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born in London. His father was English, his mother Canadian. When he was two the family had moved to Vancouver. That was in 1927. In 1938 they had returned to England, the father having been appointed London representative of the Canadian firm he worked for. On the outbreak of war a year later, George Braddock, then a boy of fourteen and their only child, had been evacuated to Canada. For the next four years he’d lived with his aunt, a Mrs Evelyn Gage, on a ranch in northern B.C. ‘A lonely sort of place out on the old Caribou Trail,’ Lane added. ‘And Evie had just lost her husband. She was alone there except for the stockman. She’d no children of her own and … well, I guess it’s the old story. She came to regard young George Braddock more or less as her own son, particularly after his parents were killed. They died in the bombing – a direct hit on their flat. Now this is where I come into it. When the boy went off to join the Army she made a Will leaving everything to him “in love and affection for the boy who was like a son to me” – those are the actual Words. She died last year, aged seventy-two and that Will still stands. She never made another.’
    â€˜And you’re trying to break it?’ Money, I thought – this smooth-faced, hard-eyed little man’s whole life was money.
    â€˜Well, wouldn’t you? Evie was my wife’s aunt, too – by marriage; and the ranch alone is worth a hundred thousand dollars. And the boy never wrote to her, you see. All that time. It’s taken lawyers six months to trace the guy. They thought at first he was dead.’
    So that was it. Because the fellow hadn’t written … ‘It doesn’t occur to you, I suppose, that Braddock might not be interested in a ranch in Canada.’
    â€˜There’s more to it than the ranch – around a quarter of a million dollars.’ He gave me a tight little smile. ‘You show me the man who’ll turn down that sort of money. Unless there’s some very good reason. And in Braddock’s case I’m convinced there is. He’s scared of it.’ He got to his feet. ‘Now then. You draw me a portrait of your brother and then I’ll leave you. Draw it as you think he’d look now. Okay?’
    I hesitated, my mind a confused mixture of thoughts.
    â€˜I’ll pay you for it.’ He pulled out his pocket book. ‘How much?’
    I damn near hit him then. What with his suspicions, the stupid allegations he’d made, and then offering me a bribe. ‘Fifty dollars,’ I heard myself say and even then I didn’t realise why I’d decided to take his money.
    I thought for a moment he was going to haggle over it. But he stopped himself in time. ‘Okay, fifty it is.’ He counted five ten-dollar bills on to the table. ‘You’re a professional. I guess you’re entitled to your fee.’ It was as though he were excusing himself for being too open-handed.
    But when I came to draw it, I found it wasn’t so easy. I started the first rough in black with a brush, but it was too strong a medium; you need to have your subject clear in front of your eyes. And when I switched to pen-and-ink it required too much detail. In the end I used an ordinary pencil, and all the time he stood over me, breathing down my neck. He was a chain-smoker and his quick panting breath made it difficult to concentrate. I suppose he thought he’d be more likely to get his money’s worth if he watched every pencil stroke, or maybe it just fascinated him to see the picture emerge. But my mind, going back, searching for the likeness I couldn’t quite capture, resented it.
    It didn’t take me long to realise that time had coloured my memory. Iain’s features had become blurred and in that first rough I was emphasising what I wanted to remember, discarding what I didn’t. I scrapped it and started again. And