The Sentence Is Death

‘Can I help?’ The manager had come out from behind the sales desk. I had met her before when I had come to give talks at the shop and she had always been very friendly, a bit like a schoolteacher with her closely cropped grey hair and bright, blue eyes.

‘Do you run this place?’ Grunshaw asked.

‘Yes. I’m Rebecca LeFevre. Who are you?’

‘Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw.’ She gestured at her partner, giving me his full name for the first time. ‘DC Darren Mills.’

LeFevre looked at me with astonishment. ‘Do you mind if we look in your bag?’ she asked.

I glanced at Hawthorne but he wasn’t in any hurry to help. If anything, he was amused. I already knew what had happened. Darren Mills had done this when he bumped into me at the top of the stairs. He had slipped a book into my case to embarrass me, to punish me, perhaps even to have me arrested, and if I had been sensible I would have left it there and simply walked out or at least tried to explain. Instead I opened the case and took out a thick paperback, a book called Excalibur Rising, the second volume in the Doomworld series by Mark Belladonna. This was the same series that Gregory Taylor had bought on the day he died. The book had actually been on display on a table at the front of the shop and there it was, resting in my hand.

Akira Anno was staring at the book with a look of queasy horror on her face. It took her a moment to find the words. ‘He’s a thief!’ she exclaimed.

‘I’m not a thief . . .’ I began. ‘This is a set-up!’ I pointed at Mills. ‘He put it in my case. He barged into me when I came upstairs.’

Mills raised his hands in a show of surrender. ‘Why would I do a thing like that?’ he demanded.

Grunshaw looked at me thunderously. ‘Are you accusing a police officer of planting evidence?’

‘Yes! I am!’

‘You realise I could arrest you?’ She turned to LeFevre. ‘Do you want me to arrest him?’

‘Wait a minute.’ LeFevre was looking at me in dismay. If she had reminded me of a teacher before, she was now more like a headmistress with a child who had once been her favourite. ‘You’ve let the bookshop down. You’ve let your readers down. You’ve let yourself down.’ I could almost hear her saying it. ‘Could I have it back?’ That was what she actually said.

I handed the book to her. I could feel my cheeks burning.

‘The policy at Daunt’s is to refer all shoplifters to the police,’ she went on. ‘I have to say, I’m surprised and very disappointed, but it’s up to the police to decide if they want to take any further action.’

‘I didn’t do it!’ I knew I sounded pathetic. I couldn’t help myself.

‘I will say, though, that you’re not welcome back in this shop, Anthony. I’m very sorry. And I don’t think we’ll be stocking you after this.’

I’d had enough. I really couldn’t take any more. I pushed past Hawthorne and Akira and, with their eyes burning into me, hurried out into the rain.

15 Rum and Coke

I didn’t see Hawthorne again until Monday evening, when, instead of going to see Ghosts at the Almeida, I rang the doorbell at River Court to join him at his book club. At least this time I was expected. Normally, which is to say on the last two occasions, I had to resort to subterfuge to get anywhere near the flat where he lived. We’d arranged to meet at seven o’clock and the idea was that we would go together to wherever the group met.

He was standing in the corridor when the lift doors opened and I was afraid he was going to step in and take me straight back down. But his own front door was open and he seemed quite genial as he led me back towards the flat.

‘How are you, Tony?’

‘I’m all right.’ But I wasn’t, not after what had happened at Daunt’s and I wanted him to know it.

‘You sound like you got out of bed on the wrong side. Come in and have a rum and Coke. That’ll cheer you up.’

I hardly ever drink Coca-Cola and I don’t much like rum, but the invitation intrigued me on all sorts of levels. I followed him in.

Hawthorne’s flat would have told me more about him if it had actually belonged to him but it was exactly as I remembered from the one time I’d been there, bare to the point of depressing with windows that were too narrow for the wonderful view they could have provided: the River Thames flowing darkly through the evening gloom. There were still no pictures, no flowers, no clutter . . . nothing that would suggest he did anything but sleep here.