The Word Is Murder

Twenty-four River Court

I went back home. I started work.

I could see that my working method was going to be very different from what I was used to. Normally, when I have an idea for a book, it will sit in my head for at least a year before I start writing. If it’s a murder mystery, the starting point will be the murder itself. Someone kills somebody else for a reason. That’s the core of the matter. I will create those characters and then gradually build the world around them, drawing links between the various suspects, giving them a history, working out their relationships. I’ll think about them when I’m out walking, lying in bed, sitting in the bath – and I won’t begin writing until the story has a recognisable shape. I’m often asked if I start writing a book without knowing the end. For me, it would be like building a bridge without knowing what it’s got to reach.

This time everything had been given to me and it was more a question of configuration than actual creation and I wasn’t entirely happy with some of the material. In all honesty, I wouldn’t have chosen to write about a spoiled Hollywood actor because I’ve known too many of them and occasionally I’ve even worked with them. But unfortunately it was Damian Cowper who had been killed and I was stuck with him, along with his mother, his partner and the various associates who had turned up at the funeral. It was also worrying that I’d met them all so briefly. Raymond Clunes, Bruno Wang, Dr Buttimore and the others had played only a very peripheral part in the story and since Hawthorne had done all the talking I’d been unable to find out very much about them. Should I add more characters of my own? As things had turned out, everything that had happened in Deal had been, at least to an extent, irrelevant. I wondered if it was fair to leave it in.

The question I had to ask myself was – how closely should I stick to the facts? I knew I was going to have to change some names so why couldn’t I do the same with events? Although I hate using card systems, I scribbled down a heading for every interview and every incident and laid them out on my desk, starting with Diana Cowper’s arrival at the funeral parlour and continuing with my involvement, my visit to her house and so on. I had more than enough for ninety thousand words. In fact, there were scenes – hours of my life – that I could drop altogether. Andrea Kluvánek droning on about her childhood and a particularly dull afternoon spent with Raymond Clunes’s accountant were two examples.

Looking through my notes and iPhone recordings, I was relieved to see that I hadn’t been completely obtuse. When I first met Robert Cornwallis I had jotted down that ‘he could have been playing a part’ – which was exactly what he had been doing. I had also questioned whether he enjoyed being an undertaker, which turned out to be the heart of the whole matter. All in all, I hadn’t done too badly. I’d noticed the motorbike parked outside his house, the motorbike helmet in the hall, the fridge magnets, the glass of water, the key holder … in fact, I would have said that at least seventy-five per cent of the most important clues were written down in my notebook. It was just that I hadn’t quite realised their significance.

Over the next couple of days, I wrote the first two chapters. I was trying to find the ‘voice’ of the book. If I was really going to appear in it, I had to be sure that I wasn’t too obtrusive, that I didn’t get in the way. But even in that very tentative first draft (and there would eventually be five more) I saw that I had a much bigger problem. It was Hawthorne. It wasn’t too difficult to capture the way he looked and spoke. My feelings towards him were also fairly straightforward. The trouble was, how much did I know about him?

He was separated from his wife – who lived in Gants Hill.

He had an eleven-year-old son.

He was a brilliant, instinctive detective but he was unpopular.

He didn’t drink.

He had been fired from the murder squad for pushing a known paedophile down a flight of stairs.

He was homophobic. (I’m not, incidentally, making any connection between homosexuality and paedophilia, but both these points seemed noteworthy.)

He was a member of a reading group.

He had a good knowledge of WW2 fighter planes.

He lived in an expensive block of flats on the River Thames.

It wasn’t enough. Whenever we had been together, we had barely talked about anything except the business at hand. We had never had a drink together. We hadn’t so much as shared a proper meal – breakfast in a Harrow-on-the-Hill café didn’t count. The only time he had ever shown me any kindness was when he’d visited me in hospital. Without knowing where – and how – he lived, how could I write about him? A home is the first and most obvious reflection of our personality but he still hadn’t invited me in.

I thought of telephoning Hawthorne but then I had a better idea. Meadows had given me his address, River Court, on the south side of the river and one afternoon – about a week after I came out of hospital – I abandoned the scattered index cards, the crumpled balls of paper and the Post-it notes on my desk and set off down there. It was a pleasant day and although the stitches were pulling underneath my shirt, I enjoyed walking in the warm spring air. I followed the Farringdon Road all the way down to Blackfriars Bridge and saw the block of flats on the other side of the river in front of me … as I had seen it a hundred times on my way to the National Theatre or the Old Vic. It was extraordinary to think that Hawthorne lived here. My first thought was exactly the same one I’d had when Meadows first told me. How could he possibly afford it?

Despite its amazing position – nestling close to the bridge opposite Unilever House and St Paul’s – River Court is far from being a beautiful development. It was built in the 1970s, I would say by a group of colour-blind architects who drew their inspiration from the simplest mathematical forms, quite possibly matchboxes. It’s twelve floors high with narrow windows and a collection of balconies that feels haphazard. Some flats have them, some don’t: it’s just a matter of luck. In a city where spectacular glass towers are shooting up almost daily, it feels painfully old-fashioned. And yet perhaps because it’s so ludicrous, because it sits there so doggedly determined to sit out the twenty-first century (the pub next door is actually called Doggett’s), there is something attractive about it. And it has wonderful views.

The entrance was around the back, on the road leading down to the Oxo Tower and the National Theatre. Meadows had given me the name of the building but not the number of the flat. I saw a porter standing beside an open door and walked up to him. I’d had the presence of mind to bring an envelope with me and took it out of my pocket.

‘I have a letter for Daniel Hawthorne,’ I said. ‘Number 25. He’s expecting it but I’ve rung the doorbell and I’m not getting any answer.’

The porter was an elderly man, enjoying a cigarette in the sun. ‘Hawthorne?’ He rubbed his chin. ‘He’s up in the penthouse. You want the other door.’

The penthouse? The fact that he lived in the building was surprising enough but this was more so. I waved the envelope and went to the door but I didn’t ring the bell. I didn’t want to give Hawthorne an excuse not to let me in. Instead, I waited about twenty minutes until finally one of the residents came out. At that moment, I stepped forward, holding a bunch of keys as if I’d been about to let myself in. The resident didn’t give me a second glance.

I took the lift up to the top floor. There were three doors to choose from but some intuition made me go for the one with the river view. I rang it. There was a long silence but then, just as I was cursing the fact that Hawthorne must be out, the door opened and there he was, staring at me with a look of bemusement on his face, wearing the same suit he always wore but without the jacket and with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He had grey paint on his fingers.

Hawthorne ‘at home’.

‘Tony!’ he exclaimed. ‘How did you find me?’

‘I have my methods,’ I said, grandiosely.

‘You’ve seen Meadows. He gave you the address.’ He gazed at me thoughtfully. ‘You didn’t ring the bell.’

‘I thought I’d surprise you.’

‘I’d like to invite you in, mate. But I’m just going out.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I won’t stay long.’ It was a stand-off; Hawthorne blocking the door, me refusing to go away. ‘I want to talk to you about the book,’ I added.

It took him another few moments to make up his mind but then, accepting the inevitable, he stepped back, fully opening the door. ‘Come in!’ he said, as if he had been pleased to see me all along.

So here was part of the mystery of ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne revealed. His flat was very large, at least two thousand square feet. The main rooms had been knocked together into a single space with wide doorways separating a kitchen and a study from the main living area. It did indeed look out over the river but the ceilings were too low and the windows too narrow for a real ‘wow’ factor. Everything was beige, the same colour as the exterior, and modern. The carpets were brand new. The room was almost completely without character. There wasn’t a single picture on the walls. He had almost no furniture: just a sofa, a table with two chairs and a number of shelves. There were not one but two computers on the desk in the study, along with some serious-looking hardware connected by a tangle of wires.

I noticed books, scattered on the table. The Outsider by Albert Camus was on the top. Next to the books was a pile of magazines, at least fifty of them. Airfix Model World. Model Engineer. Marine Modelling International. The titles, in bold letters, grabbed my attention, reminding me of the antiques shop in Deal. So his interest wasn’t historical. He made models. Looking around, I saw there were literally dozens of them, planes, trains, boats, tanks, jeeps, all of them military, sitting on shelves, positioned on the carpet, hanging from wires, half assembled on the table. He had been putting together a battle tank when I’d rung the bell and that was presumably why it had taken him so long to answer.

He saw me examining them. ‘It’s a hobby,’ he said.

‘Model-making.’

‘That’s right.’ Hawthorne’s jacket had been on the back of one of the chairs where he’d been working. He put it on.

I looked at the tank, spread out on the table, some of the pieces so tiny that you would need tweezers to pick them up. I remembered being given Airfix kits when I was a child. I’d always start with the best of intentions but it would go wrong all too quickly. The pieces would stick to me, not to each other. I’d have a spider’s web of glue between my fingers. I never left anything long enough to dry and if I did manage to finish what I was building, which happened all too rarely, it would be lopsided, hopelessly unfit for service. Painting was even worse. I’d line up all those tiny pots of paint but I’d use too much. The paint would run. It would smudge. When I woke up the next morning, I would guiltily bundle the whole thing into the bin.

Hawthorne’s work was a world apart. Every model in the room had been put together immaculately, with extraordinary care and patience. They had been beautifully painted. I had no doubt at all that the various markings – the jungle camouflage, the flags, the stripes on the wings – were completely accurate. He must have spent hundreds of hours making them. He had the computers but there was no television in the room. I suspected it was pretty much all he did.

‘What is this?’ I asked. I was still examining the tank.

‘It’s a Chieftain Mark 10. British built. It went into service with NATO in the sixties.’

‘It looks complicated.’

‘The masking’s a bit tricky. It means you can’t fit the subassemblies until you’ve done the painting and the turret baskets are devils. But the rest of it’s easy enough. It’s nicely engineered. The company knows what it’s doing. It’s beautifully moulded.’

The only time I had ever heard him talk like this was when he was describing the Focke-Wulf plane in Deal.

‘How long have you been doing this?’ I asked.

I saw him hesitate. Even now, he didn’t want to give anything away. Then he relented. ‘I’ve been doing it for a while,’ he said. ‘It was a hobby when I was a kid.’

‘Did you have brothers or sisters?’

‘I had a sort of half-brother.’ A pause. ‘He’s an estate agent.’

So that explained the flat.

‘I was crap at making models,’ I said.

‘It’s just a question of patience, Tony. You’ve got to make sure you take your time.’

There was a brief silence but for the first time I felt it wasn’t an awkward one. I was almost comfortable with him.

‘So this is where you live,’ I said.

‘For the moment. It’s only temporary.’

‘You’re like a caretaker?

‘The owners are in Singapore. They’ve never been in the place. But they like to keep it occupied.’

‘So your half-brother put you in here.’

‘That’s right.’ There was a packet of cigarettes on the table and he snatched it up but I noticed there was no smell of tobacco in the room. He must smoke outside. ‘You said you wanted to talk about the book.’

‘I think I may have a title,’ I said.

‘What’s wrong with “Hawthorne Investigates”?’

‘We’ve already had that discussion.’

‘What then?’

‘I was going through my notes this morning and I came upon something you said to me when we first met in Clerkenwell, when you asked me to write about you. I was saying that people read detective stories because they were interested in the characters and you disagreed. The word is murder. That’s what matters. That’s what you said.’

‘And …?’

‘“The Word is Murder”. I thought that would make a good title. After all, I’m a writer, you’re a detective. That’s what it’s all about.’

He thought for a minute, then shrugged. ‘It’ll do, I suppose.’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘It’s just a bit poncey. It’s not something I’d read on the beach.’

‘Do you ever go to the beach?’

He didn’t answer.

I nodded at the pile of books. ‘How are you getting on with The Outsider?’

‘I finished it. I quite liked it in the end. Albert Camus … he knew how to write.’

The two of us stood facing each other and I began to wonder if I hadn’t made a mistake coming here. It had given me what I’d needed. I’d learned something about Hawthorne. But at the same time I had an uneasy feeling that I’d broken faith, going to Meadows behind his back, coming here without permission.

‘Maybe we could have dinner next week,’ I said. ‘I might have a couple of chapters to show you by then.’

He nodded. ‘Maybe.’

‘I’ll see you, then.’

And that might have been it. I might simply have walked out, slightly regretful that I had come here at all. But as I turned, I noticed a framed photograph on a shelf. It showed a fair-haired woman with glasses dangling around her neck. She had her hand resting on the shoulder of a young boy. I knew at once that this was Hawthorne’s wife and son and my first thought was how unfair he had been to me. When we were in Diana Cowper’s house, I had seen a photograph of her dead husband and he had snapped at me. If they were divorced, she wouldn’t have kept his picture. But he was divorced and he had done just that.

I was about to say as much when something else occurred to me. I knew this woman. I had seen her before.

And then I remembered.

‘You bastard!’ I said. ‘You fucking bastard.’

‘What?’

‘Is this your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve met her.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘She was at Hay-on-Wye, at the literary festival, two days after you came to see me. She laid into me. She said my books were unreal and irrelevant. She was the reason why …’ I stopped myself. ‘You put her up to it!’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He was looking at me with innocent, even child-like eyes but I wasn’t having any of it. I couldn’t believe I’d allowed myself to be manipulated so easily. Did he really think I was so stupid? I was furious. ‘Don’t lie to me.’ I almost shouted the words. ‘You sent her. You knew exactly what you were doing.’

‘Tony …’

‘That’s not my name. I’m Anthony. Nobody ever calls me Tony. And you can forget the whole thing. It was a bad idea and it nearly got me killed. I should never have listened to you in the first place. I’m not going to do it.’

I stormed out of the room. I didn’t bother with the lift. I took the stairs twelve floors back down to the ground floor and out into the fresh air. I didn’t stop walking until I was halfway across Blackfriars Bridge.

I took out my mobile phone.

I was going to ring my agent. I was going to tell her that the deal was off. I still had two books to write for Orion. There was the new series of Foyle’s War. I had plenty enough to be getting on with.

And yet …

If I walked away, Hawthorne would just go to another writer and what would be the result of that? I’d end up as minor character, nothing more than a sidekick in someone else’s book, which would actually be considerably worse than being a real character in one of my own. They would be able to do anything they liked. They could make me look like a complete idiot if they wanted.

On the other hand, if I wrote the book, I would have control. Hawthorne had admitted that he had come to me and only me. It was my story. Hilda had done the deal and, now that I thought about it, I’d already done half the work.

I was still holding my phone.

My thumb was hovering over the speed dial.

By the time I reached the other side of the river, I knew exactly what I was going to do.