‘I’m so sorry to trouble you, Mr Browne. Ellery seems to have gone missing and we were wondering if you’d seen him.’
‘No. I’m afraid not. How long has he been gone?’
‘We don’t really know. He came home with us, then went out while we were watching TV.’
‘Well, I haven’t seen anything, but I’ll keep an eye out for him. I’m sure he’ll turn up . . .’
May already had a knotted feeling in her stomach. Ellery had never done this before. It was true that he treated the entire close as his personal domain, but he was still a nervous creature and never strayed for very long.
‘Maybe you should ask at the Lodge,’ Roderick suggested.
‘Yes. I’ll do that.’
May didn’t want to go anywhere near the Kenworthys’ home, not on her own, not even with Phyllis beside her. She hated the idea of prostrating herself before them, asking for their help. Not that they’d listen anyway. ‘I’m going to ask my husband to deal with it.’ The words were drumming themselves over and over in her ears.
Phyllis knew what her companion was thinking. ‘Maybe Mr Pennington has seen Ellery,’ she suggested.
They went back towards Well House and it was as they approached the front door that they heard it: the unmistakable sound of an animal in pain . . . a faint whimpering. Could it be Ellery? It didn’t sound like him. And the cries were coming from somewhere further away, perhaps behind the house.
May was really panicking now. Forgetting the bell, she rapped on the door so hard that she would feel the pain in her knuckles for days to come. The whimpering had stopped. Had she imagined it? She hoped so. There were plenty of foxes in Richmond, semi-domesticated, prowling the streets in search of open dustbins. It must have been one of them.
The door opened. Andrew Pennington peered out at them. He had been reading Anthony Trollope in bed when he heard the knocking on the door.
‘Please, Mr Pennington. Can you help us? We’ve been looking for Ellery. He’s disappeared. And just now we thought we heard something in your garden.’ The words poured out. May’s chest was rising and falling. She had been wearing her glasses when she was watching television. They were still hanging around her neck and rose and fell as if they too were trying to join in the search.
Andrew stepped outside and listened. ‘I can’t hear anything,’ he said.
All three of them fell silent and for a brief moment it seemed to be true. Perhaps they had imagined it after all. But then it came again from behind the house, or from somewhere nearby. It was a sound that carried with it all the pain in the world and May knew for certain that it was not a fox.
‘He’s in your garden,’ Phyllis said.
‘I don’t think so.’ Pennington cocked his head, trying to work out where the sound was coming from. ‘The sound’s coming from over there,’ he said. And then, with a sense of dread, ‘In the well.’
He was pointing towards the medieval well that stood between the house and the archway. It was one of the unique features of Riverview Close. His home was named after it. On the day that he and Iris moved in, they had both tossed a coin in for good luck.
‘Wait a minute. I’ll get some light,’ he said.
It was dark by now. Andrew’s night vision had deteriorated in recent years and he always kept a torch close to the front door. He went in and retrieved it, then led the two women round the side of the house. As they approached the well, the whimpering began again, more forlorn, more desperate.
Andrew directed the beam of the torch into the circular opening.
Ellery was about five metres down, curled up at the bottom, straining with his neck as if searching for salvation. He struggled to get to his feet, but it was clear he could no longer stand. Andrew heard May let out a moan beside him. Phyllis called out the dog’s name.
‘Don’t worry!’ Andrew found himself saying. ‘We’ll get him out of there. We’ll get help.’
But what sort of help were they going to find at ten o’clock at night and how long would it take to get there? It wasn’t important enough to trouble the police. The RSPCA, perhaps? Did they even have an office anywhere near Richmond?
‘Can you do anything? Can you get him out?’ Phyllis asked, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘I don’t know . . .’
It was impossible. The shaft of the well was too narrow and he wasn’t sure he would be able to climb back out again. A ladder was needed and someone thin enough to fit inside.
‘I’ll call the RSPCA,’ he said.
‘Oh, Ellery! Poor Ellery!’ May was also crying.
Ellery had fallen silent. He was no longer moving. Later on, May would say he had heard their voices, had known they were there, and that perhaps there was some crumb of comfort in the knowledge that he had not died alone.
‘He must have fallen in,’ Pennington said. But he knew it wasn’t true. Ellery wouldn’t have been able to jump in. The brick well head was far too high for the little French bulldog with its stubby legs, and why would he even have tried? There was only one solution. Ellery must have been picked up and deliberately dropped in. Pennington knew it, but he didn’t say it. His years at the bar had taught him never to make an accusation without proper evidence, and anyway, what would be the point? He flicked off the torch, sparing the two women the sight of their dead pet.
May had reached the same conclusion. Her face was set in stone. ‘This was them!’ she whispered. ‘They did it!’
‘What do you mean, Mrs Winslow?’
‘You know what I mean. Giles Kenworthy. She asked him to do something – to sort it out – and this is what happened. He was responsible and I’ll never forgive him. I’m not going to allow him to get away with it . . .’
May and Phyllis were still sitting at the table in The Tea Cosy, Phyllis rolling her cigarette between her fingers like a very old pianist warming up before a performance. They were both haunted by the empty space where Ellery’s basket had been. They knew they would never have another dog. Even if they had wanted one, it was too late for them.
It had been Sarah, the gardener, who had retrieved Ellery’s body from the well in the end. They’d had to wait until the next day for it to happen and once again the sun had been shining. Sarah was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and as she had lowered a ladder into the opening, they had both seen it.
Fresh, livid scratches on both her arms.
5
After they had left Roderick Browne’s garden, Hawthorne and Dudley walked back round to the close and stood in the centre, enjoying the sunshine and the smell of the flowers. If it hadn’t been for the parked police vehicles, it could have been just another pleasant July day.
‘Look at it!’ Hawthorne muttered. ‘A private close in one of the nicest suburbs in London. Designer houses. What do you think they’re worth? Millions! And yet all these people at each other’s throats . . .’
‘Quite literally in the case of Giles Kenworthy,’ Dudley agreed. He had a strange sense of humour, a way of joking that always made him sound sad. ‘Although, I suppose it could have been an outsider,’ he added.
‘I doubt it,’ Hawthorne said. He pointed to the archway. ‘First of all, there’s the automatic gate. Closed at night and you need an electronic key to get in. The crossbow was tucked away in Roderick Browne’s garage. Someone must have known it was there. And then there’s the opportunity. Kenworthy on his own in the house, his wife having it away with her French teacher, the kids at boarding school, the Filipino cleaner out of the country. It had to be someone close by.’