Close to Death

‘No, no, no. You’re deliberately misunderstanding me.’ Roderick got up and grabbed a roll of paper towel. ‘It was just very upsetting. I’ve already told you. Fee and I might have had to move. We weren’t going to stay here with the noise, the chemicals, the disruption. And everyone agreed. We had a meeting!’ Something close to panic flitted across his eyes, as if he had inadvertently told Hawthorne something he had meant to keep back. ‘It was a while ago. Six weeks! A Monday evening. We all of us had complaints – not just about the pool. We invited Giles Kenworthy to meet us, to try and iron out our differences in a civilised way.’

‘Did he come?’ Hawthorne asked.

Roderick shook his head. ‘He was coming. He said he was coming. But at the last minute, he sent a text saying he was too busy.’ He paused. ‘It was absolutely bloody typical of him – and it was after that that things got really bad.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well . . .’ Roderick was sweating. He used the paper towel to wipe his face. ‘Ask May and Phyllis about their dog. Adam Strauss lost a beautiful chess set, smashed by a cricket ball. That was the two boys’ fault – Hugo and Tristram Kenworthy. They also ruined the flowers in the courtyard. That really upset Andrew. But the worst thing – by far the worst thing – was what happened to Tom.’

‘Tom?’

‘Dr Beresford. Giles Kenworthy blocked his driveway.’

‘What was so bad about that?’ Dudley asked.

‘He wasn’t able to get to his surgery and as a result, a patient died. He was extremely upset about it. You should talk to him.’

‘What can you tell us about the crossbow?’

‘I already told the police. I wish I hadn’t kept the bloody thing. I hadn’t fired it in years.’ Roderick sat down heavily. Perhaps he had been hoping that Hawthorne might have forgotten about the murder weapon.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘I was given it when I was at university. A Barnett Wildcat recurve. It’s quite old now. I’m surprised it was even working.’

‘It certainly worked two nights ago,’ Dudley observed.

‘Well, obviously, yes. But I wasn’t to know.’ From the look of him, Roderick was almost begging them to believe him. ‘For a short while, after I moved to Richmond, I belonged to the London School of Archery. We both did. But when Felicity became ill, it was one of the first things she had to give up, and as for me, I had less and less time. Fee has a carer now. Damien comes in three times a week but he’s not here today, so, if you don’t mind, I’m afraid I’ll have to go upstairs in a minute. Fee may need help getting dressed.’

‘Where did you keep the crossbow?’ Hawthorne wasn’t interested in Felicity’s needs.

‘In the garage.’

‘Locked?’ Dudley asked.

‘The garage is usually kept locked. Not because of the crossbow. Fee insists. If a burglar broke in, the garage is connected directly to the house and they could easily come through to us.’

‘How many keys do you have?’

Roderick had to think for a moment. ‘Three,’ he announced. ‘There’s one in the door, which I suppose is mine. Fee has a spare on her keyring. And our neighbour, May Winslow, keeps a set in case of emergencies.’

‘What about the carer?’

‘He has a key to the front door. Not to the garage.’

‘Can we see inside?’ Hawthorne made it sound like a question but he was only expecting one response.

‘Of course.’

Roderick got up and the two detectives followed him out of the kitchen, through an archway and into a narrow corridor with a solid-looking door at the end. Just as he said, there was a key in the lock and Roderick turned it and opened the door, leading them into a small garage that jutted out of the back of the house. Much of the space was taken up by a navy-blue Skoda Octavia Mark 3. It was Roderick’s pride and joy and he had loaded it with enough extras to make it top of the range: tinted windows, rain sensors, satnav and more besides. An up-and-over door – manual, not electric – closed off the far end of the garage, with metal bolts on either side locking into the framework. The sun was streaming in through a square skylight set in the roof and they could see the upper floor of the house and what looked like a bathroom window. A single shelf ran down both of the long walls, with an array of tools, paint pots and brushes, gardening equipment and bits of old machinery that might have been there for years. There was an electric mower plugged into a socket and, on the opposite wall, a tap with water dripping into a plastic bucket. A spade, a fork and a rake hung on hooks, with a sack of compost slumped beneath. That hardly left enough room to reach the car.

Roderick pointed at an empty space in the middle of a shelf. ‘That’s where it was kept,’ he said.

‘The crossbow?’

‘And the bolts. The police took them all.’

‘You said you weren’t using it any more, so why did you keep it?’ Dudley asked.

Roderick shrugged. ‘I couldn’t sell it and why would I want to throw it away?’

‘Who apart from you came into this garage?’ This time it was Hawthorne who had posed the question.