Under a Watchful Eye(47)

‘You said earlier this was twelve years ago. The last time you saw him?’

‘That’s right. So I thought I’d find out what he wanted, and I hoped to encourage him to leave me alone. But he stayed. He became drunk. He was already half-cut when he arrived, but he carried on drinking. It got late.’

‘This was the first night, Sunday?’

‘Yes. He wouldn’t leave when I asked him to. He then suffered this terrible fit. I mean, it was awful. I thought he’d died. I’d never seen anything like it. And I didn’t have the heart to eject him after that, so he stayed for a second night.

‘I was at a loss as to what to do. Should I call you, an ambulance, or some department in Social Services? He was suffering from fits, using drugs, virtually homeless, an alcoholic. I offered to pay for a room for him but he refused. And that’s when we had our biggest disagreement, that second night. A massive row. There were several leading up to it, in fact, because of the outrageous demands that he was making. I just couldn’t get rid of him while he laboured under this assumption that he could just occupy my home and force me to write a book for him, as he sat around getting pissed. It just made me see red.’

‘You never called us.’

‘I thought . . . that I could deal with the situation myself. It was also embarrassing. I didn’t really want to draw attention to it. But the general aim of his visit was to extract assurances that I would help him. Then came the demands for money. He’d been through my personal financial records to find out what I was worth.’

‘I see. Did these disagreements ever become violent?’

Seb flushed hot then cold, and then hot again when he knew that the detective had seen his reaction. He thought of the scuffle up on Berry Head, and of the potential subcutaneous bruising on Ewan that might have been caused by the tussle. ‘A bit, yes. Early yesterday morning. I finally got him out of the house in the early hours, and chased him off into the nature reserve. There was some pushing at one point, and . . . Afraid I am no fighter, but it did become ugly at one point. This was after he demanded money from me. I’m afraid the red mist just fell again at that point.

‘He knocked me down. Despite his lifestyle, he was still bloody strong. And then he ran off. That was the last time I saw him, early yesterday morning. He went back to my place to fetch his bags. I didn’t want to stay at home after what had happened, so I took the room in Torquay and had the locks changed at home. From what you’ve told me, he obviously headed to this B&B in Paignton, and . . .’

The detective nodded, in what might have been agreement, because he’d probably already checked on Seb’s whereabouts with the staff at the Commodore Hotel. Seb hoped that the detective had done so too, because the hotel’s security cameras would reveal that he’d never left the hotel premises last night, and couldn’t possibly have killed Ewan in a guest house in the next town in the bay.

‘You don’t know where he was staying before he arrived in the area?’

‘I have no idea. He was very selective about what he told me. He liked to be enigmatic, you know, about himself, and where he’d been. But I had the impression he’d been involved in something unpleasant, some kind of group. He was reluctant to talk about it. I don’t know any more because he never gave me any details. Nothing, in fact. I think he’d just run out of options, so he came looking for me. He knew about the success of my books. That was my general impression of his motives.’

The officer nodded again, his eyes thoughtful, but otherwise inscrutable. ‘That’s very similar to what his mother said this morning.’

‘She must be getting on.’

‘Eighty-eight. But she hadn’t seen the deceased for three years. She said her son was studying. She couldn’t tell me much more. The only time she ever heard from him, he would ask her for money. It’s odd, but it was my impression that she was a bit wary, or even frightened of her own son. But she’ll have someone take care of the funeral arrangements, and she doesn’t want his effects sent back to Manchester.’

Seb thought of the two bin bags full of paper. He imagined them being hoisted into the back of a rubbish truck and he felt a wild and vindictive desire to laugh out loud. When the feeling passed, he considered it incredibly sad that Ewan’s jumble of paper, his great work, which was destined to change the very perception of the world, should suffer such a fate. The sum total of Ewan’s life, and his literary delusions, were going to a landfill or recycling plant. As was any recorded evidence of the reckless but remarkable things that he had actually achieved. It was a postscript that Seb would have struggled to invent in one of his own stories.

The detective checked through the shorthand notes on his pad. ‘I’m also going to assume he’d worn out his welcome with anyone else he knew. Anyway, there’ll be an autopsy to confirm cause of death, and we have his old medical records now. But unless anything else shows up, I doubt we’ll be in touch again. Thank you for identifying the body.’

The officer stood up. ‘Are you all right? We can recommend counselling for victims of this sort of thing.’

‘No, thank you. It’s all left me a bit dazed . . . I’m not entirely sure how I feel.’

‘That’s quite normal. Even a bit of guilty relief that it’s over, eh?’ The police officer smiled faintly, but knowingly. ‘I’ll have someone drop you back to the hotel.’