Close to Death

‘They might do if they have the right self-image. Dentist to the stars. I see Roderick in a comfy chair with a bottle of champagne. And definitely Waitrose, not Tesco.’

‘You may be right, mate. But you know what the real puzzle is? Roderick Browne going to all this trouble to make it one hundred per cent clear that he’s offing himself because he killed Giles Kenworthy and all his neighbours know he did.’

‘But he still leaves the straw in his top pocket.’

‘Exactly. It leads us directly to them.’

‘It’s almost like he’s trying to implicate them.’

Hawthorne went over to the cardboard box filled with electrical bits and pieces that had been added to the garage after his first visit. He pulled out different plugs and cables and plastic boxes, some of them smashed. They hardly seemed to merit examination, but he still rummaged through them. Meanwhile, Dudley was examining the Dyson hoover.

‘Is it working?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘Are you kidding? I had one of these once. It never did the job.’ He showed Hawthorne a plastic cylinder. ‘The dust collector’s cracked and the trigger’s missing. It doesn’t even look that old.’ He put the piece down. ‘What you need is a bigger Dyson to scoop up this one.’

Hawthorne had already moved on to the box of DVDs, the various gardening tools and the golf clubs. One of the putting irons seemed to be missing. He examined the bolts that held the up-and-over door in place. They were solid steel, as thick as his finger.

‘Let’s take this step by step,’ he said. ‘We know that Roderick Browne died around midnight.’

‘That’s what Khan said.’

‘And we know he was alive and conscious at ten o’clock because that was when he was heard saying goodbye to Adam Strauss. He turned off the light. What does that say to you?’

‘It says something’s wrong.’ Dudley had brought a chair in with him from the kitchen. He placed it in the middle of the floor – approximately where the driver’s seat would have been. He sat down. ‘He took sleeping pills and then he gassed himself with nitrous oxide. Why would he turn the light off? He wasn’t going to bed and I somehow doubt he wanted to save electricity!’

‘I agree. Let’s say he goes into the kitchen, swallows the pills and then, when he’s feeling sleepy, enters the garage for the final act. He climbs into the car, locks the doors and closes the windows from inside . . .’

‘. . . slips the key fob into his trouser pocket . . .’

‘. . . and dies.’

‘But if it wasn’t suicide, if it’s murder, the big question is – how did the killer get out?’

They both looked up at the same moment.

‘The skylight,’ Dudley said. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘We need a ladder.’

They found one outside, lying flat on the grass beside the garage. It was exactly the right length too. They leaned it against the wall and Dudley held it while Hawthorne climbed up, then followed.

They found themselves on a flat surface lined with asphalt, securely nailed down. The skylight was in the middle. From where they were standing, they could see the window of Roderick Browne’s bathroom a short distance above them and all three gardens stretching out behind. The view of the close was largely blocked by the roof of the house, but they could make out a window in the eaves of Gardener’s Cottage and the figure of a young woman, framed behind the glass. This had to be Kylie, the Beresfords’ nanny.

‘We’re being watched,’ Dudley said. He knelt beside the skylight and examined the eight stainless-steel screws that held the frame in place. He took a screwdriver out of his pocket and tried to turn one of them, then another. They didn’t move.

‘Khan said they’d rusted into place,’ Hawthorne said.

‘They’re certainly stuck fast.’

He tried two more, then gave up.

Hawthorne took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Let’s imagine the glass wasn’t here,’ he said. ‘How easy would it be to climb onto the roof of the car and pull yourself up here and then go back down the ladder if, say, you had a sprained ankle?’

‘Not easy.’

‘That’s what I was thinking.’

‘It wouldn’t be easy if you were seventy-nine or eighty-one either.’

Hawthorne nodded. Smoke trickled up from between his fingers. The two men stood where they were, watching the shadows stretch themselves across the lawns.

‘You should go back into the police,’ Hawthorne said.

‘You giving me the elbow?’

‘You can do better than working with me.’

‘I thought you enjoyed it.’

‘I’m not thinking of myself. I’m thinking of you. You should go back to Bristol and pick up where you left off. What happened, happened. You can’t let it grind you down.’

‘That’s what Suzmann says.’ Dudley looked at Hawthorne with eyes that were almost mournful. ‘Seems a strange time to be mentioning it.’

‘I’ve just got a bad feeling about this business – Riverview Close. I can’t explain it. I’ve worked out who killed Giles Kenworthy and Roderick Browne. I can tell you how they did it and why. There are still one or two loose ends, but otherwise it’s in the bag.’

‘You worrying about Khan? Getting him to see the light?’