‘You’ve done quite a lot wrong, darling.’ Hawthorne slipped the phone into his pocket. ‘You got any idea who killed Roderick Browne?’
‘He killed himself.’
‘You really think that? You seem a smart girl . . . in and out of everyone’s houses. I was just wondering if you’d seen anything and maybe worked it out.’
‘I’ll tell you one thing if it will get you off my back.’ Hawthorne looked at her enquiringly. ‘Those flowers of Mr Pennington. The ones in the roundabout. They were trashed deliberately – and it wasn’t the kids.’
This time, Hawthorne smiled. ‘How do you know?’
‘Wheel marks in the soil. But no mud tracks on the drive. How is that possible?’
‘I’d worked that one out, too, Sarah. But you’re right, and I’m grateful.’ Hawthorne stood up, being careful not to hit his head on the ceiling. ‘If you’ll take my advice, you’ll move on. Maybe it’s time to find another river.’
‘Me and Bella have got nowhere to go.’
Hawthorne opened the door.
‘Do me a favour, Mr Hawthorne. Don’t show anyone those photos. People like me don’t get a lot of choice in what we do. I wasn’t brought up in no Riverview Close. My whole life has been just one thing after another, but I’ve still got some pride.’
Hawthorne didn’t answer. He and Dudley returned to the bank and walked away from the barge, watching as a couple of late canoeists slid past. It was going to be one of those perfect evenings with the light soft and painted and a stillness in the air. The sort of evening that’s unique to the Thames in the summer months.
Hawthorne suddenly stopped, took Roderick’s iPhone and weighed it in his hand. Then he threw it into the air and watched it splash down, leaving just a few ripples behind.
Eight
The Solution
1
Detective Superintendent Tariq Khan wasn’t happy to find himself driving back to Richmond.
For a start, the traffic was terrible on Kew Bridge, which had been built in 1903 when horse-drawn omnibuses and hansom cabs would have been carrying pleasure-seekers to Kew Gardens and Richmond Green, but was now, over a hundred years later, completely unfit for purpose. More to the point, though, he had finished with the business at Riverview Close. He had briefed the press. He had, once again, been on TV and his wife and parents-in-law had all said how handsome he looked. Going back could be seen as an acceptance of defeat, or at least an acknowledgement that it was just possible there was something he had missed. The worst of it was, he couldn’t resist it. He had to know.
DC Goodwin was behind the wheel. Khan liked to check the messages and social media on his phone (he had set up a Google Alert for his name), to scroll through the news and generally keep his mind off the road. This was the start of another week, but neither of them had discussed what they had done over the weekend. They had a good relationship at work but none at all out of it.
Half an hour later, they had reached the centre of Richmond and the annoying one-way system that would take them literally round the houses before allowing them to strike out for Petersham. Ruth Goodwin spoke for almost the first time.
‘Why are we doing this, sir?’ she asked.
‘Good question.’ Khan tapped a few last words into his iPhone and put it away.
‘You know Hawthorne is dangerous,’ Goodwin continued. ‘He committed a violent assault on a suspect . . .’
‘As I recall, you were the one who suggested using him in the first place.’
‘I thought he might be useful to us. But the whole thing turned out to be a whole lot easier than we first thought. You did a very good job, sir.’
Khan sniffed but made no answer to that.
‘It’s just that it might be trouble bringing him back.’
‘He says he has new information.’
‘And if everything changes, what are we going to tell the Daily Mail?’
The back seat of the car was covered with old newspaper and magazine articles relating to the case and the Daily Mail had indeed made it to the top, open at a double-page spread with the headline: CELEBRITY DENTIST FOUND DEAD. There was a photograph of Roderick Browne, another of the actor Ewan McGregor and – above a caption reading ‘THE CASE IS CLOSED’ SAYS POLICE HOTSHOT DS TARIQ KHAN – a picture of the detective superintendent too.
‘If he really does know something, it’s better that he talks to us than to the press,’ he said now.
‘And if he says we’ve got it all wrong?’
‘We’ve got nothing wrong, Ruth. Nothing at all.’
They drove down Richmond Hill and into Riverview Close. Hawthorne and Dudley were already there, waiting for them on the other side of the archway and the gate. Khan noticed that Hawthorne was dressed in the same clothes he’d worn the last two times they had met. Goodwin parked outside Woodlands and they both got out.
‘I hope you’re not wasting my time,’ Khan said. There were no greetings, no handshakes.
‘If you thought I was wasting your time, you wouldn’t have come,’ Hawthorne said reasonably.
‘So what do you want to tell me?’
‘Well, the first thing to mention is that Dudley and I haven’t been paid, since you ask. And as we’ve done your job for you, it would be nice if you’d see your way to giving us the whole week plus bonus.’
‘It’s in the contract,’ Dudley said.
‘You tell us what you know and I’ll be the judge of that,’ Khan said. He looked around him. ‘It seems very quiet here.’
‘The killer’s in. Don’t worry. We wouldn’t drag you all the way over here without making sure of that.’
Khan looked for movement behind the windows. Woodlands was empty, obviously, but Gardener’s Cottage? The Stables? Well House? There was no sign of anyone.
‘I thought we might start out here,’ Hawthorne said. ‘It’s a nice day and we need to get back to the beginning.’
‘And when was that?’ Goodwin asked.
‘A long time ago, as a matter of fact. Much longer than any of us thought.’
Hawthorne took a few steps forward so that he was on the edge of the roundabout, surrounded by the six houses. Dudley stayed where he was. He had nothing more to do, but he was quietly pleased to be here. Khan and Goodwin stood, a little self-consciously, waiting for Hawthorne to begin.
‘Most murderers don’t really think about what they’re going to do,’ he said. ‘You get the fantasists, the husbands who hate their wives, the kids who hate their stepdads, and they may think about murder for years . . . but they’re never going to do it. Planning it is enough. You know as well as I do that most murders are acts of passion – spur-of-the-moment things. One drink too many. A fight that gets out of control. But then, just now and again, you get the genius, the killer who’s not going to get caught, who sits down and works it all out. These are what you call the stickers, the crimes that are like no others because there’s an intelligence behind them. That’s where I come in. That’s sort of my speciality.
‘You knew from the start that something was wrong, but what was it exactly that worried you about this one? Well, the crossbow and bolt screamed out that something weird was going on. It’s not a weapon of choice for your average killer. And then there was the setting: a smart close in Richmond. Do you know how many people get killed in a place like this? You could probably count them on the fingers of one posh lady’s hand. Finally, everyone had the same motive. That doesn’t even seem fair! How do you choose between the neighbour who’s pissed off about the smoke coming off the barbecue and the one who can’t park his car?