The Sentence Is Death

‘The thing about Mr Pryce was that he always was a bit prissy, coming over all vicar’s daughter at the best of times. Anyway, the case is finished. Akira has pissed off and everyone’s smiling, but suddenly he’s talking to the people I work for, Navigant, and he’s asking them, very discreetly, to take a quick look at Lockwood’s assets.’ He paused, rolling his eyes. ‘He was very specific. He wanted to know about expensive wine.’

‘Wine.’ Hawthorne repeated the word.

‘That’s right. He wanted to know if Lockwood liked the stuff . . . I mean, really liked it. How much of it he drank. What vintages. All that sort of thing. How many bottles he had stashed away. That made it a lot easier for me, narrowing the field. And it didn’t take me very long to find what he wanted.

‘To say that Adrian Lockwood is into wine is putting it mildly. He’s a bleeding fanatic. I’ve seen his credit card slips from the Ritz and from Annabel’s. An Échezeaux Grand Cru at £3,250. A Bollinger Vielles Vignes at £2,000 . . .’ Lofty mangled the French but not the prices. ‘And that was just the start of it. I took a look in the basement of his home in Antibes . . .’

‘How did you get in there, Lofty?’

‘That’s my business, Hawthorne. It’s what I do. And the amount of booze I found underneath all that dust? You wouldn’t believe it! I had to look some of the names up. I’d never heard of them. And the prices! They were fucking incredible. I mean, you’re only talking about a mashed-up grape!

‘So one thing led to another and I found my way to Octavian. You ever heard of it?’

I shook my head. Hawthorne said nothing.

‘Octavian wine cellarage in Corsham. They’re a company. They store wine for hedge-fund managers and people like that. It’s a funny thing. Even people who live nearby don’t know much about it but you go in there, you’ll find some of the best wines in the world – millions of quids’ worth – tucked away in the darkness, a hundred feet under the Wiltshire hills. And of course there are all sorts of tax advantages. It’s a bonded warehouse. No VAT. And no capital gains tax either because you’re talking about a wasting chattel.’

I wasn’t quite sure what that meant but I didn’t interrupt. Lofty was in full flow.

‘It was easy enough to find out that Mr Lockwood was one of their clients,’ he went on. ‘But finding out what he had there was the devil’s own business. They’re not stupid and they’ve got a lot of security. I went down to Corsham and had a sniff around but that wasn’t going to work . . .’

‘So you broke into his office,’ Hawthorne said.

‘I didn’t break in.’ Lenny was offended again. ‘I just waited until Mr Lockwood went for lunch and walked in off the street. Easiest thing in the world. Told them I was from the IT company. The receptionist showed me into Lockwood’s office and even gave me the password for his computer, silly bitch. That way I was able to access his account at Octavian and find out how much capital he had invested.’

‘And how much was that?’

‘Just shy of three million quid, all paid for by one of his companies working out of BVI. Of course, Mr Pryce hit the bloody roof when he heard that. I don’t suppose any of it had ever shown up on his Form E.’

All along we had assumed that Richard Pryce had been investigating Akira Anno and that when he had rung up his partner, Oliver Masefield, on the day of his death, muttering about the Law Society, he had been thinking of her. But that wasn’t the case. It was his own client, Adrian Lockwood, who had rung the alarm bells. Lockwood was the one who had concealed his wealth, lying to his solicitor – not a great idea when the solicitor was known as the Blunt Razor.

Why wasn’t Hawthorne more excited? As far as I could see, this blew the entire case to smithereens. But he had just finished his coffee and had taken out a cigarette, which he was rolling back and forth along the table. ‘Two more questions, Lofty,’ he said. ‘What were you doing at Leconfield House just now? And why did you run off like that?’

‘What do you think?’ Lofty sneered. ‘Mr Pryce was my client. I liked him and I feel responsible for him. I’m quite interested to know who killed him and I’m wondering if Lockwood was responsible.’

‘That’s not possible,’ I said. ‘He was with someone on the Sunday evening at exactly the time Pryce was killed.’

‘Who says they didn’t both do it? Anyway, I’ve been keeping an eye on him just in case he meets someone or does something that blows the lid off what actually happened.’

‘And you ran . . . ?’

‘Because there’s been a murder and funnily enough I worry about my health. It’s often necessary in my line of work. When I see someone I’ve never met before running towards me, I generally turn and run the other way. Of course, as soon as I got your call, I realised there was no need for it. Not that I ever wanted to see you again, Hawthorne, just so you know.’

Hawthorne considered. ‘So you’ve been watching him,’ he said. ‘Found anything yet?’