The Sentence Is Death

‘It’s bad enough Hawthorne being called in but at least he’s a fucking detective. Or was until they threw him out. But if you think that gives you the right to go poncing around in a police investigation, you’ve got another thing coming.’

‘You should take this up with Hawthorne,’ I gasped. She was still holding me, pinning me to the wall with fists like cannonballs. I had thought she was a big woman but I hadn’t realised how much of that was muscle. Being gripped by her was like having a double heart attack. Meanwhile, Darren was watching all this with complete disinterest.

‘I’m not talking to Hawthorne. I’m talking to you.’ She relaxed a little, allowing my shoulder blades to scrape a few inches down the wall. ‘Now, you listen to me,’ she said again. ‘There’s only one reason I’m going to let you hang around. There’s only one reason I’m not arresting you for obstructing a police officer in the course of their duty. And that’s because you’re going to help me.’

‘I can’t help you,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anything!’

‘I’m aware of that. It’s bloody obvious.’ She examined me with distaste. ‘But here’s the thing. There’s no way Hawthorne is going to rain on my parade. I’m not having it. He’s not walking away with the credit for this, the same way he’s done before. This is my case and I’m going to be the one who makes the arrest.’

‘Fine. But I don’t see—’

She leaned forward, once again pressing me into the brickwork. Her lips were inches from my face, her breath moist on my cheek. ‘You’re going to tell me everything he knows and everything he does. Anything he finds out, you’re going to be straight on the phone. Am I making myself clear? And if you tell Hawthorne I was here, you give him even an inkling we’ve had this conversation, I’ll make your life hell.’

‘She can do it,’ Darren said, with a smile. They were the first words he’d spoken to me and I believed him.

‘Do we understand each other?’

‘Yes!’ What else could I say?

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ She let me go and straightened up. At the same time, she took out a business card and shoved it into my top pocket, almost tearing the material. ‘This is my mobile number. Ring it any time. If I don’t answer, leave a message.’

‘Hawthorne never tells me anything,’ I protested. ‘If he does work out anything, I’ll be the last to know.’

‘Call me,’ Grunshaw said. It was an order. It was a threat.

The two of them left.

I stood where I was, hardly believing what had just happened, watching their shadows disappear on the other side of the glazed front door.

I was still unsettled when I met Hawthorne a few minutes after six and of course he noticed it at once. ‘What’s wrong, Tony?’

‘Nothing!’ I had already worked out what I was going to say while I was being carried through the tunnels on the Northern line. ‘I’ve been working on the script.’

‘Michael Kitchen still giving you problems?’

‘Michael hasn’t even seen it yet. It’s ITV.’

‘You should stick to books, mate.’

I didn’t mention the visit. I hadn’t decided yet if I was going to do what Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw had ordered, but I didn’t think it would help informing Hawthorne that she had come to my home and threatened me. What could he do? Would he even try to protect me? More to the point, what would she do if I defied her? Speeding tickets? Some sort of interruption to Foyle’s War? It was impossible to shoot in London without the co-operation of the police and it might well occur to a malign, borderline psychotic detective (I’d seen her now in her true colours) to throw all sorts of problems in our way. I’d already caused the production enough difficulties. I was behind with my script revisions. If co-operating with her would help them, surely I had no choice.

Highgate Tube station is built into the side of a hill with a steep flight of stairs leading up to Archway Road. Hawthorne had been waiting for me opposite the newspaper kiosk at the top of the escalators and now we took the lower exit into Priory Gardens, the quiet residential street where Davina Richardson lived. I actually knew the area very well. I’d lived in Crouch End for fifteen years before I moved to Clerkenwell and had often walked down Priory Gardens, taking my children – when they were children – to school. Davina had a pretty Victorian house, tall and narrow, with a tiny front garden and a chessboard front path leading to a door with stained-glass windows. It was on the right side of the road, which is to say the side that backed on to the woodland around Crouch End Playing Fields.