The Sentence Is Death

There was a brief silence. Then Akira laughed. It was strange because there was absolutely no humour in it at all. If she had grabbed hold of a stinging nettle and gasped in pain, it would have sounded much the same.

‘You have not understood a single word I wrote,’ she said. She turned to me. ‘And the first line is You breathe in my ear. If you’re going to quote my work, you could at least get it right!’ She was pleased with herself, scoring a point. ‘Do I really have to explain it to you?’ she continued. ‘The haiku was not about Richard Pryce. I wrote it before I knew of his existence. It’s about my marriage. It was written for Adrian Lockwood. I read it to him! He was the one who demeaned me, who humiliated me with his self-regard and his indifference to my needs. The imagery is obvious.’ Her nostrils flared. ‘The first line is sexual. It is Claudius with Gertrude. He is lying next to me in bed, close enough for me to feel his breath. It is not just what he says. It is what he is. I have come to realise that by marrying a second time, I have placed myself in the condemned cell. I use the word “trial” in two senses. It refers to my day-to-day suffering but also to the fact that I am legally his wife, that this is my status in a court of law. And I am not sentencing him to death. In fact, it is exactly the other way round. I am the one who is dying, although the last line is of course a paraprosdokian, with the double entendre in “sentence” – which gives rise to the suggestion that, despite all the evidence, I will survive.’

All of this had come out in a flat sort of whisper but she raised her voice for the last three words, adding a touch of Gloria Gaynor. Grunshaw was uninterested but Hawthorne ploughed on anyway.

‘Were you aware that Richard Pryce was investigating you?’

‘He was fascinated by me. He wanted to understand me.’

‘That’s not what I mean. He had employed a forensic accountant called Graham Hain to look into your finances. He thought you were fiddling him.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘But it’s true.’

‘He would have found nothing. I have nothing to hide.’ But both her eyes and her lips had narrowed and her body language was defensive.

‘I’d like a contact number for Dawn Adams,’ Grunshaw said, taking over the interview once again.

‘You can reach her at Kingston Press.’

Kingston Press was an independent publishing house. I’d vaguely heard of them.

‘She works there?’

‘She owns it.’

‘Thank you, Ms Anno.’ That was Grunshaw talking. I got the feeling that she had come to her own conclusions about Akira and the verdict was ‘Not guilty’.

We stood up and made our way back to street level. Akira went first, with Hawthorne next to her and then Cara Grunshaw a few steps behind. I was last and so I was isolated, with nowhere to go, when Grunshaw suddenly stopped and turned on me, halfway up the stairs.

‘You didn’t tell me you were coming here,’ she said. Her body seemed massive, blocking the stairwell, and her eyes behind those chunky black spectacles were extraordinarily aggressive.

I looked for Hawthorne but he had disappeared ahead. ‘I was going to call you this evening,’ I said. ‘It’s a complete waste of time trying to get information out of me. Hawthorne never tells me anything.’

‘You’ve got ears. You’ve got eyes. Use them.’ She glared at me. ‘This is your last warning.’

‘You blocked Foyle’s War—’

‘If you find out who killed Pryce before me, you’ll never shoot a frame of your fucking television series again, I promise you.’

She swivelled round and with her black-clad thighs and buttocks waddling in front of me, continued up to the entrance.

I thought my adventures at Daunt Books were over but there was still one more twist to come. Darren was waiting for us and as I reached the ground floor and hurried over to Hawthorne, he bumped into me, almost knocking me off my feet. ‘Sorry,’ he said, making it quite clear that he had done it deliberately.

Akira Anno was standing at the door. Hawthorne was in front of the sales desk with one of the managers behind. The door to the street was open and it was raining yet again, the rain tapping at the windows. I hadn’t brought an umbrella. I thought we’d have to call a taxi.

I took a step towards the exit and it was then that Cara Grunshaw called out to me, her voice rising in indignation. ‘Excuse me!’

I turned round. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Aren’t you going to pay for that book?’ She said it so loudly that everyone in the shop must have heard.

My head swam. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I saw you pick up a book just now. You put it in your case.’

It was true that I was carrying my black shoulder bag. Jill had given it to me as a birthday present and I nearly always have it with me. Was it heavier than it had been when I came in? My hand dropped to my side and felt the leather. There was something in the outer compartment and, I noticed, the straps had come loose.

‘I didn’t—’ I began.