A Line to Kill

‘I’ve got someone in London who may be able to help,’ Hawthorne muttered. But even as he spoke, he was rifling through the address book that Mrs Carlisle had mentioned. It had been on the bedside table, an expensive thing with gold-edged pages and a padded cover with a Liberty pattern. He turned to the back and smiled. ‘No surprises here,’ he said. ‘Credit cards, computers, mobiles, the lot. Seems that “Mrs Lem” liked to keep all her passwords in one place.’

‘Very foolish of her,’ Torode said. ‘Anyone could have found it.’

‘I just did.’ Hawthorne took the iPhone from the police officer and entered the code to unlock it. He quickly scrolled through the most recent text messages, reading them intently. When he looked up, he was uneasy. ‘You should see this,’ he said.

Torode and I moved closer as Hawthorne held out the screen and showed us a chain of communication between Helen le Mesurier and an unknown correspondent, the panels alternating white and blue. This is how it read:

What happened last night?

I saw you leave with Charles. Into the sunggery. WTF?

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

I SAW YOU!!!!

Who did you tell?

I didn’t tell anyone why are you even asking me that?

We may have problems. We need to talk. Can I come over?

IDK. I’ve got police all over the f*ing house. This is crazy.

Can you come to me?

OK. When?

2.30pm

OK. OTW. CUL8R.

‘What does that mean? “CUL8R”?’ Torode asked.

‘See you later,’ Hawthorne said.

‘Well, it should be easy enough to find out who she was talking to.’

Hawthorne shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. There’s no name or phone number showing at the top of the screen. Whoever texted her could have been using a burner phone. Or there are plenty of websites he could have logged into to make himself anonymous – Bollywood Motion, SeaSms.com and so on. It depends how careful he was being.’

Hawthorne knew a lot about computers. He had mentioned he had someone who could help him in London and I had actually met him. He was a neighbour, a young man with muscular dystrophy, who sat in a room surrounded by industrial-sized computers and high-tech paraphernalia and helped Hawthorne hack into the police computer system whenever he needed information. Just for fun, he had even hacked into my phone.

‘How can you be so sure it’s a he?’ I asked.

‘There’s something about her texts that make me think they’re addressed to a man.’ Hawthorne was still holding the phone in his hand. ‘If it was a girlfriend, I think she’d be a bit more personal. Also, unlike her, he doesn’t use any abbreviations.’

‘Mrs le Mesurier knew who killed her husband,’ Torode said. ‘She was protecting him.’

‘She saw something out of her bedroom window last night,’ Hawthorne admitted. He was angry with himself. ‘I knew she was lying to me when I spoke to her this morning. She was too bloody insistent. Even if I had looked out of the window – and I didn’t – it would have been too dark … But in the next breath she was telling me that there were lights on in the Snuggery, which would have lit up anyone who approached. A double lie.’

‘Shame you didn’t tell me this sooner,’ Torode muttered.

‘Shame your people let her leave,’ Hawthorne replied.

He was still thumbing through the other messages on the phone. It’s interesting how we all carry around with us a complete record of our lives, where we’ve been, what we’ve been thinking at any given time. Writing the biography of people born in the twenty-first century will be incredibly easy because the researchers won’t have to do any work. It’ll all be there, spelled out in minute detail.

Helen le Mesurier had texted Nora Carlisle with shopping lists and cleaning instructions, but it was all quite brisk, with no sign of the fondness that the housekeeper had suggested. She had maintained a brisk, quite business-like relationship with her husband; none of the texts between them were more than half a dozen words. On the other hand, she had sent gushing messages to ‘JF’ in Paris and I was just glad that she hadn’t attached photographs. JF wasn’t alone. There was Martin, Bobby, Otto, Sergei … a long list of men with whom she had been entwined. Hawthorne had to scroll through a string of messages before he found the texts he was looking for. They were spread out over a week. They had been sent six months ago and whoever had received them had replied by phone, as if they didn’t want to commit themselves to anything in writing.

Hi, Colin. No regrets. You warm, funny, kind man. Talk soon. ILU.

Don’t blank me, C. What happened happened. Je ne regrette etc. Let’s talk soon.

Colin. Call me!!!

OMG, Colin. That’s not possible. OK. Will call again tonight. No more texts. Are you sure? What has he got?

Col, I need to see you! We can work this out. Where/when? LMK. Really worried now.

‘Any idea who Colin is?’ Torode asked.

‘Could be anyone,’ Hawthorne said.