The Sentence Is Death

She almost yawned. ‘It was a Welcome Break service station and it was busy. I’m sure quite a few people will have seen me. You can ask.’

‘We will.’

‘What did you have against Richard Pryce?’ Hawthorne cut in. Akira threw a contemptuous glance in his direction but before she could answer, he went on. ‘You said just now that you hardly knew him and you never spoke. He represented your husband and from what I hear your husband came away from his divorce with a big smile on his face. Did you blame Pryce for that? He could have done you for assault in that restaurant. Why did you attack him?’

She rearranged the pashmina before she answered, wrapping it more tightly around herself. ‘Richard Pryce was a liar,’ she said. ‘He represented my ex-husband and deliberately lied and intimidated me to protect him.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Hawthorne looked genuinely sympathetic and sounded so interested that even Akira was taken by surprise. That was another of his tricks. He had a way of getting people to tell him perhaps more than they intended.

‘I will tell you,’ she said. ‘I don’t care if you know because it’s behind me now. I look on my divorce as a cleansing process. The water runs foul only when you step into the shower.’

‘I’m sure.’

She composed herself. ‘I never married Adrian Lockwood. I married the image, the smiling Cheshire cat, that I made of him. That’s the truth even if it took me three years to see it. My first marriage was a degradation. Marcus, my first husband, was a professional narcissist, and I never knew where I was with him, in every sense. Moving with him to London took me not just from my place of birth, Tokyo, but from my home, New York. It was like falling through concentric circles, disappearing down a spiral that increasingly alienated me. In the end, there was only Marcus and he knew it. It was what gave him his power over me. He made my life miserable and when I found the strength to leave him, I had nothing.’

‘You had your books,’ I suggested, surprising myself. I hadn’t intended to speak.

‘The writer is only the shadow on the page. Yes. My books were appreciated all over the world, translated into forty-seven languages. I received many awards. I am sure you are familiar with my work.’

‘Well, actually—’

‘But I was nothing.’ She brought her fist crashing down on the table but it was so small, her fingers so slender, that it made almost no sound. ‘I had no inner life in myself, no confidence.

‘And then, at a party, I met Adrian. A property developer! It would be hard to imagine any occupation more alien to my sensibilities. I did not find him attractive and yet I will admit that I was attracted to him. He was so loud and cheerful. And rich. Yes. He had houses all over the world, beautiful cars, a yacht in the Camargue. He never read, of course. He had no interest in literature. He went to the theatre and to the opera when he was taken there by his corporate friends, but he didn’t care what he was seeing. It meant nothing to him.

‘He provided me with a safe space in which I was able to rebuild my confidence, to discover something of my inner self. I found his very ignorance a solace. He looked up to me, of course. He admired me. Perhaps, in his own way, he loved me. But his love was never more than skin-deep.’ She swept a hand through her hair. ‘I could live with that.’

‘So what went wrong?’ Hawthorne asked.

She shrugged. ‘I got bored. I found it increasingly difficult to reconcile my life as a serious writer, critic and performance poet with my role as his wife. Also, he was having affairs. He had nothing interesting to say. All he ever talked about was his business! He was a brute.’ She shuddered. ‘He had a foul temper and he could be violent. He made demands of my body that made me feel sick.’

‘But it wasn’t your husband you attacked in a restaurant, Ms Anno,’ Grunshaw reminded her. ‘It was his solicitor.’

‘I already told you. Richard Pryce lied.’ She closed her eyes. Her hair was hanging loose, her hands palms up on the table. For that brief moment, she could have been in one of her yoga classes. ‘First, there was the question of the settlement. I was not acquisitive. I was not unreasonable. I can live without money. My currency is invested in the words that I write. I asked only for enough to support my lifestyle, my two houses, my travel and other expenses. I was fully prepared to go to court to fight for what was rightfully mine.