‘Adrian Lockwood was here on Sunday evening and I deliberately made sure that the clocks hadn’t gone back. You see, later on I wanted him to be able to say that I’d been here when Richard died. I drove over to Fitzroy Park. I left the car at the top of the street and walked down. I had a knife with me . . . in my handbag. I was going to stab him.’
‘You didn’t walk across the Heath?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘No.’
‘Was Richard Pryce on the phone when he opened the door?’
‘He may have had a phone in his hand. I don’t remember. He was surprised to see me but he invited me in. He pretended he was worried about me. I know now that everything he ever said and everything he felt about me was pretence. We went into the study and he asked me if something was the matter. I hated the way he looked at me, as if he cared about me. It enraged me. I can’t even tell you how I felt. That was when I saw the bottle of wine. I picked it up and hit him with it. I hit him quite a lot of times. I know the bottle smashed at one point and I used the end to cut him.’
‘What about the knife?’
‘I’d forgotten about it. Anyway, I didn’t want to use it. I knew it could be traced back to me.’ She stared into the middle distance. ‘The whole thing was so strange, Mr Hawthorne. When I killed him, I felt absolutely nothing. It was as if I wasn’t even in the room. It was like watching an image of myself on a television screen with the volume turned down. I didn’t even feel any anger or anything. I just wanted him to be dead.’
‘And what then? Why did you write the figure one eight two on the wall?’
‘I remembered the poem that Adrian had shown me. The one written by Akira Anno. I don’t know why – but those words spoke to me. They told the truth about Richard. He had whispered in my ear and in a way he had killed both of us. I decided I wanted to leave a message behind so I went and got a brush and painted that on the wall. It was a stupid thing to do but I wasn’t in my right mind.’
Another long silence. She poured herself some vodka, using the same glass that had held the wine.
‘What do you think happens now?’ Hawthorne asked.
Davina shrugged. It took her a while to find the next words. ‘Does anybody really need to know?’ she asked. ‘You’re not really a detective any more. Do you need to tell anyone?’
‘Adrian Lockwood has been arrested.’
‘But the police will work out that he didn’t do it. They’ll let him go eventually. They’ll have to.’
‘And you’ll get away with murder?’ The edge had crept back into Hawthorne’s voice and I knew without any doubt that he wouldn’t go along with what she was suggesting. ‘Do you really think I’d let that happen?’
‘Why not?’ For the first time, she raised her voice, challenging him. ‘I’m a single mother, a widow, on my own. It wasn’t my fault that my husband, the one true love in my life, was taken away from me. What good will it do, putting me in prison? What will happen to Colin? We have no close relatives. He’ll have to go into care. You could just walk out of this house and say you were unable to solve the case. No one in the world would be any the wiser. Richard will have paid for what he did to Charlie and what he did to me. And that’s the end of it.’
Hawthorne looked at her sadly, but also, perhaps, with respect. ‘I can’t do that,’ he said, simply.
‘Then I’ll get my coat. I’ll have to ask one of the neighbours to come in, but I can leave with you straight away if that’s what you want. And I’ll plead guilty, by the way . . . I’ll make it easy for everyone. I’m sure you’ll be very proud of yourself, Mr Hawthorne. Do they give you a bonus for catching criminals? Just give me a few minutes to say goodbye to my son.’
I have to say, I was completely dumbfounded. The speed of this turnaround had been so sudden, the confession so comprehensive, that I felt I had been left behind – like Charles Richardson in the cave system. On the one hand, I could see exactly why Davina had killed Richard Pryce, but on the other, I still found it hard to make sense of. She had denied coming over the Heath, so who was the man with the light (it wasn’t a torch, Hawthorne had said) that Henry Fairchild had seen? And if Richard hadn’t been on the phone to his husband when he opened the door, who was it that Stephen Spencer had heard? Could it be that someone else had visited the house prior to the murder?
These and a dozen other thoughts spun in a turmoil through my head, only to be interrupted by a slow handclap. It was Hawthorne.
‘You did that very well, Mrs Richardson,’ he said. ‘But I know you’re lying.’
‘I’m not!’
Hawthorne turned to the door. ‘Colin – is that you outside? Why don’t you come in and join us?’
Nothing. But then Davina’s fifteen-year-old son appeared, this time dressed in jeans and an oversized T-shirt with BREAKING BAD on the front. It was only the second time I had seen him. He was heavier and more adult than I remembered. Perhaps it was down to the way he was scowling, his eyes dark under his tangle of curly hair. The acne spot on his chin had got worse. I wondered how much of the conversation he had overheard.
‘Colin! What were you doing there?’ Davina asked. She would have gone over to him but Hawthorne was in the way.
‘Looks like he was listening through the doorway again,’ Hawthorne said. ‘He seems to make a habit of it.’
I felt I should intercede. Obviously this was no place for a teenaged boy to be. ‘I’ll take him upstairs,’ I said. I moved towards him.
‘Stay where you are, Tony!’ Hawthorne called out. ‘Haven’t you got it? She didn’t kill Richard Pryce. He did!’
It was too late. I had already reached him.
Then everything happened at once. Colin snatched something up from the kitchen surface. Davina cried out. Hawthorne started forward. Colin punched me hard in the chest. I fell back and Hawthorne grabbed hold of me. Colin turned and ran. I heard the front door open and close. And then I was looking in dismay at a kitchen knife with a six-inch blade, half of which was sticking out of my chest.
23 Partners in Crime?
It’s not easy to describe what happened in the next few minutes. It may well be that I was in shock and I was certainly in no mood to take notes. I remember Davina, sitting slumped and helpless at the table, hitting the vodka while Hawthorne took out his mobile phone. He called for an ambulance but not, at this stage, the police. I kept on staring at the knife, which looked like some alien object, and I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact that it was, at least for the moment, part of me. I wanted to pull it out but Hawthorne warned me not to touch it. He helped me into a chair and grabbed hold of the vodka bottle, pouring me a large shot. I needed it. I was feeling completely sick and with every minute that passed, the pain was getting worse. This wasn’t, of course, the first time I had been stabbed. I suppose that, looked at another way, the scene might have had a certain comic edge – but I certainly didn’t see it that way.
The ambulance arrived in less than ten minutes, although it felt a lot longer. I heard its siren as it raced towards us along Priory Gardens. I kept looking at my shirt, depressed that I had put on a new Paul Smith and it was ruined. At least there didn’t seem to be a great deal of blood and there was some relief in that. I don’t like the sight of blood at the best of times, particularly if it’s my own. Hawthorne was sitting close to me. Am I misremembering or did he actually hold on to my arm for a time? He really did seem to be concerned.