The Word Is Murder(66)

‘As a matter of fact, I am.’ Hawthorne had given me exactly the opening I had been hoping for. I leapt in. ‘I know who did it.’

He looked up at me with eyes that were both challenging and waiting for me to fail. ‘So who was it?’ he asked.

‘Alan Godwin,’ I said.

He nodded slowly, but not in agreement. ‘He had a good reason to kill Diana Cowper,’ he said. ‘But he was at the funeral at the same time as us. You think he had time to cross London and get to Damian’s flat?’

‘He left the cemetery as soon as the music started playing – and who else would have put the MP3 player in the coffin if it wasn’t him? You heard what he told us. It was his dead son’s favourite song.’ I went on before he could stop me. ‘This has got to be about Timothy Godwin. It’s the reason why we’re on this train and the simple fact is that nobody else had any reason to kill Diana Cowper. Was it the cleaner because she was stealing money? Or Raymond Clunes with his stupid musical? Come on! I’m surprised we’re even arguing about it.’

‘I’m not arguing,’ Hawthorne said, with equanimity. He weighed up what I had just said then shook his head, sadly. ‘Damian Cowper was at home when the accident happened. He had nothing to do with it. So what was the motive for killing him?’

‘I think I’ve worked that out,’ I said. ‘Suppose it wasn’t Diana Cowper who was driving the car. Mary O’Brien didn’t actually see her face and as far as we know she was only ever identified because of the registration number.’

‘Mrs Cowper went to the police. She turned herself in.’

‘She could have done that to protect Damian. He was the one behind the wheel!’ The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. ‘He was her son. He was getting famous. Maybe he was drunk or on cocaine or something. She knew it would ruin his career if he was arrested, so she took the rap! And she made up that stuff about forgetting her glasses to get herself off the hook.’

‘You have no evidence for that.’

‘As a matter of fact I do.’ I played my ace card. ‘When you were talking to Raymond Clunes, he mentioned that when he had lunch with her, the day she was killed, he saw her as she came out of the tube station. She waved to me across the road. That’s what he said. So if she could see him across the road, that means her eyesight was perfectly good. She made up the whole thing.’

Hawthorne treated me to a rare smile. It flickered across his face but was gone in an instant. ‘I see you’ve been paying attention,’ he said.

‘I’ve been listening,’ I said, warily.

‘The trouble is, she might have been wearing her glasses when she came out of the station,’ Hawthorne went on. He seemed genuinely sad, as if it pained him, demolishing my theory. ‘Clunes didn’t say anything about that. And if she wasn’t the one who was driving, why did she never get behind the wheel of a car again? Why did she move house? She seems to have been pretty upset by something she didn’t do.’

‘She might have been just as upset that Damian had done it. And she was an accessory. Somehow Alan Godwin found out the truth and that was why he killed both of them. They were in it together.’

The train had picked up speed. The buildings of east London were giving way to a little more greenery and some open spaces.

‘I don’t buy your theory,’ Hawthorne said. ‘The police would have checked her eyesight after the accident and, anyway, there’s all sorts of things you’re forgetting.’

‘Like what?’

Hawthorne shrugged, as if he didn’t want to continue the conversation. But then, perhaps, he took pity on me. ‘What was Diana Cowper’s frame of mind when she went to the undertaker?’ he asked. ‘And what was the first thing she saw when she went there?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I don’t need to, mate. It was in that rubbish first chapter you showed me. But I think you’ll find that’s what matters most. Everything turns on it.’

What was the first thing that Diana Cowper saw when she went into the funeral parlour?

I tried to put myself in her shoes, stepping off the bus, walking down the pavement. Obviously, it was the name: Cornwallis and Sons, written not once but twice. Or maybe she saw the clock which had stopped at one minute to midnight. What could that possibly have to do with anything? There had been a book made out of marble in the window – the sort of thing you’d see in any undertaker’s. And what of her frame of mind? Hawthorne had told me that Mrs Cowper knew she was going to die. Somebody had threatened her but she hadn’t gone to the police. Why not?

Suddenly I was angry.

‘For God’s sake, Hawthorne,’ I said. ‘You’re dragging me halfway across England to the coast. You could at least tell me what we’re meant to be doing.’

‘I already told you. We’re seeing the judge. Then we’re going to the scene of the accident.’

‘So you do think it’s relevant.’

He smiled. I could see his face reflected in the glass with the countryside rushing past on the other side. ‘When you’re paid by the day, everything is relevant,’ he said.

He went back to his book and didn’t speak again.

Nigel Weston, the judge who had presided over the case of The Crown vs Diana Cowper but who had favoured the second of the two, lived in the very centre of Canterbury with a view of the cathedral on one side and St Augustine’s College on the other. It was as if, having worked in law all his life, he had chosen to surround himself with history and religion: ancient walls, spires, missionaries on bicycles. His house was square, solid, with everything in proportion, looking out over a green. It was a comfortable place in a comfortable city with a man now enjoying a comfortable life.