The Twist of a Knife

I turned to say something to Hawthorne, but he had already gone, closing the door softly behind him. I felt bad that I had forced my way in here. I knew very little about his son, William, but Hawthorne had told me they had a close relationship. He slept over sometimes and it wasn’t right, me being here in this room. I saw a photograph in a frame and picked it up. William was a good-looking boy who looked very much like his mother. I had met her once. He had fair hair and an engaging smile. The photograph had been taken at a zoo. William was with Hawthorne, the two of them holding hands, looking at giraffes. Perhaps that was when they had bought the stuffed toy. I wondered who had taken the picture.

It was too late to back out now. I undressed and got into bed. Before I turned out the light, I glanced at the bookshelves that ran the full length of the wall. Hawthorne had once told me that William didn’t read my books, but there they all were, or at least fifteen of them: Alex Rider, the Diamond Brothers, my collection of myths and legends, Granny, Groosham Grange. They looked well thumbed.

To my surprise, I fell asleep almost at once. I suppose I was mentally and physically exhausted. And my last conscious thought as I lay in that narrow bed, with my feet sticking out from under the duvet, was that I was in Hawthorne’s home and that he was also in bed, just a couple of doors away. A lot of strange things had happened in the last four days, but that was the most unlikely of them all.

23 Nothing Personal

I opened my eyes and saw stars. It took me a few moments to remember that they were glued to the ceiling of William’s room and that it was his bed I was in. My feet were cold. The duvet only came down to my ankles. I also had a crick in my neck from sleeping in an awkward position, although it was a miracle I’d been able to sleep at all. A large glass of grappa on an empty stomach had obviously had its effect, although it had left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I should have cleaned my teeth.

I turned over, hearing the springs creak underneath me. Hawthorne had bought his son an old-fashioned metal-framed bed that might have come out of a boarding school or an army camp. For a few moments, I lay there, taking in the complete silence that surrounded me. Every house has its own collection of sounds that become part of its daily rhythm for those who live there. In my Clerkenwell flat it would be the click of the pipework heating up, the whine of the dog waiting for his first walk, the whirr and thud of my wife on her running machine, the voice of Nick Robinson on the radio in the kitchen. Here there was nothing. I listened carefully but there was no movement at all and I wondered if Hawthorne had already left.

I got out of bed and perched on the edge, feeling self-conscious sitting in someone else’s room in my T-shirt and shorts. I had no fresh clothes to change into, so I pulled on my jeans and jersey from the day before. Softly I opened the door and peered out into an empty corridor. The door to Hawthorne’s bedroom was closed, but the guest bathroom was open and, going in, I found a single towel neatly folded on the toilet seat, with a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste sitting side by side on top. The bathroom, incidentally, was immaculate, as if it had never been used. Presumably it was there for William when he visited and that told me something about Hawthorne I had known but never fully acknowledged. He was obsessively clean. Perhaps that was the reason he seldom ate out in public: a fear of germs.

I brushed my teeth and washed and then wiped down the sink, using the towel. I came out of the bathroom and softly called out Hawthorne’s name. There was no reply. I reached for my phone and checked the time. It was almost nine o’clock. My first instinct was to call Jill and tell her where I was, but I was still nervous of the signal being tracked and decided against it. The last thing I wanted to do was bring Cara Grunshaw to Hawthorne’s door. I made my way down the corridor and into the kitchen. There was nobody there, but I saw that a plate and a bowl had been laid on the table. There were two croissants in a bag and a collection of those miniature cereal boxes you sometimes get in hotels. Hawthorne must have gone out and bought the croissants for me. The cereal, I suspected, was William’s.

Hawthorne had left me a newspaper and a note.

Had to go out. Back by eleven. Help yourself to anything in the fridge – don’t make calls and don’t answer the door! In emergency, find Kevin.