27
After the interview I stretched out on the bed in my police cell and went back to sleep. Sleep seemed to be the only way of getting through the next days, weeks, maybe years of my life. I’d done all I wanted to do in the interview. I realized it wasn’t exactly what I ought to have done and that I was a bit rude to the alleged rap artist cop in disguise, but I couldn’t help that. I was more sorry that I had to disappoint Mr Bethell.
Peter Bethell, he explained when he turned up rather to my surprise at the police station, was a ‘close personal friend’ of Orlando Wathen, the previous chair of SCRAP who was so puzzled by the causes of crime. I quickly discovered that the two shared a house together, so the relationship was altogether close and permanent.
Mr Bethell looked like a middle-aged schoolboy. He had a lock of brown hair, hardly tinged with grey, which fell untidily over his forehead. He had a ready grin which varied between the ingratiating and the cheeky. He spoke rather fast, sometimes as though the general excitement of entering prison and talking to criminals was almost too much for him. He was, as I was to discover, a sort of criminal’s groupie. He spoke of the well-known felons he had defended, figures like Oscar Snell, the murderer who buried two extra bodies in a grave-yard, and Rory Baxter, the Bond Street bank robber, as though they were great stars of the stage and screen and he was their producer, or at least their agent. He was obviously delighted to meet me and thought he might also be able to turn me into a star. I’m afraid he was impressed by the fact that my dad is a bishop.
‘Of course it was a joke,’ he told me when we first met.
‘What was a joke?’
‘You taking your friend’s picture. Thirkell was your friend, wasn’t he?’
‘Once. Not recently.’
‘Anyway, you took away his picture as a prank, meaning to give it back to him, didn’t you?’
‘No, it wasn’t a prank. It was entirely serious.’
‘What do you mean, it was serious?’
‘It was a serious attempt to commit a serious crime. Unfortunately it turned out that I wasn’t very good at it.’
‘You’re not telling me you did it to get a share of 400,000?’
‘No, I’m not telling you that.’
‘Then for what?’
‘Because I wanted to really understand Terry. Because I wanted to feel what he felt. Because I wanted us to be really together. Because I love him. Oh, I know it sounds stupid.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘I don’t expect you to understand.’
‘Please don’t say any of that in the interview.’
‘Why not? It’s the truth.’
‘Oh, good heavens!’ He looked so boyish then that I felt sure he was going to come out with, ‘Oh gosh!’ but he went on, ‘If everyone I defended felt they had to tell the truth in interviews we wouldn’t get many of them off.’
‘I can’t help it. I just feel I’ve got to tell the truth and, what do they call it, the whole truth.’
‘For the moment, let’s keep your boyfriend, Terry, out of this. Where does he live?’
‘Notting Hill Gate. We live together.’
‘What’s he do? I mean what’s his job exactly?’
‘Thief.’
Mr Bethell looked as though he had walked through an open door which had then banged shut and struck him smartly on the head. He seemed surprised and pained. ‘Then for God’s sake let’s keep his name out of this,’ is what he said.
‘All right. I won’t mention Terry.’
‘I was talking to the detective sergeant . . .’
‘The rap artist.’
‘I don’t know why you call him that.’
‘Ask him. He’ll know.’
‘We won’t bother about that. He says you came with two other people, who drove away.’
‘I’m not going to answer any questions about them.’
‘Were they thieves as well?’
‘I’m not going to tell anyone about them.’
‘Men of bad character, perhaps, who forced you to help them steal the picture?’ Once again, as at the start of our conversation, Mr Bethell looked suddenly hopeful.
‘It’s just me that’s responsible for all this. I’m not blaming anyone else.’
‘The police would be grateful if you gave them some names.’
‘I’m not naming names. Not for the rap artist or anyone. I’m not going to get anyone else into trouble.’
Mr Bethell’s spirits sank. Once again he looked like a schoolboy who’d been told that he’ll be off sweets at least for a week.
‘When this interview’s over,’ he said, ‘I’ll have a word with your father, the bishop. I’m sure he’ll have some sensible advice to give you.’
‘Oh please,’ I begged him, ‘don’t drag Dad into this. He’s had quite enough to worry about, what with the way God’s been behaving lately.’
It was then they called us for the interview and I was determined to irritate the rap artist at least as much as I’d managed to irritate poor Mr Bethell, who, after all, was only trying to help me out of a hopeless situation.