Even before we got out of the car, we could tell something was wrong. A small crowd had gathered on the very edge of the grass, all of them looking out to sea, and there was something about their body language, the way they stood, that warned us that although they might be birdwatchers, they were not now watching birds. We went over and joined them.
I saw the two rock towers rising up out of a steel-blue sea, providing an astonishing breeding ground for twelve thousand gannets. To one side, the land sloped down and there were paths that you could follow all the way to the water’s edge, but in front of us the island simply stopped, like a map torn in half, with a sheer drop on the other side of the jagged line.
‘He’s down there,’ someone said, inviting me to join them in this spectacle of death. And sure enough, he was.
Derek Abbott was too far away to be recognisable, but who else could it have been, lying there on the shingle, his body disjointed, exactly like one of those chalk outlines in a bad police drama? The water was lapping at him, but he wasn’t moving. I wondered how anyone would reach him. They’d have to send a boat. There was no other way to bring him up to the top.
A man was standing next to me, dressed in an anorak with a heavy pair of binoculars on a cord around his neck. ‘Did you see what happened?’ I asked.
‘He jumped,’ the man told me.
I turned away. I’d seen more than enough death on Alderney. Hawthorne was standing right behind me, impassive. I looked him straight in the eye. ‘You did this,’ I said.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ Hawthorne replied.
But I knew he was lying. Someone had told Abbott that the police were coming to arrest him and I had seen Hawthorne walking out of the hotel late at night.
Now I knew where he had gone.
23
Keep Reading
Two days after I got back to London, I went to see my agent, Hilda Starke. I walked over to Greek Street in Soho, where her office was located on the fourth floor of a narrow building hemmed in between an Italian restaurant and an off-licence. There was no lift and the stairs creaked menacingly under my weight, as if warning me that I was not really welcome here. I think it’s true to say that Hilda preferred books to authors. In the three years I had been with her, I’d only gone to her office half a dozen times.
I arrived at a dusty landing where a door opened into a tiny reception area, made tinier by the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with books. A single window allowed a little daylight to seep through, but it was a room that devoured daylight. I gave my name to the receptionist and told him I had an appointment with Hilda.
‘What’s this about?’ he asked vaguely.
‘I’m one of her clients.’
‘Oh.’
Ten minutes later, I had squeezed into Hilda’s office. There was so little space in the building, all the furniture seemed to be in the way. She was behind her desk, holding a Sharpie and covering a manuscript with black markings. I wondered if she did the same with my work when she received it.
‘Have you been offered coffee?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Your receptionist didn’t even know you represented me.’
She wasn’t troubled. ‘He hasn’t been here long.’
‘How are you?’ I asked.
She looked at me, puzzled. ‘I’m fine. Why do you ask?’
According to Hawthorne, she had been on her way to the doctor, worrying about tests, when I’d met her seven weeks before. Could he have been wrong? The trouble was, if I told her what I knew, it would look as if I’d been prying. ‘I just thought you seemed a bit down when we last met,’ I said, trying to sound casual.
‘No. I’m perfectly well. How was Alderney?’
She was obviously keen to change the subject and I just hoped that whatever the problem was, it had sorted itself out. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ I said. Quickly, I described the festival and the two murders that had followed. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to write the third book in the series,’ I concluded.
‘Why ever not?’
‘I’ve just explained. Derek Abbott was the killer and he committed suicide rather than go back to prison.’
‘What’s the problem with that?’
‘Well, it’s just not a very satisfying ending. He was always the most obvious suspect, so it’s not much of a surprise, and he was a thoroughly unpleasant man, so who’s going to care? Worse than that, Hawthorne didn’t really solve the murder. I mean, he did – but most of the information was handed to him on a plate.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I thought you might have a word with Random House. Maybe I can write something else.’
She sighed. ‘I did warn you against starting this series of books,’ she said. ‘I always said it was bad idea.’
‘It wasn’t my idea!’
‘And you’ve got a problem now. Everyone at Random House loved meeting Hawthorne. Graham sent me a note to say how impressed he was. If you don’t want to write the third book, I’m afraid they’ll look for someone else who will.’
‘They can’t do that, can they?’
‘You don’t own Hawthorne, Anthony. If anything, he owns you.’
I sat there gloomily while she let this sink in.
‘Anyway, you shouldn’t be worrying about the third book,’ she continued, eventually. ‘You haven’t finished the second one yet. Have you got a title, by the way?’
‘Yes. I want to call it Another Word for Murder.’ She made no response so I added: ‘After all, it is a sequel to The Word is Murder.’
She nodded. ‘That’s the problem,’ she said. ‘It sounds like a sequel. People will think they have to read the first one. If I were you, I’d think of something else.’
‘But I like it,’ I protested.
‘I don’t.’
A few minutes later, I was back in the street. It hadn’t been a brilliant meeting. I’d been told my publishers preferred my main character to me. I’d lost the title of my second book. And Hilda wasn’t going to offer me any help with the third one.
My telephone rang. I looked at the screen. It was Hawthorne.
‘Yes?’
‘Tony, are you around?’
‘I’m in town.’
‘Do you fancy coming to Oxford? I’m taking that pen back to Anne Cleary and she’s invited me to lunch.’
‘Did she invite me?’
‘No. But she likes you. She’ll be glad to see you.’
‘What time are you leaving?’
‘There’s a train at eleven fifteen.’
It was ten fifteen now – but that was typical of Hawthorne. He had a sort of myopia that possibly extended to the entire world, but certainly to me. I would be available when he needed me, although of course it didn’t work the other way round. I was tempted to say no, to tell him I was busy – but what was the point? I was only twenty minutes from Paddington Station and I had nothing much to do.
‘I’ll meet you on the train,’ I said.
In fact, Hawthorne was waiting for me at the platform and we travelled together in silence. He was still reading The Little Stranger, the book he had brought with him to Southampton, and I noticed that he wasn’t many pages further in, but then I could imagine him being not just a slow reader but a methodical one, going over every sentence and every paragraph so that he would be up to scratch when he met with his book club.
It was only in the taxi, driving through Oxford, that I asked him: ‘Did you tell Anne I was coming?’
‘No. I’m sure she won’t mind.’
‘But if she’s making lunch—’
‘You can have mine!’