The Sentence Is Death

I thought back to what I had just seen. It didn’t seem possible. ‘I thought he was genuinely upset,’ I said.

‘Maybe he was. But he was still hiding something.’ The MG was right in front of us. Hawthorne pointed with the hand holding the cigarette. ‘There’s no way that’s just driven down from Essex or Suffolk or anywhere near the coast.’

‘How do you know?’

‘That house he showed us in that photograph didn’t have a garage and there’s no way this car has been sitting by the seaside for three days. There’s no seagull shit. And there’s no dead insects on the windscreen either. You’re telling me he’s driven a hundred miles down the A12 and he hasn’t hit a single midge or fly? I reckon he was somewhere much nearer and he wasn’t alone.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t know. I’m guessing. The passenger window is open a few inches and the windows aren’t electrically operated. I’d say there’s an even chance it was actually opened by the passenger. If he’d been driving alone, he’d have had to lean all the way across and why would he do that?’

‘Is there anything else?’ I asked.

‘Yes. There is one thing. Richard Pryce’s last words. “It’s a bit late.” Don’t they strike you as a bit odd?’

‘Why?’

‘It was eight o’clock on a Sunday evening. He’d had an unexpected visitor but it was someone he knew. He invited them in and he gave them a drink. Now, it may have been dark – winter time had just started – but it certainly wasn’t late.’

‘Do you think Stephen Spencer was making it up?’

‘I doubt it. He’s probably telling the truth about what he heard. But it’s still a strange thing to say and maybe Pryce wasn’t actually referring to the time. Maybe he meant something else.’

We had been walking down Fitzroy Park while we were having this conversation, leaving the police cars and all the forensic activity behind us. The taxi that had brought us here was still waiting, the meter running. The driver was reading a newspaper. We passed the turn-off we’d come down when we arrived. The far side of Hampstead Heath with the women’s pond and the other lakes was visible ahead of us. A few steps later, we reached Rose Cottage, which was indeed pink and pretty, set back in its own little world and half smothered in shrubs and flowers, although all the roses had been cut back for the coming winter. Hawthorne walked up and rang the front doorbell, which immediately set off a dog barking somewhere inside.

After a long wait, the door was opened by a man in his eighties, wrapped in the sort of cardigan that might have been knitted with rolling pins. Even as he stood there, he seemed to be shrivelling inside it. He gazed at us with watery eyes. He had straggly hair and liver spots. There was no sign of the dog, which was locked up somewhere, still barking on the other side of a door.

‘Mr Fairchild?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘Yes. Is this about the murder?’ He had a high-pitched voice that not only questioned everything but seemed to be suspicious of it too. ‘I’ve already told the police everything I know.’

‘We’re helping the police and I’d be very grateful if you could spare us a couple of minutes of your time.’

‘I’ll talk to you but I won’t invite you in, if you don’t mind. Rufus doesn’t like strangers.’

Rufus, I assumed, was the dog.

‘Apparently you saw someone heading towards Heron’s Wake last night.’

‘Heron’s Wake?’

‘Richard Pryce’s house.’

‘Yes. I know where he lives.’ The old man cleared his throat. ‘He came off the Heath just as I got home. I always take Rufus out after supper and before I go to bed. We don’t walk very far. Just down to the bowling club and back. It gives him a chance to do his business . . . you know.’

‘So what did you see?’

‘I didn’t see very much at all. It was dark. There was someone coming out of the Heath, holding a torch.’

‘A torch?’ Hawthorne was surprised.

‘Can’t you hear me? I just said. He was holding a torch. That was the main reason why I couldn’t see him. The light got in my eyes. He was quite a distance away.’ He pointed in the direction of the gate, on the other side of Heron’s Wake. ‘I did think it a bit odd, someone walking on their own at that time of night. No animal or anything like that. At least, I didn’t see one.’

‘Are you sure it was a man?’

‘What? I don’t know if it was a man or a woman. I couldn’t see because of the torch.’

‘You just said he was holding a torch!’ Hawthorne was annoyed. I could tell from his eyes and from the way his lips had narrowed until they were almost a straight line. To be fair, there was something extremely irritating about Henry Fairchild. When DI Grunshaw had described him as ‘charming’ she was most definitely being sarcastic.

‘I don’t know if it was a man or a woman and there’s no point asking me what colour he was or anything like that. I’ve already told the police. I noticed him just as I was going into the house and I didn’t think anything more about it until I woke up and saw that all hell had broken loose with murder and the police and everything else.’

‘You didn’t hear anything?’