Clunes lived in rather different circumstances to Andrea Kluvánek. His home was behind Marble Arch, close to Connaught Square, and I wasn’t at all surprised that this was the home of a theatre producer. The building itself was like a stage set, made of red brick and almost improbably two-dimensional with an imposing front door and brightly painted windows set in perfect symmetry. Everything was pristine, even the dustbins standing in a neat line on the other side of the metal railings. A flight of steps led down to a basement with its own separate entrance. There were four more floors rising above. I guessed I was looking at around five bedrooms and at least thirty million pounds’ worth of central London property.
Hawthorne wasn’t impressed. He jabbed at the doorbell as if he had some personal animosity against it. There was nobody else in the street and I got the feeling that most of the houses here would be empty, owned by foreign businessmen. Didn’t Tony Blair live somewhere close by? As central as it was, I’d never actually been to this particular area. It didn’t feel like London at all.
The door was opened by that standby of every whodunnit; something I had never expected to encounter in the twenty-first century. Clunes had a butler, the real thing, in pinstriped suit, waistcoat and gloves. He was a man of about my age with swept-back dark hair and a look of dignity that he must have nailed into place each day.
‘Good afternoon, sir. Please come in.’ He didn’t need to ask our names. We were expected.
We went into a large hallway between two reception rooms, the floors fabulously carpeted, the ceilings triple height. It didn’t look at all like someone’s home. It was more like a hotel, though one without paying guests. As we climbed the stairs, I noticed a Hockney pool painting with a boy just disappearing beneath the surface, followed by a Francis Bacon triptych. We reached a landing with a huge Robert Mapplethorpe nude although it showed only a part of the subject’s anatomy. It was a black and white photograph: the background white, the buttocks and erect penis black. Just to one side stood a classical sculpture of a naked shepherd boy. Hawthorne looked uncomfortable as we walked past this blatant homoerotic art. Not just his lips but his entire body curled in distaste.
A cavernous archway led into the upper living room, which ran the full length of the house, with furniture, lamps, mirrors and further artwork dotted around as far as the eye could see. Everything was expensive but I was more struck by how impersonal it was. It was all brand new, in perfect taste. I looked in vain for a discarded newspaper or a pair of muddy shoes that might suggest somebody actually lived there. It was somehow too silent for the centre of London. The whole place reminded me of a sarcophagus, as if the owner had deliberately filled it with the riches of a life he had left behind.
And yet, when Raymond Clunes finally appeared, he was surprisingly ordinary. He was about fifty years old, dressed in a blue velvet jacket with a roll-neck jersey, poised with his legs crossed, so exactly in the centre of an oversized sofa that I wondered if the butler had taken out a tape measure before we arrived and marked out where he should sit. He was well built, with a shock of silver hair and humorous, pale blue eyes. He seemed pleased to see us.
‘Do sit down.’ He made a theatrical gesture, directing us to the seat opposite. ‘Will you have some coffee?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Bruce, let’s have some coffee for our guests. And bring up those truffles.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The butler backed away.
We sat down.
‘You’re here about poor Diana.’ He hadn’t waited for Hawthorne to ask a question. ‘I can’t tell you how shocked I am by what’s happened. I knew her through the Globe. That was where we first met. And of course I’ve worked with her son, Damian, a very, very talented young boy. He was in my production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Haymarket. It was a huge success. I always knew he’d go far. When the police told me what had happened, I couldn’t believe it. Nobody in the world would have wanted to hurt Diana. She was one of those people who only brought goodness and kindness to everyone she met.’
‘You had lunch with her the day she died,’ Hawthorne said.
‘At the Café Murano. Yes. I saw her as she came out of the station. She waved to me across the road and I thought it was all going to be fine – but once we sat down, I could tell at once that she wasn’t herself, poor thing. She was worried about her pussy cat, Mr Tibbs. Isn’t that a hilarious name for a cat? He’d gone missing. I said to her not to worry. He’s probably gone off chasing mice or whatever it is cats do. But I could see there was a lot on her mind. She couldn’t stay long. She had a board meeting that afternoon.’
‘You say you were old friends but, as I understand it, you’d fallen out.’
‘Fallen out?’ Clunes sounded surprised.
‘She lost money in a show of yours.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Clunes dismissed the accusation with a flick of his fingers. ‘You’re talking about Moroccan Nights. We didn’t fall out. She was disappointed. Of course she was disappointed. We both were! I lost a great deal more money in that show than she did, I can assure you. But that’s the business. I mean, right now I’ve got money in Spider Man, which is a complete, total disaster between you and me, but at the same time I turned down The Book of Mormon. Sometimes, you just get it wrong. She knew that.’
‘What was Moroccan Nights?’ I asked.
‘A love story. Set in the Kasbah. Two boys: a soldier and a terrorist. It had a wonderful score and it was based on a very successful novel – but the audiences just didn’t take to it. Maybe it was too violent. I don’t know. Did you see it?’
‘No,’ I admitted.
‘That’s the trouble. Nor did anyone else.’
Bruce came back carrying a tray with three tiny cups of coffee and a plate with four white chocolate truffles arranged in a pyramid.
‘Has anything you’ve ever done been successful?’ Hawthorne asked.
Clunes was offended. ‘Look around you, Detective Inspector. Do you think I’d have a house like this if I hadn’t backed a few winners in my time? I was one of the first investors in Cats, if you really want to know, and I’ve invested in every one of Andrew’s musicals since then. Billy Elliot, Shrek, Daniel Radcliffe in Equus … I think I can say I’ve had more than my fair share of success. Moroccan Nights should have worked but you can never tell. That’s what being in musical theatre is all about. I can assure you of one thing, though, and that is – Diana Cowper had no bad feelings towards me when we had to put up the notices. She knew what she was getting into and at the end of the day the money she invested was hardly substantial.’
‘Fifty grand?’
‘That may be a great deal to you, Mr Hawthorne. It would be to a lot of people. But Diana could afford it. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone ahead.’
There was a brief silence and I saw Hawthorne examining the other man with those bright, unforgiving eyes. I was expecting him to say something offensive but in fact his voice was measured as he asked: ‘Did she tell you where she’d been that morning?’