Close to Death

A chess grandmaster might have the intelligence required to plan a murder – I’ve always thought of chess as a rather cold-blooded game – and it was true that Adam Strauss had always been the spider at the heart of the web that was Riverview Close. One way or another, he was connected to everyone who lived there and he had hosted the meeting that Kenworthy had failed to show up for. It was also his fault that the new family had arrived in the first place. Even so, I could see no serious reason why he would have murdered either of the two men. Roderick Browne was a close friend. When Roderick was at his lowest, it was Adam he had called, and he had certainly been alive when Adam left his home.

Or had Andrew Pennington got that wrong? He was the only witness (he had also seen Tom Beresford sneaking out of his front door at ten o’clock at night). Pennington had accused Giles Kenworthy of racial prejudice, and there was a vague link with the attack on the old lady in Hampton Wick. A leaflet advertising the UK Independence Party had been found at the scene of the crime. And Marsha Clarke had a connection with the Beresford household. Their nanny had been looking after her.

It was all very confusing. The more I thought about it, the more I regretted ever taking on the book. Despite what I’d hoped when I set out, it was much easier following Hawthorne round, writing down what I saw. Trying to piece a solution together from a mountain of information, not all of which might be reliable, was like trying to construct a jigsaw puzzle without ever having been shown the picture it was supposed to form.

The doorbell rang. It had to be Hawthorne with the next batch of documents he had promised to bring.

But when I went downstairs, it was not Hawthorne standing at the door. It took me a few seconds to recognise the pink-faced, plump-cheeked man in the baggy suit, with his untidy hair and apologetic smile.

‘Roland!’ I exclaimed.

Hawthorne’s adoptive brother was carrying a large manila envelope, just as he had the first time we met, although on this occasion he was holding it out for me. ‘I was asked to give you this,’ he said.

‘By Hawthorne?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was expecting to see him.’

‘He asked me to apologise on his behalf. He’s not able to come.’

This was almost certainly untrue. Hawthorne had never apologised to me in his life. ‘Would you like to come in?’ I asked.

‘No, thank you.’ He thrust the packet into my hands. ‘I’m just passing. I need to be on my way.’

‘Is this more stuff about Richmond?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

He was already turning back towards Farringdon station, but I stopped him. ‘He knows I saw Morton, doesn’t he.’

Roland and Hawthorne couldn’t have been more different. Whereas Hawthorne would never have let anyone – or anything – stand in his way, his adoptive brother was more diffident, more unwilling to cause offence. Hawthorne, for that matter, would simply have lied. Roland blurted out the truth. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I have to tell you, he’s not happy about it.’

‘Well, tell him I’m sorry.’

His cheeks reddened and I realised that this was probably as angry as he ever got. ‘And you might as well know, I’m not happy either. I’m the one who got the blame. I was foolish enough to trust you when we met at the flat. I told you about the Barracloughs and I’m never going to hear the end of it. You don’t just walk in on a man like Morton! Do you have any idea who he is, what you’re dealing with? You’ve certainly landed me in it.’

‘So tell me!’ I snapped. I was becoming exasperated with the loss of control, of having my own book revealed to me before I’d written it. ‘Who is Morton? And what is Fenchurch International? Why are you so scared of them?’

Roland hesitated. He looked around him, as if afraid of being overheard. ‘They are the biggest security company in the UK and quite possibly the world,’ he said. ‘Cyber security, protection, risk assessment, personal and financial investigation. They provide specialised services to government and to industry. They work in the military. You have no idea how much power they have, how much they know.’

‘You work for them.’

‘I’m nothing.’ He glanced at the package he’d brought with him. ‘A postboy.’

‘Morton told me not to write the book,’ I said.

‘Then if you’ve got any sense, you’ll stop.’ He glanced at me one last time. ‘But you won’t listen to me. You’re like every writer I’ve ever met. You only think of yourself and you don’t care how much damage you might do.’

He stepped round me and walked off. I watched him, feeling guilty. Roland was clearly a decent man and it was true that I’d taken advantage of him. But then what was I to do when Hawthorne was so endlessly uncooperative? I must have stood there for a couple of minutes, the commuters walking past me on both sides of the pavement. Should I be nervous? Could there be someone watching me even now? I went back into my flat, closing the door behind me.