roses in her cheeks and – thank God – her breathing had improved no end. Pauline, although she’d missed her family badly at first, seemed to like it here too, and so, on balance, did he. Of course, there were things he missed about West End Central – and, come to that, about Putney, where they’d lived – the people, the busyness of the place, the feeling of being at the epicentre . . . But, set against the biggest thing of all, they seemed trifling.
In the aftermath of the Davies and Backhouse cases, the suffocating weight of ‘if onlys’ had made him doubt his thoughts and instincts to the point where he seemed to be suffering from a sort of creeping mental paralysis which all too often gave rise to a jeering inner chorus of self-disgust. Geographical distance was,he knew, no substitute for mental distance, but it had certainly helped not to be seeing the same people – DI Stratton, DCI Lamb and the rest – every day. The constant I-know-you-know of guilty knowledge and the horror of 10 Paradise Street that lurked, unacknowledged and never discussed, at the corner of the station’s collective eye, had proved in the end too much. When he was offered the chance of transferring to the country, he’d accepted immediately, without waiting to consult Pauline. This, he realised afterwards, was wrong, but he’d done it unthinkingly, as a drowning man would grab at a lifebelt. Presenting it to her as a fait accompli, he’d argued that promotion meant more pay, which had gone down well, and the point about Katy’s welfare had gone down even better. When Pauline had advanced an argument of her own, that the healthier air of the countryside might help her conceive the second child she so desperately wanted, Ballard felt he was home and dry. The matter of a sister or brother for Katy didn’t bother him one way or the other, but as long as it remained at two children (still affordable) and didn’t become three or – God forbid – four, he didn’t really mind. He’d been sorry when Pauline’s second pregnancy, back in 1953, had ended in a miscarriage, but if he were honest his feelings had been more to do with concern for his wife’s grief than anything else. Since then, each month had brought more disappointment, and, as Pauline had made it clear that his attempts at reassurance were pathetically inadequate, he had for the sake of sanity closed his mind to the problem, reasoning that either they would have another baby, or they wouldn’t, and there was nothing – apart from the obvious – that he could do about it. And that was quite bad enough, thanks to the pamphlet Pauline had sent off for, with its helpful diagrams and instructions which had to be followed to the letter and made him feel more as if he were carrying out a medical procedure than participating in sexual activity.
The other good thing about being in the country was that, as now, he could occasionally nip home at lunchtime; such a luxury which would have been out of the question in London. Ballard lit a cigarette and stared past the angel to the church with its squat Norman tower and a fussy little porch – a Victorian addition, he thought – that was festooned with long rosters of the names of flower-arrangers, brass-polishers, linen-launderers and the like. To the left, he could see an ancient cottage, topped with dark, soggy thatch that sagged in the middle like an old and ill-bred horse, and beyond that, more fields. This morning, a piece of the past in the form of DI Stratton had telephoned, saying that he was coming to interview Ambrose Tynan. Good luck with that one, mate, thought Ballard. Tynan, he knew from experience, was the sort who insisted he didn’t want any special treatment and then raised merry hell if he didn’t get it. Ballard had arranged a car to collect Stratton from the station, and agreed to meet him for a drink in the George and Dragon in Lincott – conveniently, just a quarter of a mile from his house – in
In the aftermath of the Davies and Backhouse cases, the suffocating weight of ‘if onlys’ had made him doubt his thoughts and instincts to the point where he seemed to be suffering from a sort of creeping mental paralysis which all too often gave rise to a jeering inner chorus of self-disgust. Geographical distance was,he knew, no substitute for mental distance, but it had certainly helped not to be seeing the same people – DI Stratton, DCI Lamb and the rest – every day. The constant I-know-you-know of guilty knowledge and the horror of 10 Paradise Street that lurked, unacknowledged and never discussed, at the corner of the station’s collective eye, had proved in the end too much. When he was offered the chance of transferring to the country, he’d accepted immediately, without waiting to consult Pauline. This, he realised afterwards, was wrong, but he’d done it unthinkingly, as a drowning man would grab at a lifebelt. Presenting it to her as a fait accompli, he’d argued that promotion meant more pay, which had gone down well, and the point about Katy’s welfare had gone down even better. When Pauline had advanced an argument of her own, that the healthier air of the countryside might help her conceive the second child she so desperately wanted, Ballard felt he was home and dry. The matter of a sister or brother for Katy didn’t bother him one way or the other, but as long as it remained at two children (still affordable) and didn’t become three or – God forbid – four, he didn’t really mind. He’d been sorry when Pauline’s second pregnancy, back in 1953, had ended in a miscarriage, but if he were honest his feelings had been more to do with concern for his wife’s grief than anything else. Since then, each month had brought more disappointment, and, as Pauline had made it clear that his attempts at reassurance were pathetically inadequate, he had for the sake of sanity closed his mind to the problem, reasoning that either they would have another baby, or they wouldn’t, and there was nothing – apart from the obvious – that he could do about it. And that was quite bad enough, thanks to the pamphlet Pauline had sent off for, with its helpful diagrams and instructions which had to be followed to the letter and made him feel more as if he were carrying out a medical procedure than participating in sexual activity.
The other good thing about being in the country was that, as now, he could occasionally nip home at lunchtime; such a luxury which would have been out of the question in London. Ballard lit a cigarette and stared past the angel to the church with its squat Norman tower and a fussy little porch – a Victorian addition, he thought – that was festooned with long rosters of the names of flower-arrangers, brass-polishers, linen-launderers and the like. To the left, he could see an ancient cottage, topped with dark, soggy thatch that sagged in the middle like an old and ill-bred horse, and beyond that, more fields. This morning, a piece of the past in the form of DI Stratton had telephoned, saying that he was coming to interview Ambrose Tynan. Good luck with that one, mate, thought Ballard. Tynan, he knew from experience, was the sort who insisted he didn’t want any special treatment and then raised merry hell if he didn’t get it. Ballard had arranged a car to collect Stratton from the station, and agreed to meet him for a drink in the George and Dragon in Lincott – conveniently, just a quarter of a mile from his house – in
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