A Line to Kill

‘Actually, if you don’t mind, I’ll take Tony with me. I always find him very helpful.’

‘I suppose I’d better come too,’ Matheson said with reluctance.

‘Well, all right.’

The four of us went out of the sun lounge and into the garden. I was completely thrown by what Hawthorne had just said. How was I ever helpful? All I ever did was write about him, but of course that was exactly what he was hoping for now. Without realising it, I had stumbled onto – or into – the third book in our three-book contract. For anyone reading this, I suppose it will have been obvious from the start. I wouldn’t have been writing about Alderney if we’d just gone to the island, answered a few questions about books and flown home again.

But for me, everything had changed. To give one example, most of what I have described up to now has been done from memory because I had no idea I was going to need any of the finer details, but from this point onwards I began to take careful notes. It was strange, really. I had come to Alderney in the hope that I would be introducing Hawthorne to my world: books, lectures and all the rest of it. But instead, I had once again been dragged into his.

We followed the path that had been illuminated during the party and for the first time I got a proper view of the gun emplacement at the far end of the garden and its relationship to the house. The Lookout, as its name implied, had views of the sea, presumably visible from the upper floors. The garden actually ran from the back of the house to the edge of a cliff, with a beach some distance below. As we drew nearer, I could see the water through the trees.

In the daylight, the Snuggery presented itself as a grey cement box about the size of a single-car garage with metal doors that swung open like shutters and a modern glass door behind. There was a flat roof that doubled as a viewing platform, with three narrow windows just below. A flight of concrete steps climbed steeply up the side. The whole thing was enclosed by shrubs and wild flowers, as if it was trying to hide away from the modern world. It was actually quite a distance from the main house: with the party in full swing and the jazz band playing, it would have been quite possible for Charles le Mesurier to cry out without being heard.

The metal doors had been pulled back and the glass door was half open too. Colin Matheson stayed where he was, not wanting to go back in, so Hawthorne continued without him, accompanied by Dr Queripel. I hesitated for a moment too. Then I went in.

From gunnery to snuggery: there was something distasteful about the change of use. Originally built for killing Allied seamen, the concrete box had been turned into something like a Turkish harem, the walls concealed behind heavy velvet curtains, with a thick Persian rug and an ornate coffee table surrounded by cushions on the floor. The curtains on the back wall had been pulled to one side, revealing a second set of metal doors, identical to the ones through which we had entered. It might have been possible to come in this way, climbing up from the beach, but they were bolted from the inside.

Two low leather banquettes with an arrangement of dark-coloured cushions had been set against the long walls, facing each other, and an elaborate light hung from the ceiling, the wooden shade perforated with tiny triangles, circles and crescent moons. An equally exotic drinks cabinet stood to one side, one door open to reveal a selection of glasses and bottles on mirrored shelves. All that was missing was the hookah and the belly dancers.

Charles le Mesurier was sitting in a high-backed wooden chair – actually it was more like a throne – facing the garden, with his back to the second door. I’ve described many deaths in the course of my work, in books and on TV, but I’m not sure I’ve ever managed to capture the absolute horror of the real thing. It’s the smell that hits you first, sickening and unmistakable. Dead actors look nothing like dead people. Once the blood has settled and life has drained away, the human body doesn’t look remotely human. Knife wounds are particularly disgusting. And I write about these things for entertainment! Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing.

The first thing I saw was the knife handle protruding from Charles le Mesurier’s throat. It was slim, silver, ornate; a letter opener, Dr Queripel had said. The silk jacket and trousers he had worn at the party clung to him, glued there by the blood that had fountained down from the wound. There was a dark pool of it around his tasselled suede loafers.

‘It’s merciless,’ Dr Queripel muttered.