He was bluffing, of course, but it worked.
‘No. It’s all right. I’m … well, I’m sure you understand.’ Throsby stepped back to allow us in. This was something I’d learned after three investigations with Hawthorne. When someone was murdered, people expected to be asked questions. It was as if they’d seen so many murder stories on television, they knew the part they had to play and didn’t ask too many questions themselves.
We stepped through the front door and found ourselves in a narrow communal area with two further doors facing each other at angles. Harriet Throsby had lived with her husband and daughter in the ground-floor and basement of the building, with access to the garden, while a second flat had been carved out above. The door on the right was open, showing a brightly lit, airy space with a wide corridor leading into an open-plan kitchen and living room with French windows at the end. The taste was simple, on the edge of chintzy: floral wallpaper, lots of brightly coloured vases and original theatre posters hanging in frames. The wooden floor, what I could see of it, was original, but we were standing in an area that had been covered by translucent plastic sheeting with numbered tags underneath.
‘She was found out here, next to the entrance?’ Hawthorne asked.
Arthur nodded. ‘The police were in the flat all day and much of the evening. They took samples and covered the whole place in fingerprint powder. They asked me a lot of questions – and my daughter too, as if she had anything to do with it. Neither of us were even here! And now, I suppose, you want me to go over it all again.’
‘That would be helpful,’ Hawthorne said. ‘I know it may seem like a waste of time, but when you repeat things, you can often remember details you might have forgotten the first time round. Anyway, I prefer to hear it straight from you, if you don’t mind.’
‘Let’s go into the kitchen. Do you want a coffee?’
‘No, thank you.’ Hawthorne answered for both of us.
We walked down the corridor, passing a half-open door that gave me a glimpse of an untidy room with an unmade bed, clothes everywhere, a Lord of the Rings poster on the wall.
‘That’s Olivia’s room,’ Arthur said. He had noticed me staring in and pulled the door shut.
We went into the kitchen. There was a pine table and a breakfast bar. Between the scattered coffee mugs, the unpaid bills, the theatre programmes, the day’s newspapers still open at the obituary columns and the unwashed plates piled up in the sink, it gave me a pretty good insight into life before and after Harriet Throsby. She hadn’t been gone forty-eight hours and her memories were everywhere. But the mess, I suspected, was Arthur’s. I glanced through the windows at a small, well-tended garden and I wondered how long it would be before it went to seed.
We sat down.
‘Nice place,’ I said, breaking the silence.
‘Do you think so?’ Arthur Throsby didn’t look so sure. ‘Harriet wanted to move. She’d been talking about it for a while, but I suppose I’ll stay here now that she’s—’ He broke off. ‘Where do you want me to start?’
He was exactly the sort of man I’d expected to be married to someone like Harriet. She had been dominating, assertive. He was softly spoken, downtrodden, with thinning hair and a face that was mournful now for good reason but which might have been the same since the day he got married. He hadn’t shaved and the clothes he was wearing looked old and unironed. He made himself a coffee without once looking at his hands, almost robotically. He didn’t want the coffee. It was just something to do.
‘Why don’t you tell us your movements on the morning of your wife’s death?’ Hawthorne suggested.
‘All right.’ He stirred his coffee and brought it over to us. It sat there, steaming gently in front of him. ‘Harriet was still in bed when I got up. That was at seven fifteen. I don’t set the alarm because she didn’t like being disturbed, but I always wake up on the dot. I made myself breakfast and squeezed some fresh orange juice for her to have later. She wouldn’t drink it if it wasn’t fresh. I tiptoed in and left it by the bed, then I set off for work shortly after eight.’
‘Where do you work?’
‘I teach history at the Harris Academy in St John’s Wood. I usually go there by bike. It’s about twenty minutes away. Otherwise, I take the tube from Paddington.’
‘Did you go by tube or bike yesterday?’
‘I took the bike. Olivia saw me leave. We spoke a few words. Nothing of any interest.’