‘No!’
‘But Richard Pryce had found out about the two of you, hadn’t he? The marriage, the civil contract, whatever you want to call it, was all over as far as he was concerned. He wanted you to move out.’
‘That’s not true! Who told you that?’ Spencer’s eyes narrowed. ‘Was it Oliver Masefield?’
‘As a matter of fact, it was.’ Hawthorne continued before Spencer could interrupt: ‘Your late husband’s law partner is also the executor of his will. He was actually very discreet but he did mention that the two of them had discussed the contents just a few weeks ago. Now there’s only one reason you talk about a will and that’s if you’re going to change it. And given the fact that you and Davina Richardson are the main beneficiaries and she hasn’t done anything to piss him off, while you’ve been gallivanting around at the weekends with Ali Baba out there’ – he jerked a thumb in the direction of the office and I closed my eyes, quietly adding casual racism to the charge sheet against Hawthorne – ‘it was a fair bet that he’d rumbled you and that he was about to do something about it.
‘The telephone call that you made to Richard at eight o’clock on Sunday evening originated in Chiswick, which is, by coincidence, where your mate Faraz Delijani lives. Cara Grunshaw already knows that and I’m surprised she hasn’t been round here already. So before that happens you might as well tell me what you were really up to – you can spare me the graphic details, if you don’t mind – and with a bit of luck it’ll persuade me that you didn’t creep home and commit murder.’
‘I didn’t kill anyone!’ There was a bottle of mineral water on a shelf. Spencer went over and twisted it open. I heard the rush of escaping gas. He poured himself a glass. ‘Richard and I had been having difficulties. Yes. We’d talked about spending time apart. And yes – I spent the weekend with Faraz in his flat in Chiswick. Lots of people saw us. On Sunday night we had dinner at a place called L’Auberge on the Upper Richmond Road.’ He took out his wallet and produced a slip of paper that he offered to Hawthorne. ‘Here’s the receipt, but you can ask them if you like. We had a table in the window.’
‘I will ask them.’ Hawthorne took the receipt.
‘This may surprise you, Mr Hawthorne, but I loved Richard very much and I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt him.’
‘Except for sleeping around behind his back.’
‘We had an open marriage. We tolerated each other’s indiscretions. And if Richard was going to change his will, it could just as easily have been to do with Davina as me.’
‘Why would he have done that?’
‘Forget it.’ It was clear that Spencer had decided he’d said too much and was regretting it.
‘I think you’d better tell me, Mr Spencer.’
‘All right.’ He frowned. ‘If you really must know, she was wearing him out . . . all her demands. He set up her business. He put her son through private education. He was always round there, listening to her problems. But it was never enough. She was bleeding him dry to get more clients who wanted interior decorating and for what it’s worth, he didn’t even much like her taste. It was all reds and yellows and that horrible shade of green. “Gangreen”, he called it! He was desperate to get her out of his life but he couldn’t do it because of what had happened in Yorkshire. I never understood it, personally. It wasn’t as if it had been his fault. I told him to tell her to fuck off – and maybe he did. Maybe he finally got her out of his system.’
‘Do you think she killed him?’ Hawthorne asked, a little more gently.
Spencer shook his head. ‘No. I’ve already told you. It was Akira. I was there in the restaurant when she threatened him and I heard it with my own ears. And there was something else . . .’
He paused for effect and for the first time I glanced around the gallery, at the oil paintings and watercolours displayed on the walls, each one carefully isolated in its private pool of light. It would have made a perfect setting if anyone had chosen to film this.
‘Richard was on to her,’ Spencer continued. ‘He told me that he’d had her investigated. You need to talk to Graham Hain at Navigant business management. He’s a forensic accountant who worked with Richard and he’d discovered that Akira had a limited company and an income stream that she didn’t want anyone to know about. Richard thought she was doing something illegal.’
‘Like what?’ In fact we already knew this. Oliver Masefield had told us as much, although he had put it less baldly.
‘He didn’t say. But she’d done everything she could to keep it hidden and it might have had an impact on the divorce. Both sides have to say how much they’re worth and he knew she was lying.’
Hawthorne made a mental note of it. He never wrote down anything. He had a prodigious memory – and of course he had me. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ he asked.
‘I was upset when you saw me in Hampstead and I wasn’t thinking straight. That’s also why I lied to you about Faraz. I didn’t want to drag him into this, but the truth is that I really don’t have anything to hide. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.’
Spencer padded off towards the office. Hawthorne didn’t try to stop him.
Back out in the street, I turned on him.
‘You can’t behave that way!’ I exclaimed. ‘What happened in there . . . that Ali Baba joke, your whole attitude. You can’t talk like that!’
‘I did what I had to.’ For once, I’d taken Hawthorne by surprise. ‘I had to get under his skin, Tony. Don’t you see it? He’s standing in his smart gallery, surrounded by a million quid’s worth of art. And he’s lying to us! He thinks he can get away with it. I had to break him down and that’s what I did.’
‘But I can’t put that sort of stuff in the book,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘People won’t like it.’ I paused. ‘They won’t like you.’
That jolted him. Just for a second I saw the vulnerability, the child he had once been, spark in his eyes and before he could stop himself he asked: ‘Do you like me?’
I wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘I don’t know,’ I stammered eventually.
He looked at me.
‘I don’t need you to fucking like me. I just need you to write the fucking book.’
We stood there, staring at each other. There was nothing more to say.
14 Daunt’s Bookshop
Daunt’s is one of my favourite bookshops in London. It’s halfway down Marylebone High Street, which itself has a pleasant, old-fashioned feel; more a neighbourhood than a shopping precinct. Every time I go in – and it’s not that far from where I live – I get a sense that I’m stepping back into a more civilised city. (Charing Cross Road used to be the same until high rents drove most of the second-hand bookshops away.) It actually occupies two shops, 83 and 84, knocked together with two doorways and two corridors, one on either side of a sales desk that forms a sort of island in between. The interior has the feel of a Methodist chapel, complete with the reticulated window at the end. The books are stacked on old wooden shelves and as an added quirk they are listed not by author or by subject but by country. Everything feels very narrow. About halfway in, a staircase disappears down to a basement, leaving a rectangular space on the other side where authors are invited to give talks. I have given one or two there myself.
This was where Akira Anno was speaking at half past six that evening. Hawthorne and I arrived in time to get a couple of seats at the back. It was interesting to see how relaxed he was inside the bookshop; certainly more than he had been in Yorkshire. He was completely cheerful as we sat down and it reminded me that he was a member of a book club, one which I would be joining on Monday night. I hadn’t read A Study in Scarlet for some time. I’d have to spend a few hours with it on Sunday.