A Line to Kill

‘Thank you, Anthony.’ Matheson signalled for the house lights to be raised. ‘And now I’m sure there are plenty of things the audience would like to ask …’

For the next twenty minutes, we took questions, although almost all of them were directed at Hawthorne and had very little to do with the books. He went through several of the cases he had investigated, including the brothel in Causton Street that he had mentioned at Random House and, more annoyingly, the murder of Diana Cowper, which I had just described. Unlike me, though, he didn’t stop at the scene of the crime. I would have to remind him, before we ever did another talk, not to mention, quite so casually, who had done it.

I got three questions. An elderly lady in the front row asked me about Foyle’s War. A kid at the back wanted to know if there was going to be another Alex Rider and if so, would it have better gadgets? And a strikingly attractive fair-haired woman with ice-blue eyes made a lengthy speech about the importance of school libraries and asked me what I would do to save St Anne’s, by which I think she meant the school rather than the entire town. This is actually something I know quite a lot about and I remarked that under UK law, libraries are statutory in prisons but not in schools. This happens to be true and, with this audience, it went down well.

But after that it was all Hawthorne. Did he believe in the jury system? Did he support capital punishment? Did he like reading detective fiction? Had he ever watched Midsomer Murders? (No.) Was his picture going to be on the front cover of the book? Who would play him in the TV series? On and on it went until Matheson raised a hand and said that we were out of time.

There was one person in the audience who hadn’t been allowed a question, even though he had tried several times to attract Matheson’s attention. It was the man in the third row who had come in with le Mesurier, and before anyone could stop him, he pulled himself laboriously to his feet and called out: ‘I have a question.’

‘Actually—’ Matheson tried to cut him off.

‘Detective Inspector Hawthorne hasn’t told us why he left the Metropolitan Police. If he was so successful at his job and they liked him so much, why did they kick him out?’

I looked at Hawthorne. To the audience, it would seem that nothing had changed. He seemed relaxed. His face gave nothing away. But sitting with him, I got the sense of a coiled spring. Right then, I was quite certain that the two men knew each other.

‘You’re mistaken,’ Hawthorne said. ‘I wasn’t kicked out. I decided to leave.’

‘So there’s no truth in the story that you were dismissed following an assault on an innocent man while he was in your custody?’

‘Not me,’ Hawthorne replied, mildly. He cocked his head. ‘And not innocent, as I recall.’

The audience was looking from one man to another, puzzled and a little concerned.

‘So there was no IOPC investigation? No dismissal for gross misconduct?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘Well, my mistake.’ The words were laced with sarcasm. The man had made his point. He sat down.

The session came to an end. There was to be no signing session because we hadn’t yet produced any books. As the audience filed out, Colin Matheson leaned across. ‘I’m so sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Derek Abbott is an absolutely vile human being. He works for Charles le Mesurier, advising him on his investments and various financial matters. You saw the two of them come in together? I don’t know why he was here. He hardly ever appears in public and quite frankly, if I’d known he was going to be in the cinema, I might have declined to take part. He lives on the island and he’s pure poison.’

‘What did you say his name was?’ I asked.

‘Derek Abbott.’

Suddenly, everything was clear. This was the reason Hawthorne had been so keen to come to Alderney. Derek Abbott! He was the child pornographer who had ‘fallen’ down a flight of stairs while Hawthorne was escorting him to the interview room. And he lived here! What was in Hawthorne’s mind? Was he pursuing some sort of vendetta? Did he mean to have a second go at finishing him off? And why hadn’t he told me? The bastard! Didn’t he think I’d find out?

I had been told the story of Abbott’s life-changing accident by another police officer and although Hawthorne had denied it, I had always assumed that he must have known exactly what he was doing. I had tried not to allow it to affect what I thought of him. How could I make a hero out of a man accused of police brutality – even if his victim had been about as repulsive as it is possible to be? Wouldn’t that make me complicit?

In the end, I had done everything I could to put the whole thing out of my mind and maybe that was why I was so angry when we got out into the street. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Derek Abbott lived here?’ I almost shouted at him as soon as Colin Matheson had left the two of us alone. ‘Why didn’t you tell me he was on the island?’