It was at that precise moment that the doorbell rang and I realised Hawthorne had arrived. I was relieved. This was one of those few moments when I actually wanted to see him. He could deal with Davina and ask the questions that needed to be asked, and when we left he could make sense of what I had just discovered.
‘That’s your friend!’
‘Yes.’ The doorbell rang a second time. ‘You’d better let him in,’ I said.
Davina seemed unwilling to leave me on my own but got up and drifted out of the room.
I read the haiku three more times, turning all sorts of possibilities over in my mind. At the same time, I heard Davina’s voice out in the hall, explaining that I was already here, and I wasn’t surprised a few moments later to see Hawthorne glowering at me from the doorway.
‘You’re early,’ he said. Not a statement. An accusation.
‘I was waiting outside—’ I began.
‘I saw him and I invited him in.’ Davina came to my rescue.
‘We’ve just been chatting.’ I was trying to reassure him. ‘Mrs Richardson was showing me some poetry.’
Hawthorne still looked suspicious. He sat down, folding his ever-present raincoat over the arm of the sofa. Davina offered him tea, which he refused, plunging straight in as if to make up for lost time. ‘Did you by any chance see Gregory Taylor last weekend? Possibly sometime late afternoon?’
‘Who?’ She looked perplexed.
‘The man who went caving with your husband.’
‘I know who he is. Of course I know who you mean. Why are you asking me about him?’
‘I don’t want to upset you, Mrs Richardson, but he died last Saturday . . . one day before the murder of Richard Pryce.’
She wasn’t upset. She was shocked. ‘Gregory’s dead?’
‘He fell under a train,’ I said and immediately wished I hadn’t as it drew another baleful glance from Hawthorne.
‘You didn’t see it in the newspapers?’
‘I don’t really read the newspapers. It’s all so gloomy. I sometimes watch the news on the TV but I didn’t see anything. Well, they probably wouldn’t report it, would they? If a man falls under a train . . .’
‘I’m not entirely sure he fell.’ Hawthorne was sitting very straight, his legs apart, gazing at her with what might have been a sympathetic smile. With his hair cut so close around the ears and his black suit and tie, he managed to look both innocent and aggressive.
‘What? I don’t understand . . .’
‘He didn’t come here?’
‘No. I’ve just told you. I wasn’t here anyway. I went out at half past four. No. I mean half past three. I don’t know what I mean . . . I keep getting confused! It was half past three and I went over to Brent Cross. I took Colin with me. He’s growing so fast, he needed new football kit. What makes you think Gregory was here?’
‘One of the last things he did before he died was to send his wife a selfie he took on Hornsey Lane.’
She thought about that. ‘That’s quite near here,’ she admitted. ‘I can’t imagine what he’d be doing there. He was still living in Yorkshire as far as I knew.’ She shook her head. ‘I hadn’t seen or heard from him for six years. He sent me a letter after the inquest, offering his condolences, but otherwise we’d had no contact and to be honest with you I’m not sure I would have wanted him to come into my home. I already told you. Richard wasn’t to blame for what happened that day, when Charlie died. But Gregory Taylor was supposed to be in charge. He was the one who decided they should go ahead even though the forecast predicted rain. I don’t think I’d have had anything to say to him.’
‘So what was he doing on Hornsey Lane?’
‘I have no idea. I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time coming over here today. I could have told you over the phone. I didn’t see him.’
It hadn’t been a waste of time. I couldn’t wait to tell Hawthorne about the haiku.
Hawthorne picked up his raincoat and got to his feet. ‘Thank you for seeing us,’ he said. Then, almost as an afterthought: ‘I’m sorry to have to ask this, Mrs Richardson, but I need you to tell me. What exactly is your relationship with Adrian Lockwood?’
She blushed, just as she had when we were first with her, but this time it was more anger than embarrassment. ‘I really don’t see what business it is of yours, Mr Hawthorne. Adrian is a client but he’s become a friend. A good friend. I tried to support him. He found the divorce proceedings very stressful and he was so angry with Richard. He came here to unwind. That’s all, really. He thought of me as someone he could trust.’
‘Why was he angry with Richard Pryce?’
‘Did I say that? I didn’t mean it. He was angry about the whole thing . . . the amount of time it took . . . Akira. He knew he’d made a mistake marrying her and— You really will have to ask him about it. Not me. I don’t think it’s right for me to talk about him behind his back.’
That was the end of it. She showed us to the door and a few moments later we were back in the street, walking towards Highgate Tube. As soon as I was alone with Hawthorne, I told him what had happened. It seemed inescapable to me that the number 182, painted on the wall at Heron’s Wake, related to the poem. I recited it, emphasising the third line.
‘The sentence is death. She’s saying she has to kill him because she can’t bear living with him. I know it’s crazy but she wanted the whole world to know what she intended to do.’
Hawthorne looked doubtful. ‘When was the book published?’
‘I don’t know. Earlier this year.’
‘So she could have written that poem a long time ago.’
‘She was still married to Lockwood. She still hated him.’
‘But she didn’t kill Lockwood. She killed Richard Pryce. At least, that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘She wrote a poem about death. And look at that second line! Maybe the trial she’s talking about is her divorce.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing.’ The rain was getting heavier. Hawthorne drew on his coat. ‘On the night of the murder, Akira wasn’t in Lyndhurst or anywhere near it. She lied to us.’
‘How do you know?’
‘CCTV footage from the Welcome Break service station at Fleet. She was never there. And ANPR records on the M27 and the A31.’
‘What’s ANPR?’
‘Automatic number-plate recognition. Ms Anno drives a Jaguar F-Type convertible. There are cameras on both roads and unless she drove the entire journey cross-country, there’s no trace of her.’
‘Did DI Grunshaw tell you that?’
‘That’s right.’
I found that surprising. Grunshaw loathed Hawthorne. She’d allowed him to be present at a couple of interviews – probably because she’d been forced to – but would she share ANPR data with him? I doubted it. On the other hand, what other way could he have got the information?
‘Anyway, Grunshaw spoke to the yoga teacher,’ Hawthorne continued. ‘The man who owns the cottage. At first he said that he’d lent it to Akira but under the first bit of pressure he broke down and said he didn’t know if she’d gone there or not.’
So what did that mean? Suddenly it looked as if the case had nothing to do with Long Way Hole in Yorkshire. We were back to the divorce, the husband and wife at each other’s throats. And the lawyer who had come between them.
‘What about the haiku?’ I asked.
‘How exactly did you come across it?’ He raised a hand, silencing me before I could answer. ‘Do me a favour, Tony. Write the chapter. That’s the easiest way. Describe what happened when you visited Mrs Richardson – without me – and maybe I can work out what actually happened.’