Terry nodded in his friendly fashion.
"Mike's exaggerating," said Barry dismissively, fearing he was about to be made to look a fool. He had already suffered the humiliation of Glen's knowing looks and poorly disguised curiosity when he arrived. Now he turned his back on the newcomers and pushed the photographs of Amanda Powell under a sheaf of newspaper clippings.
Terry, who was largely insensitive to undercurrents of emotion unless they had a basis in paranoid schizophrenia or drug addiction, wandered over to where Barry was sitting while Deacon got to work on the microfiche monitor in search of newspaper files from May 1995. This was not an environment Terry knew, so it didn't occur to him to question why this fat, bug-eyed little man with his pernickety gestures should be closeted alone in the semidarkness of a large room. If he and Deacon were there, then, presumably, it was quite natural for Barry Grover to be there, too.
He perched on the side of the desk. "Mike told me you were the best in the business as we were coming up the stairs," he confided. "Says you've been trying to work out who Billy Blake was."
Barry drew away a little. He found the youngster's casual invasion of his work space intimidating, and suspected Deacon of putting him up to it. "That's right," he said stiffly.
"Billy and me were friends, so if there's anything I can do to help, just say the word."
"Yes, well, I usually find I work better on my own." He made sweeping gestures with his hands, as if to clear the desk of obstruction, and in the process uncovered an underexposed print of Billy's mug shot in which the eyes, the nostrils, and the line between the lips were the only clearly defined features.
Terry picked it up and examined it closely. "That's clever," he said with frank admiration in his voice. "No fuss means you can see what you're looking for." He picked up another similarly underexposed print and laid the two side by side. They were very alike, with only minor variations in the spatial relationships between the features. "That's amazing." Terry touched the second photograph. "So who's this geezer?"
Barry took off his glasses and polished them on his handkerchief. It was an indication of mental torment. He couldn't bear to have his painstaking efforts pawed by this shaven-headed thug. "He's a truck driver called Graham Drew," he snapped, moving the photographs out of Terry's reach.
"How did you know he looked like Billy?"
"I have his photograph on file."
"Jesus! You really are something else. You mean you can remember all the pictures you've got?"
"It would be irresponsible to rely on memory," Barry said severely. "Naturally, I have a system."
"How does that work?"
It didn't occur to Barry that the youngster's interest might be genuine. He assumed, because he had come with Deacon, that he was more sophisticated than he was and interpreted his persistent questioning as a form of teasing. "It's complicated. You wouldn't understand."
"Yeah, but I'm a fast learner. Mike reckons my IQ's probably above average." Terry hooked a spare chair forward with his foot and dropped into it beside his new guru. "I'm not promising anything, but I reckon I'd be more use helping you than helping him." He jerked his head towards Deacon. "Words aren't my thing-know what I'm saying?-but I'm good with pictures. So, what's your system?"
Barry's hands trembled slightly as he replaced his glasses. "On the assumption that Billy Blake was an alias, I'm working through photographs of men who have avoided police capture in the last ten years. One is looking," he finished pedantically, "for people who felt it necessary to change their identities."
"That's well brilliant, that is. Mike said you were a genius."
Barry pulled forward a folder from the back of the desk. "Unfortunately there are rather a lot of them, and in some cases the only record I have is a photofit picture."
"Why're the police after this Drew bloke?"
"He drove a cattle truck, containing his wife, two children, thirty sheep, and two million pounds of gold bullion onto a cross-channel ferry, and vanished somewhere in France."
"Shit!"
Barry tittered in spite of himself. "That's what I thought. The sheep were found wandering around a French farmer's field, but the Drews, the gold, and the cattle truck were never seen again." Nervously, he opened the folder to reveal prints and newspaper clippings. "We could go through these together," he invited, "and sort them into those that are worth a second look and those that aren't. They represent the hundred or so men sought by the police in nineteen eighty-eight."
"Sure," agreed the boy cheerfully. "Then what do you say to coming out for a drink with me and Mike afterwards? Are you game, or what?"
Deacon spun his chair round an hour later. "Oi! You two! Shift your arses! Come and read this." He cocked both forefingers at them in triumph. "If this isn't what made Billy go walkabout I'll eat my hat. It's the only damn thing in the news during the first half of May that makes a connection with what we've got already."
Mail Diary-Thursday, 11th May, 1995
NIGEL OFFERS SMALL CONSOLATION
FOLLOWING her divorce from restaurateur Tim Grayson, 58, Fiona Grayson is believed to have returned to her first husband, entrepreneur Nigel de Vriess, 48. According to her friend, Lady Kay Kinslade, Fiona is a frequent visitor to Halcombe House, Nigel's home near Andover. "They have a lot in common, including two grown-up children," said Lady Kay. She drew a discreet veil over the bitter divorce ten years ago when Nigel abandoned Fiona for a brief affair with Amanda Streeter, whose husband, James, later vanished with Ł10 million from the merchant bank that also employed Nigel de Vriess. "Time heals everything," said Lady Kay. She denied that Fiona is having money problems.
Nigel, who once described himself as "the man most likely to succeed," has had a checkered career. He made his first million by the age of thirty but, after disastrous losses in a failed transatlantic airline venture, he joined the board of Lowenstein's Merchant Bank in '85. He left in '91 "by mutual consent" after entering the computer software business through the purchase of Softworks, a small underfunded company with hidden potential. He renamed it DVS, recruited a new workforce with new ideas, and turned it round in four years to become a major player in the lucrative home computer market.
Less successful in love, Nigel has been married twice and his name has been linked to some of Britain's most beautiful women. But Fiona clearly remembers him more fondly than most. One of his ex-lovers, actress Kirstin Olsen, described him memorably as: "undersized, tight-fisted, and performs better on top." Kirstin Olsen's new romance is Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike Bo Madesen, voted "the sexiest hunk in the world" by readers of Hello! magazine.
Deacon read it aloud for Terry's benefit and chuckled when the boy laughed. "It probably serves him right, but I feel sorry for the poor bastard. He obviously didn't compensate Ms. Olsen adequately for the effort she put into her orgasms."
"Hell has no fury like a woman scorned," quoted Barry ponderously.
"I know that one," said Terry. "Billy taught it to me." He fell into his imitation of Billy's voice and declaimed theatrically: " 'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.' However, Terry, that doesn't mean fury as in anger, it means Fury with a capital Eff, as in the winged monsters sent by the gods to create hell on earth for sinners." He beamed at the two men and returned to his own mode of speech. "Billy reckoned they came after him every time he got pissed. It was one of his punishments, to have Furies claw at him whenever he was off his head."