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and the written word

    had a certainty about it that everything else in life lacked. Like an intellectual

    sniffer-dog, Purefoy Osbert kept his nose close to documents, collected information

    and felt confident in the certainty of his conclusions. Theories and certainties

    protected him from the chaos that was the universe. They also helped him to cope with the

    chaotic inconsistencies of his late father’s opinions.
    The Reverend Osbert had been of the eclectic persuasion. Brought up as a

    Presbyterian, he had in his teens switched to Methodism, then to Unitarianism and from

    that to Christian Science before being persuaded by a reading of Newman’s _Apologia_

    that Rome was his spiritual home. The homecoming did not last long, although it

    contributed to Purefoy’s naming. Tolstoyan pacifism was more manifestly the answer

    and for a while the Rev. Osbert toyed with Buddhism. In other words Purefoy’s childhood

    was spent on a roller-coaster of changing philosophies and uncertain opinions. He would

    go to school one morning knowing that his father believed in one God, only to come home in

    the afternoon to learn that God didn’t exist.
    Mrs Osbert, on the other hand, was entirely consistent. So long as her husband paid

    the bills–he had inherited a row of small houses and rented them to reliable

    tenants–and provided the family with a comfortable living, she did not mind what

    opinions he held or for how long. ‘Just stick to the facts,’ she would say when one of his

    digressions went on too long, and she was frequently telling young Purefoy, ‘The trouble

    with your father is that he is never certain about anything. He never knows what to

    believe. If only he could be certain about something, we’d all be a lot happier. You just

    bear that in mind and you won’t go the same way.’ Not wanting to go the same way as his

    father, who had died quite terribly on his return from a pilgrimage to a Buddhist shrine

    in Sri Lanka where he had made the mistake of attempting to befriend a rabid dog,

    Purefoy had never forgotten her words. ‘I told him one of those days he would go too far,’

    she explained to Purefoy after the funeral. ‘And he did. To Sri Lanka. And all in search

    of holiness. Instead of which…Well, never mind. You just stick to certainties and you

    won’t go far wrong.’
    Purefoy had done his best to follow her advice. All the same, he had inherited his

    father’s tendency to seek for meaning in abstractions. At Kloone University he had

    been particularly affected by Professor Walden Yapp, who had once been wrongly

    convicted of murder. The Professor’s account of his time in prison and the

    psychological trauma resulting from a sense of his own innocence had affected

    Purefoy deeply and had influenced his choice of a doctoral thesis. Professor Yapp’s

    innocence could not be doubted. Had capital punishment still been in existence when the

    Professor was sentenced, he would certainly have been hanged. ‘From my own experience I

    can say with absolute assurance that other men, as innocent as I am, have undoubtedly

    gone to the gallows.’
    Professor Yapp’s statement had inspired Purefoy Osbert to spend five years working on

    his next book, _The Long Drop._ He acknowledged his debt to Professor Yapp in his

    dedication and then went on to do further research into innocent victims of the

    criminal system and the brutalizing effect of prison life on prisoners and prison

    officers alike, for a book he intended to call _This Punished Breed._ It was a work he

    hoped would put an end once and for all to the pernicious and positively mediaeval

    public belief in crime as a punishable offence. He went further. He did not subscribe to

    Professor Yapp’s belief that theft, murder, muggings or any other criminal activity

    were the products of poverty and social deprivation. He blamed the law itself. As he

    never tired of telling his students, ‘Crime is the