There was a long silence.
I was very much enjoying the sight of Grunshaw and Mills as they took this all in. It was my moment in the sun. I tried to remember if I had left anything out. But no, it was all there.
‘Have you told anyone else about this?’ Grunshaw asked.
‘Only Hawthorne. I’ve told him, of course.’
‘Have either of you approached Lockwood?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t.’ She glanced at Mills, who nodded as if at some unspoken thought. ‘We’ll take it from here,’ she went on. ‘I’m not saying your theory is correct. There may be one or two holes in it.’ I knew she was lying when she said that. I had gone over the whole thing several times through the night and Hawthorne had corrected me on a few points. It was watertight. ‘But we’ll interview Mr Lockwood and see what he has to say.’
‘Fine.’ I stood up. ‘But now I hope you’ll leave Foyle’s War alone. And for what it’s worth, it would be nice if you gave Hawthorne a little credit.’
Cara Grunshaw looked at me almost with pity. ‘Just for your information, I haven’t gone anywhere near your stupid television series,’ she said. ‘As to what I’m going to do or what I’m not going to do, you can piss off, all right? And if you want my advice, you’ll steer clear of Hawthorne. He’s trouble. Everyone knows that. You stick around with him, you’re going to get hurt.’
I was a little deflated as I left Notting Hill police station but I had cheered up by the time I got home. I would have preferred it if Lockwood hadn’t been the killer – at the end of the day, it had been extremely likely from the start – but what did it matter? The case was over. I had enough material for a book. Now all I had to do was write it.
I’d found a new lease on life and quickly dealt with the script revisions for Foyle’s War. I finished them by the middle of the afternoon and emailed them to the office. I tried ringing Hawthorne a couple of times but only got his voicemail. At four o’clock, I decided to go out. There was an exhibition of paintings by Daumier at the Royal Academy which I’d heard was worth seeing. I could pop in there for an hour and then see a film and have dinner with Jill.
The doorbell rang. I picked up the intercom. It was Hawthorne. ‘Can I come up?’ he asked.
I buzzed and let him in.
It was only the second time he had been to my flat. For different reasons, we were both eager to keep each other out of the places where we lived. When he stepped out of the lift, he was looking very pleased with himself. ‘So you saw Cara Grunshaw,’ he said.
I was already on the defensive. ‘You said you didn’t mind.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Did she call you?’
‘No.’ He was carrying an edition of the Evening Standard, which he unfolded and spread out on my table. I put on my glasses and read a small article at the bottom of page two:
POLICE MAKE ARREST IN HAMPSTEAD MURDER
This morning police have arrested a 58-year-old male in connection with the murder of divorce lawyer Richard Pryce who was found dead in his Hampstead home last week. Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw said: ‘This was a particularly brutal murder but after a meticulous and wide-ranging police investigation, we are very glad to bring the perpetrator to justice.’ No further details have been released.
I finished reading, then glanced up at Hawthorne. He was leaning over the newspaper, smiling. Something inside me went cold. I read the article a second time. Hawthorne was still smiling. It was a grin that went almost from ear to ear.
I knew.
‘I got it wrong, didn’t I,’ I said. I was feeling sick.
He nodded.
‘It wasn’t Adrian Lockwood.’
He shook his head. ‘Poor Cara,’ he muttered. ‘She’s only gone and arrested the wrong man.’
22 One Hundred Minutes
‘You really are a complete bastard, Hawthorne,’ I said. He was still so pleased with himself that he seemed indifferent to my comment. ‘You knew I was wrong all the time. You used me to get back at Grunshaw.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased, mate. She’s going to have egg all over her face. The Assistant Commissioner isn’t going to be pleased.’
‘But she’ll destroy me! She’ll hurt the production—’
‘She won’t do anything. Cara is all mouth and no trousers. Believe me. You won’t hear from her again. She’s made so many mistakes in her career that after this little mishap they may even boot her out. I told you. She’s thick! Everyone knows it.’
‘Not as thick as me,’ I said. I was depressed. It wasn’t just that my moment of glory had been snatched away from me. I still didn’t see how I had got it so wrong.
Hawthorne and I were sitting together in a taxi, crawling through the rush-hour traffic. London has a congestion charge but it clearly doesn’t work as most of the time you could limp faster than you can drive. I’ve often walked from my flat to the Old Vic without being overtaken by a single bus and generally I go everywhere on foot. Just for once, though, I didn’t mind being stuck, even if the meter was ramping up the fare. I wanted time alone with Hawthorne. I needed him to explain.
‘You weren’t thick,’ he said and just for once he sounded almost sympathetic. ‘You just didn’t think it all through.’
‘I looked at every angle,’ I insisted. ‘The pills. The bilberries. The glasses. The bottle. If there was a single flaw in my thinking, where was it?’
‘Well, I could mention a couple,’ Hawthorne replied.
‘Go on!’
He pursed his lips like a doctor about to deliver bad news. ‘All right. Let’s start with this eye disease of his. What did you call it?’
‘Nyctalopia.’
‘You got that off the internet.’
‘Yes.’
He shook his head. ‘Maybe he has got it. I don’t know. He could have been eating those bilberries because he likes bilberries. And people take vitamin A for all kinds of things: it’s good for the teeth, the skin, for fertility . . .’
‘Did you get that off the net?’
‘No. I just know. And maybe he wears sunglasses because he thinks they look trendy – like the ponytail and the Chelsea boots. But the thing is, if he couldn’t see in the dark, do you really think he would have walked all the way across Hampstead Heath, even with a torch? He could have parked the car in Highgate and walked down the hill. There are street lights all the way. Or he could have taken a cab.’
There was, I suppose, some truth in that. ‘What else?’ I asked.
‘The motive – or what you think is the motive. Adrian Lockwood had three million quid’s worth of wine hidden away in Wiltshire. But according to him, Richard Pryce never said anything about it. Yes, he discovered it was there. Yes, he was unhappy about it. But they’d never actually come to blows.’
‘He would say that,’ I insisted. ‘He didn’t want us to know Pryce had been investigating him. He was lying!’
‘In that case, why would he tell us that someone had broken into his office and hacked into his computer? Think about it, Tony. He knew Pryce had forensic accountants working for him. He probably even knew about Lofty. After all, Lofty had been spying on Akira too. So if he’d known he was being investigated, he would never have shared that information with us. It was the last thing he’d want us to know.’
Again, I couldn’t deny Hawthorne’s logic.
‘What about the umbrella? What about the hole in the flower bed?’
‘Lots of people have umbrellas, but it’s irrelevant because it wasn’t made by an umbrella in the first place. And for that matter, Henry Fairchild got it wrong. It wasn’t a torch.’