‘I don’t believe Roderick Browne killed anyone,’ Hawthorne said. ‘And that includes himself.’
‘You don’t? Really? And why is that?’
‘I met him. He didn’t have it in him.’
‘That’s right, Hawthorne. You knew him for – what? – all of half an hour? I bow to your superior instincts. But you’re wrong. Roderick Browne gassed himself in his garage with a cylinder of nitrous oxide, used by dentists as a sedative. He’s sitting in there right now with a plastic bag over his head.’
‘What sort of bag?’
‘Tesco. From the middle of Richmond.’
‘Did he shop at Tesco?’ Dudley sounded surprised. ‘I had him down as more of a Waitrose sort of guy.’
Khan snapped back: ‘I very much doubt that he thought about which supermarket he planned to advertise in his last moments! He was found this morning by Sarah Baines, the gardener. You might like to know that the garage was locked from the inside. The key was in the door.’
‘So how did Sarah get in?’
‘Browne’s neighbour, May Winslow, was a keyholder in case of emergencies. Sarah needed to enter the garage to get her tools and start work, but there was no answer from anyone in the house, so she went next door. Mrs Winslow found her key and the two of them opened the front door, walked through the kitchen and went into the garage that way. Except they couldn’t open the door because the key was in the lock – on the other side. Sarah did that old trick with a piece of wire and a sheet of newspaper. Wiggled the key out and pulled it underneath the door. Then they went in and discovered the body.’
‘Are they on your suspect list?’
‘There are no suspects, Hawthorne, so there is no list. Browne was in his car, which was also locked, windows and doors, with the ignition key – the only ignition key that we’ve been able to find – in his left trouser pocket. A locked car in a locked garage. And on his lap, right in front of him, we found a letter. It was written in his own hand and signed, setting out his intentions in plain English.’ Khan smiled mirthlessly. ‘I’d say that adds up to an open-and-shut case.’
‘No such thing,’ Hawthorne replied. ‘Let us take a look. I’d say you owe it to us, Khan. You’ve dragged us halfway across London. Where’s the harm?’
‘I don’t see . . .’
‘And I’d like to talk to Roderick Browne’s wife.’
‘She’s not here. Browne took her to her sister yesterday morning. He explains in the letter. He didn’t want her to see what he was going to do.’
‘I’d like to see the letter too.’ Hawthorne took a step closer, standing right next to Khan so that there was no chance of anyone overhearing. ‘Just suppose you’re wrong,’ he said quietly. ‘Suppose there’s something you’ve missed. If there’s a killer still out there, you might even have a third death on your hands and maybe it’ll be Strauss or Pennington next. How do you think that will look on your CV?’
Khan hesitated. For all his dislike of Hawthorne, he had to admit that he might have a point. Chief superintendent in two years, then commander, then all the way up to commissioner . . . He and his wife had his future all planned. From the day he’d joined the police force, he’d had more than his share of luck, but he knew that even one miscalculation could do incalculable damage to his image and, subsequently, his career. That was the trouble with being a high-flyer. There were too many bastards waiting for you to fall, and this Richmond business – two deaths in a nice, upmarket community – could all too easily go sour.
He came to a decision.
‘Well, since you’re here, you might as well stay. Just for today. But you’re now in an unofficial capacity, as observers. You’re not getting paid.’
It was a mean little victory. Khan had found a way of capitulating whilst still showing he was the one who pulled the strings.
He walked with them, back into Riverview Close. As they continued towards the dead man’s house, Teri Strauss suddenly appeared, coming out of The Stables, clutching the edges of the silk kimono she had wrapped around herself. ‘What’s happened?’ she demanded.
‘Please go back into your home, Mrs Strauss,’ Khan said.
‘Is it true that Roderick is dead?’
‘We’ll talk to you shortly.’
They went round the side of the house, Khan leading the way. The garage was too small for the number of forensic officers who needed to get in, so they’d raised the up-and-over door to provide access from the drive. DC Goodwin was inside, in charge of a slimmed-down team.
The Skoda Octavia Mark 3 took up almost all the available space and the body was still inside it, sitting in the front seat, behind the steering wheel. The police photographers had struggled to get a good angle, and bagging the hands and feet had required unusual contortions, the procedure made all the more grotesque by the fact that Roderick had already done the same for his head. The forensic team had left much of their equipment outside. Standing in the driveway, looking into the garage, Hawthorne could see very little – a vague shape on the other side of the back window. The driver’s window had been smashed. There were fragments of tinted glass scattered over the concrete floor.
Without waiting for permission, Hawthorne moved forward, avoiding a puddle on the floor, and eased himself down the side of the car. A couple of men in white protective overalls glanced at him curiously but didn’t try to challenge him. Now he could see the body, the supermarket bag, the gas cylinder sitting on the passenger seat, the rubber tube stretching across.
‘That’s a nine-hundred-litre cylinder of medical-grade nitrous oxide, one hundred per cent pure.’ Khan had followed him. ‘We’ve already confirmed that it’s the same manufacturer and supplier that Mr Browne used at his Cadogan Square clinic, and he seems to have kept spares in the basement of his house. I’ll say one thing for him. He didn’t do things by halves. As well as the gas, he’d taken an overdose of zolpidem, a well-known sleeping pill, and there was about a quarter of a bottle of Scotch in his bloodstream. Put them together, though, and they still wouldn’t have been enough to kill him. My guess is that he was already half-asleep when he turned on the gas. He arranged things so he slept through his own death.’
‘Who broke the window?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘That was Sarah Baines. It was the right thing to do. When she and Mrs Winslow entered the garage, the car’s windows and doors were all locked. Mr Browne wasn’t moving, but there was always a chance he could have still been alive. She smashed the window, which set off the alarm and woke up all the neighbours, if they weren’t already up and about. The moment she leaned in, she saw it was too late. He was a goner.’
‘You’re aware of her prison record?’
‘Burglary and a pub brawl where someone got glassed. Of course I know. But this is a different league. Roderick Browne liked her. When I spoke to him, he only had good things to say.’
‘When was the time of death?’ Dudley asked, standing at the entrance.
‘Just before midnight.’
‘The same as Giles Kenworthy. The middle of the night seems a popular time to get yourself done in if you’re living in Riverview Close.’
‘He wasn’t done in.’ Khan glowered at Dudley. ‘Mrs Winslow and Sarah Baines came in, as I explained. The up-and-over door was bolted from the inside and they entered through the house. Mrs Winslow was the first to see the body and as you can imagine, she was deeply shocked. If you talk to her, it would be nice if you could try and hold back on that sense of humour of yours.’