But there was one snag. Local protest groups became vocal and unpleasant. Aware that it was on shaky ground, the council caved in and withdrew its planning permission, upon which the construction company understandably refused to pay the astronomic sum that had been negotiated. Several times in the years that followed Ronnie tried to persuade me to put up money for legal fees so that he could pursue the matter in the courts but, as always when he asked me to finance his projects, I refused, restricting my offer of support to maintenance and accommodation. But such proposals cut no ice with him. “You’re paying me to sit on my arse,” he would protest indignantly, and indeed I was. Yet somehow he got the cash together and fought the case, probably by offering the lawyers a slice of the action, which in those days was illegal. He won, but was dead before he could witness his triumph. It was in any case short-lived. No sooner had the court found in Ronnie’s favour than a hitherto mute lawyer rose to his feet and, revealing himself to be the arm of the Inland Revenue, collared every last penny of the spoils.

I have quoted Graham Greene a thousand times: childhood is the credit balance of the novelist. Ronnie liked to boast that he had never read a book in his life, including mine, but Greene’s dictum would have pleased him nonetheless. It was always Ronnie’s claim that without him I would have been nothing. And probably, in ways I prefer not to think of, he was right.

CHAPTER 1

In the small hours of a blustery October morning in a south Devon coastal town that seemed to have been deserted by its inhabitants, Magnus Pym got out of his elderly country taxicab and, having paid the driver and waited till he had left, struck out across the church square. His destination was a terrace of ill-lit Victorian boarding-houses with names like Bel-a-Vista, The Commodore and Eureka. In build he was powerful but stately, a representative of something. His stride was agile, his body forward-sloping in the best tradition of the Anglo-Saxon administrative class. In the same attitude, whether static or in motion, Englishmen have hoisted flags over distant colonies, discovered the sources of great rivers, stood on the decks of sinking ships. He had been travelling in one way or another for sixteen hours but he wore no overcoat or hat. He carried a fat black briefcase of the official kind and in the other hand a green Harrods bag. A strong sea wind lashed at his city suit, salt rain stung his eyes, balls of spume skimmed across his path. Pym ignored them. Reaching the porch of a house marked “No Vacancies” he pressed the bell and waited, first for the outside light to go on, then for the chains to be unfastened from inside. While he waited a church clock began striking five. As if in answer to its summons Pym turned on his heel and stared back at the square. At the graceless tower of the Baptist church posturing against the racing clouds. At the writhing monkey-puzzle trees, pride of the ornamental gardens. At the empty bandstand. At the bus shelter. At the dark patches of the side streets. At the doorways one by one.

“Why Mr. Canterbury, it’s you,” an old lady’s voice objected sharply as the door opened behind him. “You bad man. You caught the night sleeper again, I can tell. Why ever didn’t you telephone?”

“Hullo, Miss Dubber,” said Pym. “How are you?”

“Never mind how I am, Mr. Canterbury. Come in at once. You’ll catch your death.”

But the ugly windswept square seemed to have locked Pym in its spell. “I thought Sea View was up for sale, Miss D,” he remarked as she tried to pluck him into the house. “You told me Mr. Cook moved out when his wife died. Wouldn’t set foot in the place, you said.”

“Of course he wouldn’t. He was allergic. Come in this instant, Mr. Canterbury, and wipe your feet before I make your tea.”

“So what’s a light doing in his upstairs bedroom window?” Pym asked as he allowed her to tug him up the steps.

Like many tyrants Miss Dubber was small. She was also old and powdery and lopsided, with a crooked back that rumpled her dressing-gown and made everything round her seem lopsided too.

“Mr. Cook has rented out the upper flat, Celia Venn has taken it to paint in. That’s you all over.” She slid a bolt. “Disappear for three months, come back in the middle of the night and worry about a light in someone’s window.” She slid another. “You’ll never change, Mr. Canterbury. I don’t know why I bother.”

“Who on earth is Celia Venn?”

“Dr. Venn’s daughter, silly. She wants to see the sea and paint it.” Her voice changed abruptly. “Why Mr. Canterbury, how dare you? Take that off this instant.”

With the last bolt in place Miss Dubber had straightened up as best she could and was preparing herself for a reluctant hug. But instead of her customary scowl, which nobody believed in for a moment, her poky little face had twisted in fright.