I wasted the rest of the morning. I was tempted to go out and get the newspapers or check them out online, but that’s something I never do any more. Why rush out in search of a self-inflicted wound? I imagined Ewan or Ahmet would call me with the bad news. It was always possible that Throsby had turned out to be the lone voice of dissent. Throsby and The Times. Maybe some of the other critics had loved the play. I decided that, for a few hours more, I would live in hope.
So I made myself breakfast. I had a bath and listened to music. I fiddled with the next book I was about to start writing – Moonflower Murders – but although I liked the idea of forward motion, moving on to the next project, anything that wasn’t a play, the words wouldn’t come. I stared out of the window at the Shard and St Paul’s Cathedral and vaguely wondered if it would be possible to hang-glide from one to the other. As it turned out, this was something Alex Rider would do in his next adventure. I drank two mugs of tea and ate too many chocolate digestive biscuits.
At ten past four, the doorbell rang.
I went to the intercom, assuming it would be a delivery. Living six floors up and with no video camera, I seldom saw anyone’s face. My day was punctuated by disembodied voices. ‘Yes?’
‘Mr Horowitz?’
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s the police. Can we come in?’
My first thought was that something had happened to Jill or to one of my sons. I hurried down six flights of stairs and over to the double set of doors at the end of the hallway. I was still in my bedroom slippers and I had forgotten my keys, so I had to wedge the inner door behind me with one foot whilst stretching awkwardly to push open the outer one. And that was how I was, strangely contorted, as I took in the two figures standing on the pavement and realised that I knew them and that they were really the last people in the world I wanted to see.
The bulky frame of Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw was blocking my view of Cowcross Street with an expression on her face that brilliantly amalgamated a scowl and a smile. Her assistant, DC Mills, was behind her.
‘Hello, Anthony,’ she said. ‘I wonder if we could have a word?’
5
Daggers Drawn
I knew Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw very well. When Hawthorne was investigating the murder of the Hampstead divorce lawyer Richard Pryce, she had been the officer in charge of the case and she hadn’t been amused when he arrived at the truth ahead of her. That wasn’t the worst of it. I had inadvertently given her false information that had led her to arrest the wrong man – much to Hawthorne’s amusement. He’d even suggested she might lose her job. Well, that clearly hadn’t happened. Here she was, waiting to come in, with her equally unfriendly assistant, Detective Constable Derek Mills, standing beside her, both of them gazing at me like hyenas who have stumbled across a fresh carcass. I knew I was in trouble even if I had no idea what that trouble might be.
‘What’s this all about?’ I asked, innocently.
‘We’d prefer to talk inside, if you don’t mind.’
‘Do I have to let you in?’
Cara exchanged a knowing glance with her deputy. ‘We could throw you in the car and take you down to the police station if you prefer,’ she said.
This might not have been true, but I decided not to argue. I’ve always had a fear of authority figures that goes back to my schooldays, and Cara somehow encapsulated the maths, French and history teachers who had terrified me when I was eight. She was a round, solid woman with an overbearing presence defined by muscular arms and broad shoulders that would have served her well in a scrum. She wore heavy plastic spectacles that seemed to be sinking into the bridge of her nose. In fact, her whole face had a soft, pliable quality as if she had been created out of playdough. Her eyes, popped in as a last-minute afterthought, were small and hostile. What I most remembered about her was her jet-black hair, which didn’t look real. The strands swept down on both sides like miniature curtains that had been pulled back to give a view of her face. She was wearing a well-tailored, dark olive suit and a roll-neck jersey. No jewellery.
She elbowed her way past me and into the entrance hall, followed by Mills, who could have concealed himself in her shadow. He was smaller and lighter than her, with thinning hair that he never bothered to brush. He was wearing the same leather jacket as the first time I’d met him, though with more food stains. He eyed me briefly as he came in, making sure that I had registered his complete contempt for me, for my home, for the entire neighbourhood.