The Word Is Murder(75)

Godwin realised that although we had met, he knew nothing about me. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘You never told me your name.’

Fortunately, the doorbell rang again and I hurried over to answer it. This time there was silence from the street. ‘Are you here to see Hawthorne?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ It was a woman’s voice.

‘I’ll open the door. Just follow the stairs up to the flat.’

‘Who is that?’ Godwin demanded but from the fear in his voice I think he knew.

‘Why don’t you sit down, Mr Godwin,’ Hawthorne said. ‘Although you won’t believe me, I’m actually trying to help you. Is there anything you want?’

‘I’ve got juice,’ I said.

‘I’ll have some water.’ Godwin sat down on the other side of the table, facing Hawthorne but carefully avoiding his eye.

I went and got the water that Hawthorne had told me to put away. I’d just brought it over when I heard more footsteps and Mary O’Brien walked into the room. She was the last person I had expected to see but at the same time it suddenly seemed obvious that it should have been her. She took two steps towards us, then stopped dead. If she had been nervous and uncertain a moment before, she was now simply thunderstruck. She had noticed Alan Godwin and she was staring at him. He, equally shocked, stared back.

Hawthorne sprang to his feet. There was something almost devilish about him, a glee I had never seen before. ‘I think you two know each other,’ he said.

Alan Godwin was the first to recover. ‘Of course we know each other. What do you mean by this?’

‘I think you know exactly what’s going on, Alan. Why don’t you sit down, Mary? I think I can call you that. We’re all friends here.’

‘I don’t understand!’ Mary O’Brien was trying to keep her emotions in check but she was on the edge of tears. She looked at Godwin. ‘Why are you here?’

‘He told me to come.’

The two of them looked guilty, angry, afraid. Godwin stood up. ‘I’m not staying here,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what game you’re playing, Mr Hawthorne. I’m not having any of it.’

‘That’s fine, Alan. But you walk out this room, the police are going to know everything. And so is your wife.’

Godwin froze. Mary also wasn’t moving. Hawthorne was completely in charge.

‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘You two have been colluding together and lying for ten years. But it’s over. That’s why you’re here.’

Godwin sat down again. Mary joined him on the sofa, keeping a distance between them. As she took her place, I saw him mouth the words ‘I’m sorry’ – and right then I knew that the two of them were lovers and that Judith Godwin had suspected it too. That was the reason why there had been tension between the two women.

I sat down on the piano stool. Hawthorne was the only one in the room who was still on his feet.

‘We need to get to the bottom of what happened in Deal,’ he began. ‘Because I’ve heard this story half a dozen times and I’ve even been to the bloody place and it’s never made any sense. That’s not surprising. Everything you two have said has been a complete pack of lies. God knows what it must have been like for you but the trouble is, you had no choice. You were locked into this and there was no way out. I’d almost feel sorry for you. Except I don’t.’

He took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. I went into the kitchen, found an ashtray and put it on the table for him to use.

‘When did you start your affair?’ Hawthorne asked.

There was a long silence. Mary had begun to cry. Alan Godwin reached out to take her hand but she pulled it away.

Godwin must have known there was no point trying to pretend. ‘It was very soon after Mary started with us,’ he replied. ‘I was the one who started it. I take full responsibility.’

‘It’s over now,’ Mary said, quietly. ‘It’s been over for a long time.’

‘To be honest with you, I don’t care about your relationship,’ Hawthorne said. ‘I just want the facts, and the fact is that you were responsible for what happened in Deal – both of you. Diana Cowper may have forgotten her specs – but those two little kids got run over because of you and you know it. You’ve been living with it ever since.’

Mary nodded. The tears ran down her cheeks.

Hawthorne turned to me. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Tony. When you and I were in Deal, there was lots of stuff I didn’t understand. Where do I even start? The kids run across the street to an ice-cream shop. Only it’s closed. Not only that, it’s flooded and all the electrics are bust. It’s dark. I know they were only eight but they must have seen there was no chance they were going to get a Mr Whippy there. And then they get hit by the car and one of them is dead and the other’s lying there and, according to Mr Traverton in the chemist shop, he’s calling out for his daddy. But no child does that. When a child gets hurt, what he wants is his mummy. So what’s going on there?’

He paused for a moment. Nobody spoke and it struck me that he was completely in control of the situation, that this might as well have been his flat as mine. Hawthorne certainly had a magnetic personality. Although, of course, magnets can repel as well as attract.