The Sentence Is Death

16 The Book Group

We took the lift down together and it was very strange because by the time we arrived, Hawthorne was quite back to his old self. It was as if the sliding door had acted like a wipe in one of those old-fashioned feature films, cutting off all the animosity between us and taking us to a new scene where we were friends again. Certainly, as we stepped out on the third floor, the argument had been forgotten. Hawthorne was jaunty, wired up, a little nervous. I knew how protective he was of his private life. He hadn’t really wanted me to come to his book group – presumably he had been cajoled by the other members. At the same time, though, these weren’t close friends I was about to meet. He had once told me that they’d all come together from the local library. Was that true? At least one of them had a flat in the same block as him. Perhaps they all did.

I smelled Indian cooking as we walked down the corridor. There was an open door about halfway along and we stopped outside. Hawthorne undid the single button of his jacket; his one concession to informality.

‘Who lives here?’ I asked.

‘Her name is Lisa Chakraborty.’

‘The last time I came to this building, I met a young man in a wheelchair . . .’

Hawthorne cast a doleful glance in my direction. It was already more than he wanted me to know. ‘That’s her son.’

Kevin Chakraborty. The boy with muscular dystrophy who had made a joke about reaching the top button in the lift.

We went in.

It was surprising how two flats in the same building, both about the same shape and size, could be so very different. Lisa Chakraborty lived in a space that was the opposite of open-plan. An enclosed, L-shaped corridor led almost reluctantly into a living room that was darker and more cluttered, with heavy furniture, wallpaper, chandeliers. The sofas were fat, smothered in cushions, facing each other like old enemies across the low, ornate coffee table that kept them apart. The carpet actually had a swirly pattern, something I hadn’t seen for some time. There were ornaments everywhere: porcelain figures, vases, glass paperweights, Tiffany lamps, different pieces of silverware. The room was as crowded, and as random, as an antique shop.

I noticed something odd about the layout although it took me a moment to work out what it was. Despite the clutter, a single wide space had been left, leading into the room from the entrance. The doors and corridors were perhaps one-third wider than average. I realised it had been designed that way for Kevin, who would have to manoeuvre his way round in his wheelchair.

He was not there, but an assortment of people stood clutching drinks, looking awkward in the way guests always do when they choose to stand together even though they’re surrounded by places to sit. My first impression, possibly unfair, was that they seemed to be quite freakish – mainly because they were all so very different. A very tall woman with a very short man. A pair of identical twins. A plump lady in a sari. A silver-haired, distinguished-looking man, perhaps South American. An extravagantly bearded man in a kilt, another small and shrimpy man with round glasses, in tweed. There were about a dozen of them in all. If I hadn’t known they were connected by books it would have been difficult to find a reason for them being in the same room.

The woman in the sari stepped forward, beaming. She had black hair streaked with grey and wide, searching eyes. I had never seen anyone with so much silver jewellery: three necklaces, rings on every finger and one in her nose, a sari brooch shaped like a peacock and earrings that brushed against her shoulders. She was about fifty years old but her skin was unlined and she positively radiated warmth and good humour.

‘Mr Hawthorne!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re very naughty! We were beginning to think you weren’t going to come. And this is your friend?’

I introduced myself.

‘We are so delighted you could join us. Come in, come in. I’m Lisa Chakraborty but you must call me Lisa, please, and I shall call you Tony.’

‘Well, actually—’

‘I’m afraid I’m on my own tonight. My husband never takes part in our little gatherings. He has actually no interest at all in books. He’s gone to the cinema.’ She spoke as if she was in a hurry, the words falling over each other in their enthusiasm to leave her mouth. ‘We’re starting with a little glass of wine and some food and then we’ll get down to business. Sherlock Holmes, no less! And to have a real investigator and an author who has written about the great detective himself – it’s a very special treat! Mr Brannigan! Have you a glass of wine for our guest?’

Mr Brannigan was the short husband with the tall wife. He had been smiling as I came in and the smile was still there, fixed into place and giving him a slightly manic quality. He was almost completely bald, with a round, eager-to-please face and a moustache that trembled on his upper lip. ‘Hello there!’ he barked, thrusting a glass of lukewarm white wine into my hand. ‘Kenneth Brannigan. Very nice to meet you, Tony. Very good of you to come. Let me introduce you to my better half. This is Angela.’

His wife – gaunt and imperious-looking – had joined him. ‘How nice to meet you,’ she said. She had a cut-glass voice and didn’t smile. ‘You write the Eric Rider books?’

‘Alex Rider, yes.’

She gave me a sad look. ‘I don’t think our children ever read them, I’m afraid.’

‘Hammy did!’ Kenneth contradicted her. He blinked at me. ‘Hammy read quite a few of them when he was twelve. Artemis Fowl. That was his favourite.’

‘Actually, that was Eoin Colfer,’ I said.

‘I’ll be interested to hear what you think about Sherlock Holmes,’ Angela said, going on quickly before I could tell her. ‘I find him very difficult, personally. I don’t know why he was chosen.’

‘Not our cup of Horlicks at all,’ Kenneth agreed. ‘But we’ve all been watching Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock on the telly. I suppose it might be interesting to see where it all began.’

Gradually, I made my way around the room. I met a veterinary surgeon, a psychiatrist and a retired concert pianist. Hawthorne hadn’t joined me. He was standing on his own, watching me warily from the side. But if he was afraid I was going to find out more about his private life, he needn’t have worried. I did try to dig a little, asking some of the people I met about him, but nobody seemed to know anything very much, or perhaps it was just that they were reluctant to tell me. He was simply Hawthorne, the man who lived on his own upstairs, who used to be a detective. I got the sense that he was as much a mystery to everyone else as he was to me. Only the man in the kilt (a meat trader, working at Smithfield Market, as it turned out) added a little more. Lowering his voice, he complained that Hawthorne was the only member of the group who didn’t allow them to meet in his flat. ‘I don’t know what he’s hiding,’ he muttered in clipped tones. ‘But I don’t think it’s right.’

Meanwhile, Lisa Chakraborty was bustling around with plates of food that included samosas, croquettes and other Indian snacks that were actually more pastry than anything else. Brannigan dutifully followed her with the wine. I didn’t feel like eating or drinking and I was relieved when Lisa announced that the discussion would begin in five minutes. As various members of the group took their seats, I picked up a couple of dirty plates and followed her into the kitchen.

‘You’re very kind, Tony. Thank you. Please put them by the dishwasher.’

‘How did the book group begin?’ I asked her as I carried them across.

‘It was my idea. I put an advertisement in the local library. We’ve been going now for almost five years.’

‘Has Hawthorne always been a member?’

‘Oh yes. Absolutely! From the very beginning. I met him in the lift, you know. He lives on his own upstairs.’

We were interrupted by a soft whirring sound and, looking around, I saw Kevin appear at the doorway, wheeling himself in. He seemed pleased rather than surprised to see me standing there with his mother, but then of course it was he who had been responsible for my invitation. He had not only recognised me in the lift, he had also known who I was visiting – which meant that Hawthorne must have told him about me. I wondered what he must have thought of my going all the way back down to the ground floor like that. He quickly let me know.

‘Hello,’ he said. He had quickly recognised me and smiled knowingly. ‘Have you been up and down and up and down in any more lifts?’

‘It’s nice to meet you again, Kevin,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

‘Fairly terrible. Mustn’t complain.’

Lisa cut in. ‘The book group is about to begin, my dear. Is there something that you want?’

‘Are there any samosas left?’

‘Of course.’

‘And can I have a Coke?’

She went to the fridge, took out a can and opened it for him. She added a straw, then placed it in a holder on the side of his wheelchair. She arranged three samosas on a plate and rested it on his lap.

Kevin looked up at me cheerfully. ‘I flick them into my mouth,’ he said, answering a question I hadn’t asked. ‘Like tiddlywinks.’

‘You know that’s not true,’ his mother scolded him. ‘And you shouldn’t tell jokes like that! Kevin has Duchenne muscular dystrophy,’ she explained to me, barely taking a breath. ‘But he still has some movement in both his arms. Enough to eat.’ She waggled a finger. ‘And he eats too much.’

‘It’s your fault. You shouldn’t be such a good cook.’

‘You’re going to be too heavy for that wheelchair and then where shall we be?’

‘Bye, Anthony!’ Kevin grinned and spun round. The kitchen was designed, like the rest of the house, so that there was plenty of space for him. We both watched him as he wheeled himself back down the corridor, the electric motor humming. There was a door open at the end but I couldn’t see anything of his room. He disappeared inside.

‘His arms are getting weaker,’ Lisa said, more quietly. ‘And there will come a time when he won’t be able to eat either. After that it will just be liquid food. We both know that but we try not to talk about it. That’s the trouble with Duchenne. It’s one thing after another, really.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ I muttered. I was embarrassed. I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

‘You don’t need to be. He’s a lovely boy. Handsome, like his father. I’m very lucky to have him.’ She was beaming at me. ‘Of course, he gets depressed sometimes and we ask ourselves how we’re going to cope. We have our up days and our down days. But your friend Mr Hawthorne has been an absolute godsend. He’s a remarkable man. From the moment he entered our lives, it’s hard to explain the difference he’s made. He and Kevin are best friends. They spend hours together.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I do sometimes think that Kevin might have given up, actually, if it wasn’t for him.’

I glanced into the living room. Hawthorne was engaged in conversation with the South American man and had forgotten about me. ‘But Kevin helps Hawthorne too,’ I said.

‘Oh yes. Mr Hawthorne is always asking for him.’

‘What exactly does he do?’

I do think Lisa Chakraborty was about to tell me but at that exact moment Kenneth Brannigan put his head round the door. ‘All set and ready!’ he announced.

‘I’ll just bring the coffee.’

It was already made. Lisa brushed past me, carrying it out. I followed her, aware that I had just missed an opportunity to open a back door into Hawthorne’s life. At the same time, I now knew where Kevin’s room was to be found and already a plan was formulating in my mind. The evening wasn’t over yet.

Everyone had sat down in a rough circle around the coffee table, which was now scattered with copies of A Study in Scarlet that had appeared from nowhere. There weren’t quite enough seats so several of the guests were crushed together on the sofas while the twins were cross-legged, in identical positions, on the floor. An upright chair had been left free for me, next to Hawthorne. I went over to it and sat down.

‘Where were you?’ he asked.

‘I was in the kitchen. With Lisa. I met Kevin.’ I watched his eyes when I said that but he showed no interest.

‘Don’t talk about the case,’ he muttered darkly.

‘Do you mean the murder of Enoch Drebber in Lauriston Gardens?’ I asked.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

Lisa Chakraborty opened the proceedings before Hawthorne could say anything more. ‘Good evening, everybody. I am very happy to welcome you to my apartment tonight as we discuss A Study in Scarlet, written in 1886 by Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. Before we begin our discussion, let me say how fortunate we are to have a very famous writer with us. Tony has worked on Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War. He has also written many detective stories of his own, for adults and for children. I’m sure Anthony has many interesting insights he can share with us and I do hope we’ll have time to hear him speak. But let’s all begin by giving him a River Court Book Club welcome!’

There was a patter of applause, which was embarrassing with so few people in the room, but I smiled gamely. Hawthorne did not join in.

‘And so let’s move straight away to the adventure that has brought us all together . . .’

I had realised by now that I had no interest whatsoever in what anyone in the room thought of A Study in Scarlet and somehow I wasn’t at all surprised that although they had all enjoyed the BBC television series, and despite what Lisa had said, not a single one of them seemed to like the source material.

‘I was disappointed . . . it’s so clumsily written!’ This was Kenneth Brannigan, kicking off the proceedings. ‘It’s meant to be narrated by Dr Watson. He’s set up as the narrator but halfway through you suddenly find yourself transported to the Sierra Blanco in North America and before you know it, you’ve gone back thirty years before the story even began and you’ve got this ridiculous gang of Mormons—’

‘Doyle really doesn’t like Mormons, does he! I would say his depiction is actually quite racist.’

‘The book was very short. At least it had that going for it.’

‘I didn’t understand the end at all. Why are the last two lines written in Latin?’

‘I didn’t believe a single word of it . . .’

A Study in Scarlet is a book I’ve always loved and I only half listened to the group as, one after another, they weighed in with their opinions. Curiously, having invited me to join the group, no one seemed to notice I was in the room – but that suited me fine. My mind was elsewhere.

Kevin and Hawthorne. The snatch of conversation I’d heard on the twelfth floor: I couldn’t do it without you. What couldn’t he do? Why had Kevin even been in Hawthorne’s flat? I had to know.

About forty minutes into the conversation, and still without having contributed anything, I leaned over to Hawthorne and whispered, ‘Where’s the toilet?’

Lisa Chakraborty had overheard me. ‘It’s down the corridor, second on the left,’ she announced loudly, so that everyone in the room could hear. Silence fell as I got up and left the room. I felt the entire group watching me.

‘That clue on the wall,’ I heard someone say. ‘The word “RACHE” painted in blood. That’s silly really. That would never happen in real life . . .’

I continued down the corridor and the voices faded away, swallowed up by the thick walls and carpets and the excess of furniture. I wasn’t going to the toilet. I was a little ashamed of myself, intruding this way – but I’d made up my mind. I almost certainly wouldn’t be invited back to Lisa’s flat so I would never get another chance like this. I continued past the toilet to the room I had seen Kevin entering from the kitchen. I stood there for a moment, with my ear pressed against the wood. There was no sound coming from inside. Gently, I turned the handle. Somewhere in my head a voice was telling me that this was a terrible thing to be doing. But another voice was already practising my excuse. So sorry. I got the wrong door.

I looked inside.

It might have been a typical teenager’s bedroom apart from the hospital-style bed with the hoist standing next to it, the extra-wide doorway into the bathroom and the strange smell of medicine and disinfectant. It was messy. The lights were low. I might have noticed posters from Star Wars and The Matrix on the walls, piles of books and magazines. But instead my eyes were drawn, first to Kevin, who was sitting at a table with his back to me and who hadn’t heard me come in, and then to the screen of the industrial-sized computer that was in front of him. The computer wasn’t an Apple or any make I recognised. It was about five or six metres away from me and if it had been displaying written data, I would have been unable to read it. Even an image would have been hard to identify. But what was on the screen was obvious to me and it was so unexpected, so bewildering, that for a moment I forgot everything else.

I was looking at a photograph of myself.

Actually, it was me and my younger son, Cassian. At the time, he was twenty-two years old and was just finishing a journalism course at City University. I remembered the picture being taken a couple of days before; it showed the two of us having a drink at the Jerusalem Tavern, a pub close to where I live. But what was so shocking was that it had never been published. I hadn’t sent it to anyone. So how could it possibly be on Kevin’s screen?

‘Kevin . . . ?’ I couldn’t stop myself. I hadn’t gone into the room. I spoke to him from the door.

He looked over his shoulder and realised who it was. I saw the panic in his eyes. At the same time, his hand scrabbled for the mouse and a moment later the screen went black. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. Kevin liked a joke but he was utterly serious now.

‘Where did you get that photograph?’ I asked.

‘What are you doing here? This is my room!’

‘I was looking for the toilet.’

‘Do you mind leaving?’

‘I’m not leaving until you tell me how you got that picture.’ I was already aware that I was behaving badly, that I shouldn’t be speaking to him in this way. Is it ever acceptable to lose your temper with someone who is in a wheelchair? But I was truly shocked by what I had just seen. Kevin had been spying not just on me but on my son. ‘You’ve hacked into my computer!’ I exclaimed. It was the only way it could have got there.

‘No!’ He squirmed in his seat.

‘Yes!’ Looking past him, I saw that the entire surface of his desk was littered with complicated electrical equipment, strange black boxes with antennae and keyboards connected to a labyrinth of wires. I pointed at the screen. ‘That was my son. That was me!’

He searched for an explanation, couldn’t find one and miserably folded in on himself.

‘It wasn’t your computer. It was your phone.’

I didn’t even try to counter that. ‘How did you do that?’ I demanded. ‘Why did you do that?’ And then the next thought hit me. ‘Does Hawthorne know about this?’

Of course he did. That was how Kevin helped him. Suddenly I saw it all, perfectly clearly. The automatic number-plate recognition that proved Akira Anno had never driven through Hampshire. The CCTV footage that had been taken from the Welcome Break service station at Fleet. I had wondered why Cara Grunshaw had shown them to Hawthorne but she never had! He had simply stolen them, hacking into the police computer systems with assistance from his brilliant young friend on the third floor.

Kevin was staring at me, aghast. His whole body seemed to have become more twisted and out of control. ‘You can’t tell Mr Hawthorne you know,’ he said.

‘Why were you looking at my personal data?’ I insisted.

‘Because I like you.’

‘That’s a funny way to show it.’

‘I’m interested in you. I read your books.’

Well, that was very flattering. But it didn’t mean I liked the idea of Kevin gazing out at me through the camera in my computer or perhaps listening to me, via my iPhone, when I was in the bath. I would have been furious but, given his condition, I was forcing myself to stay calm.

‘What exactly do you do for Hawthorne?’ I asked.

‘I don’t do anything. If he knew about this, he’d kill me!’

‘Don’t lie to me, Kevin . . .’

‘I can’t tell you. I can’t talk about him. Please . . .’

I don’t know if he was acting but suddenly there were tears in his eyes and that simply made me feel like the worst bully in the world. Also, I had been away from the book group for quite some time and I didn’t like the idea of Kevin’s mother or even Hawthorne himself coming out and finding me here. I didn’t know which would have been worse.

I drew a breath and tried to sound reasonable. ‘I won’t say anything to Hawthorne,’ I said. ‘But this isn’t the end of it, Kevin. I’m going to have to talk to you again.’

‘You can’t.’

‘Yes, I can. And don’t try to avoid me.’

‘I’m not running anywhere.’ Despite everything, his morbid sense of humour was still in play.

‘And I want you to stay out of my phone! In fact, I’m going to buy a new phone.’

‘Actually, that won’t help.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ I thought I heard someone coming. I waved a finger in Kevin’s direction. ‘Just stay out of my iPhone, my computer, my iPad . . . even the phone on my front door. Promise me!’

‘I promise.’ He was looking ill. I couldn’t push him any further.

‘We’re going to talk more about this another time. Do you understand? This isn’t over!’

I backed out, closing the door behind me.

‘I don’t believe Sherlock Holmes for a single minute. I mean, on page thirty-two, he says he’s made a study of cigar ashes and he can tell the brand of a cigar just from one glance at the ash.’

I heard Hawthorne’s voice as I entered the room and sure enough the entire book group was focused on what he was saying. I took my place and pretended to listen as he continued.

‘I can tell you, they’ve recently tried that in America. They dissolve the ash with a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids and then they analyse the results using plasma mass spectrometry.’ He shook his head. ‘Even then they only get about sixty per cent accuracy so I don’t know what Holmes is going on about.’

Hawthorne paused for a moment, then began to talk about the correlation between a suspect’s height and the length of his stride – dismissing another of the fictitious detective’s theories. But I didn’t listen to him. His words simply floated somewhere in the air. I was thinking about Kevin, who had somehow hacked into my phone without even touching it, and I was wondering how Hawthorne could operate as a private detective working for Scotland Yard when he was actually using methods that were quite probably criminal. Certainly, it put him in a very different light.

The rest of the evening went by in a sort of daze. Someone brought up The House of Silk and although it turned out that only a couple of people – the identical twins – had actually read it, I was asked to talk about writing in the style of Conan Doyle. I managed to ramble on for a few minutes before Lisa Chakraborty cut me short.

‘Well, thank you so much for that, Anthony,’ she said. ‘That was a very interesting contribution and a lovely way to round off this evening’s discussion. And now all that’s left for me to do is to hand over to Christine, who has chosen our next book for the New Year. I’ll let her introduce it.’

Christine – spectacles, grey hair, loose-fitting cardigan – got to her feet. ‘I’ve chosen a modern work,’ she said. ‘And I believe something of a masterpiece. It’s A Multitude of Gods, the first published novel by Akira Anno.’

Well, it would be, wouldn’t it! I could actually feel the warmth and enthusiasm in the room.

‘Wonderful!’

‘She’s such a tremendously powerful writer.’

‘I read The Temizu Basin three times. It made me cry.’

‘What a lovely choice, Christine!’

There was a patter of applause.

I couldn’t wait to get out. Hawthorne came with me but I was just as keen to get away from him. We barely spoke as we walked back down the corridor and as I watched him disappear into the lift, I wondered if I should admire or despise him for using a seriously handicapped young man to help him break the law.

One thing was becoming clear. The more I learned about him, the less I actually knew.