A Line to Kill

by Anthony Horowitz

  ‘That’s completely untrue.’ Matheson looked more uncomfortable than angry. ‘And to be honest with you, this really isn’t the best place—’

  Elkin cut in. ‘You know what the prisoners used to call this island? Le rocher maudit. “The accursed rock”. It seems to me that very little has changed.’ He spun on his heel and walked away.

  Matheson folded his hands and shrugged in apology. ‘I’m afraid tempers are running a little high when it comes to the power line,’ he explained. ‘I’m very sorry you had to witness that. George is a good man and he means well, but that was really inappropriate.’

  ‘Is it true what he said?’ Hawthorne asked. The encounter had pricked his interest. ‘Le Mesurier is in charge?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Now Matheson was blushing. ‘I made the decision. Or rather, the States-appointed committee did. Mr le Mesurier has been a strong advocate for NAB because he believes it will bring wealth to the island. I can assure you he has the best intentions, as does everyone who’s involved!’ He looked into the crowd, trying to find Elkin. ‘It really was too much of him to attack me in that way. Of course, George lost his grandfather in the most terrible way, killed by the Nazis. But even so …!’

  We finished our sandwiches with a certain amount of awkwardness and then made our way back to the cinema. By now a queue had formed, but Matheson led us in round the side and down to the front where three seats had been reserved. Very quickly, the room filled up. Soon every seat was taken and there were more people standing along the sides and at the back. There were two armchairs on the stage in front of the screen and as the lights dimmed, Judith Matheson marched across the stage, followed by Elizabeth Lovell, who was being guided by her husband. She waited while they took their places.

  ‘Good afternoon, everybody,’ Judith began. She deliberately paused while the room settled down, very much in the manner of a primary-school head teacher, severe but kind. ‘How lovely to see such a packed house at this very special event. Elizabeth Lovell needs no introduction, but to those of you who missed her the last time she was here, I should explain that the gentleman sitting next to her is her husband, Sid, and although he won’t be taking questions himself, he will be assisting her during the next hour. Elizabeth is unsighted, so his first job is to connect her with you. As I’m sure you’ll understand, Elizabeth can become very emotional when she speaks at these events, so she likes him to be with her on stage.’ She turned to him. ‘Sid, I’d like to welcome you back to Alderney.’ He smiled and nodded. ‘Just two more things. You all know where the exit is in the event of a fire, and Elizabeth has asked me to remind you that there will be a signing afterwards at The Georgian House across the road. I’m very happy to tell you that books are being sold at a ten per cent discount. So without further ado, please welcome Elizabeth Lovell.’

  Judith left the stage and the audience burst into sustained applause. At the same time, I looked around. George Elkin had not come, which was hardly surprising, and nor was there any sign of Maïssa Lamar. (Where had I read that poem? I was still wondering about it.) Marc Bellamy and Kathryn were probably in the kitchen of The Lookout, preparing for the evening, and Charles le Mesurier hadn’t shown up either. But Anne Cleary was there, sitting just a few places away from me. She lifted a hand and smiled.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Elizabeth Lovell seemed to be focusing on a point in the middle of the audience, a few metres above our heads. Her head was tilted back so that the black discs of her glasses caught the lights being trained on her and flashed them back at us. She was sitting so rigidly, her shoulders could have been nailed to the back of the chair. Her hands were resting on her knees. She was dressed in the same colour palette as the day before and it occurred to me that if I could have looked at her from the side, she might have had an uncanny resemblance to the famous painting of Whistler’s mother.

  ‘Packed house,’ Sid muttered. He was wearing a blazer, white shirt and slacks. ‘Nice crowd … maybe a hundred people. No children. Raked seating. Standing at the back. More women than men.’

  ‘Thank you, Sid.’ She lifted her voice. ‘It’s been a very long time since I lost my physical sight but I still like to know where I am and who I’m talking to. I have an ability to sense the atmosphere and I know that I’m surrounded by friends. At the same time, though, I sometimes find it hard to be sure on which side of the mirror those friends can be found. For that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between life and what most people call death. They are reflections of each other. Two different sides of the mirror.’

  This was her introduction and for the next thirty minutes she talked about her life and philosophy, expanding on what I had already read in the festival programme. Born in Exeter, she’d had a happy childhood, an ordinary education, loving parents, a job as a librarian. She’d always had an interest in books and had dreamed of becoming a writer. She had met Sid on holiday in Jersey. He was the taxi driver who had picked her up from the airport.

  So far so ordinary. Her story, which she had clearly told many times, became more interesting, and more occult, after she lost her eyesight due to diabetes. This had happened twelve years ago, when she was about to turn thirty.

  ‘Of course, I was angry,’ she told the audience. ‘I was shocked. I was in denial. But at the same time, I realised that although this side of the mirror – your side – was closed to me, the other was opening up. I began to call it Blind Sight. I cannot see what you can see. But you cannot see what I see, and I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that what I see is wonderful. There is no such thing as death. We are surrounded by friends and family who wish us no harm, who – quite the opposite – want to guide us. I never call them ghosts. That’s a word used to frighten children. Nor are they even spirits. That makes them sound angelic and I can assure you, not all of them are. To me, they are reflections. With Blind Sight I can see them. I am looking at them now.’

  And so the fairground ride – the ghost train – began. I glanced at Hawthorne, wondering what he was making of all this, but he was giving little away, listening with polite interest. Elizabeth continued to describe ‘the other side of the mirror’, then suddenly pointed. I followed her quivering finger to a poster on the wall advertising Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation but I don’t think that’s what she had in mind.

  ‘There!’ she said. ‘I’m seeing a lady. Her name was Mary or Margaret. She was here for seventy years before she crossed to the other side …’

  I’d seen it all before, starting with the choice of ‘Mary or Margaret’, which immediately doubled her chances of making a score. Put a hundred people in a room and the odds were huge that one of them would know a Mary or a Margaret who had died, and if those names didn’t work, she could move on to Mabel, Miranda and Miriam.

  ‘She has wet hair,’ Elizabeth added.

  I had to admit, I wasn’t expecting that.

  There was a short silence. Elizabeth was still gazing in the direction of Tom Cruise. Then someone shouted: ‘That’s Mary Carrington!’

  ‘Lady in the fourth row. Fifties. Glasses,’ Sid muttered. He hadn’t spoken for a while.

  Elizabeth’s head swung round. ‘Who was Mary Carrington?’ she asked.

  The same person replied. ‘She lived in town. Everyone knew Mary. She used to have a sweet shop. She slipped getting into the bath. She hit her head and drowned.’

  ‘She is with her husband … Eric.’

  ‘It wasn’t Eric! It was Ernest!’ a man called out from the back.

  ‘She wanted to be with him and now they’re happy together, even though they miss you. They miss the island.’

  ‘She always said she hated it here,’ the man remarked.

  ‘She said it but she didn’t mean it. Now …’ Elizabeth took a deep breath as if she had heard someone creeping up on her from behind. ‘There is another presence here. A young man. He left us far too soon. His name is …’ She hesitated, unsure. ‘William?’

  I knew it was all trickery. I have
an interest in magic and have read biographies of Harry Houdini, who spent half his life exposing fake mediums. I used to watch the Canadian magician James Randi on television and he explained exactly how it worked. If nobody in the audience knew a William who had drowned or been run over or whatever, Elizabeth would make something up and move on. The audience wanted to believe her and that was the weapon she was using against them. How had she known about Mary Carrington? It would have been easy for her to find out. Maybe she had come across the story in a back edition of the Alderney Journal. I was sure it would have been reported.

  She was waiting for someone to respond to the arrival of William and I was expecting her to move on to Walter or Wayne when she added, in a surprised voice, ‘Is Anne here?’

  I hadn’t noticed it until now but it had become very warm in the cinema. There was no air conditioning and although they’d left the door open at the back, the flow of air was sluggish. I felt the one hundred people pressing in on me and heard their collective breathing. In the half-darkness, the blind woman on the stage seemed almost threatening. I remembered going to pantomimes when I was a boy and living in terror that I would be chosen by one of the actors for a sing-song or a bit of fun on stage. I felt the same way now. My father had died young. I hoped with every fibre of my being that he wasn’t going to show up next – although he’d never taken that much interest in me when he was alive.

  ‘Anne?’ Elizabeth scanned the audience sightlessly.

  Sid reached out to her. ‘Do you mean Anne Cleary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Second row. Just to your left.’

  Elizabeth tilted her head in that direction. ‘There’s someone called William. He was very close to you. Was he your son?’

  I looked at Anne, three seats away, and my heart went out to her. All the blood had drained out of her face. She was in a state of shock. ‘Please …’ She didn’t want Elizabeth to continue.

  ‘William was very troubled and he made a terrible decision. He was very young when he left you. And he knows how sad you are. He caused you pain. He wants you to forgive him. He died—’

  ‘He died of an overdose while he was at university.’ Anne’s voice cut in, supplying the information, perhaps trying to short-circuit this before it went any further. All around her, the audience had become very still, uncomfortable to be witnessing this personal tragedy.

  ‘Yes …’ Elizabeth nodded slowly, her gaunt face full of compassion.

  ‘He was an addict. He didn’t know what he was doing.’ Anne’s voice cracked. She hadn’t mentioned her son when we’d had dinner the night before, although she had said she had a daughter living in London. Even as we had laughed together it had struck me that there was an air of sadness about her, a sense of something unsaid. I hated what was happening to her now. It was horrible and unfair.

  ‘Don’t be sad, Anne,’ Elizabeth said from the stage. ‘There is no sadness on the other side of the mirror. He’s left all that behind him.’

  ‘That may be true.’ Anne stood up. ‘But he’s left me and his family behind him too and the pain has never gone … not for us.’ She had said enough. I saw her make the decision. Breathing heavily, she pushed her way to the end of the row, passing close to Hawthorne and myself, and without looking back left the cinema.

  ‘It can be hard, I know, to accept the truth of what I see.’ After what had just happened, Elizabeth Lovell was having to fight to win back the audience, who might easily have turned against her. She touched the fingers of one hand against her heart. ‘Believe me, I feel her pain, but I also know that there will be comfort for her too. We talk about losing people, but the truth is that they are never lost.’

  She continued in this vein for another ten minutes but there were no further visitations. Judith climbed back onto the stage and, after thanking Elizabeth and Sid, directed the audience over to the book signing. They were eager to cross to the other side – of the road, that is – and there was quite a scrum at the door. Meanwhile, Sid helped his wife down from the stage. Judith was waiting to escort them to The Georgian House, but for a moment the two of them were in front of me. Colin Matheson was on one side, Hawthorne on the other.

  ‘That was extraordinary,’ I said.

  Elizabeth was leaning on Sid. ‘I hope I didn’t upset Anne,’ she said. ‘It’s not my choice, you know, who comes to me.’

  ‘She’ll be fine.’ Sid patted her hand.

  ‘Have you met my friend, Daniel Hawthorne?’ I asked. I wanted to introduce them because I was interested to hear what Hawthorne would say.

  She held out a hand vaguely in his direction. He took it and smiled.

  ‘Very nice to meet you, Mr Hawthorne.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Lovell.’

  ‘Did you enjoy my talk?’

  ‘It was memorable,’ Hawthorne said. ‘You must find it very tiring.’

  ‘Oh yes. I’m quite exhausted.’ She drew herself up, still resting against Sid. ‘But I’m afraid I have to go. There are books to sign.’

  ‘Mustn’t keep your fans waiting.’ Was Hawthorne mocking her? I couldn’t tell.

  We watched Sid and Elizabeth leave the cinema. He was guiding her with his hand around her waist.

  ‘Her last book sold half a million copies,’ Colin Matheson muttered, as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened.

  ‘Online,’ I reminded him.

  Hawthorne glanced at me. ‘Yes. But she gets seventy per cent of the royalties.’

  And we got much less. It was something we’d discussed more than once before, but I was disappointed that he had chosen this moment to bring it up again.

  Suddenly, we were alone in the cinema with just a couple of volunteers clearing up the litter. I looked back at the stage. ‘I don’t know how she did all that,’ I said. ‘But you do realise that she’s a complete fraud?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Hawthorne nodded. ‘I saw that from the very start.’ He paused. ‘But those ghosts were definitely real.’

  6

  The Man in the Third Row

  It turned out that the question-and-answer session with Hawthorne and myself had attracted about eighty people; not quite up there with ghosts and mirrors, but still a reasonable crowd. As I took my place on the stage with Colin Matheson in the middle and Hawthorne on the far side, I quickly cast an eye over the audience. First, the absences. Over dinner, Anne Cleary had said she would definitely come, but I could hardly blame her for changing her mind. Marc Bellamy and Kathryn Harris were at The Lookout, preparing their thousand-calorie treats for the evening party. More surprisingly, there was no sign of Judith Matheson and I leaned over to ask Colin what had happened.

  ‘She sends her apologies,’ he said. ‘We had a problem at the house this afternoon and she had to stay behind to sort it.’

  ‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

  ‘No. Just annoying …’

  On the plus side, Elizabeth Lovell and her husband were sitting in the back row with George Elkin. Maïssa Lamar had also decided to show up, although without her mysterious friend from the airport. And Charles le Mesurier had been true to his word. He had arrived at the last moment and was making his way down to two reserved seats near the front.

  He was not alone. He had said he was going to come with someone who worked for him and sure enough he was being followed by a second man who was supporting himself with a walking stick. He had clearly done serious damage to his left leg, which moved almost with a life of its own, out of sync with the rest of him. He was at least ten years older than le Mesurier. Dressed, unnecessarily, in a suit and tie, he was already sweating in the crowded cinema. There was something bullish about him: his steel-rimmed glasses, ruddy cheeks and black hair like a streak of oil across his head. He was scowling, perhaps with the effort of keeping up. It didn’t help that he had a reserved seat right in the middle of the third row. Sitting next to an aisle would have been easier. Part of me even wondered if le Mesurier had chosen it deliberately? He was smiling as his frie
nd manoeuvred himself across with difficulty and tumbled rather than sat down.

  The house lights dimmed.

  Colin Matheson began. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne, who was for many years a highly respected investigating officer based at Scotland Yard in London. When his career with them ended, he became a consultant –’ he allowed himself a smile ‘– helping the police, as it were, with their enquiries. He is now what you would call a private detective. Of course, we’ve all heard that expression bandied about in books and on TV, but I can assure you that what we have here today is neither a Poirot nor a Midsomer Murders but the real thing, and – this is a special treat for Alderney – today will be the first time that he has spoken publicly about his work. I had the opportunity to chat with Mr Hawthorne for a short while before we came in and I can safely say that the next hour is going to be a treat. He is called in to solve only the most difficult cases and, from what I understand, he succeeds every time. He has made many notable arrests, including the killings in Riverside Close that took place in Richmond a few years ago and which you may have read about in the newspapers.’

  The killings in Riverside Close. That struck me as a rather good title for a book. I made a mental note to ask Hawthorne what had happened.

  Hawthorne, in his suit and tie, had sat perfectly still through all this. He showed almost no emotion apart from a hint of embarrassment, a sense that he was surprised that anyone could be saying such nice things about him.

  Then Matheson turned to me. ‘Anthony has written a great many scripts for television, including the two shows I just mentioned. He was personally chosen by Mr Hawthorne to be his biographer, although the first book, Hawthorne Investigates, has yet to appear in print. I’m sure he’ll have lots to tell us about the challenge of moving from fiction to true crime, and hopefully I’ll be able to persuade him to read an extract from the new book.’