The Sentence Is Death

‘I’d watch out for her if I were you,’ he muttered.

‘DI Grunshaw?’

‘Do me a favour and don’t say anything in front of her. Take my word for it. She’s not a nice human being.’

‘She seemed all right to me.’

‘That’s because you don’t know her.’

We went upstairs.

4 Last Words

The stairs leading up the first floor were white slabs, jutting out of the wall with no visible means of support. A steel bannister swept alongside, something to hold on to as you went. Cara Grunshaw stumped up to the top with Hawthorne padding more quietly behind, and we finally arrived at a galleried area with a view down to the living room and, on this floor, a series of doors leading off to the left and right.

There was another detective waiting for us, leaning against the colonnade that prevented visitors from plunging into the living room. He was thinner and smaller than Grunshaw, with tufts of sand-coloured hair and a moustache. He was wearing a brown leather jacket that might have been inspired by an old television series; Hutch to her Starsky, or perhaps the other way round.

‘He’s in there, ma’am.’

‘Thank you, Darren.’

Grunshaw went first, ignoring the paintings on the wall, which were very different from the ones downstairs. I studied art history at university and recognised a watercolour by Eric Ravilious and a series of wood engravings by Eric Gill. A collection of Erics. The top floor of the house was altogether more formal. The floor was carpeted, the layout more enclosed. Grunshaw knocked at the door Darren had indicated and without waiting for an answer went into a room that turned out to be a library, filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves separated only by two windows looking out over the front drive, and a widescreen TV mounted on the wall. There were two white leather sofas, several glass tables and a fake – or perhaps I should say faux – zebra-skin rug on the floor.

Stephen Spencer was hunched up at the end of one of the sofas, surrounded by framed photographs of Richard Pryce, himself and the two of them together. He was wearing a crumpled linen shirt, pale blue corduroys and loafers. He must have been in his early thirties, about ten years younger than his husband, and would have been good-looking if his eyes weren’t swollen with tears, his cheeks red and his fair hair flattened down and damp. He was very slim with a swan-like neck that emphasised his Adam’s apple. He was holding a handkerchief in one hand and I noticed he wore a gold band on his wedding finger, identical to the one I had seen in the picture of Richard Pryce that Hawthorne had shown me.

The room had become quite crowded with the five of us in it. DI Grunshaw plumped herself down on the other sofa, her legs apart. Hawthorne went over to the window. I stood next to the door with my shoulders against the wall, deliberately hiding the embroidery on the back of my jacket. Darren had followed us in. He was standing in a very casual sort of pose, ostentatiously holding a notebook and pen.

‘How are you feeling, Mr Spencer?’ Grunshaw asked. She was trying to be sympathetic but her words were forced and condescending, as if she were talking to a child who had just fallen over and scratched his knee in the playground.

‘I still can’t believe it,’ Spencer said, his voice thick with grief. He clutched the handkerchief tighter than ever. ‘I saw him on Friday. I said goodbye to him. I never dreamed—’ He broke off.

Darren scribbled all that down.

‘You have to understand that we have to talk to you now,’ Grunshaw went on, none too delicately. ‘The sooner we can get the answers to our questions, the sooner we can begin our investigations.’

He nodded but said nothing.

‘You said you’d just come back from Suffolk . . .’

‘From Essex. Clacton-on-Sea. We have a second home.’ He gestured at a photograph. It showed a white, pocket-sized building, 1930s in style with curving balconies and a flat roof. It didn’t look real.

‘Why were you on your own?’

Spencer swallowed. ‘Richard didn’t want to come. He said he had too much work. Also, he had someone coming to the house on Saturday afternoon. I was visiting my mother. She’s in a nursing home in Frinton.’

‘I’m sure she was pleased to see you.’

‘She has Alzheimer’s. She probably doesn’t even remember I was there.’

‘When did you leave?’

‘After breakfast. I cleaned the house and locked up. I suppose it must have been about eleven o’clock this morning.’

‘You didn’t call Mr Pryce before you left?’

Darren had been scribbling the details down in his notebook but now he paused with the pen over the page. Meanwhile, I’d taken out my iPhone – Hawthorne had been right about that, by the way: I’d picked it up from my flat on the way over – and quietly turned it on. I wondered if it might be illegal to record a police interview. I supposed I’d find out in time.