Close to Death

‘We were at school together.’ Dudley smiled. ‘We knew each other when we were eight years old. We were best friends in the way that only eight-year-olds can be. He was like a brother to me.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what happened in Reeth?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not my story to tell.’ He deliberately changed the subject. ‘You know, he speaks very highly of you.’

‘Does he?’

‘That’s why I let you in. I’ve wanted to meet you for quite a while now, although if you’ll do me a favour, I wouldn’t mention any of this to Hawthorne.’

‘Or Morton.’

‘He already knows. He knows everyone who comes in and out of this building.’

‘I hope I’m not going to get you into more trouble.’

I meant it. It was strange, but I felt completely relaxed with John Dudley, as if I’d known him a long time. There was some sort of affinity between us. Despite what he’d said about our different roles, we had both come into Hawthorne’s orbit and that connected us.

He shook his head. ‘It’s too late now. Anyway, I’ll be gone by tomorrow evening, so we can just pretend it never happened.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ I said.

‘He’s not an easy man. I know that. But it’s good that you’re helping him. I think you’re what he needs.’

We lifted our coffee cups at the same moment. Again, I got that weird sense of reflection.

‘There’s one thing I really want to know,’ I said. ‘It’s the one thing that’s been really bothering me and I hope you can tell me. Why did the two of you part company?’ He didn’t answer, so I leapt in. ‘Was it because you discovered that he’d pushed Adam Strauss off a hotel balcony?’

He smiled at me. ‘That’s very direct.’

‘Well, as you say, you’re about to leave for the other side of the world. You might as well tell me the truth.’

‘It was something like that,’ he admitted.

He didn’t need to say any more. Khan had known Hawthorne was responsible, although he hadn’t been able to prove it. Morton was afraid of the truth coming out. Dudley must have worked it out for himself and that was why the two of them had gone their separate ways.

‘I was sorry the investigation didn’t have a better outcome,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘It ended the way it ended. I’m not sure it’s going to be very helpful for your book.’

‘Who do you think killed Roderick Browne?’

He gazed at me and I saw the puzzlement in his eyes. ‘I know who killed him. It was Adam Strauss.’

‘But you never found out why?’

‘I know exactly why. Hawthorne got it all right. Everything he said was correct!’

I was puzzled. ‘That last meeting at The Stables . . .’

‘That’s what I’m talking about. The last meeting: Hawthorne and me, the Strausses. Have you heard the recording?’

‘I’ve heard all your recordings. I’m grateful to you for making them. I couldn’t have written the book without them.’

‘Everything that Hawthorne said that day was bang on the money. I knew it before we went in. Adam Strauss murdered his first wife when he was living at Riverview Lodge and buried her in his back garden. If Detective Superintendent Khan was too stupid to see it or too up his own arse to accept it, that was his problem. I will admit, though, that Strauss completely tricked him. But that was what was so brilliant about him. He was a chess grandmaster and he was always ten moves ahead.’

I’d heard that quite a few times.

‘He’d boasted about it when we first met him,’ Dudley went on. ‘But the act he put on in that room . . . that was something else.’

‘What do you mean?’

Just for a moment, Dudley looked irritated. ‘He’d planned it all a long time ago, exactly the same way he’d planned the murder and the so-called suicide. He’d left nothing to chance. What was he going to do if a police officer walked into his house and tried to arrest him? He’d thought of that before he even killed his wife and he always made sure he had postcards, stashed away, ready to be brought out if anyone started asking awkward questions. Plus, every year a New Year’s card sent from Hong Kong: 2013, the Year of the Snake; 2014, the Year of the Horse. Photos of Wendy that he could show off on his phone. Don’t make any mistake. She was rotting away underneath that magnolia tree, but he’d built up a whole legend to keep her alive.

‘I have no doubt that it was Teri and not Wendy who took that flight to New York after the divorce. Planning ahead! They must have looked quite similar, even without the racial stereotypes. They were family! And anyway, a single woman travelling business class to New York would barely have got a second glance from a border control guard at either end of the journey. Strauss could probably have done it in drag!’

‘He told you there was a Wendy Yeung working at the Maritime Museum in Hong Kong.’