The Word Is Murder(55)

The kitchen had been invaded like the rest of the house. There were more plastic toys, crayons and paper on the table, brightly coloured scribbles sellotaped onto every wall. I remembered the house in Harrow-on-the-Hill and Judith Godwin’s life, destroyed by the loss of a child. The Cornwallises’ house was defined by children too but in a very different way.

‘Here’s Robert,’ Barbara announced, then chided him. ‘Are you still doing that? We’ve got the supper to cook and the children to put to bed and now we’ve got the police in the house!’

‘I’ve just finished, dear.’ Cornwallis closed his account books. He gestured at the empty seats in front of him. ‘Mr Hawthorne. Please, sit down.’

‘Would you like some tea?’ Barbara asked. ‘I can offer you English breakfast, Earl Grey or lapsang souchong.’

‘Nothing, thank you.’

‘How about something stronger, maybe? Robert – we’ve still got that wine in the fridge.’

I shook my head.

‘I might have a glass, if you don’t mind. After all, it’s the weekend … almost. Will you have one, Robbie?’

‘No, thank you, dear.’

Hawthorne and I sat down on the other side of the table. Hawthorne was about to start his interrogation when suddenly the two children came charging in, racing around the table, demanding a bedtime story. Robert Cornwallis raised his hands, trying to take control of the situation. ‘All right, you two. That’s enough!’ The children ignored him. ‘Why don’t you go out in the garden? As a special treat you can have ten minutes on the trampoline before bed!’

The children yelled with delight. Their father got up and opened the French windows. They ran out and we watched as they climbed onto the trampoline.

‘Lovely kids,’ Hawthorne muttered, with all the malice in the world.

‘They can be a bit of a handful at this time of day.’ Cornwallis sat down again. ‘Where’s Andrew?’ he called over to his wife, who was standing beside the fridge with a half-full bottle of white wine.

‘Upstairs, doing his homework.’

‘Or playing on his computer,’ Cornwallis said. ‘I can’t get him off it – but then he’s nine.’

‘All his friends are the same,’ Barbara agreed, pouring the wine. ‘I don’t know what it is with children these days. They’re not interested in the real world.’

There was a pause. In this house, a moment of silence was something of a luxury.

‘Irene told me about the funeral,’ Cornwallis began, echoing what Barbara had said in the hall. ‘I cannot tell you how dismayed I am. I have been ten years in this business. My father ran the company before me, and my grandfather before that. I can assure you that nothing like this has ever happened before.’ Hawthorne was about to ask him something but he continued. ‘I am particularly sorry that I wasn’t there. I try to be present at every funeral but, as I’m sure Irene will have told you, it was my son’s school play.’

‘He spent weeks learning his lines,’ Barbara exclaimed. ‘Every night before bed. He took it very seriously.’ She had filled a large glass with wine and came over and joined us. ‘He would never have forgiven us if we hadn’t been there. Acting runs in his blood … it’s all he ever talks about. And he was absolutely brilliant. Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? But he was!’

‘I shouldn’t have gone. I knew it at the time. I had this gut feeling that something was going to go wrong.’

‘Why was that, Mr Cornwallis?’

He thought back. ‘Well, everything about Mrs Cowper’s death had been unusual. It may surprise you, but I am no stranger to violent crime, Mr Hawthorne. We have another branch in south London and we have been summoned by the police on more than one occasion … knife crime, gang violence. But in this instance, for Mrs Cowper to have arranged her funeral the very day that it would be required …’

‘You said to me you were worried about it,’ Barbara agreed. ‘Only this morning, when you were getting dressed, you were going on about it.’ She ran her eyes over him. ‘Why are you still in that suit? I thought you were going to get changed.’

Barbara Cornwallis was a pleasant, friendly woman but she never stopped talking and being married to her would have driven me insane. Her husband ignored her last question. ‘That was why I asked Irene to be there,’ he explained. ‘I knew there would be police and journalists and of course Damian Cowper had a certain celebrity. I didn’t trust Alfred to handle it on his own. Even so, I should have stayed.’

‘You never even got to talk to Damian Cowper.’ There was a bowl of crisps on the table. Barbara slid them towards herself and took a handful. In the garden, the boys were bouncing up and down. We could hear their excited laughter on the other side of the double glazing. ‘And he’s one of your favourite actors too.’

‘That’s true.’

‘We’ve seen everything he’s done. What was the television programme he was in? The one about the journalists?’

‘I can’t remember, dear.’

‘Of course you can remember. You bought the DVD. You’ve watched it lots of times.’

‘State of Play.’

‘That’s the one. I couldn’t follow it myself. But he was very good. And we saw him in the theatre, didn’t we, in Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest. I took Robert for our anniversary.’ She turned to her husband. ‘We both thought he was brilliant.’