Neville Thorne

Neville Thorne is 24 and counts lenses in a factory that makes them by the thousands. He was born in Watford, the only child of a seamstress and a post office clerk who died young, and grew up in a silent apartment where the only noise was his mother's sewing machine. He was a good student in science and a bad one in everything that depended on conversation. He arrived at the stockroom early this year, referred by a social worker, and the chief soon noticed he was meticulous to the point of obsession.

He rents a room in a boarding house in the village, with a landlady who serves dinner at six and forbids visitors after nine. In his free hours he visits the public library, where he always sits at the same reading table, by the window, and reads until closing. He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and has no friends that anyone knows of. On Saturdays he walks to the station, watches the trains go by and walks back. His mother writes every week, and he replies every week, in the same small, slanted hand.

He has very pale skin, straight, oily black hair combed back, a thin face with deep dark circles and round dark-rimmed glasses. He wears the gray stockroom coat over a white shirt buttoned to the neck, even in the heat of the storeroom. He speaks softly, slowly, and picks each word as if weighing powder on a scale. He greets everyone by name, never forgets a date and looks at whoever he is speaking to with an attention that disturbs more than it reassures.

About the work, his account is that of a diligent assistant: he counts lenses, screws and boxes, records what comes in and what goes out and learned everything from his chief, a very patient man who taught him the trade. He speaks of the deceased with sincere respect and cites details of his routines that no one else remembers. About the illness that spread through the factory, he says he follows the village news and that, like everyone, he doesn't know where it came from.

Neville knows that the new lad, quiet and methodical, who works beside the man who died, is the first name anyone mentions when the conversation reaches the subject. When the detective asks what he knows, the answer is prepared, polite, and his gaze doesn't waver. It may be the shyness of someone who was always the last to be picked. It may be someone who gauges the effect of each sentence before saying it. The detective will have to decide which.