“She might be a blackmail prospect, the harassment could be a softening up process.”

He thought about it. The outward signs were that he had good thinking equipment. He didn’t ape the appearance of a mind at work by scratching things or screwing up his eyes. I rolled a cigarette and put my own tired brain into gear. I find that people are very reluctant to tell you the nub of their worries. Perhaps they think the detecting should start early, as early as detecting what they really have on their minds. The trick was to hit them with the right question, the one to open them up, but Bryn Gutteridge looked like a man who could keep his guard up and slip punches indefinitely.

“How’s your drink, Hardy?”

“Like yours, barely touched.”

“You’re direct, that’s good. I’ll be direct too. My father committed suicide four years ago. He shot himself. We don’t know why. He was prosperous, healthy, the original sound mind in the sound body.” He looked down at his cadaverous frame. He was saying he wasn’t sound himself, underlining the verbal picture of his father. There was something disembodied about him, fragile almost. I thought I had my question.

“How was his love life?”

He paid serious attention to his drink for the first time before he answered. He looked like Tony Perkins playing a suffering Christ.

“You mean how’s mine,” he said. “Or you mean that as well. You’re an uncomfortable man, Hardy.”

“I have to be. If I’m comfortable for you I’m comfortable all round and nothing gets done.”

“That sounds right, glib perhaps, but right. Very well. His love life was fine so far as I know. He’d married Ailsa only about two years before he died. They seemed happy.”

“Ailsa?”

“My stepmother. Ridiculous concept for grown people — my father’s second wife. My mother and Susan’s died when we were children. We’re twins by the way, although we’re not alike. Susan’s dark like our father.” I nodded to show that I was following him.