The Sentence Is Death

19 Sword and Sorcery

Adrian Lockwood was unable to see us, or so we were told by the prim young receptionist perched behind a desk shaped like a comma in a small outer office in Leconfield House. Presumably she had replaced the girl who had allowed Lofty in – and she had certainly passed an advanced class in superciliousness.

‘I’m afraid he has a conference call.’

‘We can wait.’

‘He has another meeting straight after.’

We were forty-five minutes late so I suppose this was fair enough. But even so I wondered if Lockwood wasn’t sitting quietly behind one of the closed doors, listening to us being put in our place. In the end we agreed to come back at five o’clock. That left us with a few hours to kill.

Hawthorne was on his mobile before we had even got out into the street. I heard him introducing himself and asking for a meeting with Dawn Adams – ‘a police-related matter’ – and the next thing I knew, we were in a taxi on our way to Kingston Books. Akira Anno had told us that her friend lived in Wimbledon, which was right next to Kingston, but her offices were in central London, in Bloomsbury as it turned out.

The worldwide success of the Doomworld series was evident before we even entered the building. The publishing house occupied a handsome four-storey office on the corner of Queen Square with prominent signage on the front door and about a dozen books on display in the window. They were the only business there and quite possibly owned the whole building. Kate Mosse, Peter James and Michael Morpurgo were just three of the big-name authors who had signed up with them.

The front door led into a generous entrance hall with original Quentin Blake artwork on the walls and a giant glass bowl of sweets and chocolates on the reception desk. The receptionist here seemed much happier to see us.

‘Yes, Dawn is expecting you.’

No surnames here. A young guy, perhaps an intern, appeared and escorted us to an office on the first floor with two windows looking out over the square. There was a desk piled high with books and contracts but Dawn was waiting for us to one side, a very elegant black woman, sitting on a sofa behind a low coffee table with her knees together and her legs folded. She was in her fifties, about the same age as Akira Anno. Everything about her was impressive, from her quietly expensive clothes and the diamond ear studs to the designer glasses on a thin silver chain around her neck.

Two chairs had been placed opposite her and when, at her invitation, we sat down, we found ourselves looming over her. It was quite deliberate, a sort of reverse psychology. We would have to adjust our behaviour if we were not to seem like bullies. Sitting comfortably on her sofa, some distance below us, she had arranged things so that she was quietly in command.

I was surprised when she smiled at me. ‘Anthony, how nice to see you,’ she said. I had no memory of having met her. ‘How are things at Orion?’

‘They’re fine, thank you,’ I said.

‘I really enjoyed The House of Silk. It made me wonder if you’ve read Solo yet?’

William Boyd had just published a James Bond novel – following on from Sebastian Faulks and Jeffery Deaver. ‘Not yet,’ I said.

‘I think it would be a fantastic idea if they got you to write a Bond next. I know the Ian Fleming estate. I could have a word with them if you like . . .’

‘Well, I’d certainly be interested.’ I tried to sound nonequivocal when actually it was something I’d wanted to do all my life.

‘I’ll talk to them.’ She turned to Hawthorne and now she was a little cooler. ‘I’m not sure how I can help you.’

‘I told you on the phone. I’m investigating the murder of Richard Pryce.’

‘Yes. Well, apart from one brief encounter in a restaurant when I didn’t even speak to him, I hadn’t seen Mr Pryce for over a year and I had no further dealings with his practice. I only knew he was dead when I saw the story in the newspapers and I can’t say I shed too many tears.’

‘I can understand that, Ms Adams. You first met him at the time of your divorce.’

‘I never actually met him one-to-one, Mr Hawthorne. He wrote to me. He also wrote about me. He drew a picture of me in court as a woman entirely dependent on the financial acumen of my husband, even though said husband was a drunk and a womaniser who had inherited all his wealth from his equally squalid father. At the time, I’d spent seven years putting all my efforts into building up my own publishing business and perhaps you can imagine how humiliating and offensive that depiction of me was. Or perhaps you can’t.’ She drew a dismissive hand across the air. ‘In any event, I had absolutely nothing to do with his demise, although, as I say, it’s just possible that I raised a glass of Chablis when I heard of it.’

‘Well, that’s not quite true, is it,’ Hawthorne returned. ‘You say you’ve got nothing to do with his “demise”, but you’ve been involved, on the sidelines, from the very start.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You were with Akira Anno at The Delaunay restaurant when she threatened Mr Pryce. And you were with her a second time, as it happens, on the night of the murder. At first, Ms Anno suffered an unfortunate memory loss. She said she was at a cottage in Lyndhurst. But when that was disproved, she was forced to admit she was with you.’

I thought Dawn would fight back, but, ignoring Hawthorne, she turned to me. ‘What exactly are you doing here?’ she asked, quite pleasantly.

‘I’m writing about him,’ I replied. There seemed to be no point lying. Dawn Adams knew who I was. She might as well know what I was doing.

She was surprised. ‘For the newspapers?’

‘For a book.’

‘True crime?’

‘Yes. Well, sort of. I have to move a few things round and change some names, but it’s all basically true.’

She considered for a moment. ‘That’s interesting. Have you got a publisher yet?’

‘I’ve signed a three-book deal with Selina Walker at Penguin Random House.’

She nodded. ‘Selina’s very good. Just don’t let her bully you with deadlines.’ She turned back to Hawthorne. ‘In response to your remarks, first of all, Akira never threatened Richard Pryce. The two of us had been having dinner together at The Delaunay and she saw him on the other side of the room. Inevitably we started talking about him and that was when we discovered that we’d both had similar experiences. It’s possible we’d had a little too much to drink but Akira got it in her head to create a scene. She went over to his table – he was there with his husband. She picked up his glass of wine and poured it over his head. It was a stupid thing to do. I’d be the first to admit it. But at the same time it was deeply satisfying.’

‘She threatened to hit him with a bottle.’

‘No. She said he was lucky that he hadn’t ordered a bottle or she would have used that, by which I assume she meant she would have emptied the entire contents over him.’

‘But it’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think, that just a week or so later he was killed with a wine bottle.’

‘It could be a coincidence, I suppose. Although have you considered the possibility that someone in the restaurant might have overheard her?’

That was a thought that hadn’t occurred to me. Akira Anno could have quite accidentally suggested the murder method to someone who knew Richard and who just happened to be there. They might even have done it deliberately to frame her. I wondered if Hawthorne had checked out the names of all the patrons who had been at The Delaunay that night.

‘As to Akira being at my home on Sunday night,’ Dawn went on, ‘there’s nothing very surprising about that either. We’re old friends.’

‘How did you meet?’

‘At a book festival. In Dubai. A week round the swimming pool at the InterContinental Hotel. It’s a good place to get to know people.’

‘How long was she with you?’

‘Do you really consider this a line of enquiry worth pursuing, Mr Hawthorne? Very well! She came for supper at about six o’clock and once again we had rather too much to drink. You’re going to get the impression that we’re a couple of old soaks but it’s not like that. We weren’t drunk. In fact, we’d been working. But Akira had had two or three glasses with me and I thought it was more sensible if she didn’t drive back so I invited her to stay the night.’

‘You say you were working. What sort of work does she do for you?’

Dawn Adams hesitated just for a moment and I had a feeling that for all her bluster, whatever she was going to say next might not be completely true. ‘She advises me on literary manuscripts,’ she said.

‘You pay her?’

‘Of course.’ Dawn looked at her watch, a very delicate Cartier on a thin gold strap. ‘As I told you on the phone, I’m afraid I can’t give you a great deal of my time.’

Hawthorne ignored this. ‘Why did Akira Anno lie about being with you?’ he asked. ‘Having supper with an old friend, a publisher . . . you’d have thought there was nothing more innocent in the world.’

‘I have no idea. You’ll have to ask her that. Perhaps she found your interview methods offensive and decided to take you for a ride.’

‘Lying to a police officer is an offence.’

‘As I understand it, you’re not a police officer.’

I had to hand it to Dawn Adams. She certainly wasn’t afraid of Hawthorne. But if she’d known him better, she might have been a little less curt with him. I saw the anger stirring in his eyes and it made me think of a crocodile rising from the mud.

‘You say that Ms Anno advises you on literary manuscripts,’ he said. ‘How many literary writers do you actually publish?’

It was a good point. In the window downstairs I had seen one or two well-respected authors, but the books on the shelves in Dawn’s office were less highbrow. I ran my eyes over a children’s picture book, a couple of airport thrillers, the Doomworld trilogy and a book of Greek recipes by Victoria Hislop.

Again, there was just a hint of uncertainty before she recovered. ‘We don’t have any. But it’s an area I very much want to move into. We receive a great many submissions and Akira reads them for me.’

‘Then why not publish her? Since the two of you are such good mates . . .’

‘I’ve suggested it. But Akira has a contract with Virago. I think we’re done here, aren’t we?’ There was a telephone on the coffee table. Dawn picked it up and dialled a single number. ‘Tom,’ she said. ‘My guests are just leaving. Could you come up to the office . . . ?’

‘Actually, I haven’t finished.’ Hawthorne’s voice was cold.

She hesitated, the phone still in her hand. ‘Actually, it’s all right, Tom. I’ll call you in a minute.’ She put the phone down.

Hawthorne paused and I knew from experience that he was about to come out with something extraordinary. Even so, his next statement took me completely by surprise. ‘I’d like to speak to one of your other writers,’ he said.

‘Which one is that?’

‘Mark Belladonna.’

She stared at him. ‘I’m afraid there’s absolutely no way Mark will speak to you.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Well, first of all, he’s got absolutely nothing to do with this. And secondly, he’s very reclusive. He lives in Northumberland and he has acute agoraphobia. He never goes out.’

‘But he was in The Delaunay the night when you had that dinner.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘It’s not impossible, Ms Adams. It’s true. And as it happens he was also involved in the death of a second man . . . Gregory Taylor. Taylor visited Richard Pryce on the day Taylor died. The two of them had known each other for years. And just a short while later Taylor was killed, pushed under a train. But before he died, he bought a copy of a book, the latest Mark Belladonna. He didn’t buy it because he wanted to read it. He bought it to send us the message . . . which is the reason I’m here.’

All of this was news to me. If Hawthorne had checked out who was eating at The Delaunay, he had certainly never mentioned it. But it was true that he had drawn my attention to Prisoners of Blood, which Gregory Taylor had picked up in W. H. Smith at King’s Cross. Why did he buy that book? That was what he had asked.

Dawn Adams had lost control of the situation. Suddenly it was as if the sofa was swallowing her whole. She was almost squirming. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

And then, without warning, the door opened and, of all people, Akira Anno came hurrying into the room. Dawn Adams was as surprised to see her as I was. ‘Akira . . . ?’

‘I came straight over when I got your call.’ Akira looked at us malignantly. ‘I know these two men. I’ve already had confrontations with them. I know their methods and how they will use them to threaten and intimidate you. I didn’t want you to have to see them on your own.’

So Dawn had rung her to say we were coming. It made me think that the two of them must have been colluding . . . but in what?

‘We were just talking about Mark Belladonna,’ Hawthorne went on. He was utterly unfazed by the interruption. It was as if he had expected it, even welcomed it.

Akira went over to a third chair and sat down. She was as immaculate as ever but suddenly she seemed unsure of herself, perhaps even afraid.

‘I want his address and his phone number,’ Hawthorne said.

‘I won’t give them to you.’

‘You can take that stand if you want to, Ms Adams. Then I’ll call Detective Inspector Grunshaw and Detective Constable Mills and we’ll see how you get on when you refuse to co-operate with them.’

‘I can’t . . .’

‘Why not?’

‘You don’t understand. Mark never—’

And then, from the other side of the room came the two quiet words: ‘He knows.’ It was Akira. Her face was ghastly. She was looking down at the floor.

What did he know? And why didn’t I know it too?

‘Why don’t you just come straight out with it?’ Hawthorne exclaimed. ‘Do you think I’m a complete idiot? Did you really think I wouldn’t work it out?’

He paused, waiting for either of the two women to speak, and when neither of them did, he provided the answer for them. ‘Akira Anno is Mark Belladonna, isn’t she! Mark doesn’t exist.’ He rounded on Akira. ‘You wrote those stupid books.’

There was another silence. I don’t know who was more shocked: me because I had never suspected it or Dawn because he had guessed.

‘Are you going to deny it?’ Hawthorne demanded.

I looked at Akira, who was sitting in her chair looking like a puppet that had been thrown aside, its limbs disconnected. On the sofa, Dawn Adams looked genuinely afraid. ‘You can’t tell anybody,’ she whispered.

‘Wait a minute!’ I exclaimed. ‘Akira Anno wrote Excalibur Rising and Prisoners of Blood and . . .’ I’d forgotten the title of the first one.

‘The Twelve Men of Steel,’ Akira muttered, still not meeting my eyes.

‘But that’s impossible. They’re full of pornography.’ I searched for the worst thing I could say about them. ‘They objectify women!’

‘They sell millions of copies.’ Despite everything, Dawn had leapt to the defence of her friend. Now she got to her feet and walked over to her desk, taking her place on the other side. That put her closer to Akira, back in control. ‘It was my idea. I met Akira at Dubai, just like I told you. She’s a wonderful writer. Her books have won a great many prizes and there was even a film. But you know the market for literary fiction, Anthony. It’s tiny, almost non-existent.’

There was a bottle of water on the desk. She poured herself a glass. ‘This wasn’t Akira’s idea. It was mine. I had to persuade her, but I knew there was a huge market in sword and sorcery.’

‘And sex,’ I added.

‘Whatever you want to call it. Game of Thrones was already huge . . . before the TV series. The two of us were having a cocktail by the pool and I suggested it to Akira almost as a joke, really. If someone like George R. R. Martin could make a fortune out of fantasy fiction then it would be easy for a writer as talented as her.’

‘But it’s everything she despises!’ I insisted. It was almost as if Akira wasn’t in the room. She had been banished, replaced by Mark Belladonna who had come down from Northumberland, somehow overcoming his phobia.

‘There isn’t a writer in the world who doesn’t want to sell!’ Dawn countered.

‘Of course that’s true!’ I agreed. ‘But she . . . !’ I pointed at Akira. ‘She’s a complete hypocrite!’

Akira looked up. ‘Nobody must know,’ she whispered and even behind the tinted glasses I could see the panic in her eyes. ‘You can’t tell them! It will finish me!’

Dawn nodded. ‘If people found out that Akira was the author, it could do enormous damage to her reputation. And it certainly wouldn’t help my business either!’ She was more reasonable than Akira, more pragmatic. But then she was a publisher, not a writer. ‘You don’t know how hard we’ve had to work to keep Mark Belladonna out of the public eye,’ she went on. ‘It’s true that Akira, in her other work, has a completely different profile but lots of writers have used an alias.’ She sighed. ‘When I suggested the idea, it was just a joke. Neither of us had any idea how huge the series would become.’

So this was the income stream that Stephen Spencer had mentioned, the earnings that Akira had kept from Richard Pryce. Dawn was right, of course. Once the public found out how they had been tricked, Akira, Mark and Kingston Books might well be finished.

But Hawthorne was in an unforgiving mood. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I think it’s going to be very difficult to keep this from Detective Inspector Grunshaw.’

Akira said nothing.

‘Anthony, I’m sure you understand the situation here.’ Dawn had decided to bypass Hawthorne and appeal directly to me. ‘I’ve put my life into this business and Doomworld is what holds it all together. And Akira hasn’t done anything wrong.’ She leaned forward. ‘Her series is loved. It’s being filmed for TV. Why ruin her life?’

‘That’s a haiku!’ I exclaimed.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘What you just said.’ I glanced at Akira, who had folded herself up, in the depths of misery. Despite everything, I felt sorry for her. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

Next to me, Hawthorne stirred. ‘That’s not usually very much,’ he said.

He was actually laughing when we went back out into the street. I’d seen Hawthorne’s sense of humour, which was subtle and a little devious. But I don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh.

‘How did you know?’ I asked. ‘About Akira Anno and Mark Belladonna?’

‘It’s pretty straightforward.’ He took out a cigarette and we set off, walking back towards Holborn station. ‘To start with, we knew Akira was hiding money. Stephen Spencer had told us. How else could she have been earning it apart from writing? And then there was the way she lied about meeting Dawn Adams. Why make up all that crap about a cottage in the middle of nowhere? Having dinner with a publisher is about the most natural thing in the world for a writer – unless they’re up to something pretty unusual together.

‘But what really did it for me was that moment at Daunt’s. Didn’t you see the look on her face when you were caught nicking Prisoners of Blood? She was horrified. I thought she was going to be sick. But it wasn’t just because you’d stolen a book, it was because you’d chosen that book. She thought you must have rumbled her.’

It was true. She had said nothing. She hadn’t even looked at me. Her eyes had been glued to the book.

‘It still seems quite a leap,’ I said.

‘Not really. She’s a writer and like all writers she’s a bit of an egotist so she couldn’t completely abandon authorship of her crap stories. The last four letters of Belladonna are her own name backwards. And three of the letters in Akira turn up in Mark. I’m surprised you didn’t see that, mate.’

I was surprised too. I do the Times crossword every day. I love anagrams, codes, acronyms . . .

I was still trying to piece it all together. ‘What you said about King’s Cross just now. Was that true? Was Gregory Taylor trying to send a message?’

‘Yes, he was. Just not the message you think.’

What message was that? And had we just eliminated Akira Anno from our enquiries? Both she and Dawn Adams had been insulted by Richard Pryce and they had provided each other with an alibi on the night of the murder. Added to which, Pryce had been investigating Akira’s income. Suppose he had stumbled onto the truth about Mark Belladonna? That would have given them both a powerful incentive to kill him.

I thought I’d narrowed the list of suspects down to one of five. Now it had slipped back up to half a dozen.