Close to Death

1

Hawthorne and Dudley knew something was wrong the moment they got back to Riverview Close the next morning. The ambulance had returned, along with a fleet of police cars. The number of officers on the scene had increased. The gaggle of journalists who had attended the murder of Giles Kenworthy was back too, more of them this time. There was also a constable standing guard at the archway. He had been friendly enough the day before, but this time he blocked their path.

‘DS Khan wants to talk to you,’ he explained.

‘Well, we can find him . . .’ Dudley replied.

‘He says you’re to wait here.’

The policeman spoke briefly into his radio, but it was another ten minutes before Khan wandered over, smartly dressed in a navy blue suit and brown shoes, with his silver hair neatly brushed. As the cameras clicked, snatching another dozen photographs for the next day’s news, he seemed not to have noticed them and it must have been no more than a coincidence that he had presented the reporters with his best profile and his most serious, businesslike face. This changed as he approached Hawthorne and Dudley. He seemed irritated that they had arrived.

‘Nice of you to show up,’ he began, glancing at his watch. It was after ten o’clock.

‘Seven-hour shift,’ Dudley replied, cheerfully.

‘Well, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time.’

‘You’ve made an arrest?’

‘Not exactly. But as far as I’m concerned, the case is closed.’ He lowered his voice, keeping his back to the press pack. ‘Roderick Browne. He’s written a letter confessing to the crime and I’m afraid he’s taken his own life.’

‘How?’ Hawthorne asked.

Khan shook his head. ‘That’s not the first question I would have asked, but it makes no difference because there’s nothing more for you to do. I would have called you to tell you not to show up, but as you can imagine, I’ve been busy. You’re off the case. I’m sorry I wasted your time, but I don’t need you any more.’

‘You owe us for two days,’ Dudley said.

‘One day. But I’m a reasonable man. I’ll throw in the tube fare.’

‘We came by taxi.’

‘That’s your lookout.’

It was remarkable how quickly Khan had turned against them. He had been reluctant to employ them in the first place, but it was almost as if he was blaming them for the way things had turned out. A crime that had effectively solved itself and a killer who had escaped justice – neither of these would provide the publicity and promotion he had hoped for. Worse still, his use of Hawthorne would have sent a signal to his superior officers. He had shown a lack of confidence in his own abilities when if he’d just waited a couple of days the whole thing would have gone away.

‘I don’t believe Roderick Browne killed anyone,’ Hawthorne said. ‘And that includes himself.’

‘You don’t? Really? And why is that?’

‘I met him. He didn’t have it in him.’

‘That’s right, Hawthorne. You knew him for – what? – all of half an hour? I bow to your superior instincts. But you’re wrong. Roderick Browne gassed himself in his garage with a cylinder of nitrous oxide, used by dentists as a sedative. He’s sitting in there right now with a plastic bag over his head.’

‘What sort of bag?’

‘Tesco. From the middle of Richmond.’

‘Did he shop at Tesco?’ Dudley sounded surprised. ‘I had him down as more of a Waitrose sort of guy.’

Khan snapped back: ‘I very much doubt that he thought about which supermarket he planned to advertise in his last moments! He was found this morning by Sarah Baines, the gardener. You might like to know that the garage was locked from the inside. The key was in the door.’

‘So how did Sarah get in?’

‘Browne’s neighbour, May Winslow, was a keyholder in case of emergencies. Sarah needed to enter the garage to get her tools and start work, but there was no answer from anyone in the house, so she went next door. Mrs Winslow found her key and the two of them opened the front door, walked through the kitchen and went into the garage that way. Except they couldn’t open the door because the key was in the lock – on the other side. Sarah did that old trick with a piece of wire and a sheet of newspaper. Wiggled the key out and pulled it underneath the door. Then they went in and discovered the body.’

‘Are they on your suspect list?’

‘There are no suspects, Hawthorne, so there is no list. Browne was in his car, which was also locked, windows and doors, with the ignition key – the only ignition key that we’ve been able to find – in his left trouser pocket. A locked car in a locked garage. And on his lap, right in front of him, we found a letter. It was written in his own hand and signed, setting out his intentions in plain English.’ Khan smiled mirthlessly. ‘I’d say that adds up to an open-and-shut case.’

‘No such thing,’ Hawthorne replied. ‘Let us take a look. I’d say you owe it to us, Khan. You’ve dragged us halfway across London. Where’s the harm?’

‘I don’t see . . .’

‘And I’d like to talk to Roderick Browne’s wife.’

‘She’s not here. Browne took her to her sister yesterday morning. He explains in the letter. He didn’t want her to see what he was going to do.’

‘I’d like to see the letter too.’ Hawthorne took a step closer, standing right next to Khan so that there was no chance of anyone overhearing. ‘Just suppose you’re wrong,’ he said quietly. ‘Suppose there’s something you’ve missed. If there’s a killer still out there, you might even have a third death on your hands and maybe it’ll be Strauss or Pennington next. How do you think that will look on your CV?’

Khan hesitated. For all his dislike of Hawthorne, he had to admit that he might have a point. Chief superintendent in two years, then commander, then all the way up to commissioner . . . He and his wife had his future all planned. From the day he’d joined the police force, he’d had more than his share of luck, but he knew that even one miscalculation could do incalculable damage to his image and, subsequently, his career. That was the trouble with being a high-flyer. There were too many bastards waiting for you to fall, and this Richmond business – two deaths in a nice, upmarket community – could all too easily go sour.

He came to a decision.

‘Well, since you’re here, you might as well stay. Just for today. But you’re now in an unofficial capacity, as observers. You’re not getting paid.’

It was a mean little victory. Khan had found a way of capitulating whilst still showing he was the one who pulled the strings.

He walked with them, back into Riverview Close. As they continued towards the dead man’s house, Teri Strauss suddenly appeared, coming out of The Stables, clutching the edges of the silk kimono she had wrapped around herself. ‘What’s happened?’ she demanded.

‘Please go back into your home, Mrs Strauss,’ Khan said.

‘Is it true that Roderick is dead?’

‘We’ll talk to you shortly.’

They went round the side of the house, Khan leading the way. The garage was too small for the number of forensic officers who needed to get in, so they’d raised the up-and-over door to provide access from the drive. DC Goodwin was inside, in charge of a slimmed-down team.

The Skoda Octavia Mark 3 took up almost all the available space and the body was still inside it, sitting in the front seat, behind the steering wheel. The police photographers had struggled to get a good angle, and bagging the hands and feet had required unusual contortions, the procedure made all the more grotesque by the fact that Roderick had already done the same for his head. The forensic team had left much of their equipment outside. Standing in the driveway, looking into the garage, Hawthorne could see very little – a vague shape on the other side of the back window. The driver’s window had been smashed. There were fragments of tinted glass scattered over the concrete floor.

Without waiting for permission, Hawthorne moved forward, avoiding a puddle on the floor, and eased himself down the side of the car. A couple of men in white protective overalls glanced at him curiously but didn’t try to challenge him. Now he could see the body, the supermarket bag, the gas cylinder sitting on the passenger seat, the rubber tube stretching across.

‘That’s a nine-hundred-litre cylinder of medical-grade nitrous oxide, one hundred per cent pure.’ Khan had followed him. ‘We’ve already confirmed that it’s the same manufacturer and supplier that Mr Browne used at his Cadogan Square clinic, and he seems to have kept spares in the basement of his house. I’ll say one thing for him. He didn’t do things by halves. As well as the gas, he’d taken an overdose of zolpidem, a well-known sleeping pill, and there was about a quarter of a bottle of Scotch in his bloodstream. Put them together, though, and they still wouldn’t have been enough to kill him. My guess is that he was already half-asleep when he turned on the gas. He arranged things so he slept through his own death.’

‘Who broke the window?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘That was Sarah Baines. It was the right thing to do. When she and Mrs Winslow entered the garage, the car’s windows and doors were all locked. Mr Browne wasn’t moving, but there was always a chance he could have still been alive. She smashed the window, which set off the alarm and woke up all the neighbours, if they weren’t already up and about. The moment she leaned in, she saw it was too late. He was a goner.’

‘You’re aware of her prison record?’

‘Burglary and a pub brawl where someone got glassed. Of course I know. But this is a different league. Roderick Browne liked her. When I spoke to him, he only had good things to say.’

‘When was the time of death?’ Dudley asked, standing at the entrance.

‘Just before midnight.’

‘The same as Giles Kenworthy. The middle of the night seems a popular time to get yourself done in if you’re living in Riverview Close.’

‘He wasn’t done in.’ Khan glowered at Dudley. ‘Mrs Winslow and Sarah Baines came in, as I explained. The up-and-over door was bolted from the inside and they entered through the house. Mrs Winslow was the first to see the body and as you can imagine, she was deeply shocked. If you talk to her, it would be nice if you could try and hold back on that sense of humour of yours.’

They were preparing to lever the body out. Roderick Browne’s head was still concealed.

‘Has anyone taken that bag off yet?’ Dudley asked.

‘No. Why do you ask?’

‘It’ll just come as a bit of a surprise if you discover that it’s not the dentist sitting in the car.’

Khan felt a brief moment of unease, then remembered that the dead man was wearing some of the same clothes he’d had on the day before: white shirt, linen trousers, moccasins – along with a pale blue jacket that was very much in Roderick Browne’s style. It was him all right. It had to be.

Meanwhile, Hawthorne had turned his attention to the rest of the garage. He mentally ticked off the gardening tools, the paint pots and brushes, the golf clubs, the tap with its plastic bucket . . . all the items that had been there when he had visited the day before. There were a few additions and he looked at these with particular interest. A box of electrical bits and pieces – plugs, cables, connectors – had been dumped on one side of the door. A Dyson hoover with a cracked plastic casing was propped up next to it. A dustbin bag revealed a collection of old DVDs. ‘Where did these come from?’ he asked Khan.

Khan was standing on the other side of the car. He was aware that everyone in the garage could hear what was being said. ‘Maybe he was having a clear-out,’ he suggested.

‘Having a spring clean before he topped himself?’

‘Leaving things nice and tidy behind him. You don’t know what was in his mind. What are you doing now . . . ?’

Hawthorne was being careful not to touch anything, but he was craning his neck, examining the skylight above the car. It projected above the flat roof, but it hadn’t been constructed in a way that allowed it to open.

‘You’re thinking that someone could have got in or out via the roof,’ Khan said. ‘Well, DC Goodwin went up there just before you arrived. The whole thing is screwed in and it looks as if the screws have rusted solid. She got a screwdriver and tried to undo them. They wouldn’t budge.’

‘What’s happened to the suicide note?’

‘It’s in the house. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d ask you to leave the crime scene. We need to get the body out.’

‘Whatever you say, Detective Superintendent.’

The three men went back into the house and sat down at the kitchen table.

‘It’s not suicide,’ Hawthorne said.

‘It can’t be anything else,’ Khan replied, sourly.

‘A dead man in a locked car in a locked garage. That’s a new definition of a riddle wrapped in a mystery locked in an enigma,’ Dudley misquoted.

‘Where’s this suicide note?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘It’s been taken away for examination, but I’ve got a picture.’ Khan had left his laptop on the table and he opened it, then swung it round to show them a set of photographs on the screen. The note had been written on both sides of a single sheet of paper in a loose, flowery scrawl. Roderick Browne had used turquoise ink. Hawthorne and Dudley read it together.

My dearest Fee,

I am so, so sorry. I did something very stupid and I have sent you away because I cannot bear you to see the consequences. I know what I must do. I have to pay the price. I told you that you might feel better staying at your sister and this is the first time I ever lied to you. The truth is that I do not want you to see this, my love. You are better out of it.

Be strong. I know you have had to put up with so much on account of your illness. I wish I could have done more for you, but at least you are financially secure and will be able to stay in the house you love. The Kenworthys will go, I am sure of it. The swimming pool will never be built. You will be left in peace.

Goodbye, my dearest. We will see each other again on the other side.

All my love,

Roderick

‘I’d say that’s pretty conclusive,’ Khan muttered. ‘All that’s missing is a selfie taken when he was getting in the car with the gas cylinder and the plastic bag. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Hawthorne said nothing. He tapped a keyboard and another image appeared, a second evidence bag.

‘Do you mind?’ Khan was offended.

‘What’s this?’ Hawthorne asked.

He was looking at a photograph of a slim white paper tube, about an inch long, with a swirly red pattern.

‘I’m not sure that’s relevant to what happened,’ Khan said. ‘It was in the breast pocket of the deceased’s jacket. It’s a drinking straw.’

‘You mean part of one.’

‘Yes.’ Khan sniffed. ‘It’s too early to say, but there’s no indication that Mr Browne ever used illegal substances.’

‘That’s a good point, Detective Superintendent,’ Hawthorne said. It was true that cocaine users often used a piece cut off a drinking straw to inhale the drug. Wealthier addicts were quite likely to have a personalised tube made out of silver or gold.

‘Mind you, we can’t be sure,’ Khan went on. ‘He had a lot of celebrity clients.’

They were interrupted by the sound of raised voices out in the hall. Someone was arguing with one of the policemen. ‘What now?’ Khan asked. He walked out of the kitchen. Hawthorne and Dudley followed.

A young man had arrived, casually dressed, with a Whole Foods bag over his shoulder. He was thin and delicate, not someone who might be expected to push his way in. He looked upset. A uniformed policeman was trying to stop him coming any further.

‘Leave this to me,’ Khan said, taking over. The policeman stepped away and he went up to the man. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m Mrs Browne’s carer.’ Damien Shaw had clearly been taken aback to find so many policemen at Riverview Close. Had he so quickly forgotten about the murder that had taken place just a few days before? Or had no one told him?

‘Mrs Browne isn’t here.’

‘I know. But I wanted to make the house nice for her when she got back from her sister’s. I was going to change the sheets and maybe do a bit of dusting.’ Damien looked around him. ‘Why are there so many policemen here? Has this got something to do with Giles Kenworthy? Mr Browne called me. He told me about it. He sounded very upset.’

‘Stop there!’ Hawthorne had taken charge. ‘Let’s talk in the kitchen. It may be more comfortable.’

Khan nodded as if it had been his suggestion in the first place.

‘How did you get into the close?’ he asked, once they were sitting round the table in the kitchen with the laptop closed and pushed aside.

‘The constable there tried to stop me. He was very rude, even though I told them I worked here.’

‘Do you have a set of keys to this house?’

‘Yes. Of course.’ Damien took out a ring and held up a single key. ‘This opens the front door.’

Hawthorne took over. ‘You said you spoke to Mr Browne,’ he said. ‘When was that?’

‘Yesterday morning.’

‘What time exactly?’

‘Ten o’clock.’ That was before Hawthorne had met Browne and interviewed him in this same room. The dentist had been a bundle of nerves, still in shock after the murder of his neighbour. ‘He called me at home. I don’t come in Wednesdays, but he wanted to tell me what had happened, that someone had killed Mr Kenworthy . . . with a crossbow! He told me that it was his crossbow that had been used. The one in the garage.’

‘Did you know it was there?’

‘Oh, yes. He never made any secret of it. Everyone knew.’ Damien paused. ‘I imagine that’s why he was so upset. He was in a real state, if you want the truth. I was quite worried about him and I offered to come over, but he said he’d be OK.’

‘Did he have any thoughts? Any suspicions as to who might have done it?’ Khan asked.

‘No. Not that he said.’

‘So you left him on his own,’ Khan said, accusingly.

‘That’s not fair. It wasn’t like that at all!’ Now Damien was indignant. ‘What was I meant to do? It wasn’t as if I was his carer! My job was to look after Felicity, and anyway, he had plenty of friends he could turn to. As a matter of fact, he mentioned he was going to talk to Adam Strauss. “Adam will help. Adam will know what to do.” That’s what he said to me. Those were his very words.’

‘Why Adam Strauss?’ Dudley asked.

‘The two of them were close. Adam gave Roderick a lot of support in the early days when Felicity got ill, and in fact it was Adam who gave him the name of the agency that I work for, so I’m grateful to him for that. But it wasn’t just him. The other neighbours were very kind too. Tom Beresford was always asking after Felicity, and the old ladies next door are sweethearts. But Adam knew Roderick even before they both ended up living in Riverview Close. Adam was a patient of his – did you know that? The others may have talked the talk, but he was the one who came round and offered proper advice and sympathy. I’m sure Roderick was grateful.’

There was a short silence.

‘So Roderick Browne told you that Giles Kenworthy had been killed,’ Hawthorne said. ‘How did you react to that news, Damien?’

‘How do you think? I was horrified! I know he wasn’t very popular, but I’d never even met Mr Kenworthy . . . not properly. I saw him quite a few times going in and out and he struck me as a bit high and mighty. I knew how much trouble he was causing everyone. Felicity was very upset that he was going to build this swimming pool and ruin her view. She even said they might have to move.’

‘What else did Roderick tell you?’

Damien thought back. He shrugged. ‘Nothing very much. He did say that he was taking Felicity to her sister in Woking. He didn’t want her here with all this police activity going on.’

Hawthorne knew this already. ‘So her sister was going to look after her.’

‘Yes. It worked very well. As I said, I don’t work Wednesdays. I only come in three times a week. So I said I’d see him today and we rang off—’

‘Mr Browne was expecting you today?’ Hawthorne cut in.

‘Yes. That’s why I’m here.’ Damien stopped. An awful thought had occurred to him. ‘Where is he?’

‘I’m afraid Mr Browne is dead,’ Khan said.

‘What?’ In an instant, all the colour had left Damien’s face. He looked as if he was about to faint. ‘How?’ he whispered. ‘What happened?’

‘Get him a glass of water,’ Hawthorne muttered. Dudley went over to the sink. ‘The police believe he may have taken his own life,’ he said.

‘But that’s impossible! There’s no way he’d do that.’

‘He’d been under a lot of strain.’ Khan was doing his best to keep the situation under control. ‘How long had you been looking after his wife?’ he asked.

‘Two years . . .’ Damien’s eyes were filled with tears. Dudley returned with a glass of water and Damien drank it all in one go. When he put the glass down, his hands were shaking. ‘I come in Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays . . .’ he went on. ‘Felicity’s a lovely lady. We get on together brilliantly. I had to take a week off just a short while ago and she hated it. She said she couldn’t manage without me.’ He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Does she know?’

‘She has been informed,’ Khan said.

‘I should go to her! She must be in shock. This is terrible. I can’t even think how she’ll manage without him.’

‘I think you should stay away for the time being,’ Khan warned him.

‘But Roderick was everything to her. He adored Felicity. He’d never leave her on her own.’

Khan didn’t look happy with Damien’s assessment and moved on quickly. ‘I do have one more question for you, Mr Shaw,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you can tell me where Mr Browne kept his mobile phone?’

Damien nodded. ‘It’ll be on the chest of drawers in the hall. Roderick was always losing things, so he was quite religious about it. He always left it there.’

‘I didn’t see it.’ Khan glanced at Hawthorne. ‘We’d obviously like to look at any messages he may have sent prior to his death,’ he said defensively. ‘It’s standard procedure.’ He turned back to Damien. ‘Would you like one of my officers to drive you home?’

‘No. I live in Richmond. I can walk.’

‘You live with your parents?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘With my mum.’

Hawthorne waited until Damien had left. Then he turned to Khan. ‘It’s interesting,’ he said. ‘Roderick Browne is going to kill himself. But first of all he does a bit of spring-cleaning. And you’d have thought he’d have warned his wife’s carer not to come in.’

‘You heard what he said, Hawthorne,’ Khan returned. ‘Damien spoke to him after Giles Kenworthy died. He was frightened. He wasn’t making any sense. That was because he knew what he’d done and he’d decided to take the easy way out.’

‘When did you interview Roderick Browne?’ Hawthorne asked. ‘You told us he was your prime suspect.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Did you take him into the station?’

‘I interviewed him the morning after Giles Kenworthy’s body had been discovered.’ Khan looked guilty. ‘That was here – in his own home. Based on what he said, I decided to interrogate him more formally the next day, so I had him taken to Shepherd’s Bush.’

‘Was that before or after he dropped his wife in Woking?’

‘It was in the afternoon, when he got back.’

‘How long did you keep him?’

‘Two hours.’

‘Under caution?’

Khan was becoming increasingly uncomfortable as the consequences of what he had done became apparent to him. ‘Yes.’

‘Poor bastard,’ Dudley said. ‘He must have been terrified. If he did kill himself, at least we know why.’ He shook his head reproachfully. ‘You scared the living daylights out of him, Detective Superintendent. It may be that you didn’t give him any other choice.’

2

‘I cannot tell you how upset I am,’ May Winslow said.

‘He was a lovely man,’ Phyllis agreed. She pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and touched it to her cheek.

‘Always friendly, always ready to lend a helping hand. We moved into the close at the same time as him and we hit it off straight away. He helped us move some of the furniture and he always asked us if we needed anything when he went to the shops. He never minded us knocking on his door if something went wrong.’

‘The oven,’ Phyllis reminded her. ‘Do you remember that?’

‘It was so embarrassing.’ May sighed. ‘It was only the timer. Phyllis had turned it on accidentally. I’m not blaming you, dear! Why do they have to make these things so complicated? But we ate salads and cold food for a week before he came and sorted it for us. Nothing was ever too much trouble.’

The sitting room of The Gables had not been designed for five people. It was too small, with too many ornaments, too many pictures on the wall, and furniture that was a little too big for the area in which it stood. An old-fashioned television set took up rather too much space in one corner and the only empty space in the room told its own sad story: it was where a wicker dog basket had once been placed. A wooden cross stood on the mantelpiece and a Bible sat prominently on an otherwise unnecessary side table. There was no other indication of the ladies’ religious past.

May and Phyllis each had an armchair that was most definitely theirs, moulded to their exact shape over the fourteen years they had lived there. Hawthorne and Dudley were pressed together on a floral-patterned sofa while Khan perched on a stool brought in from the kitchen. The front windows looked out onto the close, but May had drawn the curtains to blot out the sight of the police cars and all the activity taking place next door. As a result, the air in the room was warm and stale. It still smelled of Ellery.

‘Did Mr Browne ever talk to you about his animosity towards Giles Kenworthy?’ Khan asked, shifting uncomfortably on his stool. He didn’t want to be here – he had already interviewed both women and he was sure that they had nothing more to say – but he hadn’t been keen to let Hawthorne continue on his own. If any further information presented itself regarding the death of Roderick Browne, he wanted to be the first to hear it.

‘I’m not sure that “animosity” is the right word, Detective Superintendent,’ May replied. ‘He didn’t really have feelings towards Mr Kenworthy. Of course he was upset about the pool. Mrs Browne hardly ever leaves her bed these days and it mattered to her, the view from the window.’

‘A view is important,’ Phyllis agreed.

‘I’m sure we all know that, dear.’ May gave her friend a pinched smile. ‘All I’m saying is that Mr Browne was a very kind and very gentle man who didn’t harbour grudges and I find it impossible to believe that he killed anyone.’

‘Then why do you think he committed suicide?’ Khan asked.

‘You should never use the word “committed” in that context, Detective Superintendent. Suicide may be a sin, but it is not a crime! As to your question, I’m afraid I have no answer. I saw him with my own eyes, sitting in that car with a bag over his head. I wish I hadn’t. It’s something I will take with me to the grave. All I can say is, he was questioned yesterday at Shepherd’s Bush Police Station for two whole hours and he was terribly upset.’

Khan squirmed, avoiding Hawthorne’s eye. ‘He told you this?’

‘Not me. Phyllis. She spoke to him over the garden hedge.’

‘He wasn’t himself,’ Phyllis said. She seemed to be too nervous of May to utter more than three words.

‘What did he say to you?’ Dudley asked. He had his notebook poised. ‘And how do you spell your name, by the way?’

‘Moore. Phyllis Moore.’

‘Is that with two o’s? Or like St Thomas?’

‘Two o’s.’

Dudley wrote this down.

Phyllis glanced at May for permission, then continued. ‘It was late in the afternoon. He’d just come back in a police car! We didn’t speak very much. He said that he’d been asked a lot of questions and that he was relieved he had taken his wife to her sister’s.’

‘Did he think he was about to be arrested?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘He didn’t say. But the police wouldn’t have arrested him for something he hadn’t done.’

‘I’m sure that’s never happened,’ Dudley agreed.

‘He told me he was going to call Adam Strauss and ask him for advice.’

Hawthorne frowned. ‘Why not Andrew Pennington? He was a barrister. He’d know a lot more.’

‘That’s a very good point. I would have thought Mr Pennington would be exactly the right person to go to. I can’t imagine why he didn’t.’

Dudley wrote something down in his notebook. He added a question mark and circled it.

‘How did the two of you come to be living in Richmond?’ Khan asked.

‘You were nuns.’ Hawthorne made it sound improbable, like the first line of a joke.

‘We met at the Franciscan Convent of St Clare in Osmondthorpe, near Leeds,’ May said.

‘We were cellies,’ Phyllis added.

‘That’s what we called the sisters who shared rooms. There was very little space. I arrived two years before Phyllis – and we left at the same time.’

‘How long were you there for?’

‘Almost three decades. I went in when I was in my forties.’

‘Why?’ Hawthorne sounded almost hostile.

‘It’s rather personal, Mr Hawthorne. And I don’t see that it has anything to do with what’s happened here, but I suppose this is a murder investigation so I’ll tell you what you want to know.

‘I had a very unhappy marriage. I was living in Chester at the time and I was in an abusive relationship. My husband was an alcoholic and hurt me quite badly on many occasions. Once, he even put me in hospital. And yet I found myself unable to leave him. I’m told this is not uncommon in cases like mine. It was a bit like Stockholm syndrome. Is that the one I mean? We had a son and I did my best to protect him until he turned eighteen and left home. I thank the Lord that he had no idea what his father was like. David had a hold over me that I cannot explain to this day. He destroyed my self-confidence, my inner resolve. He controlled my every waking moment until the day he died of a heart attack . . . and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t mourn him for a single minute. The bigger question was – what was I going to do? I was forty. I had a house, a little money and no income.

‘It’s funny, really. I had always been a regular churchgoer, although I didn’t think of myself as a religious person. It was more of a respite from David. He would drink on Saturday night and sleep it off on Sunday, so church was somewhere for me to go. The vicar was a friend of mine and after David died, she talked to me about St Clare’s. At first, the idea was that I might go there for a month or two while I thought about what I might do next, but from the moment I arrived, I felt happy and didn’t want to leave. It was a safe space. I liked the simplicity . . . Not so much the prayers and the meditation but the friendship and the sense that I was doing something useful. We ran soup kitchens and food pantries in Bradford and Leeds. We visited families in their homes. It was the first time in my life that I actually felt wanted.’

Dudley turned to Phyllis. ‘Were you ever married?’ he asked.

Phyllis seemed reluctant to answer. She lowered her head. ‘My husband passed away.’ That was all she would say.

‘So why did you leave the convent?’ Hawthorne continued.

May answered. ‘It was time. Almost thirty years. Phyllis and I often spoke at night about what we might do after St Clare’s. As she just told you, we shared a room.’

‘We weren’t meant to speak to each other after vespers,’ Phyllis added. ‘But we’d whisper to each other in the darkness.’

‘It’s true. There was no talking after night prayer. Maybe that little disobedience should have told me something.’ May paused. ‘And then an aunt of mine died and left me money. It was like something out of a fairy story! I’d already given everything I had to the convent and the mother superior expected me to do the same with my inheritance. But I didn’t agree, I’m afraid. I saw it as a sign that it was time to move on – a sign from God, if you like. So I talked to Phyllis and we left together the same day.’

‘Why Richmond?’

‘This is where I grew up. I saw the house on the internet and I thought it looked perfect.’

‘It is perfect,’ Phyllis agreed. ‘We’ve been very happy here.’

‘Until all this business started, anyway.’

‘You run a bookshop selling crime fiction,’ Dudley said. ‘That seems like a strange occupation after all those years in a convent.’

‘Well, we had to do something to keep ourselves busy,’ May replied. ‘I used to like Gladys Mitchell when I was a girl. She wrote over sixty novels, you know. But they were never violent. They were never horrible like so much modern fiction. And lovely Dorothy, too. And Agatha. All this modern interest in dead bodies and women being killed – and children too! Why would anyone want to read stories like that? That was what gave me the idea for The Tea Cosy. We never stock books with bad language, and I’m afraid there are a lot of writers we simply won’t touch. The truth is, we don’t make a lot of money out of it, but that isn’t the point.’

‘We used to love walking up there with Ellery,’ Phyllis said sadly.

Khan turned to Hawthorne. ‘Is there anything else you want to ask?’

‘One thing.’ He turned to May. ‘You had a spare key to the Brownes’ home.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Who else knew you had it?’

‘Nobody . . . apart from Sarah. Mr Browne told her I had it so she could get into the house if a pipe burst or something. But she didn’t know where it was kept. I had it in my medicine box in the bathroom cabinet. Nobody knew it was there.’

‘Sarah told us that she only got employed here thanks to you,’ Hawthorne said.

‘It’s true.’ May pulled a face, as if she had just sniffed sour milk. ‘She was knocking on doors, looking for work, and we took her on. You have to give young people a chance these days. Once she started working for us, we recommended her to other people in the close.’

‘We wouldn’t have gone anywhere near her if we’d known what she was going to do,’ Phyllis said, fresh tears welling in her eyes.

‘You blame her for the death of your dog.’

‘How could anyone do anything as horrible as that – and to an animal that had never done any harm to anyone? I wouldn’t have believed it – but she had scratches on her arms. I asked her about that. She said she’d been clearing a dead rose bush for Mr Strauss, but that’s not what it looked like to me.’

‘Does she still look after your garden?’

May paused. ‘We have no choice. It’s not so easy to find help around here.’

Hawthorne smiled at Khan. ‘No further questions,’ he said.

3

No tea or butter cookies were served at The Stables this time. Adam Strauss was slumped in an armchair, his hands clasped between his knees, a look of utter defeat on his face. For a man who guarded his emotions, who had learned to do so professionally, he had clearly taken a beating. He barely looked up as his wife showed Detective Superintendent Khan, Hawthorne and Dudley into the room.

‘Mr Strauss . . .’ Khan tried to get hold of his attention.

Strauss looked up dully. He was wearing a loose bottle-green velvet jacket and a wide-collared shirt, as if he had just come back from a late-night party, albeit one that had taken place in the nineties. ‘I thought I’d see you again,’ he said eventually.

‘I’m sorry, sir. I know you were close to Roderick Browne.’

‘He was my dentist.’

‘He was more than that, as I understand it.’

‘Oh, yes. We were friends. He was the one who introduced us to Riverview Close in the first place. He was thinking of buying Woodlands and he showed me the brochure. That’s how I came to acquire the Lodge. I saw him last night, you know. I suppose I must have been the last person to see him alive – unless Sarah Baines came in this morning?’

‘She arrived too late, sir.’

‘Well, it’s all down to me, then.’ Strauss fell silent.

‘He called you and asked you to come round,’ Khan said.

‘That’s right. That was just after he came back from the police station.’ Suddenly, Adam was angry. He looked at Khan accusingly. ‘You really put him through the wringer, didn’t you! Did you have to interview him at such length?’

‘He was a suspect in a murder investigation, sir, and he was treated with the utmost courtesy . . .’

‘We were all suspects, Detective Superintendent. God knows, I had as much reason to kill Giles Kenworthy as anyone.’

‘His children did thousands of pounds’ worth of damage,’ Teri cut in. She had taken a seat next to her husband. Now she reached out and took his hand. ‘They smashed my husband’s beautiful chess set. And their father didn’t give a damn.’

‘But it was Roderick Browne’s crossbow.’

Strauss shook his head. ‘Anyone could have taken it . . . including me! I was in and out of his house all the time. There’s a corridor at the back, next to the kitchen. It leads straight in. Roderick would be upstairs half the time, fetching and carrying for Felicity. It would have been easy to walk in and take it.’ He stared at Khan. ‘You picked on him and you browbeat him and although it pains me to say it, you may have been responsible for his suicide, Detective Superintendent. He was a middle-aged man with the worry of a very sick wife and then you come barging in, making false accusations. I think you should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘I didn’t accuse him of anything, sir.’

‘So what did you talk about for over two hours? The weather?’

If Hawthorne had been enjoying the sight of Khan being put in his place, he was careful not to show it. ‘You said you saw Mr Browne,’ he said. ‘Can you tell us what happened?’

Strauss nodded. ‘Teri, can you get me a glass of mineral water?’

Teri got up and went over to the fridge without saying a word.

‘I got the call from him at about six o’clock yesterday evening,’ Strauss continued. ‘He asked me if I’d come over. He said he wanted my advice.’

‘It would be helpful if I could see your mobile,’ Khan said. ‘We’ll need to verify all the timings.’

‘Of course. But I’d have thought you could get that off Roderick’s.’

Khan looked embarrassed. ‘Mr Browne seems to have misplaced his phone. We’re still looking for it.’

‘Are you saying someone’s stolen it?’

‘No, sir. We just can’t find it.’

‘It seems to me that so far you haven’t helped solve anything at all.’

‘Mr Browne confessed to the murder of Giles Kenworthy.’ Khan did his best to hold his ground. ‘We have every reason to believe that he killed himself to escape justice.’

‘That’s impossible. I don’t believe it.’

‘He left behind a letter. He couldn’t have been clearer. Everything about the manner of his death suggests that he committed . . . that he decided on suicide. It would help us a great deal if you could tell me what happened when you saw him last night. What did you talk about? What was his state of mind?’

Adam Strauss calmed down a little, as if acknowledging the need to cooperate. His wife brought over a glass of fizzy water with a lemon slice and ice cubes. He didn’t thank her but emptied it in one gulp and set the glass down. She took her place next to him.

‘I went over to Woodlands at about half past eight, after we finished eating,’ he explained. ‘Roderick was on his own, of course. He’d dropped his wife off with her sister and at least it comforted him to know that she was being looked after. I got the feeling that he was nervous about being on his own. He’d had a bit to drink. There was an open bottle of Scotch on the table when I arrived.’

This accorded with what the police pathologist had found in his blood.

‘Did he offer you some?’ Dudley asked.

‘Yes. He might have. I don’t really remember. I didn’t drink any.’

‘Go on,’ Khan said.

‘We sat down and we talked. He told me that he’d had a dreadful time at the police station in Shepherd’s Bush, that he’d been treated like a common criminal and even threatened.’

‘Nobody threatened him,’ Khan said.

‘I can only tell you what he told me. He was quite sure that the police had made up their minds, that he was the one who had killed Giles Kenworthy. It was his weapon. He had a motive. He was going to be arrested and it would be the end of his practice, his marriage, his life. He might have to go to prison! If you knew Roderick, you’d know he wouldn’t have lasted a week there. The thought filled him with horror.

‘I tried to reassure him. I told him that everyone in the close was behind him and we knew that he hadn’t shot anyone. We’d all been interviewed – first by you and then by Mr Hawthorne. Any one of us could have done it or – and I still believe this is the most likely possibility – it could have been someone from outside. I said this to you the last time you were here. Kenworthy was a hedge fund manager. Hedge fund managers have enemies.’

‘How long were you with him?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘A couple of hours, give or take. I left about ten o’clock.’

‘Was there anything in Mr Browne’s manner that caused you alarm?’

‘Everything in his manner caused me alarm, but if you’re asking me if I thought he might kill himself, the answer’s obviously no. I told Roderick to go to bed and I assured him that everything would seem better in the morning. I thought I’d helped him. By the time I left, he seemed quieter and more relaxed.’ He glanced down into his empty glass. ‘Now you’re making me worry that I was wrong. I shouldn’t have left him on his own. I should have stayed longer or maybe invited him over here.’

‘You did everything you could,’ Teri assured him.

‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’

‘I don’t suppose anyone saw you leave?’ Dudley asked.

‘Why are you even asking my husband that question?’ Teri cut in. ‘Are you suggesting that he’s lying to you? You think that he killed his friend?’

‘I can assure you that such a thought never crossed my mind, Mrs Strauss,’ Dudley said.

Adam held up a conciliatory hand. ‘You don’t need to worry yourself, my dear. They have to ask these questions. It’s part of the game.’ He glanced at Dudley. ‘As it happens, there was someone. I heard the electric gate open and Andrew Pennington came in just as I was saying goodbye. I didn’t speak to him, but I saw him and I’m sure he saw me.’

‘Was he in a car or on foot?’

‘On foot.’

‘Adam was very upset when he arrived home,’ Teri volunteered. ‘His leg hurt him very much. He was tired. But if you say he had anything to do with the death of Roderick Browne, that’s disgusting. You have no right to come here and say these things!’

There was a tone of dismissal in her voice. The three men stood up and made their goodbyes and Teri escorted them out of the house. Strauss stayed where he was, too exhausted to move. His wife stood there on the doorstep for a moment, glaring at Hawthorne as if all this was his fault. ‘My husband has to prepare for Chennai,’ she said. ‘This business – murder, suicide, policemen, all these questions. We’ve had enough. You have to make it stop.’

She closed the door.

4

Andrew Pennington confirmed Strauss’s story.

‘I was playing bridge,’ he said. ‘My Wednesday-night game. I’ll be honest and say that it was a relief to take my mind off what’s happening here. There are two groups I like to play with, but that evening I was in Richmond.’

‘Can you provide an address?’ Khan asked.

‘Of course. The Leggatts in Friars Lane. A very pleasant couple. We always meet at seven, have a quick supper and then play a few rubbers . . . usually three or four. I try to be home by ten and read for an hour before bed. You must think me a very dull old stick, but I’m afraid that’s what happens when you live alone. Everything falls into a pattern. Radio 4 in the morning. A stroll before lunch. A quick nap in the afternoon. That sort of thing.

‘I heard the two of them as I came through the gate. Adam Strauss was standing in the doorway. I didn’t see Roderick, but I heard him speak. He was thanking Adam. “You’ve always been so kind to me. I’m very grateful to you.” Or words to that effect. I wasn’t close enough to hear them exactly. The lights went out, the front door closed and Adam walked away. I assume Roderick must have turned in. As for Adam, he went round the other side of the driveway, past Gardener’s Cottage, so we didn’t talk to each other. I stood outside in the fresh air for a moment, looking at the stars. I saw him go into The Stables and that was that.’

‘Did you see anyone else?’ Dudley asked.

Pennington stiffened. ‘Why are you asking me that? I understood that Roderick’s death was self-inflicted.’

‘It almost certainly was,’ Khan said. ‘But this is still a murder investigation.’

‘You’re treating Roderick’s death as murder?’

‘No, sir. I’m referring to the murder of Giles Kenworthy – to which, I’m sorry to say, your friend Mr Browne confessed.’

Andrew shook his head. ‘It’s terrible. Just terrible. I never thought he would take it this far.’

For an experienced barrister, Andrew Pennington had made an elementary mistake. He had offered up more information than he had intended and Hawthorne jumped straight in. ‘Are you saying you knew what Roderick Browne was going to do?’ he asked.

‘No, no. Not at all. I had absolutely no idea.’ Andrew searched for the right words, desperately trying to find a way to escape the implications of what he had just said. ‘Obviously, if I had known anything of his intentions, I would have contacted the appropriate authorities.’

‘You must have known something. That’s the only way you might have been able to stop him.’ Hawthorne sounded completely reasonable but at the same time he was merciless. ‘And what exactly was the “it” that you didn’t think would go so far?’

‘He did, on one occasion, express a very strong – indeed, a violent – dislike of his neighbour. He even went so far as to say that . . .’

‘What?’

‘. . . that he wanted to kill him.’

‘What occasion was this?’ Khan demanded. ‘And why didn’t you tell me any of this when I spoke to you yesterday?’

‘Because I’d forgotten all about it! It was just an evening we’d had together a while ago . . . over a drink. You know how it is. You have a couple of glasses of wine, you say stupid things. Everyone does it!’

‘I’ve never threatened to shoot a crossbow bolt through somebody’s throat,’ Dudley remarked.

‘I’ll ignore that comment, if you don’t mind, Mr Dudley. What Roderick said wasn’t a serious death threat and at the time I thought nothing of it. Obviously, in light of recent developments, it’s only now that I find myself forced to reconsider.’

‘I’m frankly amazed that a man with your experience would keep this sort of information to yourself, Mr Pennington,’ Khan said. ‘I may have to ask you to come in and make another statement.’

‘Of course. I’ll help you any way I can. But as I’ve already explained, Roderick had drunk a bit too much wine and he made an off-colour remark. That’s all there was to it.’

Khan stood up. The four of them had met in Pennington’s sitting room and he had heard enough. But Dudley hadn’t finished. ‘You never answered my question,’ he said.

‘What question was that?’ Pennington was also on his feet.

‘If you saw anyone else in the close when you got back from bridge.’

‘I don’t feel comfortable implicating my neighbours.’

‘If Mr Browne really committed suicide, you’re not implicating anyone.’

‘These aren’t just my neighbours. They’re my friends.’

‘So which one of your friends did you see?’

Andrew realised he had no way of escape. ‘I saw Tom Beresford,’ he said, speaking the words heavily. ‘He didn’t go anywhere near Roderick’s house. He appeared at the front door of his own place and walked round the side. He might have been going into his garage.’

‘At ten o’clock at night? Did you hear him drive off?’

‘I didn’t hear a car. No.’

‘You didn’t see him head towards Mr Browne’s house?’

‘Definitely not. He disappeared into the shadows.’

‘Like he didn’t want to be seen?’

‘No. It was ten o’clock at night and it was dark. He was there one moment and gone the next.’ Pennington walked to the front door and opened it. ‘Maybe Tom had left something in the car,’ he continued. ‘It could have been as simple as that.’ He turned to Khan. ‘I know you have a job to do, Detective Superintendent, but you must understand that we’ve all known each other for years. This is our home. You’re suggesting that Roderick committed the murder and killed himself out of remorse, and I have to say I’m inclined to agree with you. There seems to be no alternative explanation. So why are you continuing with this investigation? Can’t you just move on and leave us all in peace?’

They left Well House and stood outside, near the gate. It was early afternoon and once again the police presence was thinning out. Khan seemed to come to a decision. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Are you satisfied, Hawthorne? I’d say we’ve come to the end of the road.’

‘What road’s that, Detective Superintendent?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘We now know that Roderick Browne threatened to kill Giles Kenworthy. It was his crossbow and he had the most obvious motive. He was under a lot of pressure, having to deal with his wife’s illness, and it seems fair to say that he was acting on her behalf. If Kenworthy was dead, the pool wouldn’t be built, her view would be protected and they wouldn’t have to move.

‘So let’s move on to the suicide itself. It may well be that my interview with him upset him more than I thought, but I was not alone in the interrogation room. The whole thing was recorded. I observed all the correct procedures and Mr Browne was absolutely fine when he was taken home. We’ve now learned that he became distressed later in the evening and called Adam Strauss for help. He drank whisky and took an overdose of sleeping pills. He used nitrous oxide and other apparatus consistent with his work as a dentist. He wrote a suicide letter. The garage door was double-locked, the skylight was securely fastened and there was no other way in or out.

‘So when I say we’ve come to the end of the road, I mean that I am going to recommend that we close this inquiry or, at least, that we do not interview any other witnesses. Mr Browne killed Mr Kenworthy and, out of remorse, took his own life. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Can I just say one thing?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘What?’

‘If Browne’s suicide is so cut and dried, why didn’t he cancel the carer? If he was going to kill himself, wouldn’t he have told Damien Shaw not to come in? And while we’re on the subject of Damien, he doesn’t believe the suicide theory either. He agreed that Browne would never have left his wife on her own. He was devoted to her! May Winslow and Phyllis Moore said much the same thing.

‘But according to you, that’s just what he did, and although there are a lot of unanswered questions, you seem to be ignoring them. What happened to his missing phone? And the missing car key? For someone about to top himself, Mr Browne seems to have been missing a lot. And here’s something else that may not have crossed your mind. You told us that one set of keys to the Skoda were found in Browne’s trouser pocket. But doesn’t that strike you as odd? For a start, he didn’t need the key. He wasn’t going anywhere. And if he’d used it to open and shut the doors, wouldn’t it have been in his hand or on the seat next to him? No one ever puts car keys in their trouser pockets – and nor do they carry a one-inch drinking straw with them, not even if they fancy a quick sniff of cocaine. Anyway, as far as I can see, Browne wasn’t into that. Lots and lots of questions, but for some reason you don’t seem to want to do your job.’

Khan was about to argue, but he’d had enough. ‘I don’t need to take this from you,’ he said. ‘Your work here is over and I want you to leave. I’ve heard a lot about you, Hawthorne, and to be honest, none of it is good. I had misgivings about inviting you here in the first place and now I see why. You meet a police officer who’s making good in his career and all you want to do is stir things up. But it’s not going to work with me. I’ll wish you a good day.’

Khan turned on his heel and walked off.