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.’