Close to Death

At the door, I had given my name – and my book – to a severe young woman who was either Spanish or Portuguese. This was Maria, Lady Barraclough’s personal assistant. I had explained who I was and asked to speak to Lady Barraclough on an important personal matter, assuring her that it would take no more than ten minutes and that the book was a gift to show my appreciation for her time. Maria had made me wait while she disappeared into the inner recesses of the house. I was quite surprised when, fifteen minutes later, I was invited up to the first floor. We took the stairs, although I noticed what looked like an antique French lift to one side.

‘Why have you come here?’ Lady Barraclough asked me now. She had a throaty voice and when she spoke, something in her throat rippled like a miniature keyboard. ‘What is it you wish to know?’

‘Did you ever meet a man called Daniel Hawthorne?’ I asked her.

She nodded. ‘Of course I met him. I hired him.’

I was surprised she was so matter-of-fact. From the day Hawthorne had walked into my life, he had shrouded himself in mystery, but to her he was just another employee. I wondered what the relationship between them had been like. ‘He investigated your husband,’ I said.

‘Do you really expect me to talk about this with you?’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to intrude—’

‘You are intruding. This is still extremely painful for me. It’s all public knowledge. I’ve had my whole life eviscerated in the tabloid press. Did you read what they wrote?’

‘Some of it.’

‘They are beasts. They have no humanity.’

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then slowly opened them.

‘My husband had an affair with my son’s Russian tutor. Can you imagine that? This woman came into our house. She sat at our table and she ate our food. She taught our son! I call her a woman, but she was only a girl, twenty years younger than my husband. He took her to Grand Cayman. I did not know this, but I suspected it. Men are like schoolboys. Their whole life, they are schoolboys. He lied to me, but I knew he was lying and I was determined to discover the truth.’

She paused and I saw a shroud of puzzlement cross her face and for a brief moment she had forgotten who I was.

‘Why are you asking about him?’ she demanded. ‘What has it got to do with you?’

‘I’m not here about your husband,’ I assured her. ‘I need to contact the agency that you used . . . the one that employed Mr Hawthorne. It’s difficult to explain, but I’d be very grateful if you could give me their address.’

‘What do you need them for?’

‘I’m looking for someone. I’m hoping they may be able to help.’

‘Someone you know?’

‘Someone I want to know.’

She thought for a moment. ‘Marcus always liked your books,’ she said. ‘So did Harry, my youngest son. I don’t see the two of them very much. Marcus went to Montenegro with his father, and Harry . . .’ She tried to summon up a memory of where Harry had gone. It didn’t come. She reached forward and pressed a remote control resting on the table.

‘I think you are making a mistake,’ she said. ‘The company that I used was extremely efficient. They tracked my husband down. They managed to hack into his telephone, although I thought it was meant to be impossible.’ I had an idea who might have done that for them. It had to be Kevin Chakraborty. But I said nothing. ‘They gave me a printout of every single message he had sent his mistress. They even provided me with filmed footage of the two of them in bed together, first in a hotel in London, later in Grand Cayman. When we divorced, they tracked down all his assets, including properties I didn’t even know we had. There was nothing he could hide from them. They delivered him to me, signed and sealed, tied with a red ribbon.

‘But this is what I want you to know. They enjoyed what they did. I asked them for the truth, but they didn’t need to rub my face in it. They spared me no details of my husband’s infidelity—’

‘Are you talking about Hawthorne?’ I interrupted.

‘Not Hawthorne. No. I liked him. He’s a good man, a kind man – not at all like the people he was working for. I sometimes got the feeling that I wasn’t so much their client as their victim. They belong to a different world to you and me and if you employ them, you will understand what I’m saying. My advice to you would be to stay well away. They will cost you a great deal. How many of these books have you sold? You will have to be very wealthy indeed to afford them, but it is not just your money that they will take from you. They’re like vampires. They’ll suck you dry.’

A door opened at the back of the room and the personal assistant appeared.

‘My guest is leaving,’ Lady Barraclough announced. Then, just as I thought she wasn’t going to give me the information I needed . . . ‘The company is called Fenchurch International. Maria will give you their contact details and their address.’

I got to my feet. ‘Thank you, Lady Barraclough.’