He held up his arm to arrest anything Maddox might have said in response.

  ‘The quality of your selection I have rarely been disappointed by. I, on the other hand, have had the curse of the diplomat to contend with. Bred into me, from the earliest age, and impossible, at least, until now, to relinquish. Formalised activity requiring you, at all times, to leave the space intact. Into it may enter anything the diplomat is obliged to consider. Obliged to receive,’ he went on, ‘and courteously acknowledge. Alienation, on the one hand, exclusivity, of a sort, on the other, “the man who is nowhere”, my father once called it, referring to his job. A rarefied combination, the two. Distance from everything at the same time as identification with the same. No such reserve, however, with me any longer.’ Calling the dog once more, ‘Jefferson! Jefferson!’ he concluded, characteristically, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘That kind of exclusivity,’ Maddox said, ‘I never had,’ adding, ‘not exclusively,’ waiting for Viklund to laugh: a sound, ‘Hah!’ came out briefly, his own thoughts, evidently, moving on.

  ‘There aren’t such barriers or spaces any longer,’ Viklund said. ‘If nothing else, technology has removed them. Messages,’ he went on, ‘expel themselves, no longer simply arrive, the pertinence of what’s transmitted no longer of account. Transmission,’ he paused, ‘has entered everything. We’re assailed, not, as only in the recent past, informed.’

  Maddox’s own thoughts, too, had moved on: something formalised in his response to Taylor which had scarcely if ever been there before, a reversion to their earlier relationship as tutor and student: a proximity to evil, of a clearly definable sort, left him bemused – suspended, atrophied, even – disinclined to consider it – what it was comprised of, what it entailed: something abstract, at this distance, overwhelming, which took – had taken – a specific physical form. The definitive nature of what he was confronting had never been more apparent, driving him back, mentally, to resources he suspected he’d never had: the shadow Taylor represented was the corollary of light – his light: forgiveness, toleration, the overriding of that which, uniquely, in his case, could scarcely be imagined, recalling the news feature the previous evening: entertainment, the fanfared introduction. Cynicism, regarding his motives, was, he reflected, creeping in on every side: a vicarious indulgence in feelings he could otherwise disown. Was it for this reason he’d visited Viklund? Was it for this reason he was walking with him now, anxious for a ‘line’ which might complement if not, more hopefully, displace his own?

  The park was where, recently, he’d been much inclined to walk himself, approaching it along the canal footpath from Camden Lock, a colourful route following the curve of the waterway, passing beneath low road and rail bridges and alongside a variety of converted barges, the smoke from their coke stoves reminding him of similar walks in the north of England, away at school, a recollection of industry and commerce, mixed inextricably with domesticity.

  The inner park, which they’d crossed into, Viklund finally resetting the dog on its lead, with its rose garden, artificial waterfall and lake, was where he was inclined to sit and reflect – invariably in a corner shaded by climbing roses strung along overhead rope structures, the formalised flower-beds, richly variant in colour, contrasting vividly with the asymmetrical contour of the lake, its surface laden with water fowl, fluttering and splashing, ducking and diving, the elegance of the swans, both black and white, vivifying the restlessness of the smaller birds.

  His thoughts were moving in the same contrasted fashion, perturbation of one sort in conflict with the staidness of the rest; that is, a feeling that the whole of his formalised existence was about to be overwhelmed, if not discarded – to the point where everything he had previously recognised, however tenuously, as ‘himself’ was to be dispensed with, as clinically, as involuntarily, as decisively as that plunge towards the line – impelled, this event, he reminded himself, by forces, or a force, not only beyond his control but foreign to his nature, something possessed of its own dynamic, indifferent to who or what or why or where or how he was.

  A final evaluation had been set determinedly in place.

  It was that final matter towards which his thoughts were now directed: something cool and hard, unplaceable, unapproachable: a figure, in one sense, emerging from a mist, in another, shrouded by a curtain, to be contained before unleashed, a creature, as yet, only to be imagined, there to be confronted, the precursor of worse, much worse, to come.

  His suggestion to Viklund they might sit was rejected by the older man, the dog straining backwards, leashed, dragging behind: a curt, ‘Jefferson!’ and it ran ahead, tugging rather than dragging. ‘Let’s walk. Keep moving. Imprudent thoughts, in that way, are inclined to go away. I often walk in this place,’ gesturing to the more open spaces confronting them, the path leading, to their right, towards the open-air theatre, a barricade of trees and shrubs concealing it from view. ‘You were saying you knew his wife as a student. I recall her. An anachronism at the Drayburgh, a healthy-looking figure. Felix had hopes for her as a painter. That I do recall. Much better, in that respect, than Taylor, I believe you said.’

  ‘That’s why she fascinated him, and why Taylor, bound up in theory, fascinated her.’

  ‘And still the conundrum. Why did he kill her? And their children.’ Glancing aside, he added, ‘And the nature of your involvement. Evidently with both of them, at separate times. On the other hand,’ his steps faltering as he decided, from several paths, which one they’d follow, ‘there was an extraordinary range of students, year on year, Felix’s theory being, with an annual intake of eighty, he could only reasonably expect six or seven to have any talent, selecting the rest on the basis of diversity, age, sex and background. “The in-filling”, he once described them. How many would that be? Seventy-three or – four. Always likeable, always fascinating, at least, at first sight. Army officers, graduates from other disciplines, misfits of almost every description. Out and out delinquents. Do you remember the Irish peer with his open-top Bentley? Artisans, clerks, schoolchildren. A unique collection, quite unlike any other institution. Rebecca, did you say? fitted in like a fist in a glove. Taylor, too. Very many said, later, it was the best period of their lives.’

  They were moving towards the exit from the inner park which, across a secluded road, led to a gate giving access to the larger lake and the vaster spaces beyond.

  To their right, from the distance, came the trumpeting of elephants at the zoo: late morning, midweek, there were few people about, Viklund releasing the dog from its leash once they’d crossed the road.

  Listening to the older man Maddox’s reflections had refocused: images of Taylor and Rebecca came to mind, walking, arms around each other’s waist, out of the Drayburgh, across the yard opening onto Gower Street; or, conversely, walking in, separately, on a morning, the taciturn expression of the Norfolk youth, a sturdy, square-shouldered figure, the open-faced expression of the girl, receptive, vulnerable, expectant, lips parted, she invariably wearing a smock or – the garment he remembered most clearly, endearingly, even – a large, loose-fitting, ex-army greatcoat.

  He was reminded, too, recalling his own solitary walks in the park, that he was finding it increasingly difficult to retain, for any significant length of time, his thoughts or feelings. Here he was, accompanied by someone he knew, respected, had long looked up to, someone whose deliberate obtuseness, arrogance, even, brought out reciprocal qualities in himself – his introducing, for instance, the nature – the content – of his relationship with Taylor, and particularly with his former student’s dead wife. The prospect of something immovable, impersonal – terrifying in its indifference – preoccupied him intensely, this the subject of many of his solitary walks along the path they were following – something to which he and Viklund were, in varying ways, irretrievably connected, something, he reflected, devoid of intimacy, tenderness, anything likeable, let alone lovable – anything, in short, that might be adhered to – something, in his own case, caught up with, defying, even, the illness for which the nightly dose of dothiepin was intended to be a palliative, if not a partial cure.

  ‘What do you think?’ He gestured aimlessly at the scene below: the curve of the path to their left, bordered on one side by recently planted flower-beds and, on the other, by an expanse of smoothly mown grass running down, past the bandstand, to the lake. A solitary rowing-boat left a jagged wake between the edge of the lake and the heron-nested island opposite.

  The vagueness of his enquiry had caused Viklund to smile: for the first time since entering the park he glanced at him directly.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he said, still smiling, ‘of how Masaccio said goodbye to God. Let’s keep, he might have said, to something that we know. Listen!’ He held up his hand to the sound of the elephants trumpeting in the distance. ‘No more metaphysics!’

  ‘Speculation doesn’t die,’ Maddox said.

  ‘Arrogance in promoting it gives way to irrelevance.’ Viklund waved his hand at the view. ‘We have too much to contend with. Let’s be satisfied with that.’

  ‘Consciousness, nevertheless, relates even to this.’ Maddox gestured at the bridge crossing the easterly extension of the lake, they turning towards it.

  ‘Ignore it.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘No point in doing otherwise, old fellow.’

  ‘It doesn’t ignore us,’ Maddox said. ‘Something overwhelming. Something, for instance, overwhelming me. Overwhelming Taylor. Overwhelming his wife. His children.’

  Viklund quickened his pace, as if the boat landing-stage at the far end of the lake was now his destination. His attention to the dog had faded and, as if sensing this, the animal desisted from roaming on either side and trotted at their heels.

  Unaccountably, Maddox was reminded of how Simone, after reducing the intervals between their appointments to a daily pattern, had suddenly extended them before finally declaring they were at an end, he suddenly aware, for the first time, that, unlike his supposition at the time that he was either on the mend or boring her, she was struggling against his attraction, a thought which, rather than amusing or pleasing him, disturbed him, a curious reaction, and a curious reflection in relation to the trees beneath which they were walking – a place where he had never walked with her, only alone – plane and chestnut for the most part. In the distance, beyond the lake, was the relatively treeless space stretching to the concrete structures of the bear enclosure at the zoo.

  How his ‘engagements’, as she called them, darted around, one moment caught up with Taylor, the next with her – the next with the ruffled surface of the lake, the movement of birds across it: the recollection of Rebecca crouched on a stool, drawing, in the mixed life-room at the Drayburgh, looking up, her gaze abstracted, as he signalled her from the door.

  A sense of sadness transposed to a feeling of dread, as if the ground were about to disappear beneath their feet: a naïve presentiment, yet something other than a naïve response, a transposition of an otherwise incommunicable activity within himself, a draining away, a removal, of every mental and physical resource, a degenerative force which he couldn’t otherwise describe, as if, in walking at a brisker pace, the older, slighter, almost childlike figure were walking him through, conducting him through, a mandatory exercise the inevitable consequences of which he knew in advance: adverse, painful, destructive.

  ‘I knew Rebecca well,’ he said, startled by the suddenness of his confession. ‘We were together for a while. Some months, in fact. Before she took up with Taylor. I’d visit her in her student hostel and, when she moved out, the visits becoming too conspicuous, in a room we rented.’

  Viklund said nothing, the dog still at his heels, concentrating, or so it seemed, on the goal ahead.

  ‘I withdrew, in the end, because of Charlotte. Because of Rebecca, too, of course. In addition to which, I was putting my job at risk. She had an abortion. Though I wasn’t altogether sure it was mine. We went to some trouble not to conceive.’

  ‘Did Felix know?’

  ‘I imagined he did. Though it could well be he didn’t. Other students must have known.’

  ‘How did you feel when it ended?’

  ‘Saddened. Grieved. Quite ill. She, too. It was shortly after that she took up with Taylor.’

  ‘On the rebound.’ An odd term, Maddox reflected, coming from him, sophistry, semantics more his style.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Did he know about you?’

  ‘I imagined he did. But then, I was inclined to imagine everybody did. A form of endorsement. “If everyone knows and is doing nothing, what on earth am I worrying about?” Inevitably, of course, I felt like a shit. I still do. Even worse, now, of course. It may be why Taylor asked to see me. I was always surprised – astonished, even – it never came out at the trial. That he had a grudge against her.’

  ‘Other things, I assume, were more pressing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They walked in silence for a while, the western façade of the Nash terraces to their left, the bridge crossing the head of the lake taking them past the boat landing-stage, in the direction of Viklund’s house on the eastern fringe of the park. ‘She was, at the time, new to the place, my own life bogged down in domesticity. I felt renewed. Spurious, of course. Mad, even, if it were known.’

  ‘And have felt guilty ever since.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He was glad to admit it, but surprised by how much. ‘You never disengage from these things, however unrelated to real events they might have been. And still are. Because they’re dismissed they become more real. On top of which,’ he paused, ‘she was a virgin.’

  ‘So Taylor must have known. Something, I mean.’

  ‘I always knew he did but resisted acknowledging it. After their relationship began I was still his tutor. He didn’t ask to change, which he could have done, and I didn’t suggest it because I didn’t wish to acknowledge what had happened. The inevitable consequence, of course, was, although I was the tutor, I always took the lead from him. Deferred to him,’ he concluded.

  ‘It should be quite a meeting,’ Viklund said. ‘I can well imagine neither of you actually saying anything.’

  Maddox paused, Viklund’s pace decreasing: it was as if – he couldn’t dispel the feeling – he were being manoeuvred through the conversation. ‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘she got something of significance out of it. Not least a dramatic introduction to the Drayburgh. She quite relished the hold she had over me, and even threatened to go to Charlotte and complain.’

  ‘But didn’t.’

  ‘No.’ His own pace slowed further. ‘As for Taylor, he showed exceptional interest in art history. Something unusual for a non-academic, particularly at the Drayburgh where it took second place to everything. I’d even say he was exceptional. We spent sometimes an hour discussing his essays, once or twice a whole afternoon. That’s after he took up with Rebecca. No sign of resentment or lack of interest. He was totally absorbed, too much so, I thought, at times. It was me,’ he suddenly went on, ‘who recommended he apply to the Courtauld. Unfortunately, in his case, he thought theory took second place to painting. If he’d gone to Reading, or the Courtauld, things might well have turned out quite differently.’

  The path ahead ran straight for a considerable distance, the flat, open space of mown grass stretching away on either side, to their right to the tree-enclosed eastern extension of the lake, to their left to the zoo on the park’s furthest northern limit, the dog, sensing the homeward stretch, hanging back, running to and fro, as if anxious to delay their progress.

  ‘In which case we mustn’t expect too much from your connection with his wife.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘We hope not!’ Viklund laughed, the short, sharp, ‘Hah!’, more exclamation than evidence of amusement. ‘If all the women we had affairs with were subsequently killed by their husbands there wouldn’t be many of the sex around. The place,’ he waved his arm, ‘would be littered with corpses.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Maddox said, but added nothing further.

  ‘Liaisons with students,’ Viklund said suddenly, ‘were almost part of the job.’

  ‘Did you take part?’ Maddox said, surprised again by Viklund’s coarseness.

  ‘I could see the temptation.’ He laughed again, the sound not unlike an attenuated cough, glancing back at the dog, not calling it, however, turning to the path again as if he, too, were reluctant to return to the house. ‘With a younger man, of course, all the greater. Plus the Drayburgh, where exercising your temperament was mandatory, wouldn’t you say?’

  Glancing at Maddox, who had fallen silent, he added, ‘What distinguished his essays?’

  ‘Their subjectivity.’ He paused. ‘Their air of objectivity. Their enterprise. Sensibility. Enthusiasm. Vasari, as it were, all over again, including the misstatements. Yet, engagingly, writing, or seemingly so, about people he knew, almost, even, about pictures he had painted. Giotto he was extraordinary about. As if he had known him all his life, the artist illuminating the paintings, not, as in our case, the other way around. Fascinating stuff for someone from the Courtauld.’ He pointed at his chest. ‘Not history, of course. But absorbing. It felt a privilege at the time to have him as a student. He lit up for me much that had previously been obscure. Another window, illumination coming from a previously unconsidered source. In addition to which,’ he paused again, wondering how he might express it, ‘it was as if who he was writing about was more relevant than anything else in his life. In a way, of course, had he known it, his painting was theoretical, his theory unconscionably real. To that extent he’d already sacrificed himself to his art, when his salvation, had he known it, lay elsewhere.’