‘Robert Thirkell was a doctor working in Bristol,’ Arthur explained. ‘He killed off half a dozen elderly patients … put rat poison in their tea. He thought he was doing them a favour. Harriet managed to get close to him before he was arrested and the two of them became good friends. That was how she got the material for the book. Sophie Comninos was a hotshot TV executive until she murdered her Greek husband. She smashed a bottle of pink wine over his head after losing at a game of backgammon and then she killed two more people trying to cover it up.’

‘What about this one?’ Hawthorne had picked up Life and Death in an English Village.

‘She got into a lot of trouble with that,’ Arthur said. ‘It was about Trevor and Annabel Longhurst. You may remember them? Their son came under the influence of an older boy and the end result was that he got involved in the death of a teacher at a local primary school. They were living in a village near Chippenham – Moxham Heath – and they weren’t popular. They were very rich. Incomers. Champagne socialists, you might say. They were both of them into politics, big time. Harriet was accused of doing a hatchet job.’

With everything I had learned about Harriet Throsby, that didn’t surprise me.

‘These were all stories she’d covered for the Argus,’ Arthur went on. ‘The books didn’t sell a lot of copies, but the advances helped pay for this place. Anyway, her heart wasn’t in it. Crime, I mean. When I first met her, she was already thinking about moving on.’

Once again, I saw Harriet as she had been, alive and opinionated, at the Turkish restaurant after the play. What was it she had said? ‘I didn’t find it entirely satisfying. Criminals are so boring.’ Her husband might have been blind to her failings, but it seemed he was telling the truth.

‘What did she want to do instead?’ Hawthorne said.

‘She was very good friends with the drama critic at the Argus … a chap called Frank Heywood. She’d go with him to the theatre whenever she could and she’d tell me all about it afterwards. How bad it was, how the lead actor should never have got the part.’ The ghost of a smile shimmered across his face. ‘I think she actually preferred the plays if they were no good. Anyway, she was always reading Frank’s articles and then, after he died, she went straight round to the editor and asked if she could take over.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Food poisoning. Harriet had dinner with him that night and she was very ill too. But Frank had a weak heart and that was the end of him. The editor – his name was Adrian Wells – didn’t want to give her the job. It would mean losing his best crime reporter. But she threatened to walk out if he didn’t do what she wanted, so that was what happened.’ Arthur sighed. ‘She only stayed at the Argus for a couple of years and then she moved up to London. She wrote for The Stage to begin with. After that, she worked on various papers until she got the top job at the Sunday Times.’