The Sentence is Death Page 5

  ‘Mr Fairchild?’ Hawthorne asked.

  ‘Yes. Is this about the murder?’ He had a high-pitched voice that not only questioned everything but seemed to be suspicious of it too. ‘I’ve already told the police everything I know.’

  ‘We’re helping the police and I’d be very grateful if you could spare us a couple of minutes of your time.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you but I won’t invite you in, if you don’t mind. Rufus doesn’t like strangers.’

  Rufus, I assumed, was the dog.

  ‘Apparently you saw someone heading towards Heron’s Wake last night.’

  ‘Heron’s Wake?’

  ‘Richard Pryce’s house.’

  ‘Yes. I know where he lives.’ The old man cleared his throat. ‘He came off the Heath just as I got home. I always take Rufus out after supper and before I go to bed. We don’t walk very far. Just down to the bowling club and back. It gives him a chance to do his business … you know.’

  ‘So what did you see?’

  ‘I didn’t see very much at all. It was dark. There was someone coming out of the Heath, holding a torch.’

  ‘A torch?’ Hawthorne was surprised.

  ‘Can’t you hear me? I just said. He was holding a torch. That was the main reason why I couldn’t see him. The light got in my eyes. He was quite a distance away.’ He pointed in the direction of the gate, on the other side of Heron’s Wake. ‘I did think it a bit odd, someone walking on their own at that time of night. No animal or anything like that. At least, I didn’t see one.’

  ‘Are you sure it was a man?’

  ‘What? I don’t know if it was a man or a woman. I couldn’t see because of the torch.’

  ‘You just said he was holding a torch!’ Hawthorne was annoyed. I could tell from his eyes and from the way his lips had narrowed until they were almost a straight line. To be fair, there was something extremely irritating about Henry Fairchild. When DI Grunshaw had described him as ‘charming’ she was most definitely being sarcastic.

  ‘I don’t know if it was a man or a woman and there’s no point asking me what colour he was or anything like that. I’ve already told the police. I noticed him just as I was going into the house and I didn’t think anything more about it until I woke up and saw that all hell had broken loose with murder and the police and everything else.’

  ‘You didn’t hear anything?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Fairchild cupped a hand to his ear, inadvertently answering Hawthorne’s question.

  ‘Never mind. Just one last thing. Are you sure about the time?’

  Fairchild looked at his watch. ‘It’s ten to three.’

  ‘No.’ Hawthorne raised his voice. ‘I’m asking you about the time when you went out with your dog. You said it was about five to eight. Are you sure about that?’

  ‘It was definitely five to eight. I always go out after supper and I didn’t want to miss the beginning of Antiques Roadshow so I looked at my watch just as I reached the door.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Fairchild.’

  ‘I suppose they’ll have to sell the house now. I must say, I don’t like all this disturbance … all these people here and everything. I like peace and quiet.’

  Somewhere behind him, Rufus was still barking his head off.

  ‘Yes. It was very inconsiderate of Mr Pryce getting himself murdered,’ Hawthorne agreed, at his most poisonous.

  We walked back down the path. I thought we’d get back into the taxi but we continued, once again passing in front of Heron’s Wake. ‘I’ll tell you something that doesn’t make any sense,’ Hawthorne muttered, as we made our way. ‘Let’s assume that Fairchild was telling the truth, even if he is deaf and half blind too. It was a full moon last night.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hawthorne looked around him. ‘It probably gets quite dark down here, but not that dark. And Fairchild wasn’t carrying a torch – at least, he didn’t say he was. So why did this mysterious visitor need one?’

  ‘He didn’t know the houses,’ I said. ‘He had to read the names!’

  Hawthorne considered. ‘Well, that’s one theory, Tony.’

  We reached the gate and the entrance to Hampstead Heath. This was where the mysterious visitor had appeared. Ahead of us, the grass stretched into the distance with a few walkers braving the damp October air. I’d had a dog myself for thirteen years and had occasionally come this way. Kenwood was over to the left or you could continue straight ahead up to Hampstead Lane, the main road that connected Hampstead and Highgate. It had rained heavily in the past month and there was a large puddle blocking our way. Whoever had come through with their torch would have had to tread carefully and I was surprised that they hadn’t left muddy footsteps at Pryce’s house. Perhaps they had taken off their shoes?

  I wasn’t sure if Hawthorne had come to the same conclusion. He was deep in thought and clearly had no intention of sharing any of it with me.

  ‘What now?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s it for today. You can drop me off at Hampstead station. We can meet tomorrow at Masefield Pryce Turnbull. That seems the best place to start … at least until Akira Anno turns up, and my guess is that Grunshaw will want to speak to her straight off the mark.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve got a meeting at the Old Vic,’ I said. ‘Why don’t I pick you up at your place around ten o’clock? Then we can go to Masefield Pryce Turnbull together.’

  Hawthorne considered it. I could see he didn’t like the idea but then he relented and shrugged. ‘All right. Whatever …’

  We walked back to the taxi. I noticed that the charge had crossed the £60 barrier. As usual, I would have to pay. When it came to cabs and coffees, Hawthorne was always slow reaching for his wallet. But I didn’t mind. The truth was that, to my surprise, I was already hooked. What was the significance of the numbers on the wall? Why had Stephen Spencer been lying? I genuinely wanted to know who had killed Richard Pryce and why.

  So far I had missed three clues and misconstrued two more.

  Things were only going to get worse.

  5

  Masefield Pryce Turnbull

  The Old Vic has a special place in my affections. It’s the most beautiful theatre in London and I’ve been going there since I was a teenager. Even now, I can remember queuing up to get standing tickets to see Maggie Smith in Hedda Gabler, Laurence Olivier in The Party and Diana Rigg in the world premiere of Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers. Long before I published my first children’s book, I wanted to write plays. I found the draw of the theatre quite magical and when I was asked to join its board, I accepted at once – even though I didn’t know anything very much about finance, health and safety or charity law.

  But I didn’t have a meeting there on that Tuesday morning. I had said that to give myself an excuse to drop in on River Court, which was where Hawthorne lived and which was only ten minutes from my own flat, on the other side of Blackfriars Bridge.

  I wanted to know more about Hawthorne. I wanted to know why he had destroyed his career by pushing a paedophile down a flight of stairs and how he had come to be living on his own in an empty flat, caretaking for the owners who were in Singapore. He had told me that he had a half-brother who was an estate agent but it still seemed an unusual arrangement. I also knew that he was separated from his wife and that she lived in Gants Hill with an eleven-year-old son who didn’t read my books. Apparently, the two of them were still seeing each other from time to time. Hawthorne had two hobbies. He liked constructing Airfix models, mainly from the Second World War. If this wasn’t unlikely enough, he was also a member of a book group.

  And yet all this felt like window dressing … the outer costume rather than the man himself. If I was going to write three books about him (and possibly more if he came to me with further investigations), I needed to know more. I was already quite sure that something must have happened to him, that he was in some way damaged and I wanted to discover what it was if only to justify some of the extremes of his behaviour. You c
annot have a central character who is simply, by his very nature, unpleasant, and although I wouldn’t have used that word to describe Hawthorne there were moments – that ‘limp-wristed’ remark, for example – when he came close. In a way, I was trying to help him. He had chosen me as his biographer and I saw it as my job to picture him in the most sympathetic light. The trouble was, he was almost fanatical about keeping any personal or private details away from me. By inveigling myself into his flat for a second time, I hoped I might stumble on some clue that would explain what had turned him into the man he was and why, despite everything and against my better instincts, I was beginning to like him.

  River Court is a low-rise block built in the seventies, a symphony of not terribly attractive beige-coloured balconies and rectangular windows that has somehow managed to find itself in the most wonderful position, right on the edge of the Thames. I’d walked past it dozens of times on the way to the National Theatre and the South Bank without even noticing it was there. That’s one of the pleasures of living in London. It’s so huge, so jammed with interesting buildings, that it’s always taking you by surprise. Even now I can stroll down an alleyway and realise I’m seeing it for the first time even though it’s only a few minutes from where I live.

  I had turned up twenty minutes early. I knew that if I rang the bell, Hawthorne wouldn’t let me in; he would call down on the intercom system and keep me waiting in the street. But I was smarter than that. I waited until another resident emerged. At that moment, I reached out with a set of keys that wouldn’t actually have fitted the lock and, with a smile, stopped the door from fully closing and went in.

  I was feeling quite pleased with myself as I took the lift up to the twelfth floor but it was only as I stood there, on my own, that I began to feel uneasy. Hawthorne would know perfectly well what I was up to and although he had often been sarcastic or irritable, I had never yet been a target of his anger. That might be about to change. Well, it was too bad. I just had to remember that he needed me. Despite his occasional threats, I didn’t think he would find it easy to get anyone else to write about him.

  The lift door opened and at once I heard voices, one of which was Hawthorne’s. He was saying goodbye to someone who had visited him in his flat, even though it was still early – nine forty-five in the morning. I peeked round the corner, doing my best to stay out of sight, and saw a young man, about eighteen or nineteen years old. It was hard to be sure of his age, partly because he was some distance away but also because he was in a motorised wheelchair. If that in itself wasn’t surprising enough, he was also of Indian, perhaps Bengali, descent and, I could tell at a glance, he had some form of muscular dystrophy. One of his hands was holding an electric control, the other was resting on his lap. He was not on a ventilator but there was a plastic bottle attached to his chest with a drinking pipe reaching up to his lips. He had dark hair cut short and a wispy beard and moustache that spoiled what might otherwise have been film-star good looks: chiselled cheekbones, intense eyes, Valentino lips.

  ‘All right then, I’ll see you.’ That was Hawthorne speaking.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Hawthorne.’

  ‘Thank you, Kevin, mate. I couldn’t do it without you.’

  Couldn’t do what? Was this something to do with model-making? No. That was impossible. But what could Hawthorne possibly need a young man in a wheelchair to help him with? I’d come for clues but all I’d got for my pains was another mystery.

  ‘I’ll see you, then.’

  ‘Yeah. Give my best to your mum.’

  Hawthorne didn’t go back into the flat. He stood there, watching Kevin as he made his way towards the lift.

  I was lucky that this part of the corridor was in shadow or he would have spotted me for sure but even so I was still there, hiding inside the lift, and I realised that I’d put myself in a difficult position. If I stepped out and revealed myself, Hawthorne would see me and know I had been spying on him. At the same time, Kevin was rolling steadily towards me and would surely wonder what I was doing, lurking there, refusing to come out. I decided to stay where I was. As he manoeuvred himself into the lift, I studied the buttons as if I had just got in ahead of him and had forgotten where I wanted to go. I pressed Ground.

  ‘Third floor, please.’ Kevin was next to me, facing out. The doors slid shut and suddenly we were alone together in the confined space, he in a sitting position and so some distance below me. There were two leather pads holding his head in place. I pressed the button for him. Painfully slowly, the lift began to descend.

  ‘I could have done it myself,’ he said. ‘It’s only getting up to the twelfth that I find difficult.’

  ‘Why is that?’ I asked.

  ‘The button’s too high.’

  It took me a moment to work out that this was a variation on an old joke. ‘Do you live here?’ I asked.

  ‘I live on the third.’

  ‘Nice place.’

  ‘It’s got nice views,’ he agreed.

  ‘The river,’ I said.

  He frowned. ‘What river?’

  Briefly, I froze. How could he not have noticed it? Was it something to do with his disability? Then I saw him grinning at me and realised he was joking again. We lapsed into silence until, with a slight jerk, we arrived and the doors opened. Kevin pushed the lever forward and rolled out.

  ‘Have a nice day,’ I said. It’s an Americanism but one I find myself using more and more these days.

  ‘You too.’

  The lift continued on its journey, taking me down to the ground floor. There were two people, perhaps a husband and wife, waiting to go up, and they too were puzzled when I refused to get out. ‘Wrong floor!’ I muttered, weakly. They stepped in and took the lift up to the ninth floor, which must have been where they lived. The doors closed again and finally, after what seemed like a very long time, I arrived back where I wanted to be.

  I went straight to Hawthorne’s flat and rang the bell. The door opened almost at once and there he was, with his raincoat over his arm, ready to go out. He didn’t seem surprised to see me. I had intended to arrive early but with all the fuss going up and down in the lift, I was more or less on time.

  ‘You should have rung the bell outside,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘It would have saved you coming up.’ He led me back down the corridor and called the lift. ‘How was the Old Vic?’

  ‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘There’s a board meeting next week.’

  ‘So long as you’ve got time to write our book …’

  ‘My first thought exactly.’ Sarcasm was wasted on Hawthorne. For someone who used it so often, it was remarkable that he never recognised it.

  The lift arrived. I was beginning to get sick of the sight of it. We went back down and my heart sank when we stopped at the ninth floor and the husband and wife that I had just met got in again. They looked at me curiously but said nothing. They didn’t seem to know Hawthorne.

  I was glad, finally, to leave the building. ‘Are they expecting us?’ I asked.

  ‘Masefield Pryce Turnbull? Yes. I spoke to Oliver Masefield. They’re just across the river … off Chancery Lane.’

  ‘Then we can walk.’

  Kevin couldn’t walk. A teenager, disabled, from a different culture; what on earth had he been doing in Hawthorne’s flat? The two of them sounded like old friends. I was desperate to ask him but of course I couldn’t.

  I thought about nothing else the entire way.

  After walking all the way across Blackfriars Bridge to see Hawthorne, I now followed my steps back again. Masefield Pryce Turnbull had offices in Carey Street, behind the Central London County Court and just round the corner from where I live. This part of London is dedicated to the legal profession and wants you to know it. Even the newer, more modern buildings are carefully traditional, utterly discreet.

  Masefield Pryce Turnbull occupied the top two floors of a handsome townhouse that they shared with two other boutique firms. It was a twenty-first-century law firm in a nine
teenth-century building; sliding glass doors and open-plan offices behind the classical arches and sculpted pediments. A young, smiling secretary took us through to a corner office where Oliver Masefield was waiting for us, sitting behind a massive, highly polished desk. This was a practice that specialised in divorce – matrimonial law, as they called it – and perhaps he needed a solid barrier between himself and the grief and anger of his clients.

  He rose to greet us, a very imposing black man in a sleek, tailored suit, about fifty years old with a high, domed forehead and dark hair which was going grey around the temples in a way that entirely suited his profession and status. He had an extraordinarily cheerful disposition which he seemed unable to hide, even though we were here to make enquiries about the violent death of his partner. When I say there was a twinkle in his eye, I mean it quite literally. Perhaps it was the overhead lighting. Even when he arranged his features to show the expected empathy and remorse, he still gave the impression that he wanted to burst out laughing, to sweep us into his embrace and take us out for a drink.

  ‘Please! Please, come in,’ he began, although we already had. He had a loud, booming voice, on the edge of theatrical. ‘Take a seat. I spoke to the police yesterday evening … An absolutely terrible business. Poor Richard! We’d worked together for many years, you know, and I want to say straight away that anything I can do to help you, I will do! Will you have a coffee or tea? No? This weather is so very damp and unpleasant. Perhaps a glass of water?’

  There was a bottle on a sideboard and he poured two glasses while we sat down. He handed them to us, then went back to his place on the other side of the desk. ‘Where do you want to start?’

  ‘When was the last time you spoke to Mr Pryce?’ Hawthorne asked.

  ‘That would have been on Sunday, the day that it happened. We spoke at about six o’clock in the evening.’