‘I wonder if I could see some sort of identification.’
‘I wonder if you could tell me what you were doing at Brompton Cemetery and for that matter what you did when you left.’ Godwin didn’t say anything, so Hawthorne went on. ‘The police don’t know you were there but I do and, if I tell them, I’m sure they’ll be very interested to talk to you. Frankly, I think you’d find it a lot easier, talking to me.’
Godwin seemed to sink into his chair. Looked at more closely, he was a man weighed down by failure. It was hardly surprising. The accident that had taken one of his sons and cruelly injured the other had been the start of a general unravelling which had seen him lose his home, his marriage and his business. I knew he was going to answer Hawthorne’s questions. He had almost no fight left in him.
‘I didn’t commit any crime going to the funeral,’ he said.
‘That may or may not be the case. You heard that music. “The wheels on the bus …” If memory serves, that one comes under the Burial Laws Amendment Act: riotous, violent or indecent behaviour at a funeral. But I suppose you could equally well put it down to breaking and entering. Someone broke into the coffin and inserted a music box. Do you know anything about that?’
‘No.’
‘But you saw what happened.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Did that song mean anything to you?’
Godwin paused and for a moment I saw two deep pits of despair opening in his eyes. ‘We played it when we buried Timothy,’ he rasped. ‘It was his favourite song.’
Even Hawthorne faltered at that, but only briefly. Straight away he was back on the attack. ‘So why were you there?’ he demanded. ‘Why go to the funeral of a woman you had every reason to hate?’
‘It was because I hated her!’ Godwin’s cheeks had reddened. He had heavy black eyebrows, which accentuated his anger. ‘That woman with her stupidity and her carelessness killed my son, an eight-year-old boy, and turned his brother who was a livewire and who could make anybody laugh – turned him into pretty much a vegetable. She wasn’t wearing her glasses and she destroyed my life. I went to the funeral because I was delighted she was dead and I wanted to see her put in the ground. I thought it would give me closure.’
‘And did it?’
‘No.’
‘How about the death of Damian Cowper?’ Hawthorne could have been a tennis player, slamming the ball back across the net. He had the same coiled-up energy, the same focus.
Godwin sneered. ‘Do you think I killed him, Mr Hawthorne? Is that why you asked me what I did after the funeral? I went for a long walk, down the King’s Road and then beside the River Thames. Yes, I know. That’s very convenient, isn’t it? No witnesses. Nobody to tell you where I was. But why would I have wished him any harm? He wasn’t driving the car. He was at home.’
‘His mother drove away, maybe to protect him.’
‘That was her decision. It was cowardly and selfish but he had nothing to do with it.’
That chimed in with what I had been thinking. Alan Godwin might have a good reason to kill Diana Cowper but I couldn’t see how it could be extended to her son.
Both men had stopped as if they were in a boxing ring and had come to the end of a round. Then Hawthorne weighed in again. ‘You went to see Mrs Cowper.’
Godwin hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Mr Godwin. I know you were there.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Mrs Cowper told her son. She was scared of you. According to him, you threatened her.’
‘I did no such thing.’ He stopped himself and took a breath. ‘All right. I went to see her. I don’t see why I should deny it. It was about three or four weeks ago.’
‘Two weeks before she died.’
‘I’ll tell you when it was. It was two weeks after Judith asked me to leave the house, when we finally realised our marriage couldn’t be saved. That’s when I went to see her, because it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, she might be able to help. I thought she might even want to.’
‘Help you? In what way?’
‘With money! What do you think?’ He drew a breath. ‘I might as well tell you what you want to know because – you know what? I don’t really give a damn any more. There’s nothing left. My company’s down the pan. Businesses don’t want to spend any more … not on corporate events. Gordon Brown ran this bloody country into the ground and the new lot don’t have a clue. So everyone’s tightening their belts and people like me are the first out the door.
‘Judith and me – we’re finished too. Twenty-four years of marriage and you suddenly wake up and realise that you can’t bear to be in the same room. That’s what she said, anyway.’ He pointed at the ceiling. ‘There’s a one-bedroom flat upstairs and that’s where I’m living now. I’m fifty-five years old and I’m boiling eggs on a single gas ring or bringing in Big Macs in brown paper bags. That’s what my life has come to.
‘I can put up with all that. I don’t care. But do you know what really hurts … why I went to see that bloody woman? We’re losing my house, the house in Harrow-on-the-Hill. We can’t keep up with the mortgage repayments. And even that wouldn’t matter to me except it’s Jeremy’s house. It’s his home. It’s the one place he feels safe.’ Anger sparked in his eyes. ‘If I could find any way to protect him from that, I would do it. So that is why I swallowed my dignity and went to see Mrs Cowper. I thought she could help. She had a nice address in Chelsea and, from what I read in the newspapers, that son of hers was making a fortune out in Hollywood. I thought, maybe, if she had a shred of decency in her, she might like to make amends for what she’d done and actually help my family by reaching into her pocket.’
‘And did she?’
‘What do you think?’ The sneer was back in place. ‘She tried to slam the door in my face and when I forced my way in, she threatened to call the police.’
‘You forced your way in? What exactly do you mean by that?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘I mean I persuaded her to let me speak to her. I didn’t make any threats. I didn’t use violence. I almost got down on my bloody knees asking her for ten minutes of her time.’ He paused. ‘All I wanted was a loan. Was it so much to ask? I had a couple of pitches coming up. I might have been able to turn a corner. I just needed a bit of breathing space. But she wasn’t having any of it. I don’t know how any human being can be so bloody cold, so removed. She told me to leave her house and that’s exactly what I did. I actually felt sick with myself for having gone in the first place. It just shows you how desperate I was.’
‘Which room did this happen in, Mr Godwin?’
‘The front room. The living room. Why?’
‘What time?’
‘It was lunchtime. Around midday.’
‘So the curtains were tied back.’
‘Yes.’ He was puzzled by the question.
‘How did you know she’d be in?’
‘I didn’t know. I went round on the off-chance.’
‘And later on, you sent her a letter.’
Godwin hesitated very briefly. ‘Yes.’
Hawthorne reached into his jacket pocket and took out the letter which he had been given by Andrea Kluvánek. So much had happened in the last few days that I’d almost forgotten about it. He unfolded it. ‘I have been watching you and I know the things that are dear to you,’ he read. ‘You say you didn’t threaten her but that sounds pretty threatening to me.’
‘I was angry. I didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘When did you send it?’
‘I didn’t. I hand-delivered it.’
‘When?’
‘It was about a week after I’d seen her. A Friday. I suppose it must have been the sixth or the seventh.’