‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘Because he’d asked you to cover up for him the night before the murder and you’d agreed. He never actually left the theatre. You know that. You lied to the police … and to me.’

‘Leave her alone!’ This was Jordan Williams, getting angrily to his feet.

‘Are you going to deny it, Jordan?’ Hawthorne smiled. ‘We know you’d been arguing with your wife. We know she didn’t come to the first night. And there were a whole load of clothes in your dressing room … You’d even brought along your wedding photograph – the two of you outside Islington Registry Office. You’d had a fight, hadn’t you? You had nowhere else to go, so you were camping out at the theatre.’

‘This has nothing to do with the death of Harriet Throsby!’

‘No? You threaten to kill her – and the night before it happens, you ask Maureen to lie on your behalf—’

‘I didn’t!’

‘—and she agrees because she must have met you when you were playing Mr Mistoffelees in Cats. Maybe it was you who met her backstage that night when she saw it for the hundredth time.’

Jordan took a breath. ‘It was,’ he admitted.

‘He was brilliant!’ Even now, Maureen couldn’t resist a whisper of excitement.

‘Which is why you could be sure she’d agree to sign you out of the theatre that night.’ Before anyone could interrupt, Hawthorne went on. ‘Keith didn’t really know who was entering and leaving. He didn’t see Tony leave either.’

‘I can’t see everything!’ Keith complained, still half concealed in the wings.

Hawthorne ignored him. ‘It was easy enough for Maureen to register that you had left five minutes before her, at ten to one. She made just one mistake. Everyone else had used the twelve-hour clock. You yourself had written that you’d arrived at ten thirty p.m. But she used the twenty-four-hour clock. She arrived at twenty-three twenty-five and left an hour and a half later at zero fifty-five. And she wrote down zero fifty for you.’

‘I was there all night,’ Jordan admitted in a hoarse voice. ‘Jayne and I had had a stupid row – maybe that was why I was so emotional about the review. After the party, I went back to my dressing room and fell asleep almost at once. It had been a long day and I was exhausted. The next morning, I slipped out, using the fire exit downstairs. I went straight home and – Jayne will tell you – I was there by half past ten …’

‘Still enough time to make a detour via Little Venice.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about Harriet Throsby! I wanted to see my wife … to apologise for the things I’d said.’

‘All of you were thinking about Harriet Throsby! We already know about Martin Longhurst and her book. Her review was the first nail in the coffin for Ahmet and his production company, and Maureen wouldn’t have been too happy about that either. Tirian would have had his career screwed if she’d repeated the comments she’d heard him making about Christopher Nolan …’