Free Brought to Book by Anthea Fraser

really,’ she added, as though regretting any implied criticism. ‘He and Vivian have been wonderfully supportive since Theo’s death.’
    They took their chairs again, Rona retrieving her notebook and switching on the recorder. ‘You were saying part of Theo’s diaries are in code. Why was that?’
    Meriel shrugged. ‘He needed one for a book, and became interested in them.’
    Damn! She’d have known that, if she’d finished reading Harvey’s books as she’d intended, instead of letting Meriel rush her. ‘Do you know which book it came in?’
    â€˜Game for Fools,’
Meriel answered promptly. ‘The last one he wrote before his block.’
    Rona felt a tweak of excitement.
    â€˜He’d a great time working it out,’ Meriel was continuing, ‘studying books on ciphers and so on. He wanted one that wasn’t too obscure, so readers could crack it if they tried.’ She looked up, meeting Rona’s eyes. ‘I don’t know if you realized, but he made a point of having a new subject to research in every book. He said it improved his general knowledge, and he enjoyed the research as much as the writing. For instance, when he first started writing he joined a gun club, to learn all he could about firearms.’ She smiled bleakly. ‘There were shootings in most of the books.’
    Rona nodded. ‘When was
Game for Fools
published?’
    Meriel pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘Working back, it must have been November ’95, but he started it the previous year. He worked to a strict schedule, always beginning a new book in August, a few months before the previous one came out, and posting it off to his publishers in May. He used to joke that the period of gestation was nine months. Then, from May to August, we had time to ourselves – went on holiday, visited friends, and generally enjoyed ourselves before the cycle started again.’
    â€˜But from what you said, he went on using a code in his diaries?’
    â€˜From time to time, yes. I only found out because one day when I took in his coffee, the diary was open on his desk.’
    â€˜This was during his block?’
    â€˜I suppose it must have been. I made some comment, but he got quite edgy so I let it drop. I didn’t think any more about it until a couple of years later, when he phoned from London and asked me to check something in his desk diary. I took it out of the drawer, and his personal diary was lying underneath.’
    She flushed. ‘Normally I wouldn’t have dreamed of looking in it, but I remembered the code and wondered if he was still using it. I told myself the diary wasn’t really private, because he was going to publish it one day. So I flicked through it, and at first I thought he’d abandoned it, because there were pages and pages of ordinary entries. Then, when I was about to give up, I came across a coded passage, and after that several others, slotted among his ordinary script.’
    It seemed that was all she knew, and since she was clearly embarrassed, Rona steered the conversation to another topic. ‘You mentioned his block: was there any explanation for it, when he’d been writing so fluently for years?’
    â€˜None that I know of; he was under the weather for much of the time, but which was cause and which effect, I couldn’t say.’
    â€˜In what way under the weather?’
    â€˜Oh, generally depressed – loss of appetite, not sleeping well. As I say, it was a vicious circle, specially when his publishers started asking about the next book. I wanted him to see a doctor, but he wouldn’t.’
    â€˜When did you first notice the change in him?’
    â€˜In August ’95, when he was due to start writing again. The routine was that he’d go up to the cottage on Monday morning, stay all week, and come home at the weekend – unless he was in full flow and didn’t want