*What do you mean by that?' I asked, sceptical, surprised.

*Just that,' he said. *I've always been the villain, the rogue, the womaniser. That's what the papers said, that Nancy was the devoted wife, pregnant and loyal. And that picture they sometimes use, you know, the one taken at some garden party, where she's laughing as she tries to hold on to a straw hat, caught by the wind,' he scoffed. *A real English rose, don't you think?'

*There's a problem,' I countered, and I nodded towards Susie, who looked at the floor, embarrassed. *You were a womaniser.'

He took a deep breath and sat up in his chair. He pointed his finger at me, the tip crooked. *That does not make me a murderer,' he said, stressing every word. Then he sat back with a slump and exhaled loudly. He looked at the ceiling as he spoke, his voice quieter now. *I've had plenty of time to reflect, Mr Garrett. Twenty-two years, so I know how I behaved, and I don't care what you think. Yes, I was selfish, a drunk and a flirt, had affairs, but, despite what you think of me, I loved my wife dearly.'

*And Susie?' I asked. *Did she mean so little to you?'

He looked towards her and smiled, his beard creasing. *It's not about Susie, any of this,' he said. *Back then, Susie was just a good time I once had. I know that sounds cruel, but it wasn't meant to turn out like this. We've talked about it, and things are different now.'

As he turned back to me, I raised my eyebrows.

*Don't judge me,' he said, shaking his head. *It is possible to hurt someone you love. And I know I was hurting Nancy, because when I went home and looked into her eyes, I saw a woman I still loved dearly, who was beautiful and who was fun, and who still loved me back.'

*And what do you think she saw in your eyes?' I said. *Betrayal?'

He slammed his hand on the chair, sending up a small dust cloud and making me jump, a deeper flush to his cheeks now. I didn't say anything. I let the silence hang there, wanting to hear things his way. He took a few deep breaths, and then he held up his hand in apology. *Nothing you can say will change anything. I was in the wrong and so I don't blame Nancy. I was never there. I was either working or drinking, and when I was at home, I was always too tired to be a proper husband, if you know what I mean.'

*And gambling?'

He nodded. *That too,' he said, and then he broke into a smile. *I was in a lean spell, and so I had to keep on working to earn the stake money.'

*And while you were watching the cards turn at the casino, Nancy was home alone, in that big house?'

Gilbert nodded, his eyes filled with regret. *She was a passionate woman, and she had needs, I realise that now. And because I wasn't around to fulfil them, she went looking elsewhere.'

That surprised me. *What do you mean?' I asked.

*What do you think I mean?' he said, and he leant forward again, his arm resting on his knee, his eyes boring into mine. *Nancy was pregnant when she died, everyone knows that,' he said. *It's what has kept me in the papers, that I buried my pregnant wife alive. But I am going to tell you something that has not appeared in any newspaper I've read, so listen well, because this will make your story unique.'

I looked over at Susie, who was watching intently, her bag perched on her knees. I nodded to let him know that I was ready.

He spoke clearly, slowly, just to make sure that I understood. *The baby was not mine.'

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Gilbert nodded, a look of triumph on his face. *You heard me right,' and he pointed at my notepad. *Write it down: she was pregnant with another man's child.' He became more animated. *You haven't seen that in the papers, have you?' he said, his finger jabbing at me.

I shook my head slowly. *How can you be sure?'

He laughed, but it was bitter and short. *Shall we just say, Mr Garrett, that we weren't straining the bedsprings too often back then? Oh, there were moments, when Nancy felt needy, or after too much wine, but they were weeks apart. I remember that I was surprised that we could have conceived, but still, it was life-changing, or so I thought. My child, my heir. Why would I think that it was another man's child?' He shook his head. *It was the scan that made me suspicious, that the expected date of the birth didn't seem right, didn't fit in with when we had last been in bed together. And then Nancy changed. She became more withdrawn, cold. I don't know what her plan had been, whether she had always known that it wasn't mine, or whether she was just unsure, but then one day she sat me down and told me the news, that the baby couldn't be mine, that she was carrying another man's child.' He licked his lips again. *Can you imagine how I felt?'

*Angry,' I said, before I had the sense to stop the words. His eyes narrowed and he scowled at me. *So whose baby was it?' I asked.

He sat back, a sour expression in his eyes. *A cheap little man, an insurance broker of all things. He did the neighbourhood rounds in his nasty double-breasted suit. This was before internet payments, when the insurance man would call at the house. He must have caught Nancy in a weak moment.'

*Or a lonely one,' I said. *Or do you prefer your competitors to be as well educated as you?'

*She was no Lady Chatterley,' he quipped back. *Mike Dobson was his name.'

I scribbled it down and then asked, *So what did you do when you found out?'

He stroked his beard again, some of his anger dissipating. *I did what all weak men do,' he said. *I ran away. I knew someone with a small lodge in the Lake District, and so I spent a few days there. I did some walking, the clear air did me good, and I drained a few whisky bottles, which didn't. I just didn't know what to do. People are different now. Men are different. They weep at everything, from football matches to princesses they have never met, and we have become a nation that pins flowers to road signs.' He grimaced. *Back then, I felt like I had lost everything. I couldn't face my friends, didn't know what to do. I was angry and, yes, I wanted to hurt Nancy, but not physically, you understand, just emotionally. So I struck at her in a way that made sense to me.'

*You made her poor?' I guessed.

He nodded and smiled. *You have me worked out already, don't you, Mr Garrett? I went to my bank, withdrew all my money and headed for France.'

Susie took hold of his hand, cradling it gently in her palm.

*I almost jumped, you know, when I was on the ferry,' he said quietly, looking at Susie. *France was getting nearer and I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there. So I stepped onto a railing, and I was ready to go, but I was even too cowardly for that. I climbed down and slunk off into France. I caught the train south and rented a small house just outside Carcassonne.'

*What were your plans?' I asked.

He looked back to me and dropped Susie's hand. *I didn't have any. For a week, I drank wine and took long walks, and after a while things didn't look so bad. It's a beautiful part of the world, and it seemed a long way from Blackley. Our careers suck us in, make us feel that nothing else matters, but I felt like I had stepped away from it, and it was glorious. I had cash, I had sunshine, and I thought I had got some sweet revenge on Nancy-she couldn't pay the mortgage without me. I thought about roaming Europe for a while, maybe even going to Monte Carlo and blowing all I had in the casino, and then I could drink wine as her life fell apart. Let her bring up her little bastard in some rented hovel somewhere.' His eyes looked distant again. *Then, one day, I caught sight of a newspaper, and my face was on the front. My French wasn't brilliant, but I knew enough to get the gist, that Nancy was dead, and that I was the chief suspect. That's when my life changed.'

*So why didn't you hand yourself in?' I said.

*Because I was in a mess,' he said. *I had to deal with the shock of Nancy's death and how she died, and then when I thought about it, I knew how it looked. Wife found buried in the garden, a husband who emptied the accounts and ran? I knew the system, and anyone that does wouldn't trust it to save them. I would go to prison, I knew that, and I knew what sort of men were in there. A good advocate can convince a jury of almost anything, and I would have been a high-profile catch.' He gave a rueful smile. *At the time, it made sense to keep on running.'

I glanced at Susie, and saw that she was staring at him, as if his story caused her personal pain. Perhaps she felt some guilt that she had encouraged his lifestyle, as if she were complicit in some way.

*Where did you go next?' I asked. *Where does all of this Josif Petrovic stuff come from, this human quantum energy thing?'

*Serbia,' he replied. *It was 1988 when Nancy died. The Iron Curtain wasn't even ruffled back then, and so I headed east and hid behind it. It was the perfect place for a runaway Englishman, because the authorities weren't too keen on helping out the Brits. I had some Yugoslavian contacts from university and so I was able to build a life over there. I was working in a tyre factory until the Berlin Wall came down, and when the Balkan Wars started, I had to go running again. I came back to England and reinvented myself as an expert in alternative therapies. There's always someone willing to buy a crystal or self-help tape, provided you package it correctly.'

*And human quantum energy?'

He looked at me carefully, as if he knew I was testing him.

*We all have a quantum energy field, like an electric field in our bodies,' he said. *It is what drives the electrons around our bodies, makes us feel good or bad. If you feel bad, you can overcome it by correcting the human quantum energy, taking it to a higher orbit. It fights stress and disease.'

I nodded, impressed. *That doesn't sound like a northern lawyer, all that mystic nonsense, but then lawyers are used to arguing a position they don't believe in. Paid bullshitters. Isn't that what most lawyers are?' He didn't respond, and so I asked, *When you look back, do you regret running?'

His eyes twinkled. *At first I did, but then I got a different life, even started to enjoy it. And do you know what, Mr Garrett, I had even started to think that I would never be discovered.' He rubbed his stomach and chuckled. *Getting out of shape gave me a disguise.'

*But what about your wife?' I asked. *You staying on the run meant that Nancy's killer stayed free.'

His laughter subsided, and then he sighed. *And me being in prison would have changed that?'

I made a note and then tapped my pen against my lip. I needed some more of the emotional angle.

*Do you ever think about her?' I asked. *About what Nancy went through?'

He folded his legs and pursed his lips so firmly that his mouth disappeared behind the bush of his beard. *Of course I do, Mr Garrett, every single day. Can you imagine it, being stuck in that hole, unable to get out, knowing you are going to die? You can only imagine how you would deal with it, but I knew Nancy, still loved her, and so in my head I hear her screams, her cries, her panic.' He tapped his head. *So you can see why I don't like to think of her too much.'

He watched me and stroked his beard. He seemed wary.

*You don't like me,' he said eventually.

*Am I obliged to?'

*I would feel better if you did.'

*I don't have to like you to write the story,' I said. *I should call the police, for Christ's sake, but I don't want to, because I'm curious, and because I'm a good reporter. I want to write the best story I can, but walking out of here and not calling the police puts me at risk of prison. Like you, I don't like the thought of someone's hairy hands holding me down in the middle of the night to whisper sweet nothings, and so excuse me if I don't join your fan club.'

He nodded. *I understand.'

*So where do I start?' I said. *If I'm going to prove your innocence, where shall I look first?'

*When I conducted a trial,' he replied, *putting another suspect before a jury helped, because jurors like playing detective.'

*I'm not risking prison to set up red herrings,' I said. *Call me pompous, but I'm not a lawyer, so I don't think purely of what can be proven in court. I am only interested in the facts, and in your case, innocence. I am not interested in whether someone can be fooled into finding you not guilty.'

His cheeks flushed again. *I'm not talking just about my innocence,' he said. *I'm talking about finding Nancy's murderer, and so to find the real killer you should look to the only other person who had something to lose by Nancy being pregnant.' He held out his hands. *Mike Dobson.'

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

I didn't feel like talking much on the train heading north. I just wanted to watch the English countryside fly past through grubby windows and reflect on how I might have just walked out on the scoop of the decade, all on the promise that Claude Gilbert would wait around while I looked into Mike Dobson.

Susie seemed to have different ideas though, and she recounted her days with Gilbert all those years ago, her voice low and her head dipped towards the voice recorder on the table in front of her, her face animated as she talked of their casino evenings and trips out of town whenever a trial took him away for a few nights. I had stopped responding though, just giving the occasional nod when I sensed a pause, her voice barely a distraction. Then a pause turned into silence.

I looked at Susie and realised that she had stopped talking. She was looking at me.

*What's wrong, Jack?'

I looked across, eyes wide with innocence. *Nothing.'

*There is,' she said, and reached across to pat my hand. *Tell me.'

*Like I said,' my voice sterner, *there's nothing wrong.'

Susie sat back in her seat and turned towards the window, although I could sense her eyes still watching me. I tried to look at the trackside golf courses and stretches of fields as we raced northwards, but I couldn't ignore Susie's gaze.

*What?' I said, trying to keep the irritation from my voice.

She smiled at me, a knowing look on her face. *Men like you end up killing themselves,' she said.

I scowled. *What are you talking about?'

*You know what I mean. Men like you, northern men, you just keep it all in, hold everything back until it turns into a poison and eats away at you. No one would laugh if you told them what was wrong.'

*Maybe Claude was right,' I said. When she looked confused, I added, *That we have turned into a nation of mourners, of emotional wrecks. What's wrong with keeping things to ourselves? And anyway, there's nothing to tell.'

*No, no,' she said softly. *I've met a lot of men like you.' She wagged her finger at me, playfully. *It seems like I've spent most of my life trying to change them, to open them up.'

*To like you?' I asked, cruelly.

Susie went red at that. *Yes, and to like me,' she said, traces of hurt in her voice. *You should try it, liking people.'

*I do like people,' I said. *That's why I'm a reporter, so I can meet people and tell their stories.'

*No, it's so you can observe people and comment on them,' she said, shaking her head. *It's nothing to do with liking them. And now you're taking it out on me because you're worried about losing your story, because you met Claude Gilbert and you let him go. Or is it just because you lash out when people get too close?'

I looked at her and thought that I didn't need Susie to tell me what had been going through my mind ever since we walked out of the flat. Then I felt guilty, because Susie hadn't gone all the way to London and back just for me to take it out on her. And because I knew she was right.

*I'm sorry,' I said. *I was just thinking about the story.'

*You need to think about your girlfriend too, and that little boy,' she said. When I frowned, she added, *Every time I mention them, you hunch up or put your hands in your pockets, all defensive.'

*Do I?'

Susie nodded. *You just need to tell her that you love her.'

I turned to look out of the window.

*Look, you're doing it again.'

*I'm not.'

*You are. The minute I said the word "love", you turned away to avoid the subject. Have you been hurt in the past?'

*What do you mean?'

*Are your parents divorced?'

I shook my head. *Both of my parents are dead.'

Susie nodded slowly and reached out to take hold of my hand. *Don't think that everyone will walk out on you. You won't get hurt every time.'

I looked at the veins standing up on the back of her hands, her fingers stained nicotine-brown, before I was rescued by the ring of my phone. I pulled my hand away and checked the number. It was Harry English.

I slipped out of the seat and headed for the vestibule between the carriages before answering. It was noisier, and I knew I would be interrupted by people walking along the train, but at least I was out of Susie's earshot.

*Hello, Harry.'

*How did you get on?' he said.

I looked out of the window and saw that the view had become more northern, the brickwork darker, the horizons spoiled by industrial units, away from the greenery of the Home Counties.

*I met him,' I said.