The Sentence Is Death

She blushed, just as she had when we were first with her, but this time it was more anger than embarrassment. ‘I really don’t see what business it is of yours, Mr Hawthorne. Adrian is a client but he’s become a friend. A good friend. I tried to support him. He found the divorce proceedings very stressful and he was so angry with Richard. He came here to unwind. That’s all, really. He thought of me as someone he could trust.’

‘Why was he angry with Richard Pryce?’

‘Did I say that? I didn’t mean it. He was angry about the whole thing . . . the amount of time it took . . . Akira. He knew he’d made a mistake marrying her and— You really will have to ask him about it. Not me. I don’t think it’s right for me to talk about him behind his back.’

That was the end of it. She showed us to the door and a few moments later we were back in the street, walking towards Highgate Tube. As soon as I was alone with Hawthorne, I told him what had happened. It seemed inescapable to me that the number 182, painted on the wall at Heron’s Wake, related to the poem. I recited it, emphasising the third line.

‘The sentence is death. She’s saying she has to kill him because she can’t bear living with him. I know it’s crazy but she wanted the whole world to know what she intended to do.’

Hawthorne looked doubtful. ‘When was the book published?’

‘I don’t know. Earlier this year.’

‘So she could have written that poem a long time ago.’

‘She was still married to Lockwood. She still hated him.’

‘But she didn’t kill Lockwood. She killed Richard Pryce. At least, that’s what you’re suggesting.’

‘She wrote a poem about death. And look at that second line! Maybe the trial she’s talking about is her divorce.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing.’ The rain was getting heavier. Hawthorne drew on his coat. ‘On the night of the murder, Akira wasn’t in Lyndhurst or anywhere near it. She lied to us.’

‘How do you know?’

‘CCTV footage from the Welcome Break service station at Fleet. She was never there. And ANPR records on the M27 and the A31.’

‘What’s ANPR?’

‘Automatic number-plate recognition. Ms Anno drives a Jaguar F-Type convertible. There are cameras on both roads and unless she drove the entire journey cross-country, there’s no trace of her.’

‘Did DI Grunshaw tell you that?’

‘That’s right.’

I found that surprising. Grunshaw loathed Hawthorne. She’d allowed him to be present at a couple of interviews – probably because she’d been forced to – but would she share ANPR data with him? I doubted it. On the other hand, what other way could he have got the information?

‘Anyway, Grunshaw spoke to the yoga teacher,’ Hawthorne continued. ‘The man who owns the cottage. At first he said that he’d lent it to Akira but under the first bit of pressure he broke down and said he didn’t know if she’d gone there or not.’

So what did that mean? Suddenly it looked as if the case had nothing to do with Long Way Hole in Yorkshire. We were back to the divorce, the husband and wife at each other’s throats. And the lawyer who had come between them.

‘What about the haiku?’ I asked.

‘How exactly did you come across it?’ He raised a hand, silencing me before I could answer. ‘Do me a favour, Tony. Write the chapter. That’s the easiest way. Describe what happened when you visited Mrs Richardson – without me – and maybe I can work out what actually happened.’

‘I don’t like writing out of sequence.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll never read the rest of it.’

We had reached the escalators. There were a few people coming up but we were alone as we descended into what felt like the bowels of the earth.

‘Don’t forget the book club,’ Hawthorne said.

‘When is it?’

‘Monday night.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m at the theatre Monday night.’

‘But you said you’d come. What were you seeing?’ In his mind, it had already slipped into the past tense.

‘Ghosts.’ It was a hot ticket. Richard Eyre directing Henrik Ibsen at the Almeida.

He shook his head regretfully. ‘Well, I’ve promised them now. You’ll have to miss it.’

I stood there, a few steps behind him. I wasn’t moving but I was being carried further and further down into the shadows and I remember thinking that I’d put that into Hawthorne’s chapter, right at the end.

It was exactly how I felt.

13 Bury Street

Who was Mike Carlyle?