Gone to Ground Read Online Free Page A

was careful to make clear, helping the police with their enquiries. Whenever he'd a mind, he could get up and leave.
    Somehow it didn't altogether feel like that, not to McKusick, nor was it entirely meant to.
    "What happened," he said, as soon as Will and Helen entered the room. "What happened to Stephen, was it ... I mean, whoever did it, was it somebody who'd broken in? A burglary?"
    "All in good time," Will said. "All in good time."
    "I want to see him," McKusick said suddenly. "Stephen, I want to see him."
    "I'm afraid it's not possible right now."
    "I have the right..."
    "I know, I know. But you do appreciate the urgency ... there are questions we need to ask."
    McKusick breathed out slowly. "Very well."
    "Your relationship with Stephen Bryan, from what you've said, it was long-standing?"
    "Our relationship? I don't see what that can have to do..."
    "Please just answer the question. Your relationship, it was long-standing?"
    "Yes."
    "Serious."
    "Yes. But I still don't see...?"
    "You'd both signed a contract? A civil partnership?"
    "No, not that."
    "Lived together then?"
    "Not exactly."
    Will leaned back.
    "Look," McKusick said, feeling the need to explain. "We spent almost all our free time in each other's company. Evenings, weekends, holidays. We just ... well, we just didn't live together, that's all."
    "And you were happy with that?" Helen asked.
    McKusick was surprised at the question. "It was what Stephen wanted."
    "Not you?"
    Looking at her, he hesitated. "It wouldn't have been my choice, no."
    "But you accepted it?"
    "Yes, of course." He tried for a smile that didn't quite come off. "Compromise, you know?"
    Bollocks to that, Helen thought. "And was that the reason you split up?"
    "No, not really."
    "No?"
    "Look..." McKusick bit down a little on the inside of his mouth. "It's never that simple."
    "So, what happened?" Will asked. "You had a row or what?"
    "Not really, no."
    "Still, some kind of a falling out?"
    "If you like."
    "A tiff?"
    "Yes, I suppose..."
    "A lovers' tiff?"
    McKusick shook his head. "It wasn't serious, if that's what you mean. Is that what you mean? It's like I said before. We just decided to see less of one another for a while, that's all. Take a break."
    "And this was mutual?" Helen asked.
    "Yes."
    "Mutual," Helen said, nodding slightly, speaking to herself as much as to anyone.
    They both looked at McKusick and waited.
    "Stephen," McKusick said eventually, "I suppose it was more his idea than mine. He had all this teaching now, more than he was used to. Since coming to Cambridge. More students. New courses. And then there's this book he's been working on. That was taking a lot of time, too. It was really important. To him, anyway. He wanted a little more space, more time. I mean, it's easy for me, once my job's done, it's done, you know? I don't mean I'm not interested, I am, I like what I do, but at the end of the day ... well..." He gestured with open hands. "But for Stephen, it's his life. Films, movies, writing, teaching, it's all one. It doesn't leave a lot of room for ... well, for anything. For somebody else."
    He sniffed and wiped a hand across his face as if he might have been wiping back a tear and Will wondered if that was acting, too; if Helen was right and he had been pantomiming before.
    "You were together how long?" Helen asked, looking for a sympathetic tone.
    "Three years."
    "That's a long time," she said. Longer than I've ever managed, she thought. A bloody sight longer. "You couldn't have been altogether happy with that?" she said. "That arrangement?"
    McKusick all but smiled. "We did try living together for a while. When Stephen was still in Leicester. I thought it was fine. I really did. I mean, it wasn't perfect, nothing is, but Stephen, he said he couldn't work, not with me there all the time. I wasn't, of course, but that was how it seemed to him."
    "So you moved back out?"
    "Yes."
    "You were working in Leicester then?" Will asked.
    "That's right."
    "And when Stephen got