The Word Is Murder(11)



‘Is there anything in the chapter that was any good?’ I asked.

Hawthorne thought for a moment. ‘I liked that gag about World’s End,’ he said.

I looked at the pages scattered in front of me. ‘Maybe this is a bad idea,’ I said.

Hawthorne smiled at me for the first time. When he smiled, that was when I saw the child he had once been. It was as if there was something inside him always struggling to be released but it had got trapped inside the suit, the tie, the pale features, the malevolent gaze. ‘Early days, mate. It’s only a first chapter. You can tear it up and start again. The thing is, we’ve got to find a way of working together, a …’ He searched for the right phrase.

‘A modus operandi,’ I suggested.

He pointed a finger. ‘You don’t want to use posh words like that. You’ll just get people’s backs up. No. You’ve just got to write what happens. We’ll talk to the suspects. I’ll make sure you have all the information. All you have to do is put it in the right order.’

‘And what happens if you don’t solve it?’ I said. ‘Maybe the police will find out who killed Diana Cowper before you do.’

He looked offended. ‘The Met are a load of tossers,’ he said. ‘If they had a clue, they wouldn’t have hired me. That’s what I explained to you. A lot of murders are solved in the first forty-eight hours. Why? Because most murderers don’t know what they’re doing. They get angry. They lash out. It’s spontaneous. And by the time they start thinking about blood splatter, car number plates, CCTV – it’s too late. Some of them will try to cover their tracks but with modern forensics they haven’t got a hope in hell.

‘But then there are the tiny amount of murders – maybe only two per cent – that are premeditated. They’re planned. They might be a contract killing. Or some nutter who’s doing it for fun. The police always know. They know when they’ve got a sticker … that’s what they call this type of murder. And that’s when they reach out to someone like me. They know they need help. So what I’m saying is, you have to trust me. If you want to add extra details, ask me first. Otherwise, just write down what you see. This isn’t Tintin. OK?’

‘Wait a minute!’ Once again, Hawthorne had managed to throw me off balance. ‘I never told you I was writing Tintin.’

‘You told me you were working for Spielberg. And that’s what he’s directing.’

‘He’s producing.’

‘Anyway, what was it that made you change your mind about writing this? Was it your wife? I bet she told you what was good for you.’

‘Stop right there,’ I said. ‘If we’re going to have rules, the main rule is that you never ask me about my private life: not my books, not my TV, not my family, not my friends.’

‘I’m interested you put them in that order …’

‘I’ll write about you. I’ll write about this case. And when you solve it – if you solve it – I’ll see if I can get my publisher interested. But I’m not going to be bullied by you. This is still my book and I’m going to be the one who decides what goes into it.’

His eyes widened. ‘Calm down, Tony. I’m just trying to help.’

This is the agreement that we made. I wouldn’t show Hawthorne any more of the book; certainly not while I was writing it and probably not even after it was finished. I would write what I wanted to write and if that meant criticising him or adding thoughts of my own I would simply go ahead. But when it came to the scene of the crime, the interrogations or whatever, I would stick to the facts. I wouldn’t imagine, extrapolate or embroider the text with potentially misleading descriptions.

As for Chapter One, forget the bell and the Mont Blanc pen. Diana Cowper had lunch with Raymond Clunes. And Andrea Kluvánek may not have been telling the truth. But be assured that the rest of it, including a clue which would indicate, quite clearly, the identity of the killer, is spot on.





Four


Scene of the Crime




There was a uniformed policeman standing outside Diana Cowper’s home on the Monday morning when I presented myself there. A strip of that blue and white plastic tape – POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS – hung across the front door but someone must have told him I was coming because he let me in without even asking me my name. It was five days after the murder. Hawthorne had sent across copies of the police files and early interviews, which I had read over the weekend. He had attached a brief note telling me to meet him here at nine. I stepped round a puddle in the short path that led to the front door and went in.

Normally, when I visit a crime scene, it’s one that I have myself manufactured. I don’t need to describe it: the director, the locations manager, the designer and the props department will have done most of the work for me, choosing everything from the furniture to the colour of the walls. I always look for the most important details – the cracked mirror, the bloody fingerprint on the windowsill, anything that’s important to the story – but they may not be there yet. It depends which way the camera is pointing. I often worry that the room will seem far too big for the victim who supposedly lived there – but then ten or twenty people have to be able to fit inside during filming and the viewers never notice. In fact, the room will be so jammed with actors, technicians, lights, cables, tracks, dollies and all the rest of it that it’s quite difficult to work out how it will look on the screen.

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