Friday, May 15, 1953
“You mentioned on my last visit,” said Detective Inspector Hilary Comyns, “that Mr. Sullivan talked about having acquired a lady friend.”
“That’s correct,” said Miss Patricia Lapham, probation officer for Inner London.
A plainish, youngish woman with a crispy permanent wave and an industrious air, she addressed Hilary politely but without particular deference.
We are both busy law-enforcement professionals, her manner said.
“I encouraged it. He’s the type of lad who’d greatly benefit from the influence of a sensible girl.
Settling down and getting married can work wonders, you know.
I was also helping him apply to take a City and Guilds qualification.
He was interested in fashion design.” She said this with a note of indignation, as though she took Mr. Sullivan’s betrayal—if betrayal it was—more personally than the abscondment of an ex-con with less refined aspirations.
“Do you recall anything else he shared about his girlfriend?”
“Well, as I said before, I don’t remember his mentioning her by name.
Only that she was very beautiful and worked as some type of model.
Now that I’m repeating this to you, I realize it sounds fanciful.
But I didn’t get the impression he was making it up.
And in my line of work, one’s intuition for lies becomes acute.
In yours, too, of course, Detective Inspector. ”