The Sentence Is Death

I spent an hour searching the internet but couldn’t find anything that related to the man who had come into the Station Inn in Ribblehead. He had been about the same age as Hawthorne – maybe a couple of years younger – and unless he had been on holiday, which seemed unlikely in late October, I guessed he must live in the Yorkshire Dales. What would that make him? A farmer? Something connected to tourism? Of course, it could have been Carlisle. I tried that spelling too. Michael Carlyle. Mike Carlisle. I was directed to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, to an office stationery supply company in Manchester and the Director of Missions at a Baptist church in Victoria, Australia. There were dozens of photographs to choose from but none resembled the man I had met.

I couldn’t get the encounter out of my head. It seemed to tie in with Hawthorne’s strange mood, his nervousness as we left London. Carlyle had been quite sure it was Hawthorne even if he had referred to him as ‘Billy’. He had known him from somewhere called Reeth – a village in nearby Swaledale and ‘a well-known centre for hand-knitting and the local lead industry’, as Wikipedia helpfully informed me. Hawthorne’s behaviour hadn’t just been defensive, it had been borderline rude. I couldn’t be certain but it seemed quite possible to me that ‘Billy’ had lied to ‘Mike’. They had known each other once.

I was thinking this over when the telephone rang. It was Hawthorne arranging to meet me at the Bury Street Gallery in Mayfair – which was where Stephen Spencer worked.

‘We can go on to Marylebone afterwards,’ he said.

‘What’s in Marylebone?’

‘Akira Anno is giving a talk in a bookshop.’ I heard the rustle of paper as he turned a page. ‘“Women of mass destruction: sexual objectification and gender coding in modern warfare”.’

‘That sounds fun,’ I said.

‘We can talk to her and if you’re lucky you can get her book of haikus signed.’

He rang off.

I spent the next couple of hours working. I went for a walk. I wrote a quick draft of the chapter Hawthorne wanted. I know it all sounds a bit dull laid out like that but I’m afraid I’m describing very much my life as a writer. I spend at least half the day on my own and in silence. I flit from one project to another, channelling thousands of words – first with a pen and then with a computer – onto the page. That’s why I enjoy writing Alex Rider. Even if I’m not having adventures, I can at least imagine them.

It was less satisfying writing about Hawthorne. I had become a prisoner of circumstance. For example, I would have loved to have opened a chapter with something surprising: Davina Richardson in bed with Adrian Lockwood, perhaps. Or Susan Taylor, dressed in black, being driven to her husband’s funeral in the Yorkshire Dales, the cortège slowly winding its way through those twisting country lanes. It would have been a real challenge to imagine myself inside Long Way Hole, describing the last moments of Charlie Richardson as he drowned, or I could have turned myself into a fly on the wall inside the room when Richard Pryce’s killer had struck. Sadly, none of these possibilities was available to me. I was stuck with the facts. My job was to follow Hawthorne’s investigation, setting down his questions and occasionally trying, without much success, to make sense of the answers. It was really quite frustrating. It wasn’t so much writing as recording.

I was still glad to get out of the house. I took the Tube over to Green Park and walked into Mayfair. This time Hawthorne had arrived ahead of me. He was waiting outside an art gallery contained in a small, elegant building, the sort of place that warned you to stay away unless you were well heeled. The name was spelled out in discreet lettering and there were just three works in the window, with no prices. I recognised a Wadsworth and a Paul Nash – a nice watercolour of a shingle beach. The glass door was locked but there was an assistant on the other side and he buzzed us in.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked. He was from the Middle East with very dark skin and a jet-black beard. He was in his late twenties, wearing an expensive, tailored suit that made Hawthorne’s look resolutely off the peg, but no tie. He had a gold chain around his neck and a gold band on the third finger of his left hand.

Needless to say, Hawthorne had taken an immediate dislike to him. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘I’m sorry?’ The assistant was quick to take offence.

‘I’d like to talk to Stephen Spencer.’

‘Mr Spencer’s busy.’

‘It’s all right, Faraz. I know these people.’

Spencer had appeared from a back office, making his way across the thick-pile carpet that swallowed up any sound. He was also in a suit and looked much recovered from when I had last seen him. His fair hair was carefully groomed and he had the pink, clean-shaven looks of someone who has just stepped out of the bath.