Close to Death

‘Well, that’s ridiculous. I’m a highly respected dental practitioner. I’ve never had so much as a speeding ticket in my life. Do I really look like a murderer to you?’

‘Well, actually . . .’ Dudley began.

‘It’s outrageous. We certainly had our issues with Giles Kenworthy. I’m not making any secret of that. But to come here, into my house, asking me all these questions . . .’

‘We haven’t asked you very much yet,’ Hawthorne said reasonably. ‘And we will be talking to everyone in Riverview Close.’

‘I’m sure you know who lives in this community. We’re very respectable people. A doctor. A barrister. Two ladies who used to be nuns. This is Richmond, for heaven’s sake! I feel as if I’ve woken up in Mexico City.’

Hawthorne waited for him to finish. ‘Why don’t you start by telling us when you came here?’ he suggested. ‘You and your wife?’

‘You haven’t told us her name,’ Dudley said.

‘Felicity. She’s upstairs in bed. She has ME.’ He leaned forward, confidentially. ‘That’s why this business with the swimming pool mattered so much to us. If you take away the view from her, you take away everything. And the noise! Their children are bad enough anyway, but with all their friends, shouting and screaming . . . We’d have had to move. And that’s not fair. We love it here.’

‘So when did you move in?’ Hawthorne repeated the question he’d asked earlier.

‘Fourteen years ago, just after the close had been developed. We arrived about a month after our neighbours, May Winslow and Phyllis Moore. They’re next door.’

‘Like most neighbours,’ Dudley said.

‘Yes. They’re quite elderly and they have a bookshop in the town centre. They sell crime novels. Then there’s Andrew Pennington next to them, Adam Strauss and his wife in The Stables and Dr Beresford and his family across the way. We’re all good friends – in a neighbourly sort of way. We like to have a drink together now and then. Nothing wrong with that! We look out for each other.’

‘When did the Kenworthys arrive?’

‘At the end of last year.’ Roderick Browne was speaking more confidently now. ‘Jon Emin and his wife were living in The Stables . . . a very nice couple. At that time, Adam was living in Riverview Lodge with his second wife, Teri, but she persuaded him that they would be more comfortable with something smaller. So they moved into The Stables when the Emins sold and that was when Giles Kenworthy bought the Lodge. We were all looking forward to meeting him. We really were. We’re not stand-offish here. Don’t let anyone tell you that.’

‘So what went wrong?’

‘Everything!’ Roderick Browne shook his head in dismay. ‘Nobody liked him,’ he went on. ‘Nobody! It wasn’t just me. Mr Kenworthy was a horrible man – not that he deserved what happened to him. He didn’t deserve that at all, and whatever I may have said in the heat of the moment, I never wished him any harm. None of us did. The fact is, he seemed to take a delight in putting our noses out of joint. He and his wife and his children. There were so many incidents, and they just got worse and worse until they were making all our lives unbearable.’

‘What sort of incidents?’

‘Well . . .’ Roderick already seemed to be regretting that he had volunteered so much, but now that he had started it was hard to stop. ‘There were lots of things. They may seem petty, describing them to you now, but they added up. The parking, the loud music, cricket and skateboards . . . The children were out of control. I said to Felicity things were going from bad to worse when he just dumped his Christmas tree in the drive as if it was up to us to get rid of it. No consideration! And then there were the parties. He never stopped having parties, although he never invited any of us. The swimming pool was the final straw. We never thought the council would give them permission, but it did and maybe that’s something you should look into. I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t some sort of backhander involved. I mean . . . see for yourself.’ He pointed out of the window. ‘He was going to rip up the lawn – right there! You see that lovely magnolia? It attracts so many wild birds. Adam planted it, but they were going to chop it down . . . just like they did his yew trees when they moved in.’

Hawthorne glanced at John Dudley. ‘You put all that together, it does sound like a motive for murder,’ he said.

‘I agree.’ Dudley nodded. ‘If it was me, once the pool was finished, I’d have drowned him in it.’