The Twist of a Knife

8 Palgrove Gardens

Little Venice is one of the more secretive corners of London, tucked away between Paddington Station and Regent’s Park and unknown to almost everyone except the people who live there – and who wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. The traffic roars past along the Marylebone Road, heading for Heathrow Airport and the west, unaware that there’s this quiet enclave of handsome, expensive houses, eclectic shops and attractive cafés, almost a village in its own right, lurking just out of sight. The Regent’s Canal skirts round Lord’s Cricket Ground and London Zoo, then continues through the middle of it before passing through the Maida Hill Tunnel. The closer you are to the water’s edge, the more you are likely to pay. Harriet Throsby had lived a few minutes away from the canal. If I had killed her, I could have followed the canal path virtually from my flat to hers. It wouldn’t have taken me much more than an hour.

And here I was, supposedly returning to the scene of the crime. For some reason, Hawthorne hadn’t given the driver the house number and we were cruising slowly along an elegant crescent, looking for the right address. The houses were very similar, Victorian, tall and narrow, with bay windows looking out over private parking bays, and expensive loft conversions above. Japanese cherry trees sprouted out of the pavement, one for every two or three houses, looking a little sad in the damp April weather.

‘Which house is number 27?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘I don’t know …’ We continued on our way until, suddenly, it occurred to me. ‘You asked me that on purpose!’ I exclaimed.

He looked at me innocently.

‘Yes, you did. You wanted to know if I’d already been to her house. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall for that?’

‘Well …’

‘And you’re still ready to believe I could have killed her!’

‘I’m trying to keep an open mind.’

I pointed. ‘There it is, over there. I may be wrong, but I’d guess it’s the one with the policeman standing outside.’

The taxi drew in. We got out, I paid and then together we walked up to the front door. There were two bells. Hawthorne rang the lower one – marked Throsby. I thought the policeman might stop us from entering, but he had barely acknowledged us as we approached. Maybe Hawthorne had a certain authority about him. After all, he had visited enough crime scenes.

Arthur Throsby opened the door.

It had to be him. He had the blank, exhausted look of someone whose life has been turned upside down. We were two more strangers entering his house to ask yet more questions and he looked at us with sad resignation.

‘Yes?’ he asked, incuriously.

‘Mr Throsby?’

‘I’m Arthur Throsby, yes.’

‘My name is Daniel Hawthorne. I’m very sorry for your loss. I’m helping the police with their inquiries. Can we come in?’

Hawthorne was lying. In fact, he had lied twice. He wasn’t officially helping anyone except me. And he wasn’t sorry at all.

Throsby looked puzzled. ‘I’ve already spoken to Detective Inspector Grunshaw,’ he said. ‘I’ve made a full statement.’

‘Yes. There were a couple of things she wanted to follow up on.’

‘I thought we’d covered everything. She didn’t say anyone else would be coming.’

‘Mr Throsby, we’re trying to find out who killed Harriet. You can phone DI Grunshaw if you like. But I think it’s fair to say that every minute we waste is a minute the trail gets cold. It’s up to you.’

He was bluffing, of course, but it worked.

‘No. It’s all right. I’m … well, I’m sure you understand.’ Throsby stepped back to allow us in. This was something I’d learned after three investigations with Hawthorne. When someone was murdered, people expected to be asked questions. It was as if they’d seen so many murder stories on television, they knew the part they had to play and didn’t ask too many questions themselves.

We stepped through the front door and found ourselves in a narrow communal area with two further doors facing each other at angles. Harriet Throsby had lived with her husband and daughter in the ground-floor and basement of the building, with access to the garden, while a second flat had been carved out above. The door on the right was open, showing a brightly lit, airy space with a wide corridor leading into an open-plan kitchen and living room with French windows at the end. The taste was simple, on the edge of chintzy: floral wallpaper, lots of brightly coloured vases and original theatre posters hanging in frames. The wooden floor, what I could see of it, was original, but we were standing in an area that had been covered by translucent plastic sheeting with numbered tags underneath.

‘She was found out here, next to the entrance?’ Hawthorne asked.

Arthur nodded. ‘The police were in the flat all day and much of the evening. They took samples and covered the whole place in fingerprint powder. They asked me a lot of questions – and my daughter too, as if she had anything to do with it. Neither of us were even here! And now, I suppose, you want me to go over it all again.’

‘That would be helpful,’ Hawthorne said. ‘I know it may seem like a waste of time, but when you repeat things, you can often remember details you might have forgotten the first time round. Anyway, I prefer to hear it straight from you, if you don’t mind.’

‘Let’s go into the kitchen. Do you want a coffee?’

‘No, thank you.’ Hawthorne answered for both of us.

We walked down the corridor, passing a half-open door that gave me a glimpse of an untidy room with an unmade bed, clothes everywhere, a Lord of the Rings poster on the wall.

‘That’s Olivia’s room,’ Arthur said. He had noticed me staring in and pulled the door shut.

We went into the kitchen. There was a pine table and a breakfast bar. Between the scattered coffee mugs, the unpaid bills, the theatre programmes, the day’s newspapers still open at the obituary columns and the unwashed plates piled up in the sink, it gave me a pretty good insight into life before and after Harriet Throsby. She hadn’t been gone forty-eight hours and her memories were everywhere. But the mess, I suspected, was Arthur’s. I glanced through the windows at a small, well-tended garden and I wondered how long it would be before it went to seed.

We sat down.

‘Nice place,’ I said, breaking the silence.

‘Do you think so?’ Arthur Throsby didn’t look so sure. ‘Harriet wanted to move. She’d been talking about it for a while, but I suppose I’ll stay here now that she’s—’ He broke off. ‘Where do you want me to start?’

He was exactly the sort of man I’d expected to be married to someone like Harriet. She had been dominating, assertive. He was softly spoken, downtrodden, with thinning hair and a face that was mournful now for good reason but which might have been the same since the day he got married. He hadn’t shaved and the clothes he was wearing looked old and unironed. He made himself a coffee without once looking at his hands, almost robotically. He didn’t want the coffee. It was just something to do.

‘Why don’t you tell us your movements on the morning of your wife’s death?’ Hawthorne suggested.

‘All right.’ He stirred his coffee and brought it over to us. It sat there, steaming gently in front of him. ‘Harriet was still in bed when I got up. That was at seven fifteen. I don’t set the alarm because she didn’t like being disturbed, but I always wake up on the dot. I made myself breakfast and squeezed some fresh orange juice for her to have later. She wouldn’t drink it if it wasn’t fresh. I tiptoed in and left it by the bed, then I set off for work shortly after eight.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘I teach history at the Harris Academy in St John’s Wood. I usually go there by bike. It’s about twenty minutes away. Otherwise, I take the tube from Paddington.’

‘Did you go by tube or bike yesterday?’

‘I took the bike. Olivia saw me leave. We spoke a few words. Nothing of any interest.’

‘Your daughter went to the theatre with your wife, but you didn’t,’ Hawthorne said. I’d told him that I’d met Olivia at the party and that she was a friend of Sky Palmer, the actress who played Nurse Plimpton.

‘That’s right.’

‘Why was that?’

Arthur shrugged as if the answer was obvious. ‘I don’t much like theatre. Anyway, Harriet preferred it if I didn’t come. I have a slight problem with asthma and she used to say the sound of my breathing put her off.’

‘So when was the last time you spoke to your wife?’

‘I called her from school. That was a few minutes before ten o’clock, between lessons. She was already up and at work by then.’

‘How did you know?’ I asked.

Hawthorne wasn’t pleased. He never liked it when I chipped in and perhaps it was a bit inappropriate, me being the main suspect.

‘I FaceTimed,’ Arthur replied. ‘I could see her. She was sitting in her study.’ He pointed at a door leading off from the kitchen. ‘It’s the dining room, but we never used it for eating. We never had guests. That was where she worked.’

‘Can we see it?’

‘If you want.’ He got up, leaving his coffee behind.

Harriet’s office could be accessed directly from both the kitchen and the corridor: there was a second door opposite Olivia’s bedroom. It was a rectangular space, running to the bay window I had seen as I approached the house. Most of the area was dominated by a dining table, which was evidently where she had worked. It was piled up with notepads, files, newspaper clippings and theatre programmes. There were about a dozen pens spilling out of a Book of Mormon mug, a half-empty bottle of wine and a glass decorated with a lipstick smear that must have been made by Harriet, the last mark she had left in this world. I glanced at the bookshelves. I wasn’t surprised to see play texts, actors’ and directors’ biographies, histories of different theatres. She also had a strong interest in crime and I remembered her telling me that it was something she had written about. I hadn’t realised she had meant books, though. I noticed three of them spread out on the table with her name on the covers, placed there as if to impress.

‘This is her room,’ Arthur said. ‘It doesn’t get enough light … she was never happy with it. That’s the trouble having a house that’s north-facing.’ He looked around him. ‘Your lot have taken her computer and some of her papers,’ he went on. ‘But otherwise this is more or less how she left it.’

Hawthorne peered out of the window. ‘She could see whoever was at the front door,’ he said. ‘So it’s quite likely she knew the person who killed her.’

‘Unless he was dressed as a postman,’ I said.

Hawthorne ignored this. ‘Why did you call your wife?’ he asked.

‘She liked me to ring her every morning around then. She would tell me if she wanted any shopping done.’

‘And did she?’

‘She wanted some avocados. There were avocados in the fridge, but they were too hard.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She was always going on about that fridge. She hated the temperature control. We could never get it right.’

‘Anything else?’

Arthur thought for a minute and shook his head. ‘I can’t think of anything that might be relevant.’

‘How long had you been married, Mr Throsby?’

‘Twenty-five years.’ He pointed to an ornamental silver candlestick at the end of the table. ‘I bought her that as a wedding-anniversary present. She didn’t much like it, though. She didn’t see the point.’

‘I think it’s very nice,’ Hawthorne said.

‘Thank you.’

Hawthorne hesitated. ‘Would you say you were happily married, Mr Throsby?’

Arthur had to think about that. ‘Well, she wasn’t an easy woman. I’ll be honest with you. She could be …’ He searched for the word.

‘Critical?’ Hawthorne suggested.

‘Yes. I suppose you could say that. Perhaps it went with the territory.’ Astonishingly, he was talking as if it had never occurred to him before. ‘She could be quite judgemental.’

‘You never lost your temper with her?’

‘Certainly not. You’re not suggesting …’ Arthur blushed. ‘I was nowhere near the house when she was attacked, and I can assure you, there were dozens of witnesses who saw me at school. You think I would do anything to harm her? The mother of my child?’ He looked genuinely pained. ‘I loved Harriet! I knew the two of us were going to be together the day I met her. She was a very attractive young woman and a terrific journalist. I’d never met anyone so ambitious, so determined.’

‘Where did you meet?’

‘We were both journalists – at the Bristol Argus. I wrote about politics and education. She was crime.’

‘Not theatre?’

He shook his head. ‘Not to start with. No. She was their senior crime reporter and she was very good at it. She got an honourable mention from the Bevins Trust and she was the Best Regional Journalist at the British Press Awards in 1997.’ His eyes fell on the dining table. ‘She was a published author too.’

Hawthorne spread out the three books. No Regrets: The Strange World of Dr Robert Thirkell. Lady Killer: The Crimes of Sophie Comninos. And Bad Boys: Life and Death in an English Village. I noticed that the titles followed the same pattern, almost like crossword clues with the answers printed next to them. The covers were also similar: black-and-white photographs snatched from old newspapers with gaudy lettering for the title and the author. The books looked determinedly old-fashioned; somehow stuck in the worlds they described.

‘Robert Thirkell was a doctor working in Bristol,’ Arthur explained. ‘He killed off half a dozen elderly patients … put rat poison in their tea. He thought he was doing them a favour. Harriet managed to get close to him before he was arrested and the two of them became good friends. That was how she got the material for the book. Sophie Comninos was a hotshot TV executive until she murdered her Greek husband. She smashed a bottle of pink wine over his head after losing at a game of backgammon and then she killed two more people trying to cover it up.’

‘What about this one?’ Hawthorne had picked up Life and Death in an English Village.

‘She got into a lot of trouble with that,’ Arthur said. ‘It was about Trevor and Annabel Longhurst. You may remember them? Their son came under the influence of an older boy and the end result was that he got involved in the death of a teacher at a local primary school. They were living in a village near Chippenham – Moxham Heath – and they weren’t popular. They were very rich. Incomers. Champagne socialists, you might say. They were both of them into politics, big time. Harriet was accused of doing a hatchet job.’

With everything I had learned about Harriet Throsby, that didn’t surprise me.

‘These were all stories she’d covered for the Argus,’ Arthur went on. ‘The books didn’t sell a lot of copies, but the advances helped pay for this place. Anyway, her heart wasn’t in it. Crime, I mean. When I first met her, she was already thinking about moving on.’

Once again, I saw Harriet as she had been, alive and opinionated, at the Turkish restaurant after the play. What was it she had said? ‘I didn’t find it entirely satisfying. Criminals are so boring.’ Her husband might have been blind to her failings, but it seemed he was telling the truth.

‘What did she want to do instead?’ Hawthorne said.

‘She was very good friends with the drama critic at the Argus … a chap called Frank Heywood. She’d go with him to the theatre whenever she could and she’d tell me all about it afterwards. How bad it was, how the lead actor should never have got the part.’ The ghost of a smile shimmered across his face. ‘I think she actually preferred the plays if they were no good. Anyway, she was always reading Frank’s articles and then, after he died, she went straight round to the editor and asked if she could take over.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Food poisoning. Harriet had dinner with him that night and she was very ill too. But Frank had a weak heart and that was the end of him. The editor – his name was Adrian Wells – didn’t want to give her the job. It would mean losing his best crime reporter. But she threatened to walk out if he didn’t do what she wanted, so that was what happened.’ Arthur sighed. ‘She only stayed at the Argus for a couple of years and then she moved up to London. She wrote for The Stage to begin with. After that, she worked on various papers until she got the top job at the Sunday Times.’

‘What about you?’ Arthur looked puzzled, so Hawthorne went on. ‘You said you were a journalist. Now you’re a teacher.’

‘Oh. Well … Harriet always said I was wasting my time, and perhaps she was right. There wasn’t a lot happening in Bristol and she used to say my stuff was boring. Council elections. The new one-way system. The annual Ofsted reports. We had a nice little house down there – a view of the docks – but I didn’t mind selling it, I suppose. When we came up here, I fished around for a bit, but then I got fed up with it and trained as a teacher. I’d written about education, so it seemed a natural move.’

‘You’ll forgive me for saying this, Mr Throsby …’ I always knew when Hawthorne was going to turn on someone. He could be friendly one moment, ferocious the next. ‘But you don’t seem too put out by the death of your wife.’

‘You can think that if you like, Mr Hawthorne. But you don’t know me and you never met Harriet, as far as I’m aware. She wasn’t the easiest of people to get along with, but we were happy together. And just because I’m not standing here tearing out my hair or whatever it is you’d like me to do, it doesn’t mean I’m not deeply upset.’

He didn’t sound deeply upset.

‘Harriet wasn’t perfect, but I never wished her any harm and what happened to her is horrible. I’m not going to put on a show for you and your friend and if you haven’t got any more questions, I’d like to be left on my own.’

In his own quiet way, Arthur was angry and I was thinking it was probably time for us to make an exit when the door opened and Olivia came in. She was dressed to go out – in a glittery jacket and T-shirt, carrying a leather bag on a chain. Her hair was still damp from the shower. ‘Dad, I’m on my way—’ she began, then stopped when she saw me and Hawthorne. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

‘These are police officers,’ her father told her.

Olivia looked at me petulantly. ‘No, he’s not,’ she replied. ‘He wrote the play. The one that I went to with Mum.’

‘What?’ Arthur turned on me. ‘You told me—’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ I said.

‘I’m a private detective,’ Hawthorne cut in. He was addressing Olivia and just for once he seemed to be on my side. ‘I sometimes help the police and that’s why I’m here. Tony works with me – and if you’ll give us a few minutes of your time, maybe the two of us can find out who killed your mother.’

‘I don’t care who killed her,’ Olivia said.

‘Olivia!’ Either Arthur was a brilliant actor or he was genuinely shocked by his daughter’s attitude.

‘Oh, come on, Dad,’ Olivia insisted. ‘What difference does it make? Knowing who killed her won’t bring her back, and don’t pretend you’re going to miss her. You know what she was like.’

‘Olivia! I can’t believe you’re saying these things. You know I’ll miss her. I already do!’

‘She was always criticising you. She never stopped! She was driving you out of your mind.’

‘You’re wrong, dear. You’re quite wrong. It’s never easy … relationships, marriage! It’s a balancing act. There are ups and there are downs—’

‘She’s gone, Dad. She was a total cow and she ruined our lives. Neither of us has to pretend any more.’

Olivia went over to him and rested a hand on his arm, and in that brief moment I was aware of a real affection between them. What had it really been like living with Harriet all these years? The two of them were survivors.

Hawthorne was less impressed. ‘You don’t seem to have many fond memories of your mum,’ he observed.

‘You don’t need to answer any of his questions.’ Arthur put an arm around his daughter, protecting her. ‘These gentlemen were leaving anyway.’ He pointed a finger at me. ‘And you had no right to be here in the first place!’

Olivia glared at Hawthorne. ‘I’ll answer anything you like,’ she said, defiantly. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

Hawthorne smiled. ‘So when was the last time you saw her?’

‘We came home in a taxi from the theatre.’ She glanced at me. ‘She really hated your play, by the way. She finished writing her review when we were in the Savoy and I could tell she was ripping into it from the way she typed.’ She turned back to Hawthorne. ‘I didn’t see her the next morning. I had to be at work by nine.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘Near Paddington Station. I’ve got a job at Starbucks.’

‘And you were there until when?’

‘Until the middle of the afternoon. Three o’clock.’

‘How far is the Starbucks from here?’

‘Five minutes.’

‘Ten minutes there and back.’ Hawthorne looked at her, the obvious question hanging in the air.

‘You think I popped home and killed Mum?’ Olivia smiled unpleasantly. ‘I couldn’t leave work. Someone would have seen me. And anyway, I know exactly what you’re doing. You’re only accusing me because you know who really did it.’

‘And who was that?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘Him!’

Him? I glanced left and right, but there could be no avoiding it. She meant me!

‘What are you talking about …?’ I began.

‘You threatened her!’

‘That’s nonsense. That’s absolutely untrue.’ I could feel the blood draining from my face. Or possibly rushing into it. ‘We chatted at the party in the Turkish restaurant. That was all. I didn’t say anything!’

‘You asked her what she thought of your play.’

‘Well, yes …’

‘It was the way you asked her. She felt threatened by you. She said so on the way home.’

‘It was a reasonable question!’

‘She didn’t think so. You frightened her!’

‘Did she say that?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘She didn’t need to. I could tell just by looking at her.’

‘I think you should leave,’ Arthur said, again.

Hawthorne nodded and, much to my relief, we did. It was only when we were out in the street that he asked me: ‘Is it true … what Olivia said?’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘Hawthorne,’ I said. ‘You can’t be serious. All I did was ask Harriet Throsby what she thought of the play. We hardly spoke otherwise. I didn’t threaten her! There were lots of people there. Ask them!’

The policeman who was still standing there, on duty, overheard us. ‘Are you the writer?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘My son really likes your books.’

‘Thank you.’

‘He’ll be very sorry to hear what you did, sir. I can understand you being angry, being criticised that way. But I think you’ve let down all your readers.’

I’d had enough. I stormed down the street. I looked back and saw Hawthorne hadn’t moved. ‘We’re going back to the theatre,’ he called out to me.

Right. The Vaudeville was near Charing Cross. We could get there from Warwick Avenue station on the Bakerloo line – but that was at the other end of the street.

I turned round and stormed off that way.