‘Your daughter went to the theatre with your wife, but you didn’t,’ Hawthorne said. I’d told him that I’d met Olivia at the party and that she was a friend of Sky Palmer, the actress who played Nurse Plimpton.
‘That’s right.’
‘Why was that?’
Arthur shrugged as if the answer was obvious. ‘I don’t much like theatre. Anyway, Harriet preferred it if I didn’t come. I have a slight problem with asthma and she used to say the sound of my breathing put her off.’
‘So when was the last time you spoke to your wife?’
‘I called her from school. That was a few minutes before ten o’clock, between lessons. She was already up and at work by then.’
‘How did you know?’ I asked.
Hawthorne wasn’t pleased. He never liked it when I chipped in and perhaps it was a bit inappropriate, me being the main suspect.
‘I FaceTimed,’ Arthur replied. ‘I could see her. She was sitting in her study.’ He pointed at a door leading off from the kitchen. ‘It’s the dining room, but we never used it for eating. We never had guests. That was where she worked.’
‘Can we see it?’
‘If you want.’ He got up, leaving his coffee behind.
Harriet’s office could be accessed directly from both the kitchen and the corridor: there was a second door opposite Olivia’s bedroom. It was a rectangular space, running to the bay window I had seen as I approached the house. Most of the area was dominated by a dining table, which was evidently where she had worked. It was piled up with notepads, files, newspaper clippings and theatre programmes. There were about a dozen pens spilling out of a Book of Mormon mug, a half-empty bottle of wine and a glass decorated with a lipstick smear that must have been made by Harriet, the last mark she had left in this world. I glanced at the bookshelves. I wasn’t surprised to see play texts, actors’ and directors’ biographies, histories of different theatres. She also had a strong interest in crime and I remembered her telling me that it was something she had written about. I hadn’t realised she had meant books, though. I noticed three of them spread out on the table with her name on the covers, placed there as if to impress.
‘This is her room,’ Arthur said. ‘It doesn’t get enough light … she was never happy with it. That’s the trouble having a house that’s north-facing.’ He looked around him. ‘Your lot have taken her computer and some of her papers,’ he went on. ‘But otherwise this is more or less how she left it.’
Hawthorne peered out of the window. ‘She could see whoever was at the front door,’ he said. ‘So it’s quite likely she knew the person who killed her.’
‘Unless he was dressed as a postman,’ I said.
Hawthorne ignored this. ‘Why did you call your wife?’ he asked.
‘She liked me to ring her every morning around then. She would tell me if she wanted any shopping done.’
‘And did she?’
‘She wanted some avocados. There were avocados in the fridge, but they were too hard.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She was always going on about that fridge. She hated the temperature control. We could never get it right.’
‘Anything else?’
Arthur thought for a minute and shook his head. ‘I can’t think of anything that might be relevant.’
‘How long had you been married, Mr Throsby?’
‘Twenty-five years.’ He pointed to an ornamental silver candlestick at the end of the table. ‘I bought her that as a wedding-anniversary present. She didn’t much like it, though. She didn’t see the point.’
‘I think it’s very nice,’ Hawthorne said.
‘Thank you.’
Hawthorne hesitated. ‘Would you say you were happily married, Mr Throsby?’
Arthur had to think about that. ‘Well, she wasn’t an easy woman. I’ll be honest with you. She could be …’ He searched for the word.
‘Critical?’ Hawthorne suggested.
‘Yes. I suppose you could say that. Perhaps it went with the territory.’ Astonishingly, he was talking as if it had never occurred to him before. ‘She could be quite judgemental.’
‘You never lost your temper with her?’
‘Certainly not. You’re not suggesting …’ Arthur blushed. ‘I was nowhere near the house when she was attacked, and I can assure you, there were dozens of witnesses who saw me at school. You think I would do anything to harm her? The mother of my child?’ He looked genuinely pained. ‘I loved Harriet! I knew the two of us were going to be together the day I met her. She was a very attractive young woman and a terrific journalist. I’d never met anyone so ambitious, so determined.’