A Line to Kill, Page 2

  The question was directed at Hawthorne, not me.

  ‘I’m OK with radio,’ Hawthorne said.

  ‘Have you had any experience of the media?’

  ‘Only Crimewatch.’

  Tamara, who didn’t smile often, smiled at that. ‘We’ve approached Front Row and Saturday Live,’ she said, speaking to the room. ‘They’re waiting to read the book, but the fact that Mr Hawthorne actually worked for the police is definitely of interest.’

  ‘And the fact that he got thrown out?’ I was tempted to ask.

  Tamara went back to her laptop. ‘We were just talking about literary festivals,’ she went on. ‘And as a matter of fact, we have had an invitation.’

  My ears pricked up at that. The truth is that literary festivals are the best thing in a writer’s life. To start with, they get you out of the house, out of your room. You meet people: readers and writers. You get to visit beautiful cities like Oxford, Cambridge, Cheltenham, Bath. Better still, you might find yourself being whisked abroad – to Sydney, Sri Lanka, Dubai or Berlin. There’s even a literary festival on board Queen Mary 2.

  ‘So where is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s in Alderney. They’re launching a new festival in August and they’d love to have you both.’

  ‘Alderney?’ I muttered.

  ‘It’s a Channel Island,’ Hawthorne told me, unhelpfully.

  ‘I know where it is. I didn’t know they had a literary festival.’

  ‘Actually, they have two.’ Tamara tapped a few buttons, projecting the home page onto the main screen. It read: THE ALDERNEY LITERARY TRUST – SUMMER FESTIVAL. SPONSORED BY SPIN-THE-WHEEL.COM.

  ‘Who are Spin-the-wheel?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re an online casino.’ She obviously shared none of my misgivings. ‘Alderney is a world centre for online gambling. Spin-the-wheel sponsor a lot of things on the island.’ She brought up another page. ‘They have a historical fiction festival in March and it was so successful that they’ve decided to start another. So far they’ve invited Elizabeth Lovell, Marc Bellamy, George Elkin, Anne Cleary and …’ she leaned closer to the screen ‘… Maïssa Lamar.’

  ‘I haven’t heard of any of them,’ I said.

  ‘Marc Bellamy is on television,’ Graham said.

  ‘He’s a cook,’ Hilda added. ‘He has a morning show on ITV2.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I began, although I was aware that I was the only person in the room who was being negative. ‘Alderney’s a tiny place, isn’t it? It seems a very long way to go …’

  ‘It’s forty minutes direct from Southampton,’ Hawthorne said.

  ‘Yes, but—’ I stopped myself. Hawthorne had said that? I looked at him a second time.

  ‘I’m up for it,’ Hawthorne continued cheerfully as I stared at him in disbelief. ‘I’ve always had it in mind to visit Alderney,’ he went on. ‘It’s an interesting place. Occupied in the war.’

  ‘But as Hilda just said, we won’t have any books to sell,’ I reminded everyone. ‘So what’s the point?’

  ‘It could be helpful with pre-orders,’ Graham said. ‘Hilda?’

  Hilda looked up from her mobile, which was lying on the table beside her. ‘I can’t see any harm in it. We can look at it as a dry run, a chance for Anthony and Mr Hawthorne to get their act together. And if the whole thing is a complete disaster, there’s nothing lost.’

  ‘Well, that’s a vote of confidence,’ I said.

  ‘Then it’s agreed.’ Graham was in a hurry to move on. ‘What else?’

  We spent the rest of the meeting talking about Hawthorne. Or rather, Hawthorne talked about himself, focusing mainly on his work. It was interesting how he could say so much and give away so little, something that had infuriated me when I was writing my first book about him. Shortly after twelve, Trish reminded Graham that he had another meeting and told Hilda that her car had arrived to take her to Weymouth Street. Tamara closed her laptop and Hilda drew on her jacket, heading off for her lunch. It was clear to me that all four of them were delighted with Hawthorne. It was smiles all round as they shook hands.

  Even the security guard was beaming at him as we exited onto Vauxhall Bridge Road together. I was in a bad mood and didn’t bother to disguise it.

  ‘What’s the matter, mate?’ Hawthorne took out a cigarette and lit it.

  I jerked a thumb back at the office. ‘They were all over you! What was that all about?’

  ‘They seem like a nice bunch of people.’ Hawthorne contemplated the end of his cigarette. ‘And maybe you should be a bit more charitable. Your agent’s obviously worried about the results of her test.’

  ‘What test? What are you talking about?’

  ‘And Graham’s getting a divorce from his wife.’

  ‘He never said anything about that!’

  ‘He didn’t need to. He’s having an affair with the publicity director, and that girl, Trish, knows all about it. It can’t be too easy for her. Being a new mother and worried about her job.’

  He did this every time we went anywhere new together and I knew he was baiting me. But I refused to play his game.

  ‘I don’t want to go to Alderney,’ I said. I began to walk back to Pimlico tube station. I didn’t care if he followed me or not.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the book won’t be out. There’s no point!’

  ‘I’ll see you there, then.’

  The crime rate on Alderney is so low that it doesn’t even have a police force of its own. There is a police station with one sergeant, two constables and two special constables – but all of them have been seconded from the neighbouring island of Guernsey and there isn’t very much for them to do. Recent offences included ‘taking a conveyance without authority’ and speeding. It’s unclear if they were connected.

  If you ignore the atrocities committed when the island was occupied during the Second World War, throughout the entire history of the place there hasn’t been a single murder.

  That was about to change.

  2

  Departures

  Six weeks later, Hawthorne and I met at Waterloo Station on our way down to Southampton Parkway. It was the second time we had travelled together – the year before, we’d taken the train up to Yorkshire – and he was carrying the same suitcase with no wheels on the bottom that he had probably taken with him to school. He reminded me a little of those children evacuated during the war. He had the same lost quality.

  It seemed to me that he was unusually cheerful. By now I knew him a little better, which is to say that although I had learned very little about his past history, I could at least gauge his moods, and I was certain he was keeping something from me. He’d made it clear that he had no interest in literary festivals, but he’d leapt at the chance to go to Alderney. He’d even known how long it would take to fly. He was clearly up to something – but what?

  The train left on time and he took out a paperback copy of The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. It’s a fantastic ghost story and I guessed he was reading it for his book club. We weren’t even out of the station before I’d tackled him. I couldn’t wait any longer.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘You’re going to have to explain it to me.’

  He looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘You know perfectly well. All that stuff you said at Random House. You told me that Graham was having an affair with Tamara, that Trish knew about it, that she’d just had a baby and that she was worried she was going to lose her job. You also said Hilda was waiting for test results.’

  ‘That was weeks ago, mate!’ He looked at me a little sadly. ‘Have you been obsessing about it?’

  ‘Not obsessing, but I would like to know.’

  ‘You were in the room, Tony. You should have seen it all too.’

  ‘Do me a favour, will you, and just tell me …’

  Hawthorne considered for a moment, then turned his book face down and laid it on the table. ‘Well, let’s start with Hilda. Did you see her arm?’
>
  ‘She was wearing a jacket.’

  ‘No. She’d taken it off and put it on the back of her chair. There was a little patch where the skin was a bit paler, right over the median cubital vein.’

  ‘I don’t even know what that is.’

  ‘It’s where the needle goes in for a blood test. She was nervous about something. She was puffing on that vape and she kept on looking at her phone like she was waiting for a text … maybe from the doctor. And that lunch of hers in Weymouth Street. I bet she made it up. It’s just round the corner from Harley Street, which is where all the doctors hang out.’

  ‘What about Graham and Tamara?’

  ‘The intern – Trish – told him his wife had called twice and that it was important, but he didn’t even ask what it was about. It was obviously something that had been going on for a while. Trish didn’t even wait for him to make a decision, which is a bit strange when you think about it. I can tell her you’re in a meeting, she said. But she was looking at Tamara when she said it.’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean they are having an affair.’

  ‘Didn’t you smell Tamara’s perfume?’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I did. And it was all over Graham.’

  I nodded slowly. I had thought it was aftershave. ‘What about Trish?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t notice any prams or baby photos.’

  ‘Well, something’s been keeping her awake at night. She looked worn out. And there was a stain on her left shoulder. The only way it could have got there was from burping a baby. You only have to do that until they’re seven or eight months old, so why hasn’t she taken the full twelve months’ maternity leave? She probably hasn’t been at the company that long … she’s only about twenty. I imagine she got pregnant quite soon after she arrived and although they can’t fire her, she’s come back as soon as she can because she’s worried about her future.’

  He made it all sound so easy but of course that was the whole point. He liked to remind me who was in charge. We didn’t talk again after that. Hawthorne went back to his book and I took out my iPad and went through my emails.

  From the moment my publishers had accepted the invitation to Alderney, I’d been bombarded with messages from the festival organiser, Judith Matheson, and already I was nervous about meeting her. She seemed quite formidable, chasing me for information and following up if she hadn’t had a reply within a few hours. Would I be happy staying at the Braye Beach Hotel? Did I have any special dietary requirements? Did I want to rent a car? Would I be signing books? She had arranged the train and air tickets, booked my hotel room and made sure I had access to an up-to-date festival programme. Only the evening before, she had emailed me to say that a few of the invited writers would be congregating at the airport and that I should join them at the Globe Bar and Kitchen just before security and passport control. You’ll have time for a pub platter and a pint before you take off, she wrote, even suggesting what I might eat.

  I swiped across to the festival website and checked out the writers with whom I was going to be spending a long weekend.

  Marc Bellamy

  Marc needs no introduction, as anyone who has watched his Sunday-morning cookery show – Lovely Grub – on ITV2 will know. Marc isn’t afraid of ruffling feathers with his no-nonsense approach to cuisine that he promises will be anything but ‘haute’. Old-school favourites including steak pie, fried chicken and sticky toffee pudding are on the menu, and in the words of his catchphrase, ‘It’s cobblers to calories’. He’ll be celebrating the launch of the Lovely Grub Cookbook on Alderney and has agreed to prepare a Saturday-night supper for the festival organisers and guests.

  Elizabeth Lovell

  Born with diabetes, Elizabeth Lovell lost her eyesight just before her thirtieth birthday. At the same time, though, she realised that she had developed a unique gift to ‘see’ into the spirit world and to hear voices from the other side. Her story was told in her autobiography, Blind Sight, which sold two hundred thousand copies online. This was followed by Second Sight and her new book, Dark Sight, which continues her story. Elizabeth lives in Jersey with her husband, Sid. She gives talks all over the world and we are delighted to welcome her back to Alderney.

  George Elkin

  George Elkin is Alderney’s most famous historical writer. He was born and brought up in Crabby, where he still lives with his wife, and brilliantly described the German occupation of the Channel Islands 1940–45 in his first book, The German Occupation of the Channel Islands 1940–45. This was followed by Operation Green Arrow and The Atlantic Wall, both of which were shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize. He will be talking about his next book, which examines the construction and running of the four labour camps built by the Germans on Alderney during the war. He is also a keen birdwatcher and amateur artist.

  Anne Cleary

  Is there anyone under the age of ten who hasn’t followed the adventures of Bill and Kitty Flashbang, the super-powered twins? Bill can fly, Kitty turns invisible and together they have saved the world from ghosts, dragons, mad robots and alien invaders! A former nurse, prison visitor and founder of the charity Books Behind Bars, Anne Cleary will be talking about the inspiration behind her work and there will be a special children’s session at (appropriately!) St Anne’s School, where young people will be encouraged to develop their writing and drawing skills.

  Daniel Hawthorne and Anthony Horowitz

  You may have read detective stories, but here’s your chance to meet a real detective. Daniel Hawthorne spent many years working at Scotland Yard in London before he became a private investigator. He works now as a special consultant on many high-level investigations, the most recent of which has been turned into a book (published later this year) by best-selling author Anthony Horowitz, who also wrote the Alex Rider series. The two of them will be interviewed by States member Colin Matheson and there will be plenty of opportunity for questions from audience members with a taste for true crime.

  Maïssa Lamar

  We are very pleased to welcome Maïssa Lamar from France, where she has won great acclaim as a performance poet. Born and educated in Rouen, she writes and performs in Cauchois, a dialect spoken in the east of Normandy, which has led Le Monde newspaper to describe her as ‘a leading light in the revival of Cauchois culture’. Maïssa is also an associate professor at the University of Caen and has published three collections of poetry. Her performance at the Alderney Summer Festival will be conducted partly in English and partly in French with English subtitles.

  So that was it: an unhealthy chef, a blind psychic, a war historian, a children’s author, a French performance poet, Hawthorne and me. Not quite the magnificent seven, I couldn’t help thinking.

  There were just three of them waiting for us at the Globe Bar and Kitchen when we finally arrived. George Elkin was presumably at his home in Crabby. Elizabeth Lovell and her husband, Sid, would be crossing by ferry from Jersey. But Marc Bellamy, Anne Cleary and Maïssa Lamar were already sitting round a table, chatting away as if they were old friends. It turned out that they had all come down on the train ahead of us, along with another young woman, Kathryn Harris, who introduced herself as Marc’s assistant.

  It’s an incredible thought that there are more than three hundred and fifty literary festivals in the UK. I’ve been to many of them. Appledore, Birmingham, Canterbury, Durham … It wouldn’t be difficult to travel the entire country from north to south, working my way through the alphabet at the same time. I think there’s something wonderful and reassuring about the idea that in the rush of modern life people will still come together and sit for an hour in a theatre, a gymnasium or a giant tent simply out of a love of books and reading. There’s a sort of innocence about it. Everyone is so friendly and I’ve hardly ever met a writer – no matter how big a best-seller – who’s been difficult or stand-offish; on the contrary, many of them have become good friends. Somehow, when I think of literary festivals (even Hay-on-Wye, where this is very ra
rely the case), the sun is always shining.

  But I was uneasy as I sat down with the other guests in Southampton. Our surroundings didn’t help. The Globe was an airport restaurant serving airport food. That was the best and the worst I could say of it. The bright lighting and open-plan configuration, spilling into the terminal, didn’t help. We might just as well have been eating on the runway. Also, I still wasn’t convinced that Alderney was a good idea. With just six weeks’ notice, I hadn’t had time to prepare and I still had no idea how Hawthorne would perform when he was put on a stage. Talking about Alex Rider or Sherlock Holmes was one thing, but having the subject of the book sitting next to me would put me well outside my comfort zone. And it wasn’t just that. As I joined Marc, Anne and Maïssa at the table, I immediately felt that I was an outsider, that I didn’t belong.

  I recognised Marc Bellamy from the photograph I had seen of him on the festival website. He was even wearing the same clothes: a bottle-green jacket, an open-neck shirt with a double-sized collar and a pair of half-rim reading glasses on a gold chain around his neck. Like many of the television celebrities I had met, he was actually much smaller than he seemed on the screen and although his teeth were very white and his tan very deep, he didn’t look well. Perhaps that went with his persona. After all, he specialised in unhealthy food, railing against vegans, vegetarians and pescatarians (‘the worst of the lot … there’s something fishy about them’) on his show. Of course, he was only having fun, delivering his jokey insults with an exaggerated Yorkshire accent accompanied by a nudge and a wink. He was overweight – chubby rather than fat. His hair was swept back in waves with a little silver around the ears. His nose was a road map of broken blood vessels. I guessed he was about forty.