The Sentence Is Death

Dave Gallivan knocked on the door and without waiting for an answer opened it and went in. We followed him into a bright, airy home, simply furnished with sisal mats on the floor, dried bulrushes in vases, photographs of caves and crevices on the walls. On one side, a door opened into a living room with an upright piano and a fireplace with more dried flowers in the hearth. A cat was lying asleep on a rug. We turned the other way and went into the kitchen, where Susan was standing, waiting for us with an enormous knife in her hand.

For that reason, her first appearance struck me as quite menacing although in fact we had simply caught her preparing vegetables for dinner. There were chunks of carrot and potato spread out in front of her and as we came in she used the blade to sweep them off the chopping board and into a casserole.

It had been five days since she had heard that she had lost not just her husband but her entire world and she was still in shock. She wasn’t just unsmiling. She barely seemed to notice that we had come into the room. She had a square face with skin the colour and texture of damp clay. Her hair was drab and lifeless. She was wearing a dress that was either too long or too short but looked just wrong, cut off at her calves, which were stout and beefy. She didn’t speak as Gallivan ushered us in but I could tell at once that she wished we weren’t there.

‘Sue – this is Mr Hawthorne,’ Gallivan announced.

‘Oh yes. I suppose you’ll be having some tea, will you?’

I wasn’t sure if this was an invitation to make us some or a weary prediction as to what might be about to happen but it was uttered with an almost startling lack of enthusiasm.

To my surprise, Hawthorne replied with alacrity. ‘A cup of tea. That would be lovely, Mrs Taylor.’

‘I’ll make it.’ Gallivan made his way over to the kettle. He clearly knew his way around the kitchen.

Susan put down the knife and sat at the kitchen table. She was in her forties but looked a lot older, a punchbag of a woman whose every movement told us she’d had more than enough. We sat opposite her and she examined us for the first time.

‘I hope this won’t take too long,’ she said. She had a solid Yorkshire accent. ‘I’ve got to finish the supper and the girls will be home from school. The week’s been difficult enough already. I don’t want them to find you here.’

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Taylor,’ Hawthorne said.

‘Did you ever meet my Greg?’

‘No.’

‘And you’ve never met me, so don’t bother me with your condolences. I’ve got no use for them.’

‘We need to know what happened to him.’

‘You know what happened to him. He fell under a train.’

Hawthorne looked apologetic. ‘That may not be the case . . .’

‘What are you saying?’ Her eyes flared briefly.

Hawthorne examined her for a moment before continuing. ‘I don’t want to upset you, Mrs Taylor, but we haven’t discounted the possibility that he was pushed.’

I was surprised that he had put it as baldly as that and I wondered what her reaction would be. She hadn’t had the time to come to terms with the fact that he was dead, let alone that he might have been murdered. It seemed insensitive even by his standards.

In fact, she seemed remarkably unconcerned. ‘Who would want to do a thing like that?’ she said. ‘I can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt Greg. And nobody knew he was going to London except me. He didn’t even tell the girls.’

‘Why was he in London?’

The kettle had boiled. Susan didn’t answer until Gallivan had made the tea and brought it over to the table. He had left the bags in the mugs with the little label attached by a thread hanging over the sides.

‘He was ill,’ she said. ‘He needed money.’

‘How ill?’ Again, Hawthorne wasn’t giving her any leeway.

‘Seriously ill. But don’t you be getting any wrong ideas. He was going to be all right. That was the reason he was there.’

‘So who did he go to see?’

‘Let me explain to you, Mr Hawthorne. I’ll tell it to you my way, if you don’t mind. It’ll make it easier for you and less painful for me if I don’t have to answer every one of your damn questions.’

Hawthorne took out his cigarettes. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ he asked.

‘You can smoke all you like. But not in my house.’

She stared moodily at her tea, then picked up her cup and sipped without removing the bag. I did the same. Gallivan had added a couple of spoonfuls of sugar without asking. He was hovering over the kettle, leaving the three of us grouped at the table.