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jacket. His fingers slid into position just as the old man looked over his shoulder. He didn’t show a hint of recognition. Just a faint glow of surprise.

6
    ‘Does the name Peter Henderson mean anything to you?’ asked Anselm, documents in hand. ‘Philosopher. A regular on the
Moral Maze
. Radio 4.’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘He was once billed as a new voice in search of a new morality: someone trying to find a modern classification of right and wrong that doesn’t appeal to the failed systems of the past. That’s what he said in the
Radio Times
, anyway.’
    ‘I like him already.’
    ‘You’re not alone.’ Anselm held up a photograph taken from a university website. ‘He’s based at University Campus Suffolk where he holds a Chair in Contemporary Ethics. Prior to that he was at Cambridge. Speaks with a refined vocabulary that often hides the unsettling implications of his argument.’
    And when it didn’t, he wouldn’t flinch from politely desecrating people’s sensibilities. Anselm had once heard him outline the circumstances in which the torture of children may well be a moral obligation. He’d brought the same challenging candour to a number of other questions … political assassination, animal rights, global warming, terrorism…
    ‘He’s a sort of Jack Bauer of the Academy,’ postulated Anselm. ‘Only he doesn’t shout and shoot. He just quietly thinks. But the conventionally minded are scared rigid of what he might say next.’
    ‘Jack Bauer? You’ve seen
24
? In a monastery?’
    ‘No. Someone told me about him.’
    Anselm walked to a cork noticeboard on the wall and pinned up the photograph. Stepping back, he appraised the man’s features: a high, rounded forehead; black, unruly hair; dark stubble; hungry eyes; a confident smile.
    ‘I recognise the face,’ said Mitch. ‘I don’t remember why.’
    ‘Maybe because he ended up on the front page for his behaviour rather than his ideas.’
    Anselm remained standing. He’d mastered his brief. The facts were straightforward.
    ‘A few months back he was in the BBC studio in Manchester for a recording of the
Moral Maze
. One of the other panellists quipped that making an appeal to Peter Henderson’s conscience was rather like searching for Atlantis. It might not exist. Ordinarily, the soft-voiced philosopher would have hit back with some cleverness. But not this time. He stormed out of the studio.’
    Fate or chance – explained Anselm, authoritatively – has a way of goading the man who’s ready to fall. Gives him an otherwise innocent nudge to push him over the edge. It can be anything … a pencil that snaps on touching the paper … a diligent traffic warden … a tube of toothpaste without a cap. In Peter Henderson’s case, a few of them lined up to bring him crashing down, acting in concert with a sort of malicious delight.
    ‘He was striding towards the station when his passage was blocked by council workmen replacing some brick paving outside a baker’s shop. He couldn’t get round immediately because the remaining section of pavement was occupied by a pushchair and a young mother who’d dropped her shopping bag, spilling the contents everywhere. On the road itself an articulated vehicle was making a delivery. So he had to wait. According to one of the lads with a shovel, Peter Henderson swore violently and then his eye latched onto a boy who was watching him from inside the baker’s. Two customers testified that a staring contest ensued with Peter Henderson glaring through the window in an aggressive and threatening manner. If only the HGV had pulled away at that moment. If only the young mother had parked her pushchair just a little to one side. Peter Henderson would have walked to the station and taken the next train to London. As it is, he snapped and was taken, in due course, to the Crown Court.’
    Anselm came over to the table and picked up a newspaper report.
    ‘He was brought before Her Honour Judge Moreland. A friend of