A Line to Kill

‘You don’t think he deserved it? Charles le Mesurier destroyed my son and made money out of his pain – and the pain of hundreds like him! Go on the website. Look at it.’

‘I’ve been on their website. I’ve seen what you saw and I’m sorry about your boy. I really am. But nobody deserves to die, Anne. You know that, even if you’ve persuaded yourself otherwise. That was the mistake you made.’

Silence. The clock ticking. Then …

‘Why don’t you ask your daughter to come down?’

Anne stiffened. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Her car’s parked outside. I’ve had a friend of mine watching the house since you got back. I thought you would have got that by now. You can’t lie to me.’

The door opened and a young woman came in. ‘Mum,’ she said.

‘Don’t—’ Anne began.

‘It’s all right, Mum. He knows.’

Kathryn Harris was wearing jeans and a shirt knotted at the waist. She had taken off the overlarge spectacles that she had used to disguise her face and as she sat down I thought how similar the two women were. But then, from the very start I had said that Anne Cleary reminded me of someone’s mother. I just hadn’t realised whose.

‘How did you know?’ Kathryn asked Hawthorne.

‘That you were related? Well, we could start with your mum’s books. I really did love those books, by the way. Me and my son couldn’t get enough of them. Bill and Kitty Flashbang.’ He glanced at Anne. ‘You told Tony that you’d named the two characters after your own kids. Bill was William, obviously. And Kitty …’

‘… Kathryn,’ I said.

‘Harris is your married name, is that right?’

‘Yes.’ Kathryn nodded, suddenly fearful. I guessed that her husband knew nothing of all this.

‘There were plenty of clues. You look like each other. You’ve got the same-coloured eyes. You’ve obviously lived together for a long time, so you talk in the same way. It’s going to be a hot one. That’s how Kathryn described the summer weather when we met her at breakfast. And Anne, you used exactly the same phrase when you asked if you could leave the hotel. They say it’s going to be a hot one, so I might go for a walk.

‘There were other things, too.’ Hawthorne was still addressing Anne. ‘Marc Bellamy told me that you’d lent Kathryn your pen. That struck me as strange, if it was so precious to you. Right now you were pretending you couldn’t even remember her name. And finally, you’re both vegetarians.’

Anne had told us she was a vegetarian when we interviewed her at the hotel, but I was sure that Kathryn hadn’t provided us with the same information. I thought back. At Southampton Airport she had ordered a cheese salad. At The Divers Inn she had been nibbling a stick of celery. Her breakfast at the hotel had been muesli and yoghurt. Even at The Lookout, after serving steak and kidney puddings, she had helped herself only to a cheese pastry. Never once had I seen her eat any meat or fish.

‘Kathryn never did anything!’ Anne insisted.

‘Let me tell you what you both did,’ Hawthorne cut in. His voice was cold. ‘My guess is that this all started with you, Anne. You were invited to a literary festival in Alderney, probably at the end of last year, and you noticed that it was being sponsored by Spin-the-wheel.com. I can imagine how angry you must have felt, though probably your first instinct was to forget the whole thing. But then you started thinking. Maybe you could use it to your advantage. Maybe it was a chance to get close to the people who were responsible for the death of your son.

‘At about the same time, Kathryn moved in on Marc Bellamy. She happened to be sharing a room with his assistant, who’d just been offered a job on another cookery show. It was a perfect opportunity. Kathryn was a vegetarian; she didn’t like meat. But she persuaded Bellamy to take her on and he was delighted because she was asking for so little money. As soon as she was in there, she contacted Judith Matheson and got Marc invited.’ He looked at Kathryn for the first time. ‘Is that right?’

‘I spoke to his publishers,’ Kathryn said. ‘He had a new book coming out and they thought it was a great idea.’

‘The end result was that you both turned up on the island, but as far as everyone was concerned, you were complete strangers. You’d planned what you were going to do down to the last detail, even bringing the parcel tape with you. You can buy Duck Brand in one shop in Oxford, by the way, just down the road from here. I’m sure the owner will remember you – you being a famous author. If not, there are always credit-card slips.’

‘I think you’ve made your point,’ Anne said.

‘Gambling.’ Hawthorne smiled a little sadly. ‘That’s what this was all about right from the start. I’m surprised you didn’t see that, Tony. What was it you found on Charles le Mesurier’s Mercedes?’

‘A playing card,’ I said.

‘That’s right. And there was another clue on the floor of the Snuggery, after he was killed.’

‘A coin.’