Anne Cleary lived in exactly the sort of house I would have imagined for her, part of a curving terrace in a quiet area of Oxford with lots of trees. It was Victorian, red brick, with sash windows and a flight of steps leading up to the front door, the kitchen and dining room below street level. Even before we went in, I knew it would have the original cornicing, stripped wooden floors and high ceilings. There’s something about Oxford that has always appealed to authors and it seems to me that it has somehow seeped into their work. Think of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Iris Murdoch and, more recently, Philip Pullman. It’s hard to imagine them living anywhere else.
Anne was surprised, but seemed pleased to see me and led us both into a comfortable front room. She collected Wedgwood porcelain figurines – milkmaids, ballet dancers, Little Bo Peep. They were displayed on shelves along with books, photographs, an ornamental clock, piles of letters and perfumed candles. The room managed to be simple and cluttered at the same time. Anne looked very much at home here. She was the sort of woman who liked to be comfortable, who would wear clothes that were sensible, never expensive. I suspected she had lived there for most of her adult life.
As soon as we sat down, Hawthorne produced the Sakura fountain pen that he had retrieved from Marc Bellamy. Anne snatched it up with delight. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to have this back,’ she said. ‘I’ve got other pens, but this one writes so beautifully. Are you going to tell me where you found it?’
‘I can’t,’ Hawthorne said.
‘Had someone taken it?’
‘Let’s just say that I persuaded them to give it back.’
‘Well, I’m very grateful to you, Mr Hawthorne.’ She placed it on an ornamental table in front of her. ‘And I hear you managed to solve what happened in Alderney.’
‘You know about Derek Abbott?’ I asked.
‘I heard he took his own life.’ She shook her head. ‘I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for him, but in a way I do. If he killed two people, then he deserved to be punished, but I don’t think it’s ever anything to be celebrated, someone taking their own life.’
‘Did you actually speak to him in Alderney?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘No. I told you. I saw him at the party, but we didn’t exchange any words.’ Anne clapped her hands together. ‘I’m so sorry! I haven’t offered you tea or coffee. Or perhaps you’d like a glass of sherry? I’ve made a salade niçoise for lunch and there’s plenty enough for three …’
‘I’m all right, thank you,’ Hawthorne said. He smiled. ‘You know, thinking back, there is something I never understood and it does relate to that evening at The Lookout.’ He paused and Anne waited politely for him to continue. ‘Charles le Mesurier talked to you about Derek Abbott. He said that the two of them had had an argument and that he was thinking about firing him. It was certainly true that the two of them had fallen out quite badly. Derek Abbott admitted as much when we spoke to him.’
‘So what’s the problem?’ Anne asked.
‘Only this. You left the party at nine twenty-five. We know the exact time because you asked the girl at the door. What was her name?’
‘Isn’t that awful of me? I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.’
‘It doesn’t matter. The argument must have happened before then. But here’s the thing. Elizabeth Lovell saw the two of them – Abbott and le Mesurier – crossing the garden just half an hour later, at ten to ten, and according to her the two of them seemed to be on perfectly friendly terms. Once they got to the Snuggery, they actually took cocaine together. Abbott denied it, but we found two cardboard tubes in le Mesurier’s pocket, so unless he was using one for each nostril, it looks as if both of them had a quick snort.’ Hawthorne looked genuinely perplexed. ‘It just doesn’t sound like the behaviour of two men who have recently had a falling-out.’
Anne had no answer, but she could see that Hawthorne was waiting for her to speak. ‘Well, I told you what he said to me,’ she said. ‘Derek Abbott wanted money and Charles le Mesurier wasn’t prepared to pay it. I assumed that was the reason why he killed him.’
‘It’s a good reason,’ Hawthorne agreed. ‘But it still doesn’t explain why they were so chummy when they walked over to the Snuggery.’
‘Did you say that Elizabeth Lovell saw them?’ It had taken Anne a few moments to work that out.
‘Oh yes. She was only pretending to be unsighted.’
‘But that’s wicked …’
‘There was a lot of wickedness going on that night, Anne,’ Hawthorne agreed. ‘That wasn’t the worst of it.’
The three of us fell silent. Anne picked up her pen. ‘You shouldn’t have come all this way to give it back to me,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Shall we go down to the kitchen and have some lunch?’
‘There’s something else I wanted to ask you,’ Hawthorne said.
‘You know, really, Mr Hawthorne … I’m not sure I’ve got anything to add.’
‘It’s just that I like to have everything nice and tidy and if Tony here is going to write about this, he needs to know it all too. It’s about the girl at the door.’
‘I don’t know anything about her.’
‘You asked her the time.’
‘Yes.’ Anne was beginning to sound exasperated.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘I already told you. I had an important phone call.’
‘I know. You had to be back at the hotel at ten. But that doesn’t make any sense to me. I’d understand it if you had to leave at a certain time, if you asked someone the time and then hurried to get back to the hotel. But you were already on your way out when you asked. So there was no need to. If you didn’t know what time it was, you wouldn’t have been leaving.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, Mr Hawthorne. My agent in Los Angeles had told me she was going to ring …’
‘Although in the end she didn’t.’
‘I wasn’t to know that. I checked my watch and then I double-checked at the door. I also asked the bus driver when the bus was going to leave.’
‘It’s almost as if you wanted everyone to know what time you left the house.’
‘It may seem that way to you, but nothing could have been further from my mind.’ I had no idea where this was going and Anne was beginning to look uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair. ‘It’s almost as if you’re accusing me of killing Mr le Mesurier myself,’ she said. ‘But that’s ridiculous. I hadn’t even met him until last Friday.’
‘You’re absolutely right, Anne. You had no reason at all to kill Charles le Mesurier.’
‘Exactly.’
The clock on the mantelpiece pinged as the minute hand passed the twelve. It was an ugly thing, bronze and white marble with an angel holding a spear in one hand and leaning against the casing with the other. Every hour it would draw attention to itself. It was now one o’clock.
‘Except, perhaps, the death of your son.’ Hawthorne paused. ‘I was there when Elizabeth Lovell talked about him at the cinema.’
Anne scowled. ‘That woman was hateful. And everything about her was fake. You just said so yourself.’
‘She knew about Mary Carrington, the woman who had slipped and drowned in the bath. And she knew about you. She’d done her research.’
‘Mr Hawthorne, this is really—’
‘She knew that your son had committed suicide at university.’
‘My son was an addict. I don’t know why you have to bring this up now. It’s really very cruel of you. I was forced to explain myself in front of a hundred complete strangers. He took an overdose and he died.’
‘Was he a drug addict?’ Hawthorne asked.
Anne didn’t reply.
‘That was the natural inference and I think it’s what you wanted us to believe. A drug addict takes a drug overdose and he dies. But there are other sorts of addicts.’