Chương 1Chương 1

**** Preamble & Case Notes Letter Alistair Dear Alistair, Enclosed is the edited text of the recorded interviews I promised you. Although these incidents took place thirty years ago and the accounts vary to some extent, what is certain is that an unusual sequence of events involving three couples in a shared house led to the murder of one of the housemates. The interviews took place over several weeks and follow on from versions written by the partners of each of the three couples involved. What began as bed noises during the night escalated within a matter of weeks, to a retaliatory conflict that ended in murder. Hardly news, you might think, in a society where over five hundred murders occur every year, but what makes this fatality different is that the victim was homosexual. I was informed by someone who knew the man accused of the crime that he was willing to meet me and confess. Why? Maybe a chance to lighten the load he’d been carrying all these years, along with the assurance that I was a journalist faithful to the oath of not revealing my sources. Naturally, I considered the possibility that he was a sensationalist, but I had a gut feeling: I’d met time-wasters before, and he didn’t seem to measure up. I was further convinced when he gave me the names of those who had shared the house with him. After an extensive search, I managed to find them, and they agreed to be interviewed separately, along with the confessor. The partner of the murdered man remembered his boyfriend disappearing suddenly and was not convinced by the explanations given at the time. The third man, who is presently on a drug rehabilitation programme, seemed a little suspect at first, but his version of events more…