think you didn't want to be read.'

And did he want to be read? Certainly he wanted some people to read him, one person in particular, and having read the poems he wanted her to approve. Humiliating but true. As for the others; well, he supposed that the truth was that he wanted people to read the poems but not be coerced into buying them, an over-fastidiousness which he could hardly expect Heme & Ulingworth to share. He was aware of Bill's anxious, supplicating eyes, like a small boy who sees the bowl of sweets rapidly disappearing from his reach.