Close to Death

‘Oh, come on, love. Why don’t you go back and read that letter of his? There isn’t a single word that admits to his having killed anyone! “I did something very stupid”. You really think he would use the word stupid to describe murdering his neighbour? “I cannot bear you to see the consequences.” Is that him killing himself? “I do not want you to see this”. That must be his body in the garage?’

‘Exactly,’ Goodwin said.

‘Rubbish. What he did that was stupid was to announce, in front of everyone, that he was going to murder Kenworthy. The consequences were that everyone would assume he had done it and he would be arrested. And that was what he didn’t want her to see – him being led away in handcuffs.’

‘A bit convenient that he should have framed it that way,’ Khan muttered.

‘Not convenient. All part of the plan!’

Hawthorne slowed down. He was trying to make it as simple as he could.

‘Let’s look at yet another coincidence. The whole idea of killing Giles Kenworthy starts with Phyllis Moore because – guess what – two people have gone into her bookshop and bought the same Agatha Christie novel just days apart and that novel has a plot in which all the suspects have joined together to kill a man they hate! What do you reckon the chances of that happening are?’

‘People like Agatha Christie.’

‘Yes. But once again, you don’t seem to appreciate what was going on here, how every detail was being thought out in advance.

‘If you believe for a single minute that Roderick Browne killed himself because of what happened at that second meeting, ask yourself this. First, why was the suicide so bloody complicated? A locked car in a locked garage. The only keys inside the one pocket you don’t normally use to store them. You try getting them in when you’re sitting down! Stainless-steel screws which don’t rust have somehow gone rusty, making it impossible to open the skylight. And here are two more questions. Why is there a puddle on the floor when it hasn’t rained for weeks, and what is a piece of drinking straw doing in his top pocket?’

‘You’ve already told us where the straw came from,’ Goodwin said.

‘So when Roderick Browne killed himself, he made sure that it was somewhere we’d find it because he wanted us to know what had happened? You really think he even kept the straw, took it with him from The Stables? That clue was more planted than any of the flowers in Andrew Pennington’s roundabout. The aim was to manipulate us, to steer us to the second meeting, which would shine a light on the suicide-that-had-to-be-suicide and couldn’t possibly be murder!’

Hawthorne had said enough. He came to a halt, turning his soft brown eyes on the two police officers, daring them to challenge him.

There was a long silence.

‘What you’re saying,’ Khan began at last, ‘is that someone else killed Giles Kenworthy. They set up Roderick Browne and then killed him too, making it look like suicide. And that from start to finish, they’ve been dangling everyone on a string – a series of strings – and have been in complete control?’

‘You’ve finally got there, Detective Superintendent. Even now they’re laughing at us. They think it’s all gone their way.’

‘So who are you talking about?’ Khan looked around him, at the six houses that made up the close: Riverview Lodge, Woodlands, The Gables, Well House, The Stables, Gardener’s Cottage. Hawthorne had said that the killer was at home. ‘Which door do we knock on?’

Hawthorne smiled. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said.

2

The six of them were sitting quite formally in the living room, facing each other on two sofas and two chairs. Hawthorne and Dudley had taken the chairs.

‘What sort of person would always be ten moves ahead?’ Hawthorne was saying. ‘That was the question I asked myself. Who might see the whole world as a game where you could manoeuvre people left and right, this way and that, making them do almost anything you wanted? Who would remember every last detail about everyone around them so that they could use it to their own advantage? Who could plan against any eventuality so that no matter what happened, they’d be able to come back with the right response?’

‘A chess player,’ Adam Strauss said. ‘I have to admit, it’s an interesting idea, Mr Hawthorne.’

‘Why are you here?’ Teri demanded. ‘Are you accusing my husband of murdering Giles Kenworthy?’

‘And Roderick Browne,’ Hawthorne remarked amicably.

‘It’s lies! You are telling lies! You should get out of my house.’

Adam smiled and laid a hand on his wife’s thigh. ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nothing to be afraid of and I’d be quite interested to hear what Mr Hawthorne has got to say.’

‘You’re denying it?’ Detective Superintendent Khan asked.