Close to Death

1

It was four o’clock in the morning, that strange interval between night and morning when both seem to be fighting each other for control of the day ahead. Riverview Close was perfectly silent, nothing moving, not a single light showing behind any of the windows – which was exactly how Adam Strauss liked it. He could imagine the entire world hanging in outer space, undecided, catching its breath while the mechanism of the universe ticked slowly round, preparing for the business of the next twenty-four hours, the start of another week. He alone was awake. Even the birds hadn’t begun their infernal dawn chorus and the road, invisible on the other side of the brick wall that enclosed his garden, was delightfully empty of traffic.

It had been two hours since he had climbed out of bed and dressed himself in the smoking jacket, crisp white shirt and bow tie that his wife had left out for him. In the world he inhabited, what he chose to wear was not just a choice, it was a strategy, and it made no difference if, as now, his audience was unable to see him. He could see himself and, more importantly, his self-image, carefully created over several decades. His one deviation was the velvet slippers he had put on at the last minute, leaving the freshly polished shoes by the door. Slippers would be more comfortable and they were quieter, ensuring that Teri wouldn’t be woken up as he made his way downstairs.

He was sitting, alone, in the long room that occupied almost the entire ground floor of The Stables, an open-plan kitchen at one end and a library/television area with its comfortable arrangement of sofas and chairs at the other. His seat was on castors, allowing him to slide up and down, alongside the eighteenth-century oak refectory table that had been rescued from a French monastery and which could easily have seated a dozen frères. The table drew a straight line from one end of the room to the other.

Six laptop computers had been placed side by side on the wooden surface and, apart from a single lamp in one corner, the only illumination in the room came from the glow of their screens. They sat in a sprawl of wires with an extension lead and plug connecting each one to the mains. The laptops could easily have operated on their own batteries for the required four hours, but Adam would have been aware of the power running down, of the battery symbols at the top of the screens diminishing, and even the faintest concern that one of them might blink out would have been enough to put him off his stride. He needed total focus. Everything had to be exactly right.

Adam Strauss, a grandmaster, had already played twenty-two games of simultaneous chess, connected over the internet to clubs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Palm Springs. There were two sessions: he was well into the second, with twenty-four games, four to a screen, in front of him. The tournament had begun at six o’clock in the evening, Californian time – which was why he’d had to get up so early and continue through the night. In fact, it made little difference to him. Whether he was involved in a single game or a tournament, when he was playing chess he might as well have been on the moon. He wouldn’t even notice the lack of gravity – or air.

Adam had won all twenty-two games in the first round and so far had seen off seventeen of his opponents in the second, although he had been pleasantly surprised by the abilities of these American amateurs. One of them – a man called Frank (no surnames were being used) – had managed to shatter his kingside pawn structure and he had been lucky to engineer a passed pawn for the endgame. Moving now to the next screen, he saw that Frank had pulled back a bishop, only making his position worse. Surely he could see that there were five moves to mate against any defence? The other contests were also drawing to a close and, at the current rate of play, he calculated that in eighteen minutes it would all be over. Theoretically, it didn’t matter if he lost or drew; the fee he was being paid would stay the same. But Adam had decided that he wanted to make a clean sweep: forty-six games, forty-six wins. However well they had played, these people were amateurs. They should have expected nothing less.

He advanced a rook on one screen (leaving it en prise . . . would Dean be unwise enough to take the bait?), put Charmaine in check (mate in three) and was just focusing on the next game, about to make his move, when he heard the gate opening outside his house.

Riverview Close was set back from the main road, connected to it by a narrow drive that ran through an archway with an electronic gate controlling who came in and out. Adam Strauss’s house was right next to this entrance and although he couldn’t hear the gate from his bedroom, which was on the other side, he was quite close to it here. Even as the mechanism whirred into action, it was accompanied by a blast of pop music cutting through the air like a blade through grey silk. ‘So we danced all night to the best song ever . . .’ The lyrics were so loud they were echoing in the room and, for a brief moment, Strauss froze, his index finger hanging over the trackpad. He knew the car. He knew the driver. It was so typical. Only one man could be as gauche, as inconsiderate as this.

He looked up at the screen and even as he felt the cool touch of the plastic against his finger, he saw to his dismay that he had allowed his hand to fall. He had accidentally pressed the key and selected the wrong piece! The next move had been clear in his head: ♘xf2. It was so obvious, it could have been signposted in neon. But somehow he had managed to highlight the king standing next to the knight and the rules dictated that there could be no going back. He had to reposition the king on a legal square, although he saw at once that any move involving that piece would destroy his game. In that tiny second of non-concentration, he had ruined everything. It was over!

And so it proved. A tiny part of him had hoped that his opponent – Wayne – unable to believe his good luck, would come to the conclusion that Adam had laid some deep and impenetrable trap and would make a mistake of his own. Wayne was not a strong player. His opening had been standard, his middle game confused and he had stumbled into an endgame that should have been over in no more than six moves. But when, after completing another circuit, Adam returned to the game, he saw that Wayne had advanced his rook (♜d4), closing in for the kill. With a flicker of annoyance, he resigned.

Forty-five wins. One defeat. Somewhere in Santa Barbara he could imagine a schoolteacher or an accountant, or worse still a teenager, whooping it up. Wayne Nobody had just outmanoeuvred the man who had once beaten Kasparov and Spassky. On the thirty-eighth move. In a game that had been Adam’s for the taking.

Fifteen minutes later, sitting there, utterly still, he heard a movement behind him. Teri, his wife, had come into the room, making no sound, her bare feet soft on the carpet. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder but didn’t speak until he looked up and she knew that the tournament had ended.

‘How did it go?’ she asked.

‘Did you hear the car?’ he asked back.

She nodded. ‘It woke me up.’ She glanced at the blank screens. ‘What happened?’

‘I lost focus. I threw a game away.’

Teri walked over to the front window and looked out. She saw that lights had come on in the big house on the far side of the close. A bright green sports car was parked outside the front door, its roof still down. For a moment, she didn’t speak. She knew exactly what was going on inside her husband’s head. She also knew that it was twenty past four and time to get back to bed. ‘Just one game?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You won all the others . . .’

‘Yes.’ He sounded irritable. Far from victorious.

‘Of course it’s annoying, Adam.’ She was talking quickly, not allowing him to interrupt. ‘But it’s not important at all. It wasn’t over the board and it won’t be reported.’ She smiled and held out a hand. ‘Why don’t you come up and get some sleep? You’ll have forgotten the whole thing by tomorrow.’

Adam stood up and put his arms around her. She was wearing an ivory-coloured nightie which hung loosely off her shoulders and her skin had the wonderful warmth that is only generated beneath the covers of a bed. There was a faint muskiness about her. He would have recognised that scent anywhere. Teri was his second wife. His first marriage had been a hopeless mistake, but with her he had found the love of his life. He allowed the memory of forty-five of the games he had just played to slip away from him.

But one still remained.

Suddenly tired, Adam Strauss followed his wife upstairs. At the far end of the close, the lights in the big house blinked off.

2

Tom Beresford also heard his neighbour arrive, but in his case it was the slam of the car door rather than the strains of One Direction at full volume that jerked him out of his shallow sleep. Even without looking, he could tell exactly where the emerald-green Porsche Boxster (number plate COK 999) had parked. The sound of the tyres on the gravel and the crunch of footsteps heading towards the front door of the big house had given him a perfect mental image. It was going to happen again. When he tried to drive to work in about three hours’ time, the car would be on the drive, perhaps with an inch either side allowing him to squeeze his way through, although it was more likely that he would have to ring the doorbell, engage in another pointless confrontation and quite probably end up walking or taking the bus to his surgery in Richmond.

He glanced sideways, searching for the silhouette of his wife in the darkness. Gemma was lying on her back, quite still apart from the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest. He was glad she hadn’t been woken up, although if there had been the slightest sound from the twins next door, she would have been out of bed in an instant. Forget the fact that there was a live-in nanny upstairs, fast asleep in her cosy room built into the eaves. Gemma had been connected to the girls from the day they had been born. If one of them fell over and hurt herself in a playground a mile away, she would somehow know.

Lying on his back next to his sleeping wife, alone but not alone, Dr Beresford had that familiar sense of a life no longer in his control. He had never wanted to come to Riverview Close, even if the house had seemed perfect when the estate agent had shown them round. A study for him, a garden for the children, the river, a golf club and the deer park all nearby. Richmond was regularly voted one of the happiest places in London, but he still missed the terraced house in Notting Hill Gate where he and Gemma had first lived together and where he’d had his own parking spot with no arguments, nobody blocking the way.

He also missed his old surgery. What was it that had changed, moving just seven miles west? He liked the other GPs he was working with in Richmond, although he saw very little of them. He was busier than he’d ever been, tired when he arrived at his consulting room and worn out by the time he left. He thought about the day ahead. Monday . . . always the worst day of the week. He could expect twenty patients in his morning surgery, as many as twenty-five in the afternoon. There would be the usual backlog from the weekend. He could already see the letters piled up on his desk: clinic letters, lab reports, referrals, hospital discharge letters demanding one action or another. QOF indicators, CCG prescribing initiatives, CQE assessments. This was something that had become ever more apparent in the years since he had left Notting Hill. He had to wade through a slurry of different acronyms before he could actually start doing his job.

There was an unpleasant taste in his mouth and he remembered the whiskies he had thrown back before he’d gone to bed – but after he’d cleaned his teeth. The mixture of mint, fluoride and single malt had left an indelible coating on his tongue. If he had thought it would help him sleep, it had done exactly the opposite.

He was aware of a movement in the corner of his vision, as if someone or something had entered the room. But there was nobody there. The lights had gone out in the big house, allowing the night to leap up, filling in the corners. He closed his eyes. Go back to sleep, he told himself. Count sheep! Think about chapter six of Fishburne and Grove: Workforce Planning and Development in the NHS. Sink into the pillows and forget everything else. He should have taken a sleeping pill. He had prescribed zolpidem for himself. The 5 mg sleeping pills worked quickly and caused no residual cognitive impairment. Nor were they addictive. He took them once or maybe twice a week but never more than that. He had the situation under control. He was tempted to swallow one now, but even half a pill at this time of the morning would be disastrous. The one thing he couldn’t do today was oversleep.

Quite apart from all the paperwork and the half-dozen home visits he would have to fit in (although he wondered if Mrs Leigh, with her enlarging aortic aneurism, would have survived the weekend), he had been asked to interview another candidate for the nurse vacancy that the practice had been unable to fill for the past three months. There was a young man due to arrive once the surgery closed – if he remembered to turn up. Just thinking about it all made his head hurt. If he was lucky, he would be home by seven for a quick dinner with Gemma before the meeting that had been called half an hour later at The Stables, the home of Adam Strauss.

That was the only thing that was keeping him going.

There was no point lying here trying to get back to a sleep that would never come. Dr Beresford gently slid out of the covers on his side of the bed, got up and padded out of the bedroom, dragging his dressing gown with him but leaving his slippers behind. Gemma always left the door ajar for the twins, so there was no need to turn the handle, no click from the spring mechanism inside the lock.

He padded down to the kitchen and it was only when he was there that he turned on the light. A half-empty bottle of single malt and a glass with an inch of water from melted ice stood on the counter, accusing him. He had let Gemma go to bed ahead of him, saying he had wanted to catch up with his emails – which was true. But it had also been an excuse to squeeze a few last drops of pleasure out of the weekend. If he were one of his patients, he would interrogate himself as to how much he was drinking. And like most of his patients, he would lie.

He flicked the kettle on and set about making himself a cup of coffee. If he turned on the grinder, he would only wake up the entire house. He would have to make do with instant. It didn’t matter. Was it too early for a cigarette? He hadn’t told Gemma that he was smoking again, but he wasn’t going outside, barefoot, in his pyjamas. He waited for the kettle to boil. Forget the endless paperwork, the patients and his room at the surgery that backed on to the A316 with the traffic rushing past and the smell of exhaust fumes. Don’t worry about Mrs Leigh. What mattered right now was the driveway used by all the residents of Riverview Close. Think about the meeting! It was happening tonight: a chance to come face to face with Giles Kenworthy and settle all the grievances that had been mounting up from the day their new neighbour had arrived. The noise, the parties, the ugly camper van, the smoke from the BBQs – but worse than all of these, the shared driveway. It had become an obsession with him. He knew it was ridiculous, but he was sure the challenge of getting in and out of it was the real reason why Richmond felt so alien to him.

Everything had been fine when he bought Gardener’s Cottage, the second-largest house in the close. Or rather, when Gemma had bought it. It was her money that had made it possible, her success as a jewellery designer running an international business with boutiques in London, Paris, New York and Dubai. The three-storey house stood on the side furthest away from the entrance. To reach it, you drove through the automatic gate, past a line of terraced cottages and then round the top of a circle of grass and flower beds in the centre of the courtyard: effectively a roundabout with its own one-way system. Everyone travelled anticlockwise.

Things became more complicated, though, as Dr Beresford approached his own home. There were three garages in Riverview Close and, perhaps sensibly, the architects had built them out of sight, round the backs of the houses to which they belonged. The problem for Dr Beresford was that he shared a narrow driveway which led off from the roundabout and ran a short distance between the side of Gardener’s Cottage and the garden wall that belonged to Riverview Lodge before coming to a fork at the end: left for the Beresfords, right for the Kenworthys. Both families used this same stretch of gravel to reach their garages, but if Giles Kenworthy parked outside his own garage, it made it almost impossible for Dr Beresford to drive past and enter his.

The Kenworthys, who had come to Riverview Lodge seven months ago, had a two-car garage of their own. Unfortunately, they owned four cars. As well as the Porsche, there was a Mercedes, a Mini Cooper driven by Lynda Kenworthy and a Pontiac LeMans cabriolet, an absurd (and wide) classic car from the seventies. They had also parked a white VW camper van in the space next to their garage. It had never moved from the day it had arrived and for Dr Beresford it had become a skulking monster that he couldn’t help noticing every time he went into his bathroom.

Giles Kenworthy worked in finance, of course. He was one of those people who made money out of money but did nothing for anybody around them. He didn’t save lives, for example, or go into schools to lecture children on healthy eating. But that wasn’t what bothered Tom Beresford. It was the man’s extraordinary sense of entitlement, his utter lack of kindness or empathy. How many times had Tom explained he needed to get in and out whenever he wanted, that he might have to reach his surgery for an emergency? Kenworthy always had an excuse. It was late. I was in a hurry. I was only there for half an hour. You could have got past. But he never listened.

Tom Beresford had taken legal advice. As it happened, one of his neighbours – Andrew Pennington – was a retired barrister and he had examined the management contract they had all signed. The entire driveway, including the section that led to the two garages, belonged to all six houses in the close, meaning that any costs for its maintenance and repair were divided between them. Burrow into the small print and you would discover that everyone was legally obliged ‘to be considerate and not block the driveway from other users’. But what did that mean, exactly? How did you prove a lack of consideration? And if one person was being wilfully obstructive, what could you do about it? Andrew Pennington had advised patience and negotiation.

But it was driving Tom Beresford mad.

He went over to the kitchen window and pressed his face against the glass, looking obliquely out. He saw it at once, exactly where he had expected it to be: facing his garage, its bright green backside visible where the front wall ended, jutting into the middle of the drive. The rage he felt at that moment was almost physical, a wave of nausea and tiredness that shuddered through him. Much of it was caused by his work, the twins, Mrs Leigh, the form-filling, the hours, the bills, the complete helplessness, the sense of being adrift in his own life. But above all it was Giles Kenworthy’s car. It wasn’t fair. He had spent his entire life helping other people. How could one man treat him with such contempt?

They were going to meet tonight. Everyone who lived in Riverview Close. There was to be a reckoning.

For Tom Beresford, it couldn’t come soon enough.

3

Despite its name, Riverview Close had no view of the River Thames.

It stood in the grounds of a former royal residence, Rievaulx Hall, built in 1758 for Jane Rievaulx, a less well-known mistress of King George II. According to contemporary reports, the original house was something of a rarity: a Palladian villa that managed to be asymmetrical and ugly. It was perhaps no surprise that its architect, William de Quincey, eventually died in a prison that, by coincidence, he had also designed. Nothing remained of the old house. It had been damaged by fire in the early nineteenth century, left abandoned for almost a hundred and fifty years and finally bombed in 1941 by the Luftwaffe, who had done the entire neighbourhood a favour by getting rid of what had become a well-known eyesore. At some time during all this, Rievaulx had been distorted into Riverview, either because the locals had no time for fancy French names or simply because they were unable to spell it properly.

What had been left of the estate was an irregular patch of land just off the Petersham Road, separated from the River Thames by a thick ribbon of woodland, with the towpath on the other side and no glimpse of the water, not even in winter when the branches were bare. Even so, the misnomer had stuck and when the area was finally developed with six new houses, the largest of them standing in the footprint of the original villa and two others built where the gardener’s cottage and the stables had been, Riverview Close was what it was called.

The architects had decided on a deliberately picturesque design using traditional stock brick that might have characterised an English village, along with Dutch gables, sash windows and plenty of flowers and shrubbery to help the new owners forget that they were on the edge of a major city and, indeed, in the modern world. Once the gate swung shut, the close lived up to its name in every respect. It was a tightly knit community. In fact, it was almost hermetically sealed. Yes, you could still hear the traffic crawling up and down Richmond Hill – particularly in the morning and evening rush hours. But the sound was counterbalanced by birdsong, the whirr of weekend lawnmowers, the occasional snatch of Bach or Sidney Bechet through an open window. Everyone knew each other. Everyone got on.

At least, they had until the Kenworthys arrived.

Andrew Pennington had been at home that day and had watched the removal men drive in, the pantechnicons only just scraping under the archway directly outside his house. He wasn’t sure what the procession resembled more: a royal pageant or a funeral. One after another they had pulled up outside Riverview Lodge, a dozen young men bursting out and then scurrying around with boxes, crates and different pieces of furniture shrouded in what must have been a mile of bubble wrap. Andrew had already spoken to Adam Strauss, who had sold the property and then moved into The Stables, on the other side of the entranceway from him. He had learned that Giles Kenworthy was some sort of hedge fund manager, with offices in Liverpool Street. His wife, Lynda, was a retired flight attendant. They had two children – Hugo, twelve, and Tristram, nine – both of them at a local prep school, on their way to Eton. They had a ski chalet in Les Trois Vallées. They had been living in Guildford but wanted to be closer to London.

The family had arrived a few days after their furnishings. Andrew knew the moment they were there. They had announced their presence with pop music pounding out from somewhere upstairs, followed shortly by the snarl of buzz saws as two English yews that had been planted a few years back were chopped down to make way for a patio extension. A day later, he had spotted two boys chasing each other round the close on skateboards, armed with plastic Star Wars lightsabres. Two cars had already driven (the wrong way) round the roundabout and taken a tight right turn into the garage. A third, a Mercedes-Benz M-Class, took its place on the drive. All of this might have set him against his new neighbours, but Andrew preferred to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was perhaps a paradox that forty years as a criminal barrister had persuaded him to see the best in the worst of people, but then again he had always worked in defence and had learned that although everyone had the capacity to commit murder, even the most cold-blooded killers had a grain of goodness buried somewhere inside them, if you just looked hard enough. Fear, guilt, remorse . . . It took many forms, but he had never met anyone with no humanity at all.

His career was behind him now. He had retired at about the same time his wife had been diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually take her from him. With the encouragement of his neighbours, he had planted the flowers in the courtyard roundabout, each one of them a small celebration of her life. There were white peonies, which she had carried in her wedding bouquet, and lavender, a perfume she had often worn. Argyranthemum ‘Jamaica Primrose’, because that was where she had been born and where the two of them had met. And sweet iris, which recalled her name. Riverview Close employed a full-time gardener and handyman – in fact a woman – but she never touched the flower display. Andrew insisted on doing all the work himself.

His first meeting with Giles Kenworthy had been nothing short of a disaster.

On the first Sunday afternoon following their arrival, Andrew had walked round with a ginger cake he had baked that morning and which he thought might be a nice way to introduce himself. It was the last week in November and surprisingly warm, one of those days that the British weather occasionally throws out to take everyone by surprise. He had nearly always done the cooking when Iris was alive and his ginger cake with cinnamon and black treacle had been one of her favourites.

Carrying the cake in a plastic box, Andrew had crossed the close and rung the doorbell of Riverview Lodge. He had often been in the house when Adam Strauss had lived there – there had been regular suppers and drinks parties in each other’s homes – and he resisted the temptation to peer into the windows on either side to see what changes had been made. After a long wait, just when he was tempted to ring a second time, the door suddenly jerked open and Andrew was given his first close-up view of his new neighbour.

Giles Kenworthy did not look very friendly, as if he had been disturbed in the middle of something important. He was a short man with very dark, beady eyes and neatly combed hair that was so jet black it might have been dyed. His cheeks were round and well polished, and this, along with his upturned nose and the white cricket jersey he was wearing, suggested something of the schoolboy about him, although he must have been in his forties. He was smiling but in an unpleasant way. It was the way a child might smile whilst pulling the legs of a spider.

‘Yes?’ he said. He had a high-pitched voice. A single word was enough to reveal his public-school background. Andrew hesitated, and in that moment, Kenworthy took control of the situation. ‘It’s going round the back,’ he said. ‘You can use the garden gate.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You’re delivering the barbecue?’ It was as much a statement as a question. Kenworthy looked past him. ‘Where’s your van?’

‘No. I’m your neighbour. I just wanted to welcome you to the close.’ Andrew lifted the Tupperware box. ‘I made this for you.’

Kenworthy’s face fell. ‘God! What a stupid bloody mistake. I’m terribly sorry. We’ve bought a new gas barbecue and it’s meant to be delivered around now.’ He reached out and took the box. ‘That’s very kind of you . . . but you’re going to have to forgive me. I can’t invite you in right now. We’re both at sixes and sevens and one of the boys seems to have got whooping cough. Will you think me very rude if I take a rain check?’

‘No. I’m sorry if I’ve called at a bad time.’

‘Not at all. It’s a very kind thought. You didn’t tell me your name.’

‘Andrew Pennington.’

‘Well, Andy, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m sure we’ll be having a housewarming party in due course and that’ll give us a chance to get to know each other better. Which is your place?’

‘I’m over by the entrance.’ Andrew pointed. ‘Well House. You may have noticed the old well next to the archway. They say it dates back to the fifteenth century.’ He wasn’t quite sure why he had volunteered this information. ‘You should keep your boys away from it,’ he added. ‘You wouldn’t want one of them to fall in.’

‘I’m sure they’re more sensible than that, but I’ll have a word. And if you see the chaps with the barbecue, maybe you can point them in the right direction.’

‘I’ll do that.’

‘Thank you.’

The door closed. Andrew was almost surprised to find that the cake was no longer in his hand. He turned round and walked home.

It was only later that the doubts came clouding in.

It was true that he hadn’t looked his best. He had spent the morning doing odd jobs and he was still wearing his old corduroy trousers and a loose-fitting shirt. He should have taken a shower first and changed into something a little smarter. But could Kenworthy have possibly mistaken him for a delivery man when there was no van in sight – and didn’t most delivery people wear uniforms? And there had definitely been something a little fake, a little knowing about that opening statement. ‘It’s going round the back. You can use the garden gate.’ Giles Kenworthy had delivered it with a curl of the lip that had been dismissive in every sense, as if he were deliberately making a point.

Casual racism had been a part of Andrew Pennington’s life for as long as he could remember. He knew that he had been fortunate. His father had made a great deal of money in telecommunications, which had unlocked a private education and, when he announced that he wanted a career in law, entry into a big-name chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. Not for him the so-called ‘black ghetto chambers’ that would have seen him working with local solicitors on pedestrian cases funded by legal aid. First as a pupil and then as a tenant, he had worked tirelessly. He had never allowed himself a margin of error. There could be no mistakes. Twice as hard to get half as far – that was the old adage.

Nobody ever said anything. Nobody was offensive. But he could feel it the moment he walked into a room, the sense that he was different, because of his colour. And there was that strange lack of progress. He got on well with the clerks, but his name was never put forward for the more high-profile cases. He was still trawling through stacks of documents late into the night when he should have been, at the very least, a junior junior.

Even in the latter part of his career, when he had become a QC, it had continued. How many times had he been stopped on his way into court, mistaken for a clerk, for a journalist or – worse still – for a defendant? ‘Excuse me, sir. Can I have your name so I can mark you as here for your case?’ The security guards were always polite and apologetic, but he sometimes felt that they were all part of the same conspiracy against him. And then there were the judges who patronised him or dismissed him – at least, until he began his cross-examination.

He had never complained. Iris had always insisted that if he was going to advance in a world where black barristers made up only one per cent of the workforce, he should play the game, keep his head down.

‘But what about those who follow?’ he had asked her. ‘Don’t I owe it to them to speak out, to make a noise? I spend my entire life talking about justice – but how can I do that when there’s no justice for me?’

‘You are a successful man, Andrew,’ she had replied. ‘I’m proud of you. And you being so successful . . . that will lead the way for others.’

Lying alone in the bed that they had shared for thirty-five years, Andrew remembered her voice. It was half past five in the morning and already light. He had been woken up by the Porsche, just like Adam Strauss and Tom Beresford. Where had Giles Kenworthy been, out all night until four in the morning? Didn’t he ever sleep?

Was Giles a racist?

There was something else Andrew had noticed while standing there with the cake. A flyer had been placed in one of the windows – quite unnecessarily, as the only people who could see it lived in the close. It was a bright red square with the words BELIEVE IN BRITAIN printed in white. He had recognised the slogan of the UK Independence Party, none of whose members were racist, of course, but whose candidates had so far managed to offend just about every ethnic group in the country, including his own. Every time he walked home, Andrew saw the poster and couldn’t escape the feeling that it was aimed, directly, at him.

And although there had been half a dozen parties at Riverview Lodge, including a New Year’s Eve special that had managed to extend itself until midnight on 1 January, Andrew’s invitation had somehow never materialised. Seven months later, he had never been inside the house.

He got out of bed and went downstairs to make himself some tea. There were photographs of Iris all around him and he wondered what she would say. Would she have come with him to the meeting that was being held that evening, a chance for everyone to air their grievances, or would she have warned him not to go? He opened the fridge and sniffed the milk, and at the same time he heard her voice.

‘No good will come of it, Andrew. You know that. How many times have you seen it? Little grudges that get out of control and turn into fights, and fights that somehow become violent and end up with you standing there in court? You stay away!’

He closed the fridge door. He knew what she would have said, but this time he wasn’t going to listen to her. It was only much later that he would wish he had.

4

At exactly eight o’clock that morning, May Winslow and Phyllis Moore sat down to breakfast together in their tiny, perfectly arranged kitchen. They each had an organic free-range egg boiled for three and a half minutes, a square of white toast without the crusts and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, along with a shared pot of tea. They faced each other across a small kitchen table with a gingham cloth, two plates, two spoons, two egg cups and two porcelain mugs. Upstairs, there were two small bedrooms with single beds. Both women had been married and both of them were widows. May had a son who had moved abroad, and outside the close they had few friends. They were quite happy to live the single life but preferred to do so together.

They had moved into The Gables in February 2000, fourteen years ago.

In keeping with the village ethos of the place, the architects had created a terrace of three cottages that stretched out along the eastern side. The Gables was in the middle, between Well House and Woodlands; with narrow corridors and a garden that seemed to struggle for space, it was the smallest home in the close and also the least expensive. But May, who had found the house, was determined to move into a smart neighbourhood. She had been born in Richmond and her parents had been what she would have called ‘respectable people’. In her last years, she was determined to live like them.

The new development had sold very quickly, although it had still been six months before everyone arrived, and once the dust had settled, May could see that she had made the right decision. Her immediate neighbours – Andrew and Iris Pennington on one side and Roderick and Felicity Browne on the other – were delightful. The Beresfords had arrived next, moving into Gardener’s Cottage, exactly opposite them.

That just left two properties.

Adam Strauss, a very famous chess player and a minor celebrity with his own game show on television, had originally moved into Riverview Lodge, the largest and by far the most expensive property in the close. At the same time, The Stables, backing on to the Petersham Road, became the home of a businessman called Jon Emin, who had moved in with his wife, two very polite children and a black Labrador called Doris. He was the last to arrive and, as things turned out, would be the first to go.

From the very start, everyone had got on perfectly, the way that neighbours used to long ago, when May was a girl. They were friendly but not obtrusive, helping each other when needed, swapping local information, stopping for a chat whenever the occasion demanded. Occasionally, they had lunches or dinners in each other’s houses. Andrew and Iris played bridge with Roderick and Felicity. The Beresfords and the Emins were close. Adam Strauss and his first wife, Wendy, threw a garden party every summer and everyone came.

Inevitably, over the years, things had changed. Life is seldom perfect and even when it is, it’s not for ever. May and Phyllis had largely kept themselves to themselves, part of the little community but not dependent on it. However, as they drifted into and then out of their seventies, they both found themselves having to adapt to new circumstances.

The women who lived on either side of them – Felicity Browne and Iris Pennington – both became sick. Despite her relatively young age, Felicity was soon confined to her bed and rarely left the house. Iris’s illness was worse. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died a few years later. Death was followed by new life. Gemma Beresford in Gardener’s Cottage gave birth to twin girls. At around the same time, Adam and Wendy Strauss got divorced. Wendy had never fitted into the close and it was no secret that she had been unhappy for some time. Adam remarried a year later, but he and his new wife, Teri, never took to the Lodge: it was too big for them – and too expensive. Adam’s earnings had shrunk. His TV quiz show, It’s Your Move, had been cancelled, and he had been hit by a series of poor investments. Although the couple would remain where they were for another three years, they both knew they had no choice and began looking for somewhere else to live, outside Richmond.

But then, at exactly the right moment, Jon Emin announced that he was relocating his family to Suffolk. He had made a fortune out of his business, arranging private and business loans, and wanted somewhere bigger to bring up his children, preferably in the countryside. May Winslow was particularly sorry to see the family go. Like them, she had a pet – a French bulldog – and they’d often met walking along the river. However, their departure brought an unexpected bonus. Adam spoke to Jon Emin and the two men agreed a private sale. The week the Emins left, Adam and Teri Strauss moved across to The Stables, keeping the Riverview community intact.

The only question was, who would be the new owner of Riverview Lodge – and more importantly, would they fit in?

‘Did you hear him last night?’ Phyllis asked, as she sliced the top off her egg with a decisive swing of the knife. She was the smaller of the two women, with tightly permed white hair and a thin frame. Her face had folded itself into so many creases that if she had been mummified, no one would have noticed. Certainly, it was almost impossible to imagine her as a young woman. Her seventy-nine years had her in their grip and she had long ago given up caring. Even her clothes could have been deliberately chosen to date her. Today she was wearing a floral-patterned dress that hung as loosely on her as if it had still been in the wardrobe and brown derby shoes that took her all the way back to World War Two.

‘Do you mean, Mr Kenworthy?’ May asked.

‘He got home at twenty past four. I saw the time on my alarm clock. And he had the music playing full on in his motor car.’

‘I wonder where he’d been?’

‘At a party, from the sound of it.’ Phyllis pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘He was blasting out music as if he wanted the whole world to hear it. I’m sure everyone will have been woken up!’

The two elderly women seemed to fit together perfectly. They were seldom apart and had known each other so long they had the awareness and the timing of a comedy double act, although without the jokes. They did everything in sync. The hoovering and the dusting. The cooking and the laying of the table. While one reached for the tea leaves, the other would be warming the pot. They watched the same programmes on television and went upstairs to bed at the same time. They never argued. People assumed they were sisters, which quite amused them because, as they explained, for almost thirty years they had been nuns, living together in the same convent in Leeds.

In fact, May very much controlled the relationship. For a start, the house belonged entirely to her. She had bought The Gables off-plan, without even visiting it, using money she had inherited. Phyllis lived with her rent-free as a sort of unpaid companion. May came from the south of England, enunciating her words with the care and exactitude of a Norland nanny, whereas Phyllis had never lost her Birmingham accent. May’s large physique also gave her the edge. She had recently put on weight, which made her breathless and inclined to become red in the face if she did anything too quickly, although this somehow suited her. With her bright clothes, her chunky jewellery and the glasses hanging on a cord around her neck, she had the optimistic look of old age – the round, satisfied, homely cheerfulness of a fairy godmother.

‘Well, I didn’t hear him.’ May spread a pat of Cornish butter onto a triangle of toast and then bit into it with very white teeth that were, perhaps surprisingly, her own. ‘Did he wake you up?’ she asked.

‘No. I wasn’t asleep. I never sleep well any more. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

‘Maybe you should talk to Dr Beresford.’

‘I think Dr Beresford should see a doctor himself. I bumped into him yesterday in the High Street.’

‘You told me, dear.’ May quickly became irritated when Phyllis repeated herself.

Phyllis blinked apologetically. ‘He didn’t look at all well, poor man.’

There was a whine from underneath the table and a brown face with bulging eyes, oversized ears and a look of permanent dissatisfaction peered up at the two women. This was Ellery, the French bulldog they had bought a few years after they had moved into Riverview Close. Ellery was a small, bulky creature who only took on the shape of a dog when he was walking. Lying on the bed or in his basket, he was more like an overfilled sack of potatoes.

‘Little Ellery!’ Without even thinking, May leaned down and fed the animal a corner of her toast. The dog wasn’t hungry, but he liked to be included. ‘Who’s a good boy, then? Who’s a good boy?’

This cooing might have gone on for several minutes more, but just then the doorbell rang. May glanced at Phyllis and something flashed in her eyes: nervousness, perhaps, or annoyance. It couldn’t be the postman. It was only half past eight and he wouldn’t come until mid-morning – not that either of them received very much mail. Nor were they expecting any deliveries. Somehow, they both knew who it was. At this time of the day, who else could it be?

‘I’ll go,’ Phyllis said.

‘No.’ May had taken charge. ‘I’ll see to it.’

Wiping her hands on a tea towel (printed with the slogan Stolen from Bertram’s Hotel), she walked stiffly out into the hall and over to the front door. She didn’t have far to go. She could make out a figure on the other side of the smoked glass, and two pinpricks of red appeared in her cheeks as she reached down, slid the security lock to one side and opened the door.

A woman was standing on the doorstep, wearing designer jeans that hugged her a little too tightly, a loose blouse and no make-up. Her hair, ash blonde with an undertone of silver, tumbled down her neck. In one hand, she was pinching a small plastic bag between her index finger and thumb, emphasising the fact that it had something unpleasant inside. She held it out.

‘I think this is yours,’ she said in a voice that was at once cultivated and coarse, as if she had spent years with an elocution teacher but one who had let her down badly.

‘Good morning, Mrs Kenworthy,’ May replied, standing her ground and refusing to play along.

‘I found this on our lawn this morning,’ Lynda Kenworthy continued. She was struggling to keep her temper. ‘It’s the second one I’ve had to pick up this week.’

‘I’m sorry? I don’t understand . . .’

‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Mrs Winslow. Your bleeding dog is completely out of control. It comes in under the fence and digs up the grass around our magnolia tree. You should see the damage! And then if that isn’t enough, it does its poops in the flower beds. It’s disgusting!’

‘Please can I ask you not to use that language with me, Mrs Kenworthy? And I’ve said this to you many times. The fence belongs to Mr Browne. It’s got nothing to do with us.’

‘But your dog goes into Mr Browne’s garden and then comes through the fence into ours.’

‘I think you need to talk to Mr Browne.’

‘No, Mrs Winslow. I’m talking to you. I really don’t think I’m being unreasonable, asking you to keep your animal under control.’

Lynda Kenworthy was still holding out the green plastic bag, but May was reluctant to take it. ‘Did you see Ellery do that?’ she enquired.

‘I didn’t need to see him, did I? There’s only one dog in these houses.’

‘It could have been a dog from outside. How do you know it’s even a dog?’

‘I’m not going to argue with you, Mrs Winslow.’ Lynda sniffed. ‘But I’m warning you. I’ve spoken to my husband and he wants you to understand something.’ She jabbed at the older woman with a finger topped by a long and brilliantly coloured nail. ‘If your animal strays into our garden one more time, I’m going to ask him to deal with it.’

May stood her ground, scowling at the younger woman. ‘I’m not going to be bullied by you or your husband, Mrs Kenworthy!’

But the other woman was already leaving. As she turned, she dropped the bag so that it landed at May’s feet. May stood still for a moment, then leaned down, picked it up and went back into the house.

Phyllis was standing on the other side of the door, cradling the French bulldog in her arms. She had heard the entire exchange. ‘What a horrible woman!’ she exclaimed.

The dog gazed mournfully at the door, as if in agreement.

‘I really don’t think we need to worry about her,’ May said. ‘We can talk about it this evening. That’s the whole point of the meeting. To clear the air. The trouble with the Kenworthys is that even though they’ve been here for more than six months, they’re still behaving as if they’re new to the close and haven’t learned how to fit in with our ways.’

‘It’s been seven months.’ Phyllis scowled.

‘You’ve been counting! Well, I’m sure it will all sort itself out somehow.’ May walked purposefully into the kitchen and added the bag to the general rubbish. ‘We ought to be on our way,’ she said, reaching for the bright red beret she liked to wear when she went out and positioning it carefully on her head. ‘Could you bring the almond slices, dear? We don’t want to be late!’

Ten minutes later, the two women were standing at the bus stop, waiting for the number 65, which would take them into Richmond. Despite their age, they were still working, running a small business that May also owned.

The Tea Cosy was a bookshop with a café attached, although given that the space was divided fifty-fifty between the two, it could just as easily have been the other way round. It specialised in detective stories – but only those that belonged to the so-called Golden Age of Crime or modern novels that reimagined it. So, in conversation, the two women would fondly refer to ‘Peter’ or ‘Adela’ or ‘Albert’ in such a way that an eavesdropper might think they were referring to a friend or a regular customer when in fact they meant Lord Peter Wimsey, Mrs Bradley or Albert Campion, all fictional detectives whose adventures they sold either in antiquarian editions or in new, retro paperbacks put out by British Library Crime Classics. They did not stock any modern, violent crime novels, especially ones that contained bad language. A casual reader looking for Harlan Coben, Stieg Larsson, Ian Rankin or even James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice) would have to continue down the hill to Waterstones at the corner. What they specialised in – exclusively – was cosy crime.

They also stocked a range of gifts that were all crime-related, including the Agatha Christie tea towel May had used to wipe her hands. Other novelties included a Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass, Midsomer Murders mugs and T-shirts, Cluedo jigsaw puzzles and a box of assorted chocolates marked ‘POISONED’, a tribute to the great novel by Anthony Berkeley.

They should have gone bankrupt long ago, but for some reason they continued to scrape by. The books were at the back, packed into floor-to-ceiling oak shelves with the different authors and categories divided by potted plants. The gift section was at the front of the shop on half a dozen tables close to the entrance. There were several different varieties of tea and coffee on offer, along with an assortment of cakes and pastries that Phyllis cooked fresh every day. Her blood orange sponge was probably the most violent object in the entire place.

Ellery went with them. He seldom left their side. And that was how they would spend the rest of the day, May and Phyllis bustling about, chatting to whichever customers happened to look in, Ellery asleep in his special basket, surrounded by books.

An English Murder. The Nursing Home Murder. Murder Must Advertise. Sleeping Murder.

Murder was all around them.

5

Standing in his bedroom on the first floor of Woodlands, Roderick Browne had heard the entire exchange between May Winslow and Lynda Kenworthy. It was a warm summer morning in early June and the window was open. If he had leaned out, he would have been able to see them, albeit at an oblique angle, but he would never have considered doing such a thing. Lynda Kenworthy made him feel nervous. She reminded him of the matron at the prep school where he had spent five unhappy years, racked by a sense of inferiority and relentlessly teased by the other boys. Unlike Brenda Forbes (who had exhibited a textbook case of diastema, an unsightly gap between her two front teeth – an open invitation to plaque and quite possibly an indication of serious gum disease), Lynda had a perfect smile. But the two women were equally menacing, one patrolling the corridors after lights out, the other casting a malign presence over day-to-day life in Riverview Close.

May Winslow and Phyllis Moore were quite different. Although twice its size, Roderick’s house was attached to theirs, the two front doors only a few steps apart, so they encountered each other often. They had a friendly, smiling, easy relationship, although they weren’t what he would have called friends. The only time he ever went into The Gables was when something was wrong: once when all the lights had inexplicably fused, once to help relight the Aga, and again to remove a quite remarkably large spider from their bath. On all these occasions, the ladies had reciprocated with homemade jars of lemon curd or jam, paperback novels and crime-related souvenirs, left on his doorstep with a ribbon and a handwritten thank-you card.

It wasn’t just that they were so much older than him. They seemed to be quite nervous of the outside world. Roderick couldn’t help noticing that they seldom received any post and what letters did come their way, he suspected, were bills or circulars. He had never seen any visitors arrive at their door. He knew that they ran their weird little bookshop in Richmond, although he had never shopped there. He had no interest in crime fiction and tried not to eat sugar or carbohydrates, since why would he want to give Treponema denticola or Streptococcus mutans a free lunch? There were occasions, however, when he had picked up the two ladies in his Skoda Octavia because it was raining, pausing at the bus stop and taking them where they wanted to go.

He had tried to learn a little more about them on these brief journeys, but, as grateful as they were, they were also quite reluctant to talk too much about themselves. He knew they had both been married, that they weren’t related, that May had a son living in the USA and that Phyllis was childless. May had grown up less than half a mile away. Phyllis had come from Stourbridge, on the edge of Birmingham. The most remarkable thing about them was that they had both taken holy orders, which was how they had met. They had been Franciscan sisters in the Convent of St Clare in Leeds but had left when May inherited money from a distant relative. That was when they had moved to Riverview Close. The Gables had been the first house to be sold.

Riverview Lodge had been the last to change hands. Making sure he couldn’t be seen from the other side of the glass, Roderick Browne watched Lynda Kenworthy disappear through her front door, then he stepped away and continued getting dressed. He always wore a suit to work, even though he would change into white scrubs as soon as he arrived at the clinic in Cadogan Square. He owned the practice and it was important to make a good impression on his staff: the two receptionists, the oral hygienists, the assistant dentists. He was, after all, ‘the Dentist to the Stars’. That was what he had been called in the Evening Standard diary and he still liked to play the part. He did indeed have several well-known actors, a major pop singer and two bestselling authors among his clients, and although many people might not find anything particularly glamorous about dental medicine, he strongly disagreed. He loved his work, helping people and making them healthier. It was all he had ever wanted to do.

He picked out a wide, patterned Versace silk tie and tightened it around his neck. The tie was pink and worked very well against the pale blue Gieves & Hawkes suit. Looking at himself in the mirror, Roderick was not ashamed by what he saw. For a man approaching fifty, he was in good shape, with a head of hair that was still thick and lustrous even if it had already turned white, bright eyes, ruddy cheeks and, of course, superb teeth. He had put on a little weight recently. He would have to watch that. He tilted his head, wondering if the flesh around his neck was beginning to sag – or was it just the line of his collar? The trouble was, it had been years since he had played squash or tennis, and he had stopped jogging too.

No. It was the collar. He looked fine.

Everything in their lives had changed shortly after they had moved into the close. If Roderick had been a philosophical man, he might have considered more seriously the randomness of what had happened, the toss of a coin or the throw of a dice that could derail two careers, two lifestyles, a successful marriage. Felicity had been a senior associate in a leading firm of chartered accountants, on the edge of becoming a partner, but then she had become ill. It had started with tiredness. She couldn’t sleep. Then there had been the lack of focus, the memory loss, the headaches, more and more days spent in bed. Glandular fever, hormone imbalance, anaemia . . . all of these had been suggested by the various doctors they had consulted. In a strange way, the real diagnosis, which was much worse, had almost come as a relief. At least they both knew what they had to fight.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis. ME for short. A condition whose main symptom was chronic fatigue.

In truth, there was no fight to be had. Painkillers and antidepressants helped a little, but the doctors could offer no hope of a cure. Felicity seldom left the house now. Sometimes, when the weather was warm, Roderick might persuade her to come out into the garden, but she found the stairs a challenge and too much sunlight hurt her eyes. She listened to books as it was easier than reading. She also liked classical music, opera, choirs. Roderick had adapted the largest bedroom, making it comfortable for her. French windows on the side of the house opened onto a narrow balcony with a view over the garden of Riverview Lodge, a blazing magnolia tree and a lawn running down all the way to the strip of woodland after which the Brownes’ own home had been named.

This was where Roderick left her every morning. His own life had been heavily circumscribed by the need to look after his wife. When he had first come to Richmond, he had enjoyed sports. He had regularly played bridge with Andrew and Iris Pennington in Well House. He had been a keen member of the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club, the Richmond Bridge Boat Club and the London School of Archery, the last of these a hangover from his university days. They were all behind him now, and the garage, tucked away behind his house, contained a sad collection of his forgotten pursuits: sagging golf clubs, dusty tennis rackets, a useless life jacket, the Barnett Wildcat crossbow he had been given by his parents as a graduation present, back in the eighties.

He made one last adjustment to his tie, then left the room and crossed the landing to what had originally been the master bedroom, which Felicity now occupied alone. She was lying in bed, gazing out of the window.

‘I’m just leaving,’ he said.

‘Did you see?’ Felicity could have been somewhere else. ‘There are so many parakeets today.’

‘I haven’t looked . . .’

‘They’re everywhere.’

The bright green parakeets were all over Richmond. Nobody was quite sure how they had arrived. Some said that Humphrey Bogart was responsible, that they had escaped from a film he was shooting at Isleworth Studios. Others had claimed it was the American guitarist Jimi Hendrix who had released the first pair deliberately. Historians insisted that they had been around for hundreds of years, originally kept in a menagerie belonging to King Henry VIII. Whatever their origins, Roderick knew they had become a source of comfort to his wife and he was grateful to them.

‘I won’t be home late,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got a meeting over at The Stables.’

‘You never told me that.’

He had told her the evening before. ‘Oh. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d mentioned it. We’re just having a general chat about things in the close.’

‘Would you like me to come?’

‘Well, let’s see how you’re feeling.’

It was often Felicity’s way. She would suggest joining him for a cup of tea in the kitchen, a walk around the garden or even a drink at the Fox and Duck, but when the time came, she would usually change her mind.

Roderick heard the front door opening. ‘Damien’s here,’ he said. ‘Is there anything you want?’

‘I can ask him when he comes up.’

‘I’ll see you tonight.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. She smiled at him but in the same way that she might have smiled at a memory.

He went downstairs just as Damien was closing the door behind him. A tall, slender young man with black, curly hair, he was dressed in jeans and a lilac polo shirt with a Whole Foods tote bag over his arm. He had been Felicity’s carer for two years now, coming in three days a week, and although Roderick was paying him – or rather, his agency – a fortune, it was money well spent. Damien was reliable and endlessly cheerful. Felicity felt comfortable when he was there. It was impossible to imagine life without him.

‘Good morning, Roderick!’ Damien had been informal from the very start.

‘Hello, Damien.’

‘I got some of that soft cheese Felicity likes.’ He raised the arm with the tote bag, then reached in and took something out. ‘And this was on the doormat.’

He handed over an official-looking brown envelope, addressed to the owners of Woodlands. Roderick tore it open with his thumb and took out a letter, which he saw at once had come from Richmond Council. His first thought was that it was probably a change to the rubbish collection. Or perhaps they were finally going to do something about the traffic on the Petersham Road. But glancing at the single sheet of paper, he saw the headline and the details that followed.

NOTICE OF APPLICATION

Town and County Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2010

Town and Country Planning Act 1990

Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas Act) 1990

Riverview Lodge, Riverview Close, Petersham Road, Richmond, Surrey.

Ref No: J. 05/041955/RIV – Outline Planning Permission

FOR: Residential development of a swimming pool and pavilion and the creation of a new patio area on the eastern lawn of the property . . .

‘What is it?’ Damien asked.

He sounded concerned and Roderick realised that he hadn’t spoken for some time. Nor had he taken a breath. The letter seemed to have broken into different pieces in front of his eyes and it took an effort of concentration to put it back together again. In fact, it was simple. Giles and Lynda Kenworthy had applied to build a swimming pool and some sort of changing area, bar and Jacuzzi in their garden. The eastern lawn. That was the strip of land that ran towards his own house, directly in front of Felicity’s bedroom. Roderick read the application a second time and then a third.

The Kenworthys wanted to take away the one thing that still mattered to Felicity. They were going to replace the lawn and the magnolia tree, the flower beds and the simple, uncluttered view with . . .

A swimming pool! A Jacuzzi!

Standing in the hallway, Roderick heard the screams of children, the splash of water, the chatter of the invited guests, the explosion of champagne corks. He saw steam billowing out of the hot tub and smelled the chlorine in the air. And this changing room! The application didn’t say how tall it was or in what style it was going to be built. It could be anything from a Scandinavian log cabin to a Japanese pagoda! What was he supposed to do? Could he move Felicity to another part of the house? Why should he?

They wouldn’t get away with it. They couldn’t. Richmond Council was famous when it came to planning applications like this. They would do anything to preserve the historical and environmental value of the area. Roderick would protest. Everyone in the close would do the same. There was no way this was going through.

But even as he stood there, crumpling the single page in his hand, with Damien staring at him and asking him questions he couldn’t hear, he knew that the first volley in a war had just been fired. Giles Kenworthy would have lawyers. He might have friends in the council. He was the sort of man who always got what he wanted and he wouldn’t have applied for planning permission if he didn’t think there was a good chance of success. But Roderick was going to stop him.

He remembered the meeting at The Stables. It couldn’t have been better timed. Everyone in Riverview Close would have received the same letter.

It was a fight to the death and it was starting now.

6

That evening, from half past seven onwards, the residents of Riverview Close gathered at The Stables, the home of Adam and Teri Strauss, who were hosting the event.

As punctual as he had always been during his time as a barrister, Andrew Pennington was the first to arrive, wearing slacks and a V-neck jersey, carrying a small bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine. He was followed, a few minutes later, by Tom Beresford and his wife, who came empty-handed. Dr Beresford, having been held up at work, had wolfed down a quick supper and had come without changing his clothes. His wife, Gemma, looked more demure in a black suit and one of her own creations, a silver serpent necklace curving around her throat. Neither of them was in a good mood. May Winslow and Phyllis Moore were the next to appear, bringing with them a box of chocolate bullets, part of a consignment that had arrived at The Tea Cosy that afternoon. Their neighbour, Roderick Browne, was right behind them, accompanied by – to everyone’s surprise – his wife, Felicity, who had decided that the meeting was important enough to be worth what was, for her, a challenging journey.

There were nine of them, standing and sitting in the main living space where, just fifteen hours earlier, the single chess game had been lost. The room looked beautiful, with low lighting, fresh flowers in porcelain vases and piano music by Chopin playing out of hidden speakers. The many shelves of books also displayed some of the awards Adam Strauss had won throughout his career. The laptop computers had been cleared away, but there were still half a dozen chessboards on display, beautiful sets that Strauss had been given as prizes: wood, ivory, porcelain and glass. Spread out on the long table were different plates of food that Teri had prepared, including the bao buns, egg tarts and pineapple bread that connected her with her childhood. There were bottles of wine and spirits in the kitchen, a fruit salad, a cheese board – everything you would expect at a party, apart from, that is, the atmosphere. As the various guests waited, there was an unmistakable feeling of suspense.

Giles and Lynda Kenworthy had not yet arrived. It wasn’t surprising that they had chosen to be late, but there was one question on everyone’s mind. Would they arrive at all? The Kenworthys knew only too well that the evening had been designed to address some of the problems that had arisen in Riverview Close, but perhaps they had realised that they were the problems and so had decided to stay away. That said, it was only a quarter to eight. The doorbell would surely ring at any moment.

Adam Strauss had joined Andrew Pennington, who was examining one of the chessboards, cradling a G&T in his other hand.

‘This one is my favourite,’ Strauss said, moving down the table. He delicately picked up a bishop kneeling with his hands clasped in prayer and held it in the light. The set it had come from was inspired by The Lord of the Rings. Sauron and Saruman ruled over the black side, facing Gandalf and Galadriel in white. Orcs fought it out against hobbits. Frodo and Sam Gamgee were knights. ‘It was handmade in Prague and there are only half a dozen of them in the world,’ he explained. ‘It’s very valuable – but that’s not the reason why it’s so precious to me. It was given to me as a fortieth-birthday present by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.’

Andrew couldn’t help smiling. Adam Strauss was a terrible name-dropper . . . it was something of a joke in Riverview Close. The chess grandmaster was not an imposing man, with his black-framed glasses and a triangle of beard that sat rather too precisely on his chin. He dressed neatly and expensively. Appearances evidently mattered to him, from his well-oiled hair to his shoes, both of which gleamed. Everyone knew that he had been rather humiliated by having to move out of the Lodge. Now on the wrong side of fifty, he was a man of diminished stature in every sense, and the name-dropping, the endless anecdotes about famous people he had met, was obviously his way of asserting himself.

‘I was invited to a chess tournament over there,’ Strauss went on. ‘The Sheikh took a liking to me, and as a matter of fact, I gave one of his sons a few lessons. A very handsome lad and quite adept at the game.’ He handed the bishop over to the barrister. ‘I didn’t really know the books at the time, but I read them afterwards. I rather liked them. Tolkien played chess, you know. I think he would have approved.’

‘This looks just like Orlando Bloom,’ Andrew said.

‘There is a resemblance.’

‘Is it ivory?’

Strauss shook his head. ‘No. Porcelain. I do have one set made of ivory.’ He pointed. ‘That one over there. Of course, you’re not meant to have anything made of ivory any more, but I won that one when I was just twenty-one – my first major tournament – so I suppose it’s all right to hang on to it.’

He took back the bishop and delicately placed it in its correct position.

A few steps away, in the kitchen, Teri Strauss was holding out a plate of cheese straws for May Winslow and Phyllis Moore. The elderly ladies had managed to squeeze themselves onto two of the high stools next to the central island. They both had fruit cocktails laced with vodka. It was well known that they would never say no to a good slug of alcohol, possibly making up for years of abstinence at the Convent of St Clare.

‘Not for me, thank you.’ Phyllis held up two hands in a gesture of surrender, refusing the cheese straws. ‘We ate before we came out. But this cocktail is very nice. What’s in it?’

‘Mangosteen,’ Teri said.

‘Oh.’ Phyllis smiled, none the wiser. She drained her glass. ‘Can I have another?’

‘Perhaps not, Phyllis,’ May suggested. She looked at her watch. ‘I wonder what’s happened to Mr and Mrs Kenworthy?’

It was so typical of her to use surnames. Both women seemed to have modelled themselves on the Jane Marple novels they sold in their bookshop. It was as if the last six decades had never happened.

‘I’m sure they’re on their way,’ Teri said.

‘It’s not very far to drive!’ This was a penitent Phyllis, nursing her empty glass, trying her hand at a joke.

‘Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.’ Andrew Pennington had overheard the conversation and joined them. ‘I knew a barrister who always insisted on arriving late in court. He said it made more of an impression.’

‘I’ll have one of those, if you don’t mind.’ Gemma Beresford leaned over and lazily plucked out a cheese straw.

‘We were just wondering if the Kenworthys were going to grace us with their presence,’ May remarked. There was an edge of sarcasm in her voice.

‘I do hope so.’ Gemma glanced briefly at her husband, who was pouring himself a second whisky. ‘Tom is very much hoping to meet them.’

‘Well, I’m glad to have you all here, anyway,’ Teri said. ‘We don’t get together half as often as we used to. It’s important we stay close.’

Teri was Hong Kong Chinese, a very striking, elegant woman. Her parents – who ran a successful clothing business – had predicted what would happen to the city they had always loved when the Chinese authorities took control of it and had emigrated to the UK before the handover in 1997. They now lived in Manchester. The fact that both of Adam Strauss’s wives shared the same ethnicity had, of course, been noted in Riverview Close. He was attracted to Asian women, but this was entirely a matter of personal taste and something that none of them would have dreamed of mentioning.

Gemma took her cheese straw and went over to her husband. ‘Are you all right, darling?’ she asked.

Tom slid the bottle away, as if he’d been caught trying to steal it. ‘The bastard’s not going to come, is he!’ he said.

She looked at her watch. ‘It doesn’t look like it,’ she admitted.

‘He’s laughing at us!’

Gemma frowned. ‘Maybe you should just try to relax,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘You can’t keep letting him drag you down. It’s not good for you.’

Tom ignored her. ‘He woke me up in the middle of the night last night. And this morning, when I tried to get to the surgery, his bloody car was blocking the way. Again!’

‘How did you get in?’ She had left before him, taking the tube into the centre of town.

‘I walked.’

‘He can be very inconsiderate.’

‘He does it on purpose.’ Tom drank half the whisky in his glass. ‘Like not coming here tonight. I don’t know why he moved into the close. He clearly holds all of us in contempt.’

Gemma was becoming increasingly worried about her husband. It wasn’t just the drinking, the secret smoking or even the anger that she could see welling up inside him. It was the distance that was growing between them. There were times when she barely recognised the happy, easy-going man she had married. Tall and slim, with tumbling, sand-coloured hair, there had always been a boyish quality about him. But now he was being pulled in different directions – by life, by work, above all by Giles Kenworthy and his wretched cars – and it was beginning to show. He was going to be forty next year, but he looked much older. Unhappiness was etched into every part of his face. She regretted bringing him here. How could she save him? How could she save both of them?

‘Try not to get too stressed,’ she said, gently touching his arm and then moving away before he could protest.

She went over to the other side of the room where Roderick Browne was standing protectively behind his wife, who was in an armchair, almost folded into it. Gemma remembered Felicity when they had first arrived. Their houses faced each other across the courtyard, on either side of Riverview Lodge, and the two of them had often met. Felicity (‘Fee’) had been so different then: socially and politically active, campaigning for the Liberal Democrats, supporting the Orange Tree Theatre, dragging Roderick off to her beloved archery club – she was a much better shot than him, she said – and occasionally throwing gourmet dinners.

And then this wretched illness had not so much crept up on her as pounced, draining all her energy and vitality and turning her into the casualty who had somehow made it here tonight. Gemma had been surprised to see her. She knew that Felicity spent most of her time in bed.

‘How lovely to see you, Felicity,’ she said now. ‘I’m so glad you came.’

‘We have to talk about the swimming pool,’ Felicity replied. Even speaking was a struggle for her, the words falling heavily from her lips.

‘Oh, yes.’ Like everyone else in Riverview Close, Gemma had received the planning application, which had been waiting for her in the kitchen when she got home. It didn’t bother her too much if the Kenworthys wanted to vandalise their own garden: the pool would be situated on the other side of the house, some distance from Gardener’s Cottage. But of course it would be directly in Felicity’s line of vision, along with the Jacuzzi and the changing room.

‘We’re not going to let them get away with it,’ Roderick exclaimed. ‘Someone should do something about him! Someone should . . . I don’t know! Ever since he came here, he’s been nothing but trouble.’

‘I’m sure the council won’t allow it,’ Andrew Pennington said, although it was clear from his voice that he had misgivings. All the houses in the close were modern and the garden was out of sight of the main road. It was quite possible that the Kenworthys would be allowed to do whatever they wanted.

‘We might have to move if it goes ahead,’ Roderick added, glumly.

‘I’m not moving.’ Suddenly Felicity was fearsome, her hands clutching the arms of her chair. ‘Why should I? It’s not fair. This is my home!’

There was the sound of a fork hitting the side of a glass. Adam Strauss was standing in front of a gold-framed mirror next to the front door. ‘Excuse me, everyone,’ he called out. He put down the fork and picked up his telephone. Everyone knew there was bad news coming. They could see it on his face. ‘I’m afraid I’ve just had a text from Giles Kenworthy. He and his wife won’t be joining us after all.’

The announcement was met with a profound silence. Nobody in the room moved, as if they were waiting for the person next to them to react.

It was Tom Beresford who spoke first. ‘Why not?’ he demanded.

‘He doesn’t really say.’ Adam read from the screen. ‘“Sorry. Can’t be with you tonight. Trouble at work. Maybe next time.”’ He lowered the phone. ‘I suppose I’m not surprised.’

‘He sounds quite cheerful about it,’ Tom said.

‘It’s very rude of him!’ Teri Strauss blinked, her eyes bright with anger. She waved a delicate hand over the refectory table. ‘I go to all this effort to make it a nice evening.’ She remembered that she was not the only one who had been put out. ‘And Felicity! I know how very, very hard it was for you coming here. It’s not fair!’

‘It’s wrong of them.’ Felicity looked defeated.

‘It’s not just rude, it’s extremely inconsiderate,’ Gemma Beresford weighed in. ‘We’ve had to pay Kylie extra to babysit tonight.’

‘I thought Kylie lived with you,’ Teri said. Kylie was the nanny, originally from Australia, who looked after the Beresfords’ twin daughters.

‘She does. But we still have to pay her if she works overtime.’ Gemma went over to her husband. ‘Tom’s exhausted. He was woken up at four o’clock this morning . . .’

‘By Giles Kenworthy,’ Adam muttered, sourly. ‘I heard him too.’

‘The only reason we’re here is because we wanted to have it out with them,’ Gemma said. ‘I don’t mean to insult you, Teri. It’s a lovely spread. But it’s just too bad . . .’

‘I did want to talk to them about the fence,’ May said. ‘I know it’s not our fence, but they won’t stop going on about it.’

‘That woman won’t leave us alone,’ Phyllis added. ‘She was around this morning – making threats.’

‘The swimming pool!’ Felicity insisted. ‘We have to stop them. You have no idea. It will be awful!’

Adam held up a hand for silence. ‘My friends,’ he began, ‘I feel terrible about all this. After all, I was the one who sold them Riverview Lodge in the first place. It certainly wasn’t my intention, but I was the one who brought all this trouble into our lives. Even now, I ask myself if I should have asked more questions when I met them, or perhaps explained things better.’

He paused, his face full of regret.

‘I met both the Kenworthys,’ he continued, ‘and it never occurred to me that they would be so . . . complicated. They seemed very pleasant to deal with, although it’s true that Giles Kenworthy did behave badly. I’ve made no secret of the fact that he reduced his offer one day before exchanging, knowing that I’d have no choice but to go along with it. But then, he’s a financier. I assumed that’s how these people behaved – and to be fair, quite a few issues had shown up in the survey. I would have sold the house to someone else if I could have, but there were no other serious buyers.’

‘Nobody blames you,’ Teri said. Her face challenged anyone in the room to disagree.

‘The question is . . . what are we going to do? What can we do?’

‘Maybe we should give them a taste of their own medicine,’ Tom Beresford suggested. ‘Let’s see how they feel when they find their own cars barricaded in.’

‘We could have a few parties of our own,’ Gemma added. ‘Blast music at them in the middle of the night and litter their front drive with champagne bottles the next day, like they do. I think Tom’s right. We’ve all been far too polite about this.’

‘Could I have a drop more vodka?’ Phyllis asked. ‘But this time without the mango juice?’

Andrew Pennington had stepped forward. He was a quiet man, but he had a way of commanding a room that came from years spent in court. He waited for everyone to stop talking. Then he began.

‘If I may advise you,’ he said, ‘the one thing we shouldn’t do is engage in a war of attrition. The sort of neighbourhood disputes that we have been experiencing are terribly common, I’m afraid, and they have a nasty way of escalating. It’s always better to discuss things in a civilised manner.’

‘We can’t do that if they don’t show up,’ Roderick Browne pointed out.

‘We can write to them. I’d be happy to draft a letter setting out our concerns.’

‘What makes you think they’ll even read it?’ Gemma asked.

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But in the meantime, we must take things one step at a time – and whatever we do, we must remain within the law. We should record everything that happens from this moment on. Tom, if the drive is blocked, make a note of the time, and if Giles Kenworthy is offensive to you, try to record it on your iPhone. The same when they have parties or allow their bottles to litter the close.’

‘What about their children?’ May asked. ‘I don’t like the way they go whizzing around on their skateboards. One of them nearly crashed into me the other day.’

‘I called out to him and he gave me the finger,’ Phyllis said.

‘Language, dear!’

‘Well, he did.’

‘There is a code of conduct that we all signed when we moved into the close,’ Andrew Pennington reminded them. ‘It precludes ball games and the use of bicycles, although I’m not sure if there is any mention of skateboards.’

‘And cricket!’ Gemma added. ‘They whack the ball around like nobody’s business. They almost hit Kylie once. What if it had been one of the girls? It could have been a nasty accident.’

‘They need to move that bloody camper van,’ Tom Beresford said. ‘Surely they can’t just leave it sitting there the whole year round.’ He turned to Andrew Pennington. ‘Can’t we sue them or something?’

‘There’s very little we can do,’ the barrister replied, regretfully. ‘I suppose we could write to them and threaten them with legal action, but once you start hiring outside lawyers that can become an extremely expensive proposition – and there can be no doubt that Mr Kenworthy will have deeper pockets than any of us. Are you sure you want to take him on?’

‘What about the swimming pool?’ Felicity demanded, struggling to express the anger she felt. It was the third time she had raised the subject.

Her husband immediately took her side. ‘It may not be so important to the rest of you,’ Roderick said, ‘but it’s going right underneath Fee’s window.’ He looked to Andrew Pennington. ‘We must be able to stop it.’

‘Well, as I said, the council hasn’t given permission yet and there’s every chance that they’ll refuse.’

‘It will ruin my view!’

‘Unfortunately, the loss of a view is never a consideration in planning law,’ Andrew continued. ‘However, there are plenty of other objections we can legitimately make. Noise is one. It will most certainly affect the character of the close. This is a conservation area and the threat to the environment, from chlorine and other chemicals, must be relevant. They may decide to cut down trees—’

‘They already cut down my two yews and no one paid a blind bit of notice,’ Adam remarked.

‘Well, we’ll need to see the architectural plans. What is this changing facility they’re hoping to build? If it blocks a significant amount of daylight for Roderick and Felicity, that’s definitely grounds for dismissal.’

‘The pool could be dangerous for Ellery!’ Phyllis blurted out the words as if the thought had just occurred to her. Suddenly, she was the centre of attention. ‘He goes into the Kenworthys’ garden sometimes. He doesn’t do any harm. He just likes sniffing around. If there’s a swimming pool there, he could fall in.’

‘You might like to put that in your letter,’ Andrew said kindly. ‘It’s another consideration, and the more the merrier. We should all write letters to the council,’ he went on, ‘setting out our objections. And it would be a good idea if these were coordinated. Again, I’ll be happy to help. But it’s essential that we’re restrained. It won’t do any good being vindictive.’

There was a pause while everyone took this in.

‘So that’s it, then?’ Roderick said. ‘We write letters – and we wait.’

‘That’s my advice, yes.’ Andrew took a sip of his gin and tonic as if to signal that he had said enough.

‘I agree absolutely,’ May said. ‘There’s absolutely no point getting into a fight with this man, and I’m certainly not interested in hiring lawyers. I say we just ignore him and hope he goes away. That’s the only way to treat bullies. Pretend they’re not there!’

‘I agree with May.’ Phyllis tried a wobbly smile. ‘Live and let live. That’s what I say. But since we’re all here, why don’t we have another drink?’

The party, if that’s what it was, continued for another thirty minutes, but the Kenworthys’ non-appearance had made the whole thing pointless. Adam Strauss, supported by May Winslow and Andrew Pennington, tried to keep everyone’s spirits up, but the evening quickly fizzled out. Roderick and Felicity Browne were the first to leave and the others drifted away soon after, leaving the bao buns and the custard tarts uneaten on the refectory table.

It would be another six weeks before death came to Riverview Close and everyone who had attended the party would find their lives turned upside down. And throughout the police investigation, with its mutual suspicion and alternative truths, there was one thing on which they would all agree.

Giles Kenworthy really should have been there.