The Sentence Is Death

4 Last Words

The stairs leading up the first floor were white slabs, jutting out of the wall with no visible means of support. A steel bannister swept alongside, something to hold on to as you went. Cara Grunshaw stumped up to the top with Hawthorne padding more quietly behind, and we finally arrived at a galleried area with a view down to the living room and, on this floor, a series of doors leading off to the left and right.

There was another detective waiting for us, leaning against the colonnade that prevented visitors from plunging into the living room. He was thinner and smaller than Grunshaw, with tufts of sand-coloured hair and a moustache. He was wearing a brown leather jacket that might have been inspired by an old television series; Hutch to her Starsky, or perhaps the other way round.

‘He’s in there, ma’am.’

‘Thank you, Darren.’

Grunshaw went first, ignoring the paintings on the wall, which were very different from the ones downstairs. I studied art history at university and recognised a watercolour by Eric Ravilious and a series of wood engravings by Eric Gill. A collection of Erics. The top floor of the house was altogether more formal. The floor was carpeted, the layout more enclosed. Grunshaw knocked at the door Darren had indicated and without waiting for an answer went into a room that turned out to be a library, filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves separated only by two windows looking out over the front drive, and a widescreen TV mounted on the wall. There were two white leather sofas, several glass tables and a fake – or perhaps I should say faux – zebra-skin rug on the floor.

Stephen Spencer was hunched up at the end of one of the sofas, surrounded by framed photographs of Richard Pryce, himself and the two of them together. He was wearing a crumpled linen shirt, pale blue corduroys and loafers. He must have been in his early thirties, about ten years younger than his husband, and would have been good-looking if his eyes weren’t swollen with tears, his cheeks red and his fair hair flattened down and damp. He was very slim with a swan-like neck that emphasised his Adam’s apple. He was holding a handkerchief in one hand and I noticed he wore a gold band on his wedding finger, identical to the one I had seen in the picture of Richard Pryce that Hawthorne had shown me.

The room had become quite crowded with the five of us in it. DI Grunshaw plumped herself down on the other sofa, her legs apart. Hawthorne went over to the window. I stood next to the door with my shoulders against the wall, deliberately hiding the embroidery on the back of my jacket. Darren had followed us in. He was standing in a very casual sort of pose, ostentatiously holding a notebook and pen.

‘How are you feeling, Mr Spencer?’ Grunshaw asked. She was trying to be sympathetic but her words were forced and condescending, as if she were talking to a child who had just fallen over and scratched his knee in the playground.

‘I still can’t believe it,’ Spencer said, his voice thick with grief. He clutched the handkerchief tighter than ever. ‘I saw him on Friday. I said goodbye to him. I never dreamed—’ He broke off.

Darren scribbled all that down.

‘You have to understand that we have to talk to you now,’ Grunshaw went on, none too delicately. ‘The sooner we can get the answers to our questions, the sooner we can begin our investigations.’

He nodded but said nothing.

‘You said you’d just come back from Suffolk . . .’

‘From Essex. Clacton-on-Sea. We have a second home.’ He gestured at a photograph. It showed a white, pocket-sized building, 1930s in style with curving balconies and a flat roof. It didn’t look real.

‘Why were you on your own?’

Spencer swallowed. ‘Richard didn’t want to come. He said he had too much work. Also, he had someone coming to the house on Saturday afternoon. I was visiting my mother. She’s in a nursing home in Frinton.’

‘I’m sure she was pleased to see you.’

‘She has Alzheimer’s. She probably doesn’t even remember I was there.’

‘When did you leave?’

‘After breakfast. I cleaned the house and locked up. I suppose it must have been about eleven o’clock this morning.’

‘You didn’t call Mr Pryce before you left?’

Darren had been scribbling the details down in his notebook but now he paused with the pen over the page. Meanwhile, I’d taken out my iPhone – Hawthorne had been right about that, by the way: I’d picked it up from my flat on the way over – and quietly turned it on. I wondered if it might be illegal to record a police interview. I supposed I’d find out in time.

‘I did try. Yes. But I got no answer.’ Spencer brought the handkerchief up again, screwing it into the corner of his eye. ‘He should have been with me. We’ve been together for nine years. We do everything together. We bought the house together. I can’t believe that anyone would do this to him. I mean, Richard was one of the kindest men in the world.’

‘Do you always take Monday morning off?’ Grunshaw’s voice was unemotional now. Everything about her – the way she sat, her heavy plastic spectacles, her black, pudding-basin hairstyle – could have been designed to remove any sense of empathy.

Spencer nodded. ‘We never take the A12 on a Sunday evening. There’s too much traffic. If Richard had been with me, we’d have left at the crack of dawn. He was always focused on his work. But I’m my own boss. I have an art gallery in Bury Street, just round the corner from Christie’s. We specialise in early twentieth-century art.’ That explained the Gills and the Ravilious. ‘We’re open Tuesday to Saturday so on Monday I work from home.’

‘You spoke to Mr Pryce last night.’ Grunshaw picked up the thread again.

‘Yes. I rang him at about eight o’clock.’

‘How can you be so sure of the time?’

‘It was the twenty-seventh yesterday and the clocks had gone back. I’d just finished going round the house and I rang on my mobile.’ He took it out and thumbed a few buttons, checking his call register. ‘Here you are!’ he exclaimed. ‘Eight o’clock exactly.’

‘Get a decent signal in Clacton?’ That was Hawthorne, speaking for the first time, on the edge of hostile. But there was nothing new about that.

Stephen Spencer ignored him.

‘Can you tell us what your husband said during your conversation?’ Grunshaw asked.

‘He asked me what I’d been doing. We talked about the weather and about Mum . . . the usual sort of thing. He sounded a bit down. He said he was still worried about the case he’d been working on.’

‘What case was that?’

‘It was a divorce case. I’m sure you’ve heard that Richard was a divorce lawyer, a very successful one. He had just represented a property developer called Adrian Lockwood. His wife was that writer . . . you know . . . Akira . . .’ Her second name had slipped from his mind.

‘Akira Anno,’ I said.

‘That’s right.’ His eyes widened as he suddenly remembered. ‘You know that she threatened him. She came up to him in a restaurant and she threw wine at him. I was there!’

‘What exactly happened?’

‘I should have told you immediately. I don’t know why I didn’t. But coming home this morning and finding the police here and Richard . . .’

He paused, collecting himself, then continued.

‘We were having dinner together at The Delaunay in Aldwych. This would have been last Monday, a week ago. It was Richard’s favourite restaurant and we often met there after work . . . it was sort of convenient for both of us and then we’d get a taxi home. Anyway, we’d just finished eating when I saw this woman coming over, passing between the tables. She was short, Japanese-looking, and I didn’t recognise her. There was another woman with her, just behind.

‘Anyway, she stopped at our table and Richard looked up. Of course, he knew who she was at once but he didn’t seem particularly disturbed. He muttered something polite, “Can I help you?” or something, and she looked down at him with this weird little smile on her face. She was wearing tinted glasses. “You’re a pig!” Those were her opening words. She said something about the divorce, how unfair it had been. And then she reached down and picked up my wine glass. I’d been drinking red wine and we’d finished the meal but there were still a couple of inches left. For a crazy moment, I thought she was going to drink it but instead she threw it all over his head. Richard had wine on his face and on his shirt. It was outrageous. I thought we should call the police but he didn’t want to make a scene. He just wanted to leave.’

‘What else did she say?’

‘Well, that’s the thing. Immediately after she’d thrown the wine she put the glass down and said something about how really she wished she could hit him with a bottle.’ Spencer stopped as the significance of what he had just described caught up with him. ‘Oh my God! That was how he was killed, wasn’t it!’ His hands flew out, one on each side of his head. ‘She told him she was going to do it!’

‘We’re not jumping to any conclusions, Mr Spencer,’ Grunshaw said.

‘What do you mean, you’re not jumping to conclusions? She confessed. She admitted it. There were a dozen witnesses.’

‘Did he mention her name when the two of you were on the phone on Sunday night?’

Spencer thought back. ‘No. He didn’t say her name. But he did refer to her. I knew the case had been on his mind . . . he’d talked about it a bit when we were at The Delaunay, although he was very discreet; he never gave me any details. Anyway, one thing he did say when we were on the phone was that he’d spoken to Oliver. That’s Oliver Masefield. They were both senior partners at the firm . . . Masefield Pryce Turnbull. I was going to ask him about that when the doorbell went.’

‘The doorbell here?’ Grunshaw asked.

‘Yes. I heard it at the end of the line. Richard stopped in the middle of a sentence. “Who can that be?” he said. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He told me to hang on a minute and he put his phone down.’

‘He was also on his mobile?’

‘Yes. He must have put it on the table in the hall. There was a long pause and then I heard his footsteps on the wooden flooring and I think I may have heard the door open. Then I heard him speak. “What are you doing here?” That’s what he said. He sounded surprised. “It’s a bit late.”’

Darren had been writing all this down too. He paused. ‘His exact words?’ he asked.

This time Spencer didn’t hesitate. ‘I’m certain of it. “It’s a bit late.” That’s what he said.’

‘And then?’

‘He came back to the phone. He said he’d call me back later and he hung up.’

‘He didn’t tell you anything else about his visitor?’ Darren had a way of ensuring his questions sounded aggressive and intimidating. He could have made you feel nervous just wishing you a good morning. ‘You didn’t hear them say anything else?’

‘He didn’t say anything more. I told you. He just hung up.’ The tears welled up again. ‘I waited for him to call me again but when I didn’t hear from him I thought he must have been busy or something. He was often like that. He would get absorbed in what he was doing. I drove back this morning and when I got to the house I saw all the police cars and I still had no idea . . .’

Hawthorne had been listening to all this with his shoulders half turned towards the window. Now he looked back. ‘Nice car,’ he said. ‘Does it have electric windows?’

‘What?’ Spencer was so thrown by the question that he briefly forgot his tears. I was less surprised. From my experience of Hawthorne, I knew he had a way of firing off seemingly irrelevant observations. He wasn’t being deliberately offensive. It was just that offensive was his default mode.

‘It’s a classic model,’ Hawthorne went on. ‘What’s the date?’

‘Nineteen sixty-eight.’

Spencer was tight-lipped now, looking to DI Grunshaw to take back control. She obliged. ‘You know that your husband was attacked with a bottle of wine. It was a Château Lafite Rothschild. Was that the same bottle of wine given to him by Adrian Lockwood?’

‘I can’t be certain – but yes, I think so. Richard had said it was very expensive. It was also a waste of money because he didn’t drink.’

‘He was a teetotaller.’

‘Yes.’

‘So there’s no alcohol in the house,’ Hawthorne said.

‘Actually, there’s quite a lot of stuff in the kitchen – whisky, gin, beer and so on. I’ll have a drink now and then. But Richard didn’t like alcohol. That’s all.’

Cara Grunshaw smiled at Hawthorne. It didn’t make her look any more attractive. I was becoming aware of an edge of malice behind her good humour. ‘Do you have any other questions?’ she asked.

‘Just one.’ Hawthorne turned to Spencer. ‘You mentioned that Richard was expecting a visitor on Saturday afternoon. Did he say who it was?’

Spencer considered. ‘No. He just said there was someone coming. He didn’t say who.’

‘I think you’ve probably got enough,’ Grunshaw cut in, daring Hawthorne to disagree. ‘Why don’t you run along now while I take a full statement from Mr Spencer?’

‘Whatever you say, Cara.’

I still half admired the way she’d handled herself. She was the complete opposite of Meadows. She wasn’t going to allow Hawthorne to get under her skin and she had made it clear that she was the one in charge. The two of us left, taking the stairs back down and passing through the front door. The moment we were outside, Hawthorne lit a cigarette. While he was doing that, I examined the broken bulrushes a second time, looking for a footprint. Sure enough, there was a small, quite deep indentation in the soil. It might have been made by the tip of someone’s shoe or, more probably (I thought), a woman’s stiletto heel.

‘What a tosser,’ Hawthorne muttered.

‘Grunshaw?’

‘Stephen Spencer.’ Hawthorne blew out smoke. ‘Christ! I couldn’t have stood in that room a minute longer. If his wrists had been any limper, his hands would have fallen off.’

‘You can hold it right there,’ I said. ‘I’ve already told you. You can’t talk about people’s sexuality like that. I’m not having it and I’m not putting it in the book.’

‘You can put what you bloody like in the book, mate. But I wasn’t talking about his sexuality. I was talking about his acting technique. Did you believe any of it? The tears? The hanky? He was lying through his teeth.’

I thought back to what I had just seen. It didn’t seem possible. ‘I thought he was genuinely upset,’ I said.

‘Maybe he was. But he was still hiding something.’ The MG was right in front of us. Hawthorne pointed with the hand holding the cigarette. ‘There’s no way that’s just driven down from Essex or Suffolk or anywhere near the coast.’

‘How do you know?’

‘That house he showed us in that photograph didn’t have a garage and there’s no way this car has been sitting by the seaside for three days. There’s no seagull shit. And there’s no dead insects on the windscreen either. You’re telling me he’s driven a hundred miles down the A12 and he hasn’t hit a single midge or fly? I reckon he was somewhere much nearer and he wasn’t alone.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t know. I’m guessing. The passenger window is open a few inches and the windows aren’t electrically operated. I’d say there’s an even chance it was actually opened by the passenger. If he’d been driving alone, he’d have had to lean all the way across and why would he do that?’

‘Is there anything else?’ I asked.

‘Yes. There is one thing. Richard Pryce’s last words. “It’s a bit late.” Don’t they strike you as a bit odd?’

‘Why?’

‘It was eight o’clock on a Sunday evening. He’d had an unexpected visitor but it was someone he knew. He invited them in and he gave them a drink. Now, it may have been dark – winter time had just started – but it certainly wasn’t late.’

‘Do you think Stephen Spencer was making it up?’

‘I doubt it. He’s probably telling the truth about what he heard. But it’s still a strange thing to say and maybe Pryce wasn’t actually referring to the time. Maybe he meant something else.’

We had been walking down Fitzroy Park while we were having this conversation, leaving the police cars and all the forensic activity behind us. The taxi that had brought us here was still waiting, the meter running. The driver was reading a newspaper. We passed the turn-off we’d come down when we arrived. The far side of Hampstead Heath with the women’s pond and the other lakes was visible ahead of us. A few steps later, we reached Rose Cottage, which was indeed pink and pretty, set back in its own little world and half smothered in shrubs and flowers, although all the roses had been cut back for the coming winter. Hawthorne walked up and rang the front doorbell, which immediately set off a dog barking somewhere inside.

After a long wait, the door was opened by a man in his eighties, wrapped in the sort of cardigan that might have been knitted with rolling pins. Even as he stood there, he seemed to be shrivelling inside it. He gazed at us with watery eyes. He had straggly hair and liver spots. There was no sign of the dog, which was locked up somewhere, still barking on the other side of a door.

‘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.