The Sentence is Death (Detective Daniel Hawthorne 2) by Anthony Horowitz

Author:Anthony Horowitz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2018-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

Your every word a trial

The sentence is death

182.

The number painted on the wall next to the dead body of Richard Pryce.

My head was spinning. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Akira Anno hadn’t just threatened Pryce with murder, she had written about it in a book of poetry. No. That wasn’t fair. She had written a poem about the nature of murder … if that was what the haiku meant. I wasn’t completely sure. Even so, the words had to relate to what had happened in the room. The number couldn’t be a clearer signpost.

But if she had killed Richard Pryce, would she have left a clue that incriminated herself so obviously? And if she hadn’t painted the number, who had and why? I wanted to ask Davina if she had read the haiku but she was looking at me completely innocently, wondering why I was so flabbergasted.

It was at that precise moment that the doorbell rang and I realised Hawthorne had arrived. I was relieved. This was one of those few moments when I actually wanted to see him. He could deal with Davina and ask the questions that needed to be asked, and when we left he could make sense of what I had just discovered.

‘That’s your friend!’

‘Yes.’ The doorbell rang a second time. ‘You’d better let him in,’ I said.

Davina seemed unwilling to leave me on my own but got up and drifted out of the room.

I read the haiku three more times, turning all sorts of possibilities over in my mind. At the same time, I heard Davina’s voice out in the hall, explaining that I was already here, and I wasn’t surprised a few moments later to see Hawthorne glowering at me from the doorway.

‘You’re early,’ he said. Not a statement. An accusation.

‘I was waiting outside—’ I began.

‘I saw him and I invited him in.’ Davina came to my rescue.

‘We’ve just been chatting.’ I was trying to reassure him. ‘Mrs Richardson was showing me some poetry.’

Hawthorne still looked suspicious. He sat down, folding his ever-present raincoat over the arm of the sofa. Davina offered him tea, which he refused, plunging straight in as if to make up for lost time. ‘Did you by any chance see Gregory Taylor last weekend? Possibly sometime late afternoon?’

‘Who?’ She looked perplexed.

‘The man who went caving with your husband.’

‘I know who he is. Of course I know who you mean. Why are you asking me about him?’

‘I don’t want to upset you, Mrs Richardson, but he died last Saturday … one day before the murder of Richard Pryce.’

She wasn’t upset. She was shocked. ‘Gregory’s dead?’

‘He fell under a train,’ I said and immediately wished I hadn’t as it drew another baleful glance from Hawthorne.

‘You didn’t see it in the newspapers?’

‘I don’t really read the newspapers. It’s all so gloomy. I sometimes watch the news on the TV but I didn’t see anything. Well, they probably wouldn’t report it, would they? If a man falls under a train …’

‘I’m not entirely sure he fell.

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