‘And why do you say there was a life jacket in Roderick Browne’s garage?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘It’s reasonable enough. He’d been a member of the Richmond Bridge Boat Club. He said so!’
‘There were a lot of things in that garage that really mattered. But he didn’t have a life jacket. Not one that I saw.’
‘I put it in there so people wouldn’t focus on the crossbow.’
‘I’m sorry?’
I sighed. ‘It’s the narrative principle known as Chekhov’s gun. If I simply mention there’s a crossbow in Roderick’s garage, it’ll be obvious that it’s going to be used as the murder weapon.’
‘So why mention it at all?’
‘Because it would be unfair not to! What I’ve done, though, is I’ve disguised it by adding the life jacket and the golf clubs. That way, it might still come as a surprise.’ I watched the cigarette Hawthorne was still twisting between his fingers. ‘Go ahead and light the bloody thing,’ I snapped. I got up and opened a window. ‘Aren’t you worried about your health?’
‘I’m more worried about your prose style, mate.’ Hawthorne flicked his lighter and drew in a lungful of smoke. ‘I mean, reading this, do you really get the position of the houses and what you could see from one to the other? You’ve got to get that right.’
‘We could put a map in at the beginning. Would that make you happy?’
‘It would certainly cheer up some of your readers. I’m not saying it’s confusing, but going through this, I’m not sure I could deliver the mail.’
All my life I’ve been getting notes. I get them from producers in London and New York, from directors, from Jill, from lead actors . . . even, on occasions, from their partners. My books are scrutinised by editors and copy editors and (more recently) sensitivity readers. I sometimes feel that I’m surrounded by notes, like a cloud of midges. But I never lose my temper. I always try to see the alternative point of view.
It wasn’t easy with Hawthorne.
‘I’ll ask Graham to put a map in,’ I said. ‘But he won’t like it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s an extra cost. Is there anything else?’
‘Yes. There is one thing. You say that the barrister – Andrew Pennington – played bridge with the Brownes.’
‘He did.’
‘But he also played with friends who lived outside Riverview Close.’
That was one note too many. ‘Are you really telling me that was relevant to the murder?’ I exploded.
‘That meeting you describe, when all the neighbours got together, which took place on a Monday. Andrew Pennington played bridge every Monday and Wednesday and he had to cancel a game to be there.’
‘So he killed Giles Kenworthy for not showing up? He was upset he’d cancelled his game for no good reason?’
Hawthorne looked at me sadly. ‘Of course not. You’re missing the point.’
‘Well, since I don’t know exactly how or when Giles Kenworthy died, I’m not sure what the point is.’
I stopped. There was one thing Hawthorne had said that worried me slightly. It might be true that the book needed some action. I didn’t want to spend another ten thousand words describing the joys of suburban life.
‘When did he die?’ I asked.
‘You know the answer to that,’ Hawthorne said. ‘You’ve already written it.’
‘Six weeks later.’
‘Yes.’
‘Six weeks after the meeting at The Stables.’
‘Exactly.’ Hawthorne looked around him for an ashtray and found a hollow silver acorn that he used to deposit his ash. It was a children’s book award I’d been given about twenty years before. ‘I got a call from the investigating officer – DS Khan.’
‘Why did he think he needed you?’
Hawthorne gazed at me. ‘Tony, mate! A multimillionaire was found dead in a posh London suburb with a crossbow bolt stuck in his throat. Every single one of his neighbours wanted him dead. It was pretty obvious this wasn’t an ordinary case. It was a sticker if ever there was one, and frankly, the local plod had as much chance of solving it as . . . well, you!’
‘Thanks.’
‘I got the call the same day the body was found. Me and John Dudley.’
‘So what happened next?’
Three
Six Weeks Later
1
Detective Superintendent Tariq Khan had realised straight away that the murder of Giles Kenworthy would be like nothing he had ever investigated and that it might threaten what had so far been an unblemished career.
The dead man had been waiting for him in the hallway of his home, covered with a sheet, and it wasn’t so much the multiple bloodstains – on the carpet, the walls, even a few specks on the ceiling – as the sheer incongruousness of it that struck Khan first. The white linen was clinging to the hips and shoulders so that most of the body was clearly visible in silhouette. But when it reached the neck, it rose up like a miniature tent. The effect was grotesque, almost comical. Khan had drawn the sheet back and looked at the crossbow bolt, still lodged in Giles Kenworthy’s throat. The deceased would have been unrecognisable even to his nearest and dearest. His eyes were still open in shock, his mouth twisted in a scream that death had turned into a grimace. The bolt had entered directly under his chin. If he had been wearing a tie, it would have gone through the knot.
Everything had been wrong from the start, and as the day progressed it only got worse.
First of all, there was the murder weapon: a crossbow, for heaven’s sake! Khan had never heard of anyone being the target of a crossbow, not since William Tell’s son – and that hadn’t hit him. The killer hadn’t even tried to get rid of it, simply leaving it on the gravel in front of the house as if he – or she – didn’t even care about being caught. The weapon had already been identified as the property of one Roderick Browne, the middle-aged dentist who lived next door. Then there was Riverview Close itself, an unlikely murder scene with its perfectly attractive houses and Alan Ayckbourn collection of characters: a GP, a jewellery designer and their twin daughters, a chess grandmaster, two little old ladies, a retired barrister, and the dentist.
He wouldn’t normally have thought of them as suspects, but he had to take the facts into consideration. First and foremost, they all had a motive. It was clear that they had disliked or even hated Giles Kenworthy, who, from the sound of it, had been one of those ‘neighbours from hell’, the sort who frequently turned up in sensationalist television documentaries. He had only arrived with his family eight months before, but he seemed to have gone out of his way to annoy everyone around him. Any one of them could have killed him – and for exactly the same reason. They wanted him out.
And then there was the physicality of Riverview Close itself: the electronic gate that automatically locked itself at seven o’clock in the evening, sealing them all in, and the crossbow stored in a garage that was locked and bolted and which nobody from the outside world could possibly have known was there. Khan was sure that other suspects would show up; you didn’t get to be as rich as Giles Kenworthy without making enemies. But he had been killed in the middle of the night. The gate hadn’t been forced and it would have been hard to climb over without leaving some sort of evidence. The entire set-up screamed ‘inside job’.
There was something else going on. Khan had spent most of the day talking to the residents, who had all been asked to stay at home. He was trying to keep things casuaclass="underline" not so much a formal interview as a general chat. It should have been easy. A nice neighbourhood like this, everyone would be eager to help the police with their inquiries. If nothing else, it would be a new experience, a break from routine, something to talk about at their next dinner party. But all along he had sensed there was something wrong. Each one of them had been evasive, reticent . . . even afraid.