The Sentence is Death

by Anthony Horowitz

  ‘When did his mother know?’ I asked. ‘Was she protecting him all along?’

  Hawthorne hesitated and I realised he wished I hadn’t asked that. And suddenly I was wishing it too. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘she only found out when you told her.’

  My wound was throbbing. I could taste the sugar in the hot chocolate sticking to my lips. ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘I did warn you about chipping in when I’m interviewing someone,’ Hawthorne said. ‘And the thing is, the first time we were with Davina Richardson, without meaning to you changed everything.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You told her about the number written on the wall. And you said it was written in green paint.’

  ‘What was so bad about that?’

  ‘Do you remember what was happening in the kitchen when we were there?’

  I cast my mind back. ‘She was smoking. There were plates in the sink.’

  ‘And the washing machine was on. She was washing Colin’s clothes. She’d already told us that he couldn’t look after himself, that he was always in a mess. My guess is that he’d come home on Sunday night with green paint on his jacket or shirt and probably quite a lot of blood and wine too. He’d have washed those out himself in the sink or covered them with mud or whatever – but the green paint he couldn’t get rid of. Mum found the clothes, still stained, and put them in the wash. It explains why, the moment you mentioned green paint, she got up and stood against the washing machine and she never moved, as if she didn’t want us to see what was on the other side of the round window. She also got Colin out of the room as fast as she possibly could. She’d been pleased enough to see him when he came down, but suddenly it was bath night and homework and all the rest of it. She was terrified he would give himself away.

  ‘That was when she started changing her story – or adapting it. All of a sudden, Colin – who’s tall for his age and can certainly look after himself – is being bullied at school. It was darling uncle Richard who sorted it out. Richard and Colin were inseparable. He was just a sweet kid in need of a dad. No way the little chap would go round and batter him to death with a bottle.

  ‘It didn’t stop there. The next time we went round to Priory Gardens – and this time she made sure Colin wasn’t there – she had it all set up. She had to divert our attention. If we weren’t going to suspect her son, there had to be someone else in the frame. The person she picked was Adrian Lockwood. He might have been her lover but she would sacrifice him in the blink of an eye to save her kid. Maybe she knew the significance of one eight two. Maybe Colin had told her what it meant. Well, she’d got an answer for that too. First of all she fed you that haiku. Did you really think that book, brand new by the way, just happened to be lying there – and just one page away from the poem she wanted you to see?’

  ‘I was the one who turned the page.’

  ‘If you hadn’t, she’d have done it for you. But you were looking at haiku 181. It was in front of your eyes. Even an idiot would have thought of seeing what came next.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘She knew the poem connected with Adrian Lockwood because the eighteenth of February was the date of his wedding. And then she gave you that spiel about how hard it was to live alone, how she always forgot to put the clocks back. And if that wasn’t enough, just in case you hadn’t picked up on it the first time, she said it again while I was there. “I went out at half past four. No! I mean half past three. I keep getting confused!” Laying it on with a trowel! What she was doing, of course, was deliberately destroying Adrian Lockwood’s alibi. She wanted us to believe that he had left an hour earlier, which would have given him plenty of time to pop in and murder Richard Pryce. She even mentioned he was angry with Richard, although she didn’t say why. She was just feeding him to us, bit by bit.’

  ‘And she put green paint on his sleeve.’

  ‘I wondered if you’d noticed it. Yes. That was her – what do you call it? French word …’

  ‘Her pièce de résistance.’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Hawthorne smiled.

  ‘You saw it too. You might have mentioned it.’

  ‘It was too bloody obvious, mate. There were only two ways it could have got there. Adrian Lockwood could have killed Richard Pryce and splattered paint on his shirt when he wrote the message …’

  ‘… or she could have put it there.’

  ‘If they were sleeping together, she’d have had easy access to his clothes. And of course, she knew what colour to choose.’

  ‘Because I’d told her.’

  Hawthorne finished his coffee and glanced out of the window. The rain was beginning to ease off but grey pebbles of water still clung to the glass. ‘You don’t need to be so hard on yourself, Tony. We solved it. I get paid – and you get your book. By the way, I still haven’t seen the first one. Have they sent it to you yet?’

  ‘No. I haven’t seen anything.’

  ‘I hope it’s a good cover. Nothing too arty. Maybe a bit of blood.’

  ‘Hawthorne …’ I began.

  Somehow I had known before I even sat down that I was going to say this. I had decided that Jill was right.

  ‘I think this is a bad idea. These books, I mean. I’m a fiction writer, not a biographer, and I don’t feel comfortable doing this. I’m sorry. I’ll finish this one … I might as well since I’ve got all the material. But I’m going to ring Hilda Starke and ask her to cancel the contract for the third.’

  His face fell. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because of what you just said! We’ve investigated two cases together and both times I’ve said something stupid that’s completely mucked it up, and both times I’ve almost managed to get myself killed. It doesn’t make me feel any better that I made a complete fool of myself. You used me. You deliberately set me up to get back at DI Grunshaw, but it’s worse than that. You actually congratulated me. You persuaded me that I’d managed to work it out when everything I’d said was wrong.’

  ‘Not everything. I checked. Adrian Lockwood does have an eye problem.’

  ‘Fuck off! I admit it. I’m not clever enough to be Holmes, but if you want the truth, I don’t much enjoy being Watson either. I don’t think this is working. I think we’d be better off going our separate ways.’

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. He looked upset.

  ‘You’re just saying that because you’re in pain,’ he muttered eventually. ‘You’ve been stabbed. I’m amazed they even let you out of the hospital so quickly.’

  ‘It’s not just that—’

  ‘And it’s a bloody horrible day.’ He cut in quickly, not wanting me to say any more. ‘If it was bright sunshine out there, that would change your mind.’ He pointed. ‘That’s an example of that thing authors put in books when the weather makes a difference to the way people feel.’

  ‘The pathetic fallacy,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly!’ He brightened up. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. You know about that stuff. You’re a writer. And I bet when you get home tonight and start doing your notes, you’ll enjoy describing just how shitty it is out there. Blackfriars Bridge. Farringdon Street. You’ll choose all the right words and you’ll make it come to life. There’s no way I could do anything like that. Which is why it’s such a great partnership. I do the legwork. You do the rest.’ He smiled. ‘Partners in Crime. That’s what you should call the book.’

  ‘There’s already a book with that title, Hawthorne.’

  ‘I trust you, mate. You’ll think of a better one.’

  I looked out of the window. I still wasn’t sure. But on the other hand, the rain had finally stopped and it seemed to me that a few rays of sunlight were beginning to break through.

  APPENDIX

  A Letter from Gregory Taylor

  26 October 2013

  Dear Susan,

  I’m writing this in a café on Hampstead Heath. I’ve just seen Richard and we’ve had our words and I’ve made my decisions
and I want you to know right from the top that I don’t feel too bad. I love you so much. I love our two little treasures, June and Maisie. I wish things could have turned out another way but they haven’t and I’m not going to sit here and complain. I’ve bought myself a cup of tea and a giant Bakewell tart. It’s not as good as yours. It was raining a bit this morning but now it’s cleared up and there are kids out playing and dogs walking and all in all the world doesn’t look so bad a place.

  If you’re reading this, it means I’m dead. That’s not something I ever thought I’d find myself writing, but it’s the truth and we both have to face up to it. I wish I could send this to you right away. I wish I could be with you to comfort you. But that’s not possible for reasons you’ll understand. It’ll be six months before you get this. I’m hoping everything goes as planned. I’m sending the letter to my sister Gwendolyn with instructions not to open it but to send it on to you next April. I hope that doesn’t creep you out! But I know you’ll understand why I have to do it this way.

  It’s the insurance. You get a quarter of a million quid when I’m gone. That’s a big amount of money. Enough to look after you and the girls for the rest of your lives. Enough for you to move out of Ribblehead if that’s what you want. Maybe you’ll go back to Leeds. It was me who dragged you into the Dales in the first place and I often think that was selfish of me and no good came of it in the end. But with the money you can make the decisions. I hope you’ll be happy. That’s my only thought sitting here. You and the girls.

  But you have to be very careful with this letter. You should destroy it after you finish reading it. Don’t show it to anyone. Don’t tell anyone … not even Dave. I haven’t looked at the policy but these insurance companies are full of weasels and they’ll find any excuse not to pay up. They’ve got to think I died in an accident. I’ll come to that in a minute. This isn’t easy for me. It’s not easy for you. But it’s the way it has to be.

  I hope you will forgive me. You always were my one true love.

  I have to take you back to April 2007. Yes, it all goes back to Long Way Hole. I have to tell you the truth. Don’t be angry with me, Sue. I didn’t tell you the truth then and I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Part of the reason was that whichever way I tried to swing it, it was my fault. I was in charge. I planned the excursion. And I was the one who said it was all right to go ahead. When I look back, I think that the only reason I did those trips was to hang on to something that had already gone. Richard and Charlie and me. We’d been close mates at Oxford and we’d had some wild times together and every year when we met we’d try to relive what we’d had, but we all knew that as we got older it was slipping away and each year there was a bit less of it and we all had to pretend a bit more. By the end, Richard was a big-shot lawyer. Charlie was doing all right for himself in marketing. But I’d ended up in the finance department of a little company nobody had ever heard of in the back of beyond. I never really felt comfortable when I was with them and it didn’t change no matter how much beer we drank.

  I knew we shouldn’t have gone down Long Way Hole. That’s the truth of it. Looking at those clouds, cumulonimbus, I knew in my gut that we could be in trouble. The air was unstable. I had no doubt there was going to be a storm but I persuaded myself it was in the distance, that it wasn’t going to come our way. Maybe it was the fact that it was the one time I was in charge. Richard and Charlie both trusted me. There was an 18-metre pitch next to the waterfall. We set up the rig and went down.

  We only had two miles to cover to the exit at Drear Hill, but you know Long Way. That first pitch to start off with and we had to set up a pull-down system as it was a through trip and we were coming out the bottom end. Then there’s a 35-metre waterfall pitch and a couple of awkward climbs and all that before you even reach Drake’s Passage and Spaghetti Junction. Not for the faint-hearted. But we were all OK as we set off. Lots of laughing and joking. Just like old times and all that.

  I’m not going to go into all the details. You’re sick to death of it and I’ve only got so much time to finish this. But here’s the bottom line. I lied to you. I lied to the inquest. Charlie Richardson never got lost and he didn’t die the way we said.

  What happened was that the storm hit us when we were about two thirds of the way through. I was first, then Richard, then Charlie. We knew at once that we were in trouble. In all my years caving, I’d never experienced anything like it. First off, there was a change in air pressure. Our voices didn’t come out the same any more. And we could feel this sort of throbbing inside our ears and even in our bones. All the walls were glistening and water was dripping down, making its way through. That was just the start of it. There was this echoing sound, a rumbling that seemed to come out of the bowels of the earth, and all the time it was getting louder and louder until we had to shout to make ourselves heard. You’ve got to remember that we were 85 metres underground, on our own, and it was like the whole world was ganging up on us. We had to make a decision and we had to do it fast.

  We had two choices. We could climb up into Spaghetti Junction and that’s what I would have done. We’d be on higher ground there and hopefully the floodwater would pass underneath. But the other two weren’t having it. Going in there, we knew we’d get lost. We’d have to sit there in the dark waiting for cave rescue and if the whole system flooded, who knew how long that would take? And we couldn’t be sure we’d be safe, even in Spaghetti Junction. If the water rose high enough, we could get trapped there. We’d have backed ourselves into a corner. We’d drown.

  We only had minutes to make the decision. We knew the flood pulse was on its way. Do you have any idea of the power of the water coming through those tunnels? We could already feel it punching at us. The cave, the very air, was vibrating. Bits of stone were coming loose and raining down on us. It was terrifying.

  You know what we decided. We decided to press on. If we could just get through Drake’s Passage, we figured we’d be all right. If we could get to the vertical crack, we could chimney ourselves up and let the water pass underneath. We might be stuck there a while but it still seemed the better option. The main thing was, it took us nearer the exit. That was what we all wanted. All three of us.

  I went first. Then Richard. It wasn’t so difficult. A 3-metre drop, then a corkscrew round. The two of us made it through and now we’re crouching in a low passage, no room to stand, and we realise that Charlie hasn’t made it. He’s stuck. He’s shouting. We can hear his voice. ‘Guys! Guys!’ Then something else. We can’t make out the words because the water is so close. I’ve often told you that when you’re underground, water can sound like people’s voices. Well, right now it’s like the whole world is screaming at us.

  I put my mouth right next to Richard’s ear and I shout as loud as I can, ‘We have to go back for him!’

  ‘No!’

  I can’t believe I’ve heard him right.

  ‘No!’ He shouts it a second time. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘But he’ll die.’

  ‘To hell with him! Leave him!’

  I can’t believe it. But I look at him and see that he is yellow, that he’s crying like a baby. I swear at him and I crawl back towards the contortion. And there he is. Charlie. Standing up. I can’t see his head. Just his feet and his legs coming out of the bottom of the tube and I guess that his cow’s tail or something has got caught and he hasn’t got any purchase. He needs to pull himself up to release it. And I could help him but then water starts jetting through and it’s black in the light of my head torch and all the walls are shuddering and I think if I wait another second I’m going to die here and I turn round and crawl away as fast as I can, leaving Charlie to stand there and drown.

  That’s what happened, love. I’m not saying we could have saved him, but we could have tried. Maybe we could have got him out before the main surge hit. But we didn’t. We made it to the crack and waited there while the water rushed out underneath us. Then we followed it to the exit. We were bo
th soaked and we were exhausted. We were covered in cuts, I suppose from the falling rocks. We were lucky to be alive but we didn’t feel that way. We were disgusted with what we’d done, both of us. Me as much as him.

  I’m not going to pretend that I was any better than Richard, but I want you to know that it was him who said what we were going to do once we got out. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer. I always heard he had a reputation for telling the truth but that wasn’t what he did this time, not when it would have stayed with him for the rest of his life. And think what it would have done for his career!!! Not the Blunt Razor. The Blubbing Loser. He made up the story about Charlie getting lost in Spaghetti Junction. We pretended we’d gone back in looking for him. In fact, we went straight up to Chris’s place at Ing Lane Farm and got him to call out cave rescue.

  That’s half the story. My hand has already got cramp, sitting here, writing. I need to finish this and move on. So I’ll be brief.

  I never really spoke to Richard again after that. Of course we were both at the inquest and you saw us together once or twice. But I couldn’t look him in the eye. I was disgusted with him. He made me sick. But I was also disgusted with myself. If the two of us had gone straight back together, I think we could have got Charlie out. But we left it too late. I never went caving again after that. You know that. Now you know why.

  And then I got ill and the NHS couldn’t help and you told me to go down to London and talk to Richard. Did you never wonder why I was so against it? Why I put my foot down every time? We had all those arguments and I know I was upsetting you, but I never wanted to see him again and anyway, I knew in my heart that he probably wouldn’t help. The very sight of me would just remind him of the coward and the liar that he was. But you wouldn’t take no for an answer. You more or less dragged me on to the train. And this is the result of it. Here I am.

  Do you know, I very nearly didn’t go to his posh house in Hampstead. I nearly rang him to say that I’d changed my mind. I was going to tell you that he’d refused to give me any money for my treatment and leave it at that. But I can’t lie to you, Sue. Long Way Hole was the only time in all our years together that I lied to you and it made me sick to my stomach. I went to see him, just like you wanted. And just like I expected, he turned me down flat.