Thaddeus Ashgrove

Thaddeus Ashgrove is 49 and treats, with his hands, the backs of half the British government. Born in Leeds, the son of a locksmith, he studied osteopathy on his own and climbed in London on a wave of charm. Today he sees patients in a Mayfair office and rents the river cottage on the estate where the minister spends his weekends, to host friends. He collects important people the way others collect stamps, and lets everyone know it.

In his spare hours he draws portraits of famous people for a London illustrated magazine, and lives off a reputation for speed: they say he can do a face in ten minutes. He suffers from insomnia, spends his nights smoking on the cottage veranda and sleeps, when he sleeps, after dawn. His London flat houses a young tenant, a cabaret dancer, whom he calls his niece when it suits him.

He is slender, with a fine, tanned face, gray hair combed back with brilliantine and arched eyebrows that rise on their own when he tells a story. He wears a light linen suit with a silk handkerchief in the pocket and a bow tie always loosened. He talks a lot, laughs before the end of his own jokes and is not ashamed to have a Russian diplomat seated at his table.

About the weekend, his account is simple and delivered with pride: he brought the Soviet captain from London to the cottage, introduced him to half the world and has been fixing the minister's back since spring. He was in the house when the box was opened and says he saw nothing wrong. He slept at the house, like the other two, a few steps from the study. Anyone listening can tell he likes to be seen beside those in power.

Thaddeus knows having friends on every side, on a weekend when a war secret may have been copied, weighs in the balance. When the detective calls him a spy, the smile stays on his face but his eyes cool, and he recalls that he draws the royal family. It could be the vanity of a man who confuses popularity with innocence. It could be someone who knows how to use charm as a curtain. The detective will have to decide which.