Well, here was a chance to redress the balance. If Graham Lucas was going to have his way, Hawthorne would have to enter my world: talks, signing sessions, interviews, festivals. It would all be new to him, but I’d been doing it for thirty years. Just for once, I’d have the upper hand.

I had met him that same afternoon. As always, we sat outside a coffee shop so that he could smoke.

‘It’s eleven o’clock next Tuesday,’ I said. ‘It’ll only be half an hour. They just want to meet you and talk about marketing. When the book comes out, you’re going to have to gear yourself up for joint appearances at some of the major festivals.’

He’d looked doubtful. ‘What festivals?’

‘Edinburgh. Cheltenham. Hay-on-Wye. All of them!’ I knew what mattered most to Hawthorne so I spelled it out for him. ‘Look, it’s very simple. The more books we sell, the more money you’ll make. But that means getting out there. Do you realise that there are about a hundred and seventy thousand books published in the UK every year? And crime fiction is the most popular genre of all.’

‘Fiction?’ He scowled at me.

‘It doesn’t matter how they describe the book. We just have to make sure it’s noticed.’

‘You’re the author. You go to the meeting!’

‘Why do you have to be so bloody uncooperative all the time? Do you have any idea how difficult it is writing these books?’

‘Why? I do all the work.’

‘Yes. But it’s a full-time job making you look sympathetic.’

He looked at me with eyes that were suddenly offended. I’d seen it before, that occasional flicker of vulnerability, reminding me that he was human after all. Separated from his wife and son, living alone in an empty flat, making Airfix models in some echo of a doubtless traumatic childhood, Hawthorne wasn’t as tough as he pretended to be, and perhaps the most annoying thing about him was that, no matter how difficult he was, I still found him intriguing. I wanted to know more about him. When I sat down to write, I was as interested in him as in the mysteries he set out to solve.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ I said. ‘I just need you to come to the publishers. It’s really not that much to ask. Promise me that you will.’

‘Half an hour?’

‘Eleven o’clock.’

‘All right. I’ll be there.’

But he wasn’t.