Irritatingly, Hawthorne didn’t agree.
‘I’m sorry, mate,’ he said, drawing on his cigarette. ‘I know you’re not that crazy about Tirian after he turned down your show. But it doesn’t add up.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, for a start, we can’t be sure that Harriet did actually overhear what Tirian said at the party and nor can he. There were a lot of people in a small restaurant and from what you’ve told me, there must have been quite a bit of noise. Turkish music, people chatting, all the rest of it.’
‘He didn’t need to be sure. He could have gone round to her house and asked her.’
Hawthorne nodded. ‘That’s possible. But you’ve got to remember where the murder took place.’
‘Palgrove Gardens.’
‘I mean – which part of the building.’ Hawthorne looked at me a little sadly. ‘She was killed in the hallway.’
‘What about it?’
‘Look, Tirian might have been worried that Harriet had heard what he said about the film being no good. But there was always a chance she might not have taken it seriously. After all, it was a party. Everyone was drinking. And journalists don’t usually report private conversations.’
‘She wasn’t a journalist.’
‘Fair enough. But he’d still need to be one hundred per cent certain that she was going to write something nasty about him before he knocked her off – otherwise he wouldn’t take the risk. So what would he do? Go round to her house, talk to her, try and explain himself, find out what she’d heard and what she was going to do. She’d said nice things about him in her review. Maybe he could persuade her to forget this little indiscretion. But if, on the other hand, she was determined to go ahead and ruin his career, then, all right, he would have a reason to put a knife in her.
‘But the point is, Tony, would they have had the conversation standing there in the hallway? I don’t think so. They were right next to the door to Harriet’s study. They could have gone in there or into the kitchen and sat down over a nice cup of tea. “Hi, Harriet. I just wanted to tell you that I didn’t mean that stuff I said last night. I was just being stupid … ” That sort of thing.
‘But it never happened. I’d say it’s obvious that whoever arrived at the house that morning went there with one aim in mind, which was to murder her. No chat. No second thoughts. Harriet opened the door and that was the last thing she did.’
‘And it wasn’t Tirian.’
‘It might have been. I got Kevin to do a search on him, by the way. All that stuff he told us about growing up in Wales, his parents dying in a car crash, moving to Harrogate, the National Trust …’
‘And?’
‘It all checks out. The episode of Heartbeat was called “Another Little Piece of My Heart”。 He didn’t get a credit, though.’
‘He was only an extra.’
‘I think they’re called background artists.’
My heart sank. ‘Have you heard anything more from Cara Grunshaw?’
‘She’s not going to call me!’
‘What about the forensic lab?’
‘They haven’t managed to sort themselves out just yet.’ He half smiled. ‘I thought you didn’t approve of my friend Kevin.’
‘I’m willing to make exceptions.’
Hawthorne ground out his cigarette and stood up. I was happy to leave my hot chocolate. It tasted of traffic fumes. ‘Martin Longhurst is waiting for us,’ he said.
Ahmet’s accountant had been at the party; I’d seen him talking to Harriet Throsby. For some reason, he’d been nervous. And lying in bed at four o’clock in the morning, I remembered that hadn’t been the first time I’d seen him either. He’d been sitting one row behind me at the first night of Mindgame. Even so, I still had no idea why Hawthorne was interested in him. We already knew that Ahmet was in financial difficulties. What else could he add?
Unlike their client, Frost and Longhurst were obviously doing well for themselves. They occupied a Queen Anne-style office spread over four storeys in a quiet backstreet. Theirs was the only name on the door and as we entered the reception area with its plush carpet and original oil paintings （horses and country villas）， I couldn’t help thinking of Ahmet’s basement in the Euston Road. Why had they even taken him on as a client? This was an organisation more suited to high-end lawyers, businessmen, hedge-fund managers.