The Twist of a Knife

21 The Jai Mahal

I thought we would be going straight back to London, but Hawthorne had called ahead and made one final appointment. Adrian Wells had been chief editor at the Bristol Argus when Harriet had written for it, first as a crime reporter, then as the drama critic. He still lived in Bristol and that was where we were now headed. We would take the train home from there.

I was feeling increasingly uneasy – and not because I was aware of time running out for me. On the contrary, things were happening at whirlwind speed. My play had premiered on Tuesday. Harriet was killed on Wednesday. Hawthorne had shown up on Thursday and today was only Friday. My problem was that although I knew we had achieved a great deal, I couldn’t see how it would help.

We knew the truth about Stephen Longhurst. Contrary to what everybody thought and what the judge had clearly believed, he had not been the innocent that he seemed to be. We had learned of a conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice, with Rosemary Alden bribed by an anonymous London lawyer to perjure herself in court. Major Alden himself had been exposed as a vindictive bully. And then there was the strange behaviour of Martin Longhurst. What had he been doing visiting the school, and why tell a lie about sending his children there?

But what had any of this got to do with the death of Harriet Throsby? Hawthorne had suggested that the reason for Harriet’s death might be found in Moxham Heath, but unless John Lamprey or the major’s wife had travelled to London to take revenge (which seemed unlikely), it felt like a complete waste of time.

Adrian Wells was retired now and wanted the whole world to know it. He was sitting with his arms folded across his substantial belly, wearing an almost shapeless cardigan and slippers. His silver hair was long and tangled and he hadn’t shaved. He was living alone in a flat carved out of a converted church in Clifton. Some of the stained-glass windows had been left behind and they suited him. He looked like a debauched saint.

‘Of course I remember Harriet,’ he was telling us. ‘A frightful woman. Good writer, though. She never let the facts get in the way of a good story.’ He laughed at his own cliché.

‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘She didn’t lie, but she embroidered the truth. She saw things a certain way and she made sure her articles reflected her own point of view – she didn’t care if the entire world believed otherwise. So if she liked someone, she’d make them appear sympathetic, even if they’d hacked up their wife and stored the pieces in a freezer … which was actually one of the stories she covered.’

‘Did she like the company of criminals?’

‘That’s a good question.’ Wells laughed a second time. ‘She certainly had a way of ingratiating herself with them – and, for that matter, with their wives, their husbands, their neighbours or their victims! That’s how she was able to get so many of her insights. She went places other journalists never dared. I don’t suppose the name Robert Thirkell means anything to you?’

‘She wrote a book about him.’

‘That’s the one. He was a doctor who polished off half a dozen old ladies in various care homes. Well, he was under suspicion for two or three months before he was arrested and in that time she became good chums with him. I think there was a part of her that was attracted to people who kill.’

‘She admired them?’

‘I wouldn’t go that far, but she was certainly fascinated by them.’

‘She told me she found criminals dull,’ I interjected. That was what Harriet had said during the brief exchange we’d had at the party. Once again, I reflected how strange it was that just a short while ago she had been standing there with a drink in her hand, alive.

‘Harriet found everyone dull in the end. Her friends, her colleagues, her husband … me! That was because she had such a high opinion of herself.’

‘Arthur Throsby also worked on the paper.’

‘That’s right. I was at their wedding. Since you mention it, I was surprised their marriage lasted as long as it did. A single man would never have been enough to satisfy Harriet and I’m sure Arthur knew she was playing the field.’

‘She was having affairs?’

‘Don’t be so surprised, Mr Hawthorne. She was an attractive woman back then. I half fancied her myself! There was something about her – the energy, the ambition. I don’t know. She used sex to get what she wanted. She wouldn’t let anything stand in her way.’

‘Was she having an affair with Frank Heywood?’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I can’t really tell you, to be honest. They were certainly close. He often took her with him to the theatre and that was how she got the idea she wanted to be a critic. I told her she was barking mad. Why swap real-life drama for a bunch of tossers leaping about on the stage? Anyway, she was too old-fashioned to be a theatre critic, too set in her ways. The first play she covered after Frank died was a lesbian love story and she slated it – not because it was bad but because she didn’t approve of the subject matter. I think she’d have been much better off sticking where she was, but she wouldn’t listen to me.’

‘It was Frank Heywood who introduced her to Moxham Heath.’

‘When the teacher got killed? Yes. That was Frank. He lived in the village.’

‘Was there any kickback from the book she wrote?’

‘God, yes! She had the Longhursts and their lawyers threatening her with libel. The Moxham Village Trust wrote letters. She even had the local MP involved. But it all went away, just as she knew it would. When you read her stuff, you may not like it. You may think it all a bit ghastly. But she knew what she was doing. She always judged it exactly right.’

‘How long was she the drama critic on the Argus?’

‘Less than eighteen months. She didn’t wait long before pushing off, but I sort of suspected that she was only using her position on the newspaper as a launch pad for better things. I’ve already said – she knew what she wanted. I didn’t want to give her the job, but she left me no choice. The week after Frank died – she wrote his obituary, by the way – she was in my office with her ultimatums. It was that or lose her altogether.’

‘What can you tell me about Frank Heywood’s death?’

Outside, it was getting dark. The stained-glass windows were slowly losing their definition, the Virgin Mary and her attendant angels fading into the shadows. Adrian Wells reached out and turned on an Anglepoise lamp.

‘It’s interesting you should ask me about that. I was talking about it only this week. I even suggested I might tip a wink to the police.’

‘You mean … Cara Grunshaw?’ I asked.

‘Who? I don’t know that name. It was just something that occurred to me …’

‘What?’ I hoped I didn’t sound too alarmed.

‘I’m sure you know, Frank Heywood died of food poisoning. Well, strictly speaking, the cause of death was heart failure. He smoked like a chimney and hadn’t done any exercise since the year dot, so he wasn’t in great shape. No surprises there. More to the point, he was eating at an Indian restaurant that was notoriously bad. The Jai Mahal near the St Nicholas Market. It was quite popular, particularly among Bristol students, but the health and safety mob had been in a couple of times and they weren’t impressed at all. Our food critic called it the Die Mahal.

‘Frank’s fatal heart attack was brought on by a dodgy lamb rogan josh. Harriet was with him that night and she was taken ill too, although in her case it was just an overnight stay at St Michael’s Hospital. She looked awful when I visited her a couple of days later, but the restaurant had been her choice and she felt terrible in every sense. She blamed herself for his death.’

‘It was food poisoning,’ Hawthorne said. ‘And it was a long time ago. So why do you think the police might be interested now?’

‘Because Harriet’s been killed too!’ He made the answer sound obvious. ‘It made me think. You see, I heard a whisper that she may have been murdered because of something she wrote – a review. I know it sounds insane, but I’d had almost exactly the same conversation with Frank the week before he died. Some of the stuff he wrote – well, he could be a bit harsh. That was something Harriet learned from him, the pleasure that comes with the twist of a knife. So, the two of us were having a pint and he mentioned a play he’d seen – it was only a short piece – but he’d really taken against it. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the writer didn’t come after me with a pickaxe.’ He was only joking. But a week later … boom!

‘Perhaps I’m letting my imagination run away with me. That’s what comes of having too much time on your hands – but it does make you think. We made jokes about the Jai Mahal, but nobody had ever died there before. And there was no police investigation at the time because two people got sick – not just Frank – and anyway, it was his heart that did for him. You’re a detective. What do you think? A disgruntled writer follows them into the restaurant and slips something into the curry. The revenge of the rotten review.’

‘I don’t suppose you remember the play?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘As a matter of fact, I do. It was only an hour long. It was set in a secure unit for juvenile offenders. It was a bunch of them putting on a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest. Frank said it was the most unlikely scenario he’d ever come across, and here’s the rub – he suggested that the writer might be disturbed. The play was called A Handbag.’

‘And do you know who wrote it?’

I cut in before he could answer.

‘I did.’