‘No? You threaten to kill her – and the night before it happens, you ask Maureen to lie on your behalf—’
‘I didn’t!’
‘—and she agrees because she must have met you when you were playing Mr Mistoffelees in Cats. Maybe it was you who met her backstage that night when she saw it for the hundredth time.’
Jordan took a breath. ‘It was,’ he admitted.
‘He was brilliant!’ Even now, Maureen couldn’t resist a whisper of excitement.
‘Which is why you could be sure she’d agree to sign you out of the theatre that night.’ Before anyone could interrupt, Hawthorne went on. ‘Keith didn’t really know who was entering and leaving. He didn’t see Tony leave either.’
‘I can’t see everything!’ Keith complained, still half concealed in the wings.
Hawthorne ignored him. ‘It was easy enough for Maureen to register that you had left five minutes before her, at ten to one. She made just one mistake. Everyone else had used the twelve-hour clock. You yourself had written that you’d arrived at ten thirty p.m. But she used the twenty-four-hour clock. She arrived at twenty-three twenty-five and left an hour and a half later at zero fifty-five. And she wrote down zero fifty for you.’
‘I was there all night,’ Jordan admitted in a hoarse voice. ‘Jayne and I had had a stupid row – maybe that was why I was so emotional about the review. After the party, I went back to my dressing room and fell asleep almost at once. It had been a long day and I was exhausted. The next morning, I slipped out, using the fire exit downstairs. I went straight home and – Jayne will tell you – I was there by half past ten …’
‘Still enough time to make a detour via Little Venice.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about Harriet Throsby! I wanted to see my wife … to apologise for the things I’d said.’
‘All of you were thinking about Harriet Throsby! We already know about Martin Longhurst and her book. Her review was the first nail in the coffin for Ahmet and his production company, and Maureen wouldn’t have been too happy about that either. Tirian would have had his career screwed if she’d repeated the comments she’d heard him making about Christopher Nolan …’
I thought Hawthorne had dismissed this when I had suggested it to him. But maybe he was just trying to needle Tirian. It worked. ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Tirian snapped. ‘She couldn’t have heard a word I was saying, and why would I care if she did? It was a private conversation. She wouldn’t have been allowed to write about it.’
‘And then there’s Ewan,’ Hawthorne went on. ‘He had a particular loathing for Harriet because of what she’d written about his production of Saint Joan.’
‘That was a long time ago,’ Ewan said.
‘Yes. But as you told us, she chose her words very carefully and she deliberately baited you when you met at the party. It was as if she was mocking you. “Those big hotels don’t exactly light my fire.” Given that you’re now in a relationship with the actress who suffered those injuries, it would hardly be surprising if you were goaded into taking revenge.’
‘Sonja and I have learned to live with what happened. Harriet meant nothing to me.’
‘So you say.’ Hawthorne sounded doubtful.
‘You’ve been talking for a long time, Hawthorne. Is this actually going anywhere?’ The interruption came from the stalls, of course, from Cara Grunshaw.
Hawthorne beamed down at her. ‘Don’t worry if you’re finding it hard to follow, Cara. I’ll go through it all again later.’ He turned back. ‘We all know where we are now,’ he concluded. ‘But before I can tell you who killed Harriet, we need to look at the other two deaths: Frank Heywood and Major Philip Alden. Both of those men were connected to Harriet, so you have to ask – did they in some way inform her murder all these years later?
‘Let’s start with Heywood, the drama critic who supposedly died of a heart attack after eating a dodgy lamb curry at a restaurant called the Jai Mahal. He was a close friend of Harriet’s and it may even be that they were having an affair. That’s what Adrian Wells, her editor, believed. He also told us, by the way, that she always got what she wanted, which I think we already knew, but it does make me ask – if she wanted to take over as drama critic, did she also want him dead?
‘I can’t be certain. This all happened years ago and there are no witnesses. The police never suspected foul play, but then why would they even have looked? Both Harriet and Frank were poisoned. The restaurant was well known for its dodgy cuisine. Anyway, Frank died of a heart attack.