The Tea Cosy bookshop was open for business, but neither May Winslow nor Phyllis Moore was in any mood to sell books.
They were sitting at one of the empty tables close to the main door. In fact, all the tables were empty. Nobody had come in yet and although they often passed the time reading, knitting or playing gin rummy together when they had no business, today they were just sitting in silence. They had already given full statements to Detective Superintendent Khan and, after they had been forced to take the whole of Tuesday off, he had allowed them to leave for work – so long as they promised not to discuss the murder with any of their customers. Well, there was no chance of that today.
Phyllis had been agitated all morning. ‘I need a burner!’ she announced, suddenly.
May stared at her. ‘A cigarette?’
‘I can’t just sit here thinking about it all. I’m going outside.’ She reached down for her handbag, then rummaged in it for a pouch of Golden Virginia tobacco.
But before she could get up, May reached out and laid a hand on her companion’s arm. ‘I think we should talk,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘You know very well.’
‘You’ve been sitting here all morning. You haven’t said a word.’
It wasn’t very often that there was any friction between the two women, but just for a moment they glared at each other like old enemies. May released her grip. ‘We have to be very careful,’ she said. ‘We’ve got the police all over Riverview Close and my guess is they’ll be there for quite a while.’
‘We’ve got nothing to be afraid of.’
‘We have everything to be afraid of. You know the way it works. They’ll be investigating us even now. Do you want to stay in Richmond?’
‘I like it here.’
‘So do I. But we won’t be able to. Not if they start digging.’
There was another silence. Phyllis opened the packet and began to roll herself a cigarette. ‘We should tell them about what happened,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The night before the murder! When Roderick told us what he was going to do. He said it in front of us all.’
‘He’d been drinking.’
‘It doesn’t mean it wasn’t true . . .’
May thought for a moment. ‘We could tell the police. But what good do you think it would do?’
‘If they arrest him, they’ll leave the rest of us alone.’
‘I only wish that was the case.’ May was breathing heavily. ‘We were all there, Phyllis. We were all part of it. And we’ve all agreed to keep our mouths shut. You know what that is? That’s conspiracy.’ She paused, forcing herself to calm down. ‘I wish the whole thing had never happened. It was stupid. Madness!’ She drew a breath. ‘You go to the police, you could find yourself under arrest. And me with you.’
Phyllis had finished making her roll-up. It contained so little tobacco that when she lit it, she would mainly be inhaling burnt paper. ‘We could send the police a note,’ she said. ‘Anonymously.’
May shook her head. ‘It won’t do any good. There’s no proof Roderick killed Mr Kenworthy. Do you really think he had it in him? I’ve met women older than us who’ve been more violent than him. And anyway, what was his motive?’
‘The swimming pool.’
‘We were all against the swimming pool. And you must remember, dear, that the police are dreadfully unimaginative. They’re unlikely to conclude that Mr Browne committed murder because the Kenworthys were going to spoil his view, even if that’s exactly what we want them to think!’
The shop door opened and a customer came in, a middle-aged man with a bag of groceries hanging from his arm. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Do you by any chance have any Jo Nesbø?’
‘Try Waterstones!’ May snapped, not even looking at him.
‘Oh . . . All right.’
He left. The door closed.
‘And since we’re talking about motives . . .’ May continued as if the interruption had never happened. ‘Detective Superintendent Khan could well come to the conclusion that you and I are much more likely suspects than Mr Browne.’
Phyllis knew exactly what she meant. She glanced at the corner of the room where Ellery’s basket had always been, at the far end of the non-fiction section. It was no longer there. Her eyes filled with tears and for a moment she couldn’t speak.
They had loved that dog since he was a puppy and now he was gone. In the past two weeks, the two women’s lives had changed irrevocably for the worse. As far as they were concerned, the death of Giles Kenworthy had been by far the lesser of two evils.
They both knew who was responsible. Lynda Kenworthy had threatened them. She couldn’t have been clearer. ‘If your animal strays into our garden one more time, I’m going to ask my husband to deal with it.’ May and Phyllis hadn’t really listened to her at the time. Now they dearly wished they had.
For it seemed that Ellery had done exactly that, slipping out of the house and once again burrowing under the Brownes’ fence. Worse than that, he had left behind evidence of his visit. They’d had no idea what had happened until they were leaving to catch the bus into Richmond and had discovered another plastic bag of dog waste clipped into the letter box of their front door. There was no message. No further warning. Of course, both women knew perfectly well what Lynda had said, but they weren’t entirely sure what she’d meant by ‘dealing’ with it and so once again they’d put the whole thing out of their minds. Neither of them believed for a moment that she or her husband would do anything vindictive.
That evening, they’d got home from the shop in time for supper, fed Ellery and let him out to make himself comfortable before bed. Meanwhile, they’d settled down to watch an episode of Bergerac on television (they had all nine seasons on DVD). It was only when they realised it had grown dark and Ellery hadn’t returned that they went out looking for him.
He wasn’t in the garden. They went past the Brownes’ house and called out for him, but he didn’t seem to have wandered into the grounds of Riverview Lodge either. By now, both of them were getting nervous. Ellery had never been out so late and for so long on his own. May walked round the entire close, calling out his name. Then she knocked on the door of Woodlands. If Ellery had strayed back into the grounds of Riverview Lodge, he would have had to pass through the next-door garden and there was always a chance that Roderick Browne might have seen him. A light came on in the hall, visible on the other side of the window, and the dentist appeared a few moments later, wearing a red striped apron. He had just done the washing-up and was taking a cup of camomile tea up to Felicity.
‘I’m so sorry to trouble you, Mr Browne. Ellery seems to have gone missing and we were wondering if you’d seen him.’
‘No. I’m afraid not. How long has he been gone?’
‘We don’t really know. He came home with us, then went out while we were watching TV.’
‘Well, I haven’t seen anything, but I’ll keep an eye out for him. I’m sure he’ll turn up . . .’
May already had a knotted feeling in her stomach. Ellery had never done this before. It was true that he treated the entire close as his personal domain, but he was still a nervous creature and never strayed for very long.
‘Maybe you should ask at the Lodge,’ Roderick suggested.
‘Yes. I’ll do that.’
May didn’t want to go anywhere near the Kenworthys’ home, not on her own, not even with Phyllis beside her. She hated the idea of prostrating herself before them, asking for their help. Not that they’d listen anyway. ‘I’m going to ask my husband to deal with it.’ The words were drumming themselves over and over in her ears.
Phyllis knew what her companion was thinking. ‘Maybe Mr Pennington has seen Ellery,’ she suggested.
They went back towards Well House and it was as they approached the front door that they heard it: the unmistakable sound of an animal in pain . . . a faint whimpering. Could it be Ellery? It didn’t sound like him. And the cries were coming from somewhere further away, perhaps behind the house.
May was really panicking now. Forgetting the bell, she rapped on the door so hard that she would feel the pain in her knuckles for days to come. The whimpering had stopped. Had she imagined it? She hoped so. There were plenty of foxes in Richmond, semi-domesticated, prowling the streets in search of open dustbins. It must have been one of them.
The door opened. Andrew Pennington peered out at them. He had been reading Anthony Trollope in bed when he heard the knocking on the door.
‘Please, Mr Pennington. Can you help us? We’ve been looking for Ellery. He’s disappeared. And just now we thought we heard something in your garden.’ The words poured out. May’s chest was rising and falling. She had been wearing her glasses when she was watching television. They were still hanging around her neck and rose and fell as if they too were trying to join in the search.
Andrew stepped outside and listened. ‘I can’t hear anything,’ he said.
All three of them fell silent and for a brief moment it seemed to be true. Perhaps they had imagined it after all. But then it came again from behind the house, or from somewhere nearby. It was a sound that carried with it all the pain in the world and May knew for certain that it was not a fox.
‘He’s in your garden,’ Phyllis said.
‘I don’t think so.’ Pennington cocked his head, trying to work out where the sound was coming from. ‘The sound’s coming from over there,’ he said. And then, with a sense of dread, ‘In the well.’
He was pointing towards the medieval well that stood between the house and the archway. It was one of the unique features of Riverview Close. His home was named after it. On the day that he and Iris moved in, they had both tossed a coin in for good luck.
‘Wait a minute. I’ll get some light,’ he said.
It was dark by now. Andrew’s night vision had deteriorated in recent years and he always kept a torch close to the front door. He went in and retrieved it, then led the two women round the side of the house. As they approached the well, the whimpering began again, more forlorn, more desperate.
Andrew directed the beam of the torch into the circular opening.
Ellery was about five metres down, curled up at the bottom, straining with his neck as if searching for salvation. He struggled to get to his feet, but it was clear he could no longer stand. Andrew heard May let out a moan beside him. Phyllis called out the dog’s name.
‘Don’t worry!’ Andrew found himself saying. ‘We’ll get him out of there. We’ll get help.’
But what sort of help were they going to find at ten o’clock at night and how long would it take to get there? It wasn’t important enough to trouble the police. The RSPCA, perhaps? Did they even have an office anywhere near Richmond?
‘Can you do anything? Can you get him out?’ Phyllis asked, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘I don’t know . . .’
It was impossible. The shaft of the well was too narrow and he wasn’t sure he would be able to climb back out again. A ladder was needed and someone thin enough to fit inside.
‘I’ll call the RSPCA,’ he said.
‘Oh, Ellery! Poor Ellery!’ May was also crying.
Ellery had fallen silent. He was no longer moving. Later on, May would say he had heard their voices, had known they were there, and that perhaps there was some crumb of comfort in the knowledge that he had not died alone.
‘He must have fallen in,’ Pennington said. But he knew it wasn’t true. Ellery wouldn’t have been able to jump in. The brick well head was far too high for the little French bulldog with its stubby legs, and why would he even have tried? There was only one solution. Ellery must have been picked up and deliberately dropped in. Pennington knew it, but he didn’t say it. His years at the bar had taught him never to make an accusation without proper evidence, and anyway, what would be the point? He flicked off the torch, sparing the two women the sight of their dead pet.
May had reached the same conclusion. Her face was set in stone. ‘This was them!’ she whispered. ‘They did it!’
‘What do you mean, Mrs Winslow?’
‘You know what I mean. Giles Kenworthy. She asked him to do something – to sort it out – and this is what happened. He was responsible and I’ll never forgive him. I’m not going to allow him to get away with it . . .’
May and Phyllis were still sitting at the table in The Tea Cosy, Phyllis rolling her cigarette between her fingers like a very old pianist warming up before a performance. They were both haunted by the empty space where Ellery’s basket had been. They knew they would never have another dog. Even if they had wanted one, it was too late for them.
It had been Sarah, the gardener, who had retrieved Ellery’s body from the well in the end. They’d had to wait until the next day for it to happen and once again the sun had been shining. Sarah was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and as she had lowered a ladder into the opening, they had both seen it.
Fresh, livid scratches on both her arms.