The Sentence Is Death

21 The Solution to the Crime

It was with a mixture of excitement and dread that I made my way back up the steps and into the police station at the corner of Ladbroke Grove where I had first attended the interview with Akira Anno. The memory of my conversation with Hawthorne was still buzzing in my head.

‘Tell me I’ve got it right.’

‘You’ve nailed it, mate. More or less . . .’

‘Hawthorne . . . !’

‘You’ve got it right.’

From the start I had known that it was possible to get there ahead of him, but I was disappointed that he was so grudging in his respect for what I’d done. Maybe he was a little peeved. To be fair to him, he had corrected me on a few points where I had got things confused. More importantly, he had agreed to the course of action I was taking now, although I wasn’t going to let Cara Grunshaw know that.

I had to share what I knew with her and her unpleasant sidekick, DC Mills. I didn’t want either of them to get the credit but I owed it to Jill and the series. I was still certain that Grunshaw was behind many of the problems that the production team was facing and it was the only way I could get her off our backs. It didn’t matter that much to Hawthorne. He was paid by the day; one of the reasons he was so painstaking in his enquiries. He didn’t seem to be particularly interested in taking the credit. Even so, he had chosen not to come with me. I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Grunshaw myself.

She was waiting in the same dingy interrogation room where we had met before. She was wearing a bright orange jersey and a multi-coloured bead necklace, but they contrasted with the sourness of her expression, her refusal to smile or to look anything but threatening. Darren Mills was looking jaunty in a sports jacket and trousers with a very slight flare. Generally, I have quite a lot of admiration for the British police. They’re always extremely helpful to writers, giving us access to operations, control rooms and all the rest of it. They must get fed up always being depicted as aggressive or corrupt – but where these two are concerned, I have no regrets.

‘So what do you want?’ Grunshaw asked. She was sitting at the table with Mills leaning against the wall behind her. She hadn’t offered me a cup of coffee. She didn’t look at all pleased to see me.

‘You wanted information,’ I said. ‘We know who killed Richard Pryce.’

‘You mean, Hawthorne worked it out?’

‘We worked it out together.’ That wasn’t strictly true but I needed his authority.

‘Does he know you’re here?’

‘No. I didn’t tell him.’

I was worried for a moment but she didn’t see through the lie. ‘Well, go on then.’

‘Can I have a glass of water?’

‘No. You can’t have a fucking glass of water. And get on with it. We haven’t got all day.’

I was tempted to turn my back on her and walk out. But it was too late for that now. This was my moment. I plunged in.

‘This has been an investigation into not one death but two,’ I began. ‘There was the murder of Richard Pryce at his home in Fitzroy Park—’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Grunshaw interrupted. ‘We know where he lived.’

I held my ground. ‘Forgive me, Detective Inspector, but if I’m going to tell you this, I’m going to tell it my way.’

‘Whatever you say.’ She scowled. ‘But it had better be good.’

Behind her, Mills crossed his arms and his legs, using his shoulder blades to stay upright against the wall.

‘There was the killing of Richard Pryce and there was the death of Gregory Taylor just twenty-four hours before. What’s made this investigation difficult has been working out the connection between them – if there was one at all. Was Gregory’s death murder? Was it suicide? Was it an accident? Let’s take them one at a time.

‘It couldn’t have been murder. Only two people knew he was in London. Richard Pryce, the man he had come to see, and his wife. It’s just possible that Richard could have followed him to King’s Cross and pushed him under a train, but why would he do that? Gregory Taylor had a terminal illness and Richard had just agreed to pay for the operation that might save him. If he wanted to kill Gregory, all he had to do was refuse. And Susan Taylor had no reason to kill her husband either. Their marriage was happy enough and she’d been the one who’d sent him to London to get help. There was only one other person who might have had a grudge against him – Davina Richardson could have blamed him for the death of her husband. He had been the team leader at Long Way Hole. But she didn’t know he was coming to London and although it’s true he was close to Highgate station, there’s no evidence that the two of them met.

‘So was it suicide? That doesn’t make any sense either. Gregory Taylor came to London to get money for his operation and he rang his wife. We’ve heard the message and he’s ecstatic. Richard Pryce isn’t just going to pay £20,000 or £30,000, he’s going to pay the whole thing. Of course, Gregory could still be depressed. The operation may not succeed. He’s still ill. But everything in his behaviour suggests that this is a man who wants to live. He’s going to take his wife out to dinner to celebrate. He’s arranged to meet an old friend, Dave Gallivan, to talk about Long Way Hole . . . I suppose we’ll never know what he was going to say. He even buys a paperback with six hundred pages to read on the train!

‘It had to be an accident. It’s the only explanation that works. I’m sure you’ve seen the CCTV footage. He’s in a hurry. He wants to get home to celebrate with his wife. There’s a crowd of football supporters and someone pushes into him. He shouts, “Look out!” and he falls.’ I paused. ‘If he’d wanted to kill himself, would he have done it inside a station, with the train moving so slowly? The transport police didn’t think so and nor do I.’

Grunshaw and Mills were silent, gazing at me sullenly. At least I had their full attention.

‘There are only really six suspects in the murder of Richard Pryce,’ I went on. ‘And I’m not going to go through them all. The point is this. If Gregory Taylor had been murdered, then maybe Richard’s death would have been connected to what had happened at Long Way Hole all those years ago. But if you accept that it was an accident, then there’s a whole different shape that presents itself and that’s got to relate to Adrian Lockwood and Akira Anno and their divorce. That was where this all started – a threat in a restaurant. Akira couldn’t have made herself clearer. She despised Richard Pryce and she wanted to hurt him with a bottle of wine.

‘More than that, Akira was afraid of him because he was investigating her finances. She had a secret income stream that she hadn’t told anyone about. If Pryce had found out how she was earning her money that would have been a good reason to kill him. Of course, she’d had to have known he’d found out and that’s a problem because as far as we know, she had no idea.’

‘How was she earning the money?’ Mills asked.

I didn’t answer.

‘Let’s get to the night of the murder. These are the facts. It had been raining and there were a few puddles on the ground but otherwise it was dry. It wasn’t particularly dark – there was a full moon that night – but just before eight o’clock, one of the residents in Fitzroy Park, a man called Henry Fairchild, saw someone coming off Hampstead Heath, carrying a torch. That person rang the doorbell of Heron’s Wake and Richard let them in. But something else happened. They stepped off the path and into the flower bed, breaking some of the bulrushes and leaving a small indentation in the earth. There’s one other thing we need to remember. When Richard opened the door, he was talking to Stephen Spencer on his mobile phone. “What are you doing here?” he asked his visitor, which means he knew who it was. “It’s a bit late.”

‘That last remark is rather strange. It’s eight o’clock on a Sunday evening. True, winter time has just begun. But it’s not really very late at all. What does he mean?

‘I have to admit, I’ve thought about this for a long time. It puzzled Hawthorne too. But then I remembered something I’d seen when I was at Adrian Lockwood’s house. It was just a small detail but it somehow caught my eye. He was eating bilberries.’

‘This had better be going somewhere,’ Cara growled.

I ignored her.

‘Bilberries are rich in antioxidants known as anthocyanins,’ I explained. ‘They’re said to improve the health of your eyes – particularly if you suffer from nyctalopia, or night blindness. RAF pilots used to eat bilberries when they were flying night missions during the war.’ I was quite proud of that. It was something I had learned researching Foyle’s War. ‘Night blindness is caused by the failure of the photoreceptors in the retina and there’s no real cure. But bilberries help. You can also take vitamin A – it’s the reason why mothers tell their children to eat carrots. And why some people choose to wear sunglasses during the day. Adrian Lockwood wears sunglasses. He has a bottle of vitamin A in his kitchen.’

I waited for all this to sink in. Mills used his shoulders to shift himself forward and sat down in a chair, Christine Keeler-like, with his knees spreading out on either side of the chair back.

‘You’re saying that Adrian Lockwood killed Pryce,’ Cara said.

‘Pryce was investigating him. The fact was that Lockwood had lied during his divorce proceedings. He had hidden assets – vintage wine – adding up to £3 million and against all the rules he’d kept it concealed. Then he’d made a stupid mistake. He’d given Pryce an insanely expensive bottle as a thank-you present after the trial. Maybe he was showing off. But Pryce got suspicious and asked an investigator to look into it. The investigator, a man called Leonard Pinkerman, discovered the truth – and Richard Pryce was furious. He was well known for being a hundred per cent scrupulous. Even though the legal proceedings were over and he’d won his case, he wasn’t going to let the matter rest. It went against everything he believed in. On that Sunday, the day he died, he called his partner and told him that he wanted to consult the Law Society. Now do you see how it works?

‘Adrian Lockwood loathes his ex-wife and he’ll do anything to stop the verdict being overturned. If he goes back into court he may have to pay out a whole load more. He’s lied to his solicitor. And the taxman may be interested to learn that he’s sitting on an asset that’s worth a small fortune. But he has a plan to deal with the whole situation. He spends the early part of the evening with his lover, Davina Richardson, and leaves her house at around seven o’clock.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Mills cut in. He didn’t speak often but when he did he was as snarky as possible. ‘Mrs Richardson told us that he left at eight o’clock! She was quite sure of it.’

That was what I had thought too, but looking back through my notes I had finally seen the truth. My Eiffel Tower moment.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But she also told me that she was useless without a man around the house. She said there was a whole string of things she couldn’t do. She couldn’t park the car. She couldn’t work the TV remote control. And she always forgot to change the clocks. Richard Pryce was killed on the Sunday after the clocks had gone back! At least, they were meant to have but Davina had forgotten. It was seven o’clock when he left the house. Not eight o’clock as she thought.

‘Lockwood drove himself to the top of Hampstead Heath but he couldn’t risk driving into Fitzroy Park. It’s a private road and it would be easy to notice – and remember – any car that turned up on a quiet Sunday night, particularly if it had a personalised number plate. Lockwood happens to drive a silver Lexus with the number plate RJL 1. So he walked down from Hampstead Lane. There was a full moon but with his poor night vision he still needed a torch. He was also carrying an umbrella. Mr Fairchild didn’t see it against the beam of light but I noticed it when I was in his home. As he approached the door he stumbled, again because of his eyesight. He trampled the bulrushes but steadied himself using the umbrella, making a mark in the soil.

‘Richard Pryce was on the telephone when he opened the door and he must have been surprised to see his client. “What are you doing here?” he asked. And then he added: “It’s a bit late.” Don’t you see? It was a bit late because only that afternoon he’d telephoned his partner, telling him what action he was going to take. He’d already made his decision. It was a bit late to argue.

‘Even so, Lockwood persuaded Pryce to let him in and they went into the study. Pryce must have taken out the bottle of wine to show to him, or maybe Lockwood asked to see it because it was essential to his plan. You see, he had heard what had happened at The Delaunay. He knew that his ex-wife had seemingly threatened Pryce in front of a crowd of witnesses. We don’t know her exact words but whatever they were, they were close enough. She had threatened him with a bottle and now he would be killed with a bottle. It must have amused him to know that she would get the blame.’

‘And what about the number on the wall?’ Grunshaw asked.

‘It was exactly the same reason,’ I said. ‘He might not have planned it originally but he got the idea seeing the paint pots in the hallway. He knew that Akira had written a poem about murder . . . a haiku. He remembered the number because it was the same date as his second marriage. Incidentally, you might like to look into what happened to his first wife in Barbados. This isn’t the first time he’s been involved in a violent death. Anyway, he was very happy to tell us that Akira was unstable, that she wasn’t afraid to kill. He wrote the number knowing it would lead us eventually to the words she had written: The sentence is death. He wanted us to believe that she was exulting in what she’d done.’

There was a long silence.

I was very much enjoying the sight of Grunshaw and Mills as they took this all in. It was my moment in the sun. I tried to remember if I had left anything out. But no, it was all there.

‘Have you told anyone else about this?’ Grunshaw asked.

‘Only Hawthorne. I’ve told him, of course.’

‘Have either of you approached Lockwood?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t.’ She glanced at Mills, who nodded as if at some unspoken thought. ‘We’ll take it from here,’ she went on. ‘I’m not saying your theory is correct. There may be one or two holes in it.’ I knew she was lying when she said that. I had gone over the whole thing several times through the night and Hawthorne had corrected me on a few points. It was watertight. ‘But we’ll interview Mr Lockwood and see what he has to say.’

‘Fine.’ I stood up. ‘But now I hope you’ll leave Foyle’s War alone. And for what it’s worth, it would be nice if you gave Hawthorne a little credit.’

Cara Grunshaw looked at me almost with pity. ‘Just for your information, I haven’t gone anywhere near your stupid television series,’ she said. ‘As to what I’m going to do or what I’m not going to do, you can piss off, all right? And if you want my advice, you’ll steer clear of Hawthorne. He’s trouble. Everyone knows that. You stick around with him, you’re going to get hurt.’

I was a little deflated as I left Notting Hill police station but I had cheered up by the time I got home. I would have preferred it if Lockwood hadn’t been the killer – at the end of the day, it had been extremely likely from the start – but what did it matter? The case was over. I had enough material for a book. Now all I had to do was write it.

I’d found a new lease on life and quickly dealt with the script revisions for Foyle’s War. I finished them by the middle of the afternoon and emailed them to the office. I tried ringing Hawthorne a couple of times but only got his voicemail. At four o’clock, I decided to go out. There was an exhibition of paintings by Daumier at the Royal Academy which I’d heard was worth seeing. I could pop in there for an hour and then see a film and have dinner with Jill.

The doorbell rang. I picked up the intercom. It was Hawthorne. ‘Can I come up?’ he asked.

I buzzed and let him in.

It was only the second time he had been to my flat. For different reasons, we were both eager to keep each other out of the places where we lived. When he stepped out of the lift, he was looking very pleased with himself. ‘So you saw Cara Grunshaw,’ he said.

I was already on the defensive. ‘You said you didn’t mind.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Did she call you?’

‘No.’ He was carrying an edition of the Evening Standard, which he unfolded and spread out on my table. I put on my glasses and read a small article at the bottom of page two:

I finished reading, then glanced up at Hawthorne. He was leaning over the newspaper, smiling. Something inside me went cold. I read the article a second time. Hawthorne was still smiling. It was a grin that went almost from ear to ear.

I knew.

‘I got it wrong, didn’t I,’ I said. I was feeling sick.

He nodded.

‘It wasn’t Adrian Lockwood.’

He shook his head. ‘Poor Cara,’ he muttered. ‘She’s only gone and arrested the wrong man.’