A Line to Kill

by Anthony Horowitz

  ‘He’s down there,’ someone said, inviting me to join them in this spectacle of death. And sure enough, he was.

  Derek Abbott was too far away to be recognisable, but who else could it have been, lying there on the shingle, his body disjointed, exactly like one of those chalk outlines in a bad police drama? The water was lapping at him, but he wasn’t moving. I wondered how anyone would reach him. They’d have to send a boat. There was no other way to bring him up to the top.

  A man was standing next to me, dressed in an anorak with a heavy pair of binoculars on a cord around his neck. ‘Did you see what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘He jumped,’ the man told me.

  I turned away. I’d seen more than enough death on Alderney. Hawthorne was standing right behind me, impassive. I looked him straight in the eye. ‘You did this,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Hawthorne replied.

  But I knew he was lying. Someone had told Abbott that the police were coming to arrest him and I had seen Hawthorne walking out of the hotel late at night.

  Now I knew where he had gone.

  23

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  Two days after I got back to London, I went to see my agent, Hilda Starke. I walked over to Greek Street in Soho, where her office was located on the fourth floor of a narrow building hemmed in between an Italian restaurant and an off-licence. There was no lift and the stairs creaked menacingly under my weight, as if warning me that I was not really welcome here. I think it’s true to say that Hilda preferred books to authors. In the three years I had been with her, I’d only gone to her office half a dozen times.

  I arrived at a dusty landing where a door opened into a tiny reception area, made tinier by the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with books. A single window allowed a little daylight to seep through, but it was a room that devoured daylight. I gave my name to the receptionist and told him I had an appointment with Hilda.

  ‘What’s this about?’ he asked vaguely.

  ‘I’m one of her clients.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Ten minutes later, I had squeezed into Hilda’s office. There was so little space in the building, all the furniture seemed to be in the way. She was behind her desk, holding a Sharpie and covering a manuscript with black markings. I wondered if she did the same with my work when she received it.

  ‘Have you been offered coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Your receptionist didn’t even know you represented me.’

  She wasn’t troubled. ‘He hasn’t been here long.’

  ‘How are you?’ I asked.

  She looked at me, puzzled. ‘I’m fine. Why do you ask?’

  According to Hawthorne, she had been on her way to the doctor, worrying about tests, when I’d met her seven weeks before. Could he have been wrong? The trouble was, if I told her what I knew, it would look as if I’d been prying. ‘I just thought you seemed a bit down when we last met,’ I said, trying to sound casual.

  ‘No. I’m perfectly well. How was Alderney?’

  She was obviously keen to change the subject and I just hoped that whatever the problem was, it had sorted itself out. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ I said. Quickly, I described the festival and the two murders that had followed. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to write the third book in the series,’ I concluded.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘I’ve just explained. Derek Abbott was the killer and he committed suicide rather than go back to prison.’

  ‘What’s the problem with that?’

  ‘Well, it’s just not a very satisfying ending. He was always the most obvious suspect, so it’s not much of a surprise, and he was a thoroughly unpleasant man, so who’s going to care? Worse than that, Hawthorne didn’t really solve the murder. I mean, he did – but most of the information was handed to him on a plate.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I thought you might have a word with Random House. Maybe I can write something else.’

  She sighed. ‘I did warn you against starting this series of books,’ she said. ‘I always said it was bad idea.’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea!’

  ‘And you’ve got a problem now. Everyone at Random House loved meeting Hawthorne. Graham sent me a note to say how impressed he was. If you don’t want to write the third book, I’m afraid they’ll look for someone else who will.’

  ‘They can’t do that, can they?’

  ‘You don’t own Hawthorne, Anthony. If anything, he owns you.’

  I sat there gloomily while she let this sink in.

  ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t be worrying about the third book,’ she continued, eventually. ‘You haven’t finished the second one yet. Have you got a title, by the way?’

  ‘Yes. I want to call it Another Word for Murder.’ She made no response so I added: ‘After all, it is a sequel to The Word is Murder.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s the problem,’ she said. ‘It sounds like a sequel. People will think they have to read the first one. If I were you, I’d think of something else.’

  ‘But I like it,’ I protested.

  ‘I don’t.’

  A few minutes later, I was back in the street. It hadn’t been a brilliant meeting. I’d been told my publishers preferred my main character to me. I’d lost the title of my second book. And Hilda wasn’t going to offer me any help with the third one.

  My telephone rang. I looked at the screen. It was Hawthorne.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tony, are you around?’

  ‘I’m in town.’

  ‘Do you fancy coming to Oxford? I’m taking that pen back to Anne Cleary and she’s invited me to lunch.’

  ‘Did she invite me?’

  ‘No. But she likes you. She’ll be glad to see you.’

  ‘What time are you leaving?’

  ‘There’s a train at eleven fifteen.’

  It was ten fifteen now – but that was typical of Hawthorne. He had a sort of myopia that possibly extended to the entire world, but certainly to me. I would be available when he needed me, although of course it didn’t work the other way round. I was tempted to say no, to tell him I was busy – but what was the point? I was only twenty minutes from Paddington Station and I had nothing much to do.

  ‘I’ll meet you on the train,’ I said.

  In fact, Hawthorne was waiting for me at the platform and we travelled together in silence. He was still reading The Little Stranger, the book he had brought with him to Southampton, and I noticed that he wasn’t many pages further in, but then I could imagine him being not just a slow reader but a methodical one, going over every sentence and every paragraph so that he would be up to scratch when he met with his book club.

  It was only in the taxi, driving through Oxford, that I asked him: ‘Did you tell Anne I was coming?’

  ‘No. I’m sure she won’t mind.’

  ‘But if she’s making lunch—’

  ‘You can have mine!’

  Anne Cleary lived in exactly the sort of house I would have imagined for her, part of a curving terrace in a quiet area of Oxford with lots of trees. It was Victorian, red brick, with sash windows and a flight of steps leading up to the front door, the kitchen and dining room below street level. Even before we went in, I knew it would have the original cornicing, stripped wooden floors and high ceilings. There’s something about Oxford that has always appealed to authors and it seems to me that it has somehow seeped into their work. Think of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Iris Murdoch and, more recently, Philip Pullman. It’s hard to imagine them living anywhere else.

  Anne was surprised, but seemed pleased to see me and led us both into a comfortable front room. She collected Wedgwood porcelain figurines – milkmaids, ballet dancers, Little Bo Peep. They were displayed on shelves along with books, photographs, an ornamental clock, piles of letters and perfumed candles. The room managed to be simple and cluttered at the same time. Anne looked very much at home here. She was the sort of woman wh
o liked to be comfortable, who would wear clothes that were sensible, never expensive. I suspected she had lived there for most of her adult life.

  As soon as we sat down, Hawthorne produced the Sakura fountain pen that he had retrieved from Marc Bellamy. Anne snatched it up with delight. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to have this back,’ she said. ‘I’ve got other pens, but this one writes so beautifully. Are you going to tell me where you found it?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Hawthorne said.

  ‘Had someone taken it?’

  ‘Let’s just say that I persuaded them to give it back.’

  ‘Well, I’m very grateful to you, Mr Hawthorne.’ She placed it on an ornamental table in front of her. ‘And I hear you managed to solve what happened in Alderney.’

  ‘You know about Derek Abbott?’ I asked.

  ‘I heard he took his own life.’ She shook her head. ‘I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for him, but in a way I do. If he killed two people, then he deserved to be punished, but I don’t think it’s ever anything to be celebrated, someone taking their own life.’

  ‘Did you actually speak to him in Alderney?’ Hawthorne asked.

  ‘No. I told you. I saw him at the party, but we didn’t exchange any words.’ Anne clapped her hands together. ‘I’m so sorry! I haven’t offered you tea or coffee. Or perhaps you’d like a glass of sherry? I’ve made a salade niçoise for lunch and there’s plenty enough for three …’

  ‘I’m all right, thank you,’ Hawthorne said. He smiled. ‘You know, thinking back, there is something I never understood and it does relate to that evening at The Lookout.’ He paused and Anne waited politely for him to continue. ‘Charles le Mesurier talked to you about Derek Abbott. He said that the two of them had had an argument and that he was thinking about firing him. It was certainly true that the two of them had fallen out quite badly. Derek Abbott admitted as much when we spoke to him.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ Anne asked.

  ‘Only this. You left the party at nine twenty-five. We know the exact time because you asked the girl at the door. What was her name?’

  ‘Isn’t that awful of me? I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The argument must have happened before then. But here’s the thing. Elizabeth Lovell saw the two of them – Abbott and le Mesurier – crossing the garden just half an hour later, at ten to ten, and according to her the two of them seemed to be on perfectly friendly terms. Once they got to the Snuggery, they actually took cocaine together. Abbott denied it, but we found two cardboard tubes in le Mesurier’s pocket, so unless he was using one for each nostril, it looks as if both of them had a quick snort.’ Hawthorne looked genuinely perplexed. ‘It just doesn’t sound like the behaviour of two men who have recently had a falling-out.’

  Anne had no answer, but she could see that Hawthorne was waiting for her to speak. ‘Well, I told you what he said to me,’ she said. ‘Derek Abbott wanted money and Charles le Mesurier wasn’t prepared to pay it. I assumed that was the reason why he killed him.’

  ‘It’s a good reason,’ Hawthorne agreed. ‘But it still doesn’t explain why they were so chummy when they walked over to the Snuggery.’

  ‘Did you say that Elizabeth Lovell saw them?’ It had taken Anne a few moments to work that out.

  ‘Oh yes. She was only pretending to be unsighted.’

  ‘But that’s wicked …’

  ‘There was a lot of wickedness going on that night, Anne,’ Hawthorne agreed. ‘That wasn’t the worst of it.’

  The three of us fell silent. Anne picked up her pen. ‘You shouldn’t have come all this way to give it back to me,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Shall we go down to the kitchen and have some lunch?’

  ‘There’s something else I wanted to ask you,’ Hawthorne said.

  ‘You know, really, Mr Hawthorne … I’m not sure I’ve got anything to add.’

  ‘It’s just that I like to have everything nice and tidy and if Tony here is going to write about this, he needs to know it all too. It’s about the girl at the door.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about her.’

  ‘You asked her the time.’

  ‘Yes.’ Anne was beginning to sound exasperated.

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I already told you. I had an important phone call.’

  ‘I know. You had to be back at the hotel at ten. But that doesn’t make any sense to me. I’d understand it if you had to leave at a certain time, if you asked someone the time and then hurried to get back to the hotel. But you were already on your way out when you asked. So there was no need to. If you didn’t know what time it was, you wouldn’t have been leaving.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, Mr Hawthorne. My agent in Los Angeles had told me she was going to ring …’

  ‘Although in the end she didn’t.’

  ‘I wasn’t to know that. I checked my watch and then I double-checked at the door. I also asked the bus driver when the bus was going to leave.’

  ‘It’s almost as if you wanted everyone to know what time you left the house.’

  ‘It may seem that way to you, but nothing could have been further from my mind.’ I had no idea where this was going and Anne was beginning to look uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair. ‘It’s almost as if you’re accusing me of killing Mr le Mesurier myself,’ she said. ‘But that’s ridiculous. I hadn’t even met him until last Friday.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right, Anne. You had no reason at all to kill Charles le Mesurier.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The clock on the mantelpiece pinged as the minute hand passed the twelve. It was an ugly thing, bronze and white marble with an angel holding a spear in one hand and leaning against the casing with the other. Every hour it would draw attention to itself. It was now one o’clock.

  ‘Except, perhaps, the death of your son.’ Hawthorne paused. ‘I was there when Elizabeth Lovell talked about him at the cinema.’

  Anne scowled. ‘That woman was hateful. And everything about her was fake. You just said so yourself.’

  ‘She knew about Mary Carrington, the woman who had slipped and drowned in the bath. And she knew about you. She’d done her research.’

  ‘Mr Hawthorne, this is really—’

  ‘She knew that your son had committed suicide at university.’

  ‘My son was an addict. I don’t know why you have to bring this up now. It’s really very cruel of you. I was forced to explain myself in front of a hundred complete strangers. He took an overdose and he died.’

  ‘Was he a drug addict?’ Hawthorne asked.

  Anne didn’t reply.

  ‘That was the natural inference and I think it’s what you wanted us to believe. A drug addict takes a drug overdose and he dies. But there are other sorts of addicts.’

  I will never forget the pause that followed. It seemed to stitch itself into the very air.

  ‘Gambling addicts, for example.’

  That was when Anne Cleary knew it was all over.

  ‘Internet gambling is a horrible thing,’ Hawthorne went on, and for once he sounded genuinely sympathetic. ‘Your son was one of around three hundred thousand addicts in the country. There are about five hundred deaths a year and most of them are young men, university students, kids living alone. And the big online gambling companies … they know what they’re doing with those bright lights and flashing colours, the personalised texts and emails, the free bets. You must have been sickened when you got an invitation to a literary festival sponsored by Spin-the-wheel.com. I assume they were the same people who killed William.’

  Everything in the room had changed. It was like an image on a computer screen that had suddenly frozen. It all looked the same, but I was aware that something had gone terribly wrong.

  ‘He never told me,’ Anne said. ‘William had always been such a happy boy and of course I knew something was wrong. He’d changed. But I thought it was down to the pressure of starting at uni
versity. He’d never lived away from home before. And of course he’d had to borrow the money to pay the tuition fees and that was preying on his mind. It was only after he died that the police found all the evidence on his computer. He’d gone through his savings and he’d maxed out all his credit cards. And he’d sold things.’ Until now, Anne had been strangely dispassionate, explaining her past history as if it was unconnected to her. But for the first time her voice cracked. ‘He’d sold the watch we’d given him for his eighteenth birthday and the laptop when he’d started university. He’d sold his clothes. All the time, he was getting more and more desperate, but he kept on playing, spinning the wheel in the hope that he would make everything right. And when it got to be too much, he took an overdose of paracetamol. That was the drug that killed him.’

  Hawthorne was accusing Anne Cleary of murder, and I had been witness to two shocking deaths. But I felt only pity for her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

  She stared at me. ‘I don’t want your pity. I made the decision to commit a crime. It was a dreadful thing to do and I always expected to pay the full price.’ Anne turned back to Hawthorne.

  ‘Two crimes,’ Hawthorne said. ‘You also killed Helen le Mesurier.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anne Cleary hadn’t even tried to deny it. She was sitting very still. I was aware of the hollow ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. I wanted to get up and silence the wretched thing.

  ‘When I heard about Derek Abbott, I thought that might be the end of it as far as I was concerned,’ she said. ‘But if you’ve come here to judge me, you’re too late. My judgement has already been made.’

  ‘It’s not just you, Anne. You weren’t alone.’

  That jolted her. ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Do you really think you can lie to me? Even now? You couldn’t have tied Charles le Mesurier to that chair without help, even if you had whacked him with a rock first. You also needed someone to persuade Helen le Mesurier to walk into that cave where you were waiting for her. All of this was carefully planned. And not just by you.’