A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale

and Barnaby’s arrest had been horrible and seen Pendeen in turmoil. As was often the way with a young death, Lenny’s was labelled a tragedy, with that glib overstatement that brooked no correction, and public response had been correspondingly fulsome, with a spontaneous shrine set up on the railings of the village school. So many flowers and photographs and cards were left that there was soon no room to attach anything else to the railings and a kind of tide of them enveloped the pavement as well so that pedestrians were obliged to cut out into the road to pass by. Lenny in death stood for all youth, so that children too young ever to have known him were encouraged to add to the offerings. Candles were left, and nightlights and the scene after dark took on more than ever the aspect of a site of holy significance, with solemn-faced boys and girls keeping vigil there, reading the messages, photographing the flowers and flickering lights with their mobile phones. Some wept openly. Some hugged their friends. Occasionally, as Barnaby passed, there would be music there, from a phone or guitar or just unaccompanied voices. His daughter, Carrie, told him there was a similar scene in Penzance. The old ladies in Lenny’s block rarely saw such excitement and were tending cut flowers, trimming candles and even occasionally serving refreshments like so many practical nuns in attendance at the tomb of a saint.
    Meanwhile Barnaby had been demonized in the local then the national press as the Vicar of Death, who had done nothing to help a young man dying. One tabloid even suggested he had brought along the means of Lenny’s suicide. The press’s worst was swiftly done and it soon lost interest in what seemed a story without future. But the local effects of what was printed rumbled on. Human excrement had been left on their doorstep and rubbed on the door handles of both churches and, after a nasty moment where a petrol-soaked rag was pushed through the letter box, setting fire to the thick old curtain that had always hung there, Dot had set up a continental-style external mail box and nailed the letter box shut with a length of plank. Luckily they had still been downstairs when the fire was started and had put it out with an extinguisher Barnaby had not known they possessed. The taint of burnt cloth still haunted the house days later.
     
     
    More shouting followed. The coroner waited for the fuss to abate on its own, then said she would clear the room of everyone but the required witnesses if there were any further interruptions.
    ‘How did he seem to you when you arrived?’ she asked.
    ‘Cheerful. He had just been for a walk in the sunshine. I mean—’
    ‘We know what you meant.’
    ‘He had just taken himself out in the sunshine in his chair, along the front. I got there a little before him and he seemed calm and relaxed.’
    ‘What happened then?’
    ‘We went inside together and talked and it was then he told me he couldn’t go on, that he couldn’t see the point of going on. I argued with him. I think I reminded him how many people loved or admired him. I certainly suggested his despair would pass. He …’ Remembering the scene, the dazzlingly sunny little room, the blare of bands and thump of drummers from the distant parade and Lenny’s deep, soft voice and the quiet triumph with which he had suddenly said, ‘Not long now,’ Barnaby became dizzy and had to grip the back of the chair in front of him.
    ‘There’s no need to stand,’ the coroner said. ‘You’re not on trial. Please. Sit. Here,’ and she reached, with unwitting irony, to pour him a tumbler of water.
    ‘Go on when you’re ready,’ she said. ‘What happened next?’
    ‘I thought it was simply water in his glass,’ he said, ‘Until he suddenly drained it and pulled a face – I think it was bitter – and then he said … he said not long now . He told me he’d be dead within five minutes.’
    ‘So you rang for an ambulance.’
    ‘Not