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far as I was concerned.’
    ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘There was one of our group. Alan Shepherd. Always wanted to push things further. The most extreme of all of us. He talked about doing something like that. Really up for it. We argued, said it wasn’t the way forward. Next thing we know, the pub’s gone up. And Alan’s disappeared.’
    ‘So it was him?’
    Whitman took another mouthful of drink. ‘We always assumed he was behind it and that he’d been caught up in the flames. We never heard from him again.’ Another sigh. ‘And we were blamed. That was the turning point for me. I left soon afterwards.’
    ‘And that was when the phone calls started?’
    He nodded.
    ‘To all of the Hollow Men or just you?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’d cut ties with them by then.’ He sat back. ‘So you see why I couldn’t go to the police.’
    Peta nodded. She sensed there was more; that Whitman wanted to open up. She waited.
    ‘I assumed that those calls were from a member of the dead copper’s family,’ he said. ‘His brother, I thought.’ He shook his head, back in the past. ‘Very distressing. Abusive. Late at night. Presumably when he’d been drinking. I know they made me drink.’
    ‘Saying what?’
    ‘Saying … I should never relax. That they would never forget or forgive me for what I had done. That one day, when I had forgotten, they would be there, waiting for me.’
    ‘And you did nothing?’
    ‘Yeah, I did. I moved away. Changed my phone number. Got a new life. The calls stopped then.’
    He took another drink.
    ‘Anyway,’ he said, waving his hand wearily as if trying to dismiss the memory, ‘it’s all in the book.’
    ‘And the calls stopped until recently?’
    He nodded.
    ‘And what did you do then?’
    ‘I knew I had time owing at the university, asked for a sabbatical, planned a trip up here to coincide with the book launch. Phoned Lillian. And as luck would have it, she mentioned you. Not a detective as such, and perhaps that’s the appeal. No cop vibe.’ Another drink. The bottle had been drained. ‘So that’s it. What d’you think?’ Whitman leaned forward, tried to hide the desperate edge in his voice. ‘You want to take me on?’
    Peta looked again at him. His earlier suave demeanour all but disappeared. In its place was a fidgety, anxious-looking middle-aged man. Very un-rock ’n’ roll.
    Peta looked at her sparkling water. The bubbles were rising, breaking on the surface, disappearing. Condensation had formed on the outside. She stroked her finger slowly down it, feeling the cold wet tingle it left. A tiny thrill went through her.
    ‘I’ll need your complete cooperation. Don’t withhold anything. If I ask you a question I want a straight and honest answer. Right?’
    He nodded. ‘Right.’
    Peta rummaged around in her handbag, produced her notebook. ‘Good. So these calls you’re getting now. Where do they come to? Home? Mobile?’
    ‘Both.’
    ‘Right. And what was the name of the policeman who died?’
    ‘George Baty. It’s all in the book. A matter of public record now.’
    She wrote it down. ‘As good a place as any to start. Now,what about other people? Contacts, friends. From the old days, perhaps?’
    ‘I don’t know … I don’t think so.’
    ‘The Hollow Men were based up here, right? In Newcastle?’
    Whitman nodded.
    ‘Any of them still around?’
    He shrugged, head back under the shade of the umbrella where Peta couldn’t read his face. ‘I don’t keep in touch with any of them. Only one that I know of. Abdul-Haq.’
    ‘The radical Islam guy? He was a Hollow Man?’
    Whitman nodded. ‘Changed a bit since I last saw him. Couldn’t have been more surprised when I saw him on the news.’
    She pushed her notebook and pen over to him. ‘Give me a list of the rest. If there are any still up here I can talk to them, see if anything jogs a memory.’
    He smiled. ‘I can do better than that.’ He reached down to the side of the table, produced a