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such a man should be sent to interview me, but I thought it would not be polite to raise an objection at the last minute. During the interview, however, the remarks he made were so insulting that I felt obliged to say something. I had no wish to force his resignation.’
    ‘Why did you refer to him by the name O’Brien when he was tried and convicted in the name of Hartley?’ the Banner reporter asked.
    ‘I did not wish to cause Hunter unnecessary embarrassment.’
    ‘His suggestions about your business connection with Bond were quite baseless?’
    ‘Quite baseless. As I told the police, I never heard of the man before in my life.’
    Lying on his bed and staring up at the stained, cracked ceiling, he realised that few people would believe that he had asked the question about Bond innocently, merely on the basis of Charlie’s research notes. Mekles had naturally considered the remark as a vicious personal attack, and had struck back. But how had he been able to strike back, where did his knowledge come from, how did he know the name of O’Brien? It was common, although not invariable, for members of the IRA to use another name, especially if they were engaged in dangerous work. The police had guessed that Hartley was an assumed name, but had made little attempt to trace his real one. What did it matter, when he was safe inside with a sentence of life imprisonment? He had quarrelled with his parents, and had left home. They had never got into touch with him while he was in prison, and if they had identified their son with the man accused of murder in Britain they had, typically, kept quiet about it.
    How, then, had Mekles learned the name O’Brien? When Anna had mentioned this very point he had asked, ‘Does it matter?’ But now, with knees up on the bed, he found himself mildly curious. Three men had been with him on the job – Craxton, Mulligan and Bert Bailey. They had known his real name, they had all done long stretches. But Mulligan had died in the war, and Craxton had been knocked over by a car and killed five years ago, just after doing a job. That left Bert Bailey – garrulous, stupid Bert Bailey with his whining voice and his interminable stream of hard-luck stories, which he even sprung on the police after his arrest. Could Bert Bailey be working for Mekles? It seemed unlikely and in any case, he repeated to himself as the small spark of curiosity died, what does it matter? Bill O’Brien, alias Bill Hartley, alias Bill Hunter, alias William Smith, he said to himself, you are worrying about something that is no longer any concern of yours. Worn out by the strain of so much, and such depressing, thought, he fell into a light sleep.
    Waking, he felt a strangely exhilarating sense of freedom, with a small undercurrent of shame. Freedom: it was something, after all, to have the worst known and said, to have lost temporarily the fear of discovery that had been for years the motive force of his actions. He had committed a crime, he had spent years in prison for it, the offence had been paid for. What was he afraid of, then, why was he hiding like a rat in this stinking hole of a hotel? And the shame was complementary to this feeling, it urged him to start a new life without delay, since that was apparently what he wanted.
    Before that, though, he should finish with the old one. Having said goodbye to Anna, he should now say goodbye also to Charlie Cash. He went down to the gloomy lounge, telephoned Charlie and arranged to meet him in a Wilton Road pub. When he got there, Charlie was already at the bar.
    ‘I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, Bill. Anna said you’d left, she didn’t know where you were.’ He looked sideways down his long nose. ‘She’s taking it hard, Bill.’
    He shook his head irritably. ‘It’s better for Anna, as well as for me. We couldn’t go on.’
    ‘She doesn’t think that.’
    ‘It has to be, Charlie, it’s just a thing that has to be. I’ve got to make a fresh