Barry nodded.
'Good man.' He bent his head to the lighter. 'We haven't much time so you're going to have to talk to me if you want my help. Let's start with the easy stuff first. You had a photograph of a man holding a child. The sergeant thinks the man's you, but I think it might be your father holding you as a toddler. Who's right?'
'You,' whispered Barry.
'You could be his double.'
'Yes.'
'Okay, next question. Why do you carry prostitutes' cards in your pocket? Is that how you spend your time when you're not working?'
Barry shook his head.
'Then why were they in your pocket?' He paused for an answer, but went on when he didn't get one. 'Talk to me,' he said kindly. 'You're not the first man in the world to be caught wanking, Barry, and you certainly won't be the last, but the police are putting the worst interpretation on it because they think you spend your time sniffing round toms.'
'Glen Hopkins gave them to me on Friday,' whispered Barry.
'Why?'
'He said there was no shame paying for it.' Distress flowed in waves from the quivering body. 'But I
'I'm not surprised,' Deacon said matter-of-factly. 'I suppose she had one eye on the clock and the other on your wallet. We've all been there, Barry.' He smiled slightly. 'Even the Nigel de Vriess's of this world have to pay for it. The only difference is they call their toms lovers and their shame becomes public property.' He sat forward with his hands between his knees, matching Barry's own body language. ''Look, does it make you feel any better if I tell you Glen tosses those cards about like bloody confetti? He gave me some a couple of months back when he decided my bad temper was due to lack of sex. I told him to ram them up his arse, where they belonged.' He glanced sideways. 'He caught you on a bad day, and you got ripped off. My best advice is to put it down to experience, and tell Glen to get stuffed the next time he tries it on you.'
'He said it was-unhealthy'-it clearly hurt him to say the word-'looking at photographs. He said the real thing was more fun. But-'' His voice tailed off.
'It wasn't?' suggested Deacon, offering him a handkerchief to dry his tears.
'No.'
Deacon reflected on his first sexual encounter at the age of sixteen when he had fumbled his way through the act of intercourse without caring too much about satisfying the girl because his own arousal was so intense that every thought in his head was concentrated on not ejaculating before he got inside. To this day, he couldn't think of his and Mary Higgins's loss of virginity without embarrassment. She had claimed it was the worst experience of her life and never spoke to him again.
'You're not unusual,' he said sympathetically. 'Most men find their first time pretty humbling. So what happened this morning? Why did you go to Amanda's house?'
The story was muddled but Deacon made what he could of it. After Barry's humiliation at the hands of the prostitute, his anger which should have been directed against Fatima-or even Glen-became fixated on Amanda instead. (There was a strange logic to it. He had been studying pictures of her when Glen had accused him of unhealthy practices, and in his mind's eye she had assumed the proportions of a Jezebel.)
Had he known less about her it wouldn't have mattered, but his interest in Billy Blake and James Streeter had led him to build up a file of press cuttings on her. The reasons for why he should have wanted to go out to her house and confront her were obscure, but they seemed to lie in his total confusion about whether he had hated or enjoyed the sex act. He wouldn't have gone at all had Deacon and Terry not filled him with dutch courage on Saturday night. Tight as a tick, he had waved them off in a taxi then called one for himself and told the driver to take him to the Thamesbank Estate.
He wasn't very sure now what his intentions were-certainly he hadn't expected to find her lights on-but at two o'clock in the morning he had stood in her garden and watched through her open curtains as she made love to a man on her sitting-room carpet. (Deacon asked him if he recognized the man, but Barry said no. Interestingly, he described him in detail but barely mentioned Amanda.)
'It was exciting,' he said simply.
Yes, thought Deacon, it would have been. 'But illegal,' he said. 'I'm not sure if you can be charged with voyeurism, but you can certainly be charged with trespass and indecent behavior. Why did you go back this morning, anyway? It was broad daylight, so you were bound to be spotted.'
The simple explanation was that Barry had put the envelope of photographs on the ground the night before (to keep his hands free, Deacon guessed) and forgotten them. The more complex explanation seemed to concern his extraordinarily ambivalent attitude to living with his mother ('I don't want to go back,' he kept saying), his barely remembered love of his father, and a half-understood desire to rekindle his excitement of a few hours earlier. But the house was clearly empty, and the only excitement left to him was to desecrate Amanda's photograph. 'I'm so ashamed,' he said. 'I don't know why I did it. It just-happened.'
'Well, if you want my opinion, it's a good thing the police caught you,' said Deacon bluntly, squeezing the burning tip out of his cigarette. 'Maybe it'll persuade you to wise up to the facts of life. You've got more going for you than to end up as some grubby little man who can only get a hard-on outside a window. Admittedly I'm no psychiatrist, but I'd say there are a couple of areas you need to sort out pretty damn quick. One, get out from under your mother and, two, come to terms with your sexuality. There's no sense in directing your anger against women if your preference is for men, Barry.'
Helplessly, Barry shook his head. 'What would my mother say?'
'A hell of a lot, I should imagine, if you're silly enough to tell her.' Deacon clapped him on the back. 'You're a grown man, Barry. It's time you acted like one.' He smiled. 'What were you planning to do, as a matter of interest? Wait till she was dead before you could be the person you wanted to be?''
'Yes.'
