A Line to Kill

‘No, it’s all right,’ Graham said. ‘Tell her I’ll speak to her later.’ He got to his feet as the intern left. ‘How do you do, Mr Hawthorne. It’s very good to meet you.’

‘The pleasure’s mine.’ Perhaps Hawthorne was sincere. Perhaps he was being sarcastic. It was impossible to tell. The two men shook hands. ‘It’s been a while since I was in this part of town,’ he went on. ‘I once busted a brothel in Causton Street – half a dozen sex workers from Eastern Europe. Just round the corner from the Lithuanian embassy. Maybe that’s where they got their visas … not that we ever made a connection.’

‘How fascinating.’ Graham was immediately hooked. ‘It’s extraordinary what can happen right on your doorstep without you even knowing.’

‘Maybe Tony will write about it one day.’

‘Tony?’

‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘You’re half an hour late.’

Hawthorne looked astonished. ‘You told me half past eleven.’

‘No. I said eleven o’clock.’

‘I’m sorry, Tony, mate. You definitely said half past. I never forget a time or a place.’ He tapped the side of his head for the benefit of everyone in the room. ‘It’s my training.’

‘Well, there’s no need to worry about it,’ Graham said, giving me a sour look. ‘Let me introduce Tamara, who’s the head of publicity, and her assistant, Trish.’

Hawthorne shook hands with both of them, although I noticed that there was something about Tamara that puzzled him. ‘And you must be the amazing Hilda Starke,’ he said, sitting down next to her. ‘It’s great to meet you at last. Tony never stops talking about you.’

Hilda was not easily charmed but right then she was beaming. Hawthorne had this effect on people. I have described him often enough: his slight build, short hair cut to the scalp around the ears, the oddly searching eyes. But perhaps I have never done justice to the way he could dominate a room from the moment he entered it. He had an extraordinary presence that could be saturnine, threatening or magnetic, depending on his mood.

‘Congratulations on the book,’ Hilda said. Just like my editor, she seemed to have forgotten that I was the one who had written it.

‘I haven’t read it yet,’ Hawthorne said.

‘Oh?’

‘There’s not much point reading a whodunnit when you know the end.’

It was a line that he must have prepared in advance. At any event, they all nodded in agreement.

‘Aren’t you worried about how Tony has portrayed you?’ Graham asked.

‘It doesn’t bother me at all. So long as the book sells.’

Graham turned to me. ‘I hope you’re not going to write about us,’ he said. He made it sound like a joke.

I smiled. ‘Of course not.’

Trish offered Hawthorne coffee, which he accepted, and a biscuit, which he refused. He never ate in front of other people if he could avoid it. For the next five minutes Graham talked about the publishing business, current trends, his hopes for the book. ‘It’s never easy launching a new series,’ he said. ‘But we have a reasonable shot at the best-seller lists. There’s not much else coming out this September. There’s a new Stephen King, and of course Dan Brown will grab the top spot, but we deliberately chose a quiet week. How would you feel about doing some radio?’

The question was directed at Hawthorne, not me.

‘I’m OK with radio,’ Hawthorne said.

‘Have you had any experience of the media?’

‘Only Crimewatch.’

Tamara, who didn’t smile often, smiled at that. ‘We’ve approached Front Row and Saturday Live,’ she said, speaking to the room. ‘They’re waiting to read the book, but the fact that Mr Hawthorne actually worked for the police is definitely of interest.’

‘And the fact that he got thrown out?’ I was tempted to ask.

Tamara went back to her laptop. ‘We were just talking about literary festivals,’ she went on. ‘And as a matter of fact, we have had an invitation.’

My ears pricked up at that. The truth is that literary festivals are the best thing in a writer’s life. To start with, they get you out of the house, out of your room. You meet people: readers and writers. You get to visit beautiful cities like Oxford, Cambridge, Cheltenham, Bath. Better still, you might find yourself being whisked abroad – to Sydney, Sri Lanka, Dubai or Berlin. There’s even a literary festival on board Queen Mary 2.

‘So where is it?’ I asked.

‘It’s in Alderney. They’re launching a new festival in August and they’d love to have you both.’

‘Alderney?’ I muttered.

‘It’s a Channel Island,’ Hawthorne told me, unhelpfully.

‘I know where it is. I didn’t know they had a literary festival.’

‘Actually, they have two.’ Tamara tapped a few buttons, projecting the home page onto the main screen. It read: THE ALDERNEY LITERARY TRUST – SUMMER FESTIVAL. SPONSORED BY SPIN-THE-WHEEL.COM.

‘Who are Spin-the-wheel?’ I asked.