Alan Conway had been married. He’d had a child with his wife, Melissa, but six months after the publication of Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, he had come out as gay, the two of them had divorced and eventually she’d moved to Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire. For at least one year during their relationship, Alan had taken to using rent boys. He’d picked them up in London in the early days of the Internet, when cards in telephone boxes were slowly being phased out. My dinner companion had been one of them.

James had spared no details telling me about their time together – the sex, the surreptitious travel to France and the USA. I’d actually found his shamelessness quite endearing. Alan had employed James as his ‘researcher’ and I’m sure all the money he was paying – effectively for sex – he had claimed as a tax-deductible expense. After the divorce, James had moved in with him, although the twenty-year age gap hadn’t made things easy for either of them. James Fraser, who turned up in the fourth novel as Pünd’s sidekick, was based on him; a slightly kinder portrait than the one Conway had inflicted on me. He had appeared in every book until the end.

We ordered our food. The champagne arrived and James told me about his new life in London. He had bought himself a flat in Kensington, which was where he had been living before. He travelled a lot. He’d had a series of affairs but now he was in a serious relationship with an older man, a jewellery designer. ‘He’s a bit like Alan, really. It’s funny how you always end up going back for more of the same.’ His partner, Ian, was encouraging him to settle down, to do something with his life, but he couldn’t decide what.

‘Did you know they’re making the TV series of the first Atticus Pünd?’ he told me.

‘When do they start shooting?’

‘They already have. They’ve got Sir Kenneth Branagh playing Atticus Pünd and I’m an executive producer!’ He beamed with pleasure. ‘I’m not in the first book, but if they make all of them, someone will end up playing me. I’ve suggested Ben Whishaw. What do you think?’

After the first course – and the food was delicious – I reluctantly steered the conversation back to Alan Conway. It was, after all, the whole point of the meeting. That meant giving him a quick rundown of everything that had happened since Crete. He had read about Cecily Treherne’s disappearance in the papers but it hadn’t made much of an impression on him. He was much more interested in Alan’s involvement in the original murder and when I told him the name of the victim, he took me completely by surprise.

‘I knew Frank Parris,’ he said.

‘How?’

‘How do you think, darling? He fucked me … quite a few times, as I recall.’

The tables at Le Caprice are quite close together and I noticed the couple eating next to us turn their heads.

‘Where?’

‘In London! He had a flat in Shepherd Market – not far from here, actually. I never liked having clients in my own space. I usually went to hotels. Nice and anonymous. But Frank wasn’t in the closet. Far from it! He’d take you to restaurants and clubs and show you off to his friends before he took you home.’

‘Why did he use rent boys?’

‘Because he could! Frank had a taste for young boys and he could afford to pay for them. He wasn’t into marriage and partners and all that … or maybe he was but he never admitted it. Anyway, he was quite kinky. It might not have been easy to find a partner who wanted to do the sort of things he liked.’

‘What sort of things?’

The words had slipped out before I could stop them but James wasn’t embarrassed. ‘Humiliation, mainly. Dressing up. A bit of bondage. I met quite a few men like that. Out to give you a bad time … ’

The people at the next table were listening with interest.

‘How did Alan meet him?’ I asked, deliberately lowering my voice and hoping he would do the same.

‘I don’t know exactly but it wouldn’t have been difficult. There were plenty of bars in London, or it could have been in one of those Chariots places. You know – a bathhouse. We actually had a foursome once – me and Alan and Frank and Leo. I’m talking about dinner, by the way! Not what you think! I got the impression that Frank was Alan’s spirit guide, if you like. Alan was still very unsure of himself, his sexuality, and Frank encouraged him along the way.’

‘Who was Leo?’

‘Another rent boy. Like me.’ James still hadn’t lowered his voice and I was aware of a certain hush at the other tables around us. I’m sure this wasn’t the usual sort of conversation you’d hear at Le Caprice. ‘A lot of us knew each other,’ he went on. ‘We didn’t exactly socialise, but it helped to know if there were any weirdos out there … pretty policemen, that sort of thing.’

‘Were you living with Alan at the time Frank was murdered?’

‘No. Not yet. Although we were seeing quite a bit of each other and Alan was already talking about us moving in together. We were actually away when it happened. We heard the news on the radio.’ He thought back. ‘I have to say, I was quite shocked. I mean, if Frank had been hammered to death in his London flat or in a backstreet in Soho, you wouldn’t have blinked. It would have just gone with the territory – particularly with his predilections. But in a posh hotel in the middle of the country … !’

‘Was Alan upset?’

That was more difficult to answer. ‘I wouldn’t say he was upset. No. But he was intrigued. He was on a book tour in Europe. You probably remember. Alan hated touring. That was the funny thing about him. He hated the people who loved his books. We were in France and Holland and Germany, and after it was all over he rented a villa in Tuscany for three weeks, up in the hills. It was a beautiful place.’

‘So when did he hear about the death?’

‘I heard about it on the radio and I told him. Anyway, he went round to the hotel almost as soon as we got back – not because he gave a toss about Frank Parris, but because he thought he might be able to use it in his next book.’

The second course came. Steak for James, Dover sole for me. As I watched the waiter expertly slicing away with two knives, it occurred to me that in a way he and I were doing exactly the same thing: separating the flesh to find the bones underneath. The only difference was that he would discard them. I needed them to make sense of what had happened.

‘The thing is that Alan was stuck,’ James went on. ‘He was in a foul mood in Tuscany. The first two books had done brilliantly. He was already well known and the money was pouring in. Well, of course, you’d know that, wouldn’t you. It was mainly thanks to you. But the third book wouldn’t come.’

‘Not until he visited Branlow Hall.’

‘That’s right. He actually took a room and stayed there a couple of nights, although there was hardly any need as he only lived twenty minutes away and he was quite nervous he was going to run into Melissa.’

‘Why?’ I was puzzled. ‘I thought she’d moved to Bradford-on-Avon.’

‘No. That was later. After they split up and sold their house in Orford, she wanted to stay close for a while. I don’t know why. Maybe she just needed time to work things out. So she rented a house that was actually right next to the hotel. In fact, there was a gate at the bottom of her garden and it led into the grounds.’

So Melissa had been on the scene too! I filed the information away for later.

‘That never happened, thank goodness,’ James went on. ‘You have to remember that she knew he was gay but nobody else did. He hadn’t come out yet and he hadn’t told anyone about me! Did you know about him?’

‘No! I only found out when I read about it in the newspapers.’

‘Well, that was Alan for you. Anyway, he spent three or four days there and I knew he’d got the story for his book because when he came back he was in a great mood and he said he’d spoken to loads of people and knew what he was going to write.’

My ears pricked up at that. ‘Do you know who he spoke to?’

‘Everyone!’ When James had come in, he had been carrying a plastic shopping bag that he had dumped on the floor, under the table. Now he picked it up and showed it to me. ‘I’ve brought everything I could find. There are photographs, notes, memory sticks … some of them with recordings. There may be more stuff at the house. If I find anything else, I’ll let you know.’

‘That’s fantastic, James. Thank you.’ I was actually very surprised. ‘I didn’t think you’d have kept his old papers.’

James nodded. ‘I wasn’t going to,’ he said. ‘When I sold the house I was going to chuck it all out. You have no idea how much of it there was. For a start there were hundreds of books. Nine titles in thirty languages!’

‘Thirty-four,’ I corrected him.