‘So we might be all right,’ I said.

‘No, no, no. They still liked the sets, the sumptuous costumes, the music, the performances. With Mindgame … not so much.’ He gazed at me, tears welling in his eyes. ‘I blame myself, Anthony. It is a wonderful play. It is original. Apart from the excessive violence – and we did discuss this – it is highly entertaining. I believed in it and it may be that in the end I did not do it justice. This is my fault. I have let you down.’

I should have argued with him but I was feeling too dispirited.

‘You don’t blame Harriet Throsby?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘Why?’ Ahmet seemed genuinely surprised.

‘I’d have said she had the loudest voice. Certainly, she was the rudest.’ Hawthorne paused. ‘And the first. That may be why she was the one who was stabbed to death.’

‘You believe she was killed because of what she wrote?’ Ahmet shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hawthorne. That is impossible. Sometimes critics upset us. Sometimes they make us angry. But we are never violent!’

‘Jordan Williams was violent. He made threats against her.’

It was Maureen who answered. ‘He did no such thing!’

‘Tony was there. He heard him.’

‘Jordan had been drinking and he was emotional. But it was obvious to everyone in the room that he didn’t mean what he said. He was joking.’

‘A strange sense of humour.’ Hawthorne considered. ‘How well do you know him?’

It was an innocent enough question, but Maureen turned away, leaving it to Ahmet to step in. ‘This was the first time we had worked together. But we got to know each other during rehearsals. Of course he was angry. But I can assure you that he meant nothing by what he said. He was acting!’

‘You were angry too,’ Hawthorne pointed out. ‘You said Harriet Throsby was a liar and that what she wrote was shit.’

Maureen visibly winced when she heard that. She didn’t like bad language. Ahmet glanced at me sadly. ‘Did you tell him that?’ It was clear to me that he felt I had betrayed him. Jordan Williams had said the same. ‘I was upset, of course. It was the first review. But I had no ill feelings towards her personally. She is a woman. She is doing her job. And sometimes, you know, there is nothing you can do. My company has had a run of bad luck. I can blame the critics. I can blame the audiences. But in the end, what good will that do? I made the choices. I blame myself.’

‘You’re going out of business,’ Hawthorne said.

Ahmet didn’t even try to deny it. He nodded. ‘I was meeting with my accountant when you came in. Martin has told me there is no other option. It is not just Mindgame. We lost a great deal of money on Macbeth.’

‘We should have taken out weather insurance,’ Maureen muttered.

‘We discussed this at the time,’ Ahmet snapped back. ‘It was either weather insurance or costumes.’ He collected himself. ‘That was just one in a sea of misfortunes. There are other plays, also, which I have developed and which have never reached the stage and these have also cost money. I have overheads … the rent on this office, the photocopier. Martin has persuaded me that we have come to the end of the road.’