I thought about nothing else the entire way.
After walking all the way across Blackfriars Bridge to see Hawthorne, I now followed my steps back again. Masefield Pryce Turnbull had offices in Carey Street, behind the Central London County Court and just round the corner from where I live. This part of London is dedicated to the legal profession and wants you to know it. Even the newer, more modern buildings are carefully traditional, utterly discreet.
Masefield Pryce Turnbull occupied the top two floors of a handsome townhouse that they shared with two other boutique firms. It was a twenty-first-century law firm in a nineteenth-century building; sliding glass doors and open-plan offices behind the classical arches and sculpted pediments. A young, smiling secretary took us through to a corner office where Oliver Masefield was waiting for us, sitting behind a massive, highly polished desk. This was a practice that specialised in divorce – matrimonial law, as they called it – and perhaps he needed a solid barrier between himself and the grief and anger of his clients.
He rose to greet us, a very imposing black man in a sleek, tailored suit, about fifty years old with a high, domed forehead and dark hair which was going grey around the temples in a way that entirely suited his profession and status. He had an extraordinarily cheerful disposition which he seemed unable to hide, even though we were here to make enquiries about the violent death of his partner. When I say there was a twinkle in his eye, I mean it quite literally. Perhaps it was the overhead lighting. Even when he arranged his features to show the expected empathy and remorse, he still gave the impression that he wanted to burst out laughing, to sweep us into his embrace and take us out for a drink.
‘Please! Please, come in,’ he began, although we already had. He had a loud, booming voice, on the edge of theatrical. ‘Take a seat. I spoke to the police yesterday evening . . . An absolutely terrible business. Poor Richard! We’d worked together for many years, you know, and I want to say straight away that anything I can do to help you, I will do! Will you have a coffee or tea? No? This weather is so very damp and unpleasant. Perhaps a glass of water?’
There was a bottle on a sideboard and he poured two glasses while we sat down. He handed them to us, then went back to his place on the other side of the desk. ‘Where do you want to start?’
‘When was the last time you spoke to Mr Pryce?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘That would have been on Sunday, the day that it happened. We spoke at about six o’clock in the evening.’
‘He rang you.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Oliver Masefield sighed loudly. Everything he did was just a little bit larger than life. ‘I can’t tell you how bad I feel. He was worried about something. He phoned me for advice. But I wasn’t able to speak to him.’ He grimaced. ‘I was going out with my wife to a concert at the Albert Hall. Mozart’s Requiem. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time to ring me.’
‘So what did he say?’
‘Not very much. He had already mentioned to me on one or two occasions that he had concerns about a recent hearing.’ Before Hawthorne could interrupt, he continued. ‘The Lockwood divorce. You do understand, gentlemen, that I have a duty to protect client confidentiality, but many of the facts are on public record and anything I’m telling you now you can find out for yourselves.’
With this established, he began.
‘In this instance, our client was Adrian Lockwood, who was seeking a divorce from his wife, Akira Anno, on grounds of unreasonable behaviour. I don’t need to go into details, the more salient of which appeared in the newspapers. We came to an agreement at the Central Family Court and I have to say that it was very much in our client’s favour. This was on Wednesday the sixteenth. You’ll be aware that Ms Anno was put out – to say the least – by the way things had proceeded and happened to see Richard in a restaurant four or five days later. It was The Delaunay in the Aldwych. What followed was a common assault and could have landed her in serious trouble if Richard had chosen to pursue the matter further.’
‘She threw wine at him.’
‘That’s right.’
‘She also threatened him.’
‘She swore at him and said words to the effect that she would like to attack him with a bottle. It was a very foolish thing to do but I understand that she is a highly strung woman.’
‘You say he had concerns. What were they?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘I never found out exactly because I wasn’t directly involved. But I can tell you that Richard suspected there had been fraudulent disclosure and it concerned him to the extent that he was even prepared to consider a set-aside.’
‘It would help if you could speak in English, Mr Masefield.’
The lawyer’s eyes narrowed and some of his bonhomie departed the room. ‘I think I was doing precisely that, Mr Hawthorne. But I will try to explain it to you in language that a police officer, retired or otherwise, might understand.’
I smiled at that, then looked away so that Hawthorne wouldn’t see.
Masefield continued. ‘In the case of a high-income divorce, both sides have to make a full account of their income, their pensions, savings, property . . . their entire net value. This is all laid out in what we call a Form E. It does sometimes happen that one side may try to conceal some aspect of his or her wealth and were that to be discovered, the agreement – whether it was made inside or outside the court – might well be overturned and effectively both parties would have to begin again.’ He coughed. ‘We call that a set-aside. I know that Richard did have some concerns that Ms Anno might have an income stream which she had failed to declare and he had been in touch with Navigant—’
‘Navigant?’
‘They are a consultancy in London. They have a first-class team of forensic accountants and we use them quite frequently.’
‘And they were investigating Akira Anno?’
‘To begin with, yes. But in the end their services were no longer required as Ms Anno, presumably being advised by her own counsel, accepted Mr Lockwood’s terms quite soon after the FDR.’
‘What’s an FDR?’ This time I was the one who asked, saving Hawthorne any further confrontation.
‘I’m sorry. It’s the Financial Dispute Resolution. You have to understand that we do everything we can to dissuade our clients from proceeding all the way to the final hearing. If they can come to an agreement before that, it will save them many thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of pounds. That was the case here. Richard had persuaded Ms Anno’s team that they might as well quit while they were ahead. He had made a reasonable offer and in the end they agreed.’ Masefield clasped his hands together. ‘Clearly she wasn’t entirely happy about it – witness what happened a few days later. But although she might not have believed it, it was almost certainly in her best interests.’
‘So this is what I don’t get,’ Hawthorne said. ‘It’s a done deal. Richard Pryce has got the agreement he wanted. His client’s happy—’
‘Mr Lockwood was delighted.’
‘So what’s he doing calling you on that Sunday when the whole thing’s over?’
‘I have no answer to that, I’m afraid.’
‘He didn’t say anything at all?’
I didn’t think Masefield would answer. He clearly didn’t want to, torn between client confidentiality, his own sense of responsibility and, I think, a mild dislike of Hawthorne. But in the end, it was his sense of guilt that persuaded him.
‘I should have listened to him!’ he exclaimed. ‘I blame myself – but as I say, I was on my way to a concert and I didn’t want to be late. We spoke briefly and I could tell Richard was upset. He talked about consulting the Law Society ethics hotline. The Law Society is, as it were, our governing body and that would have been a very serious step.’