‘Did he have any thoughts? Any suspicions as to who might have done it?’ Khan asked.
‘No. Not that he said.’
‘So you left him on his own,’ Khan said, accusingly.
‘That’s not fair. It wasn’t like that at all!’ Now Damien was indignant. ‘What was I meant to do? It wasn’t as if I was his carer! My job was to look after Felicity, and anyway, he had plenty of friends he could turn to. As a matter of fact, he mentioned he was going to talk to Adam Strauss. “Adam will help. Adam will know what to do.” That’s what he said to me. Those were his very words.’
‘Why Adam Strauss?’ Dudley asked.
‘The two of them were close. Adam gave Roderick a lot of support in the early days when Felicity got ill, and in fact it was Adam who gave him the name of the agency that I work for, so I’m grateful to him for that. But it wasn’t just him. The other neighbours were very kind too. Tom Beresford was always asking after Felicity, and the old ladies next door are sweethearts. But Adam knew Roderick even before they both ended up living in Riverview Close. Adam was a patient of his – did you know that? The others may have talked the talk, but he was the one who came round and offered proper advice and sympathy. I’m sure Roderick was grateful.’
There was a short silence.
‘So Roderick Browne told you that Giles Kenworthy had been killed,’ Hawthorne said. ‘How did you react to that news, Damien?’
‘How do you think? I was horrified! I know he wasn’t very popular, but I’d never even met Mr Kenworthy . . . not properly. I saw him quite a few times going in and out and he struck me as a bit high and mighty. I knew how much trouble he was causing everyone. Felicity was very upset that he was going to build this swimming pool and ruin her view. She even said they might have to move.’
‘What else did Roderick tell you?’
Damien thought back. He shrugged. ‘Nothing very much. He did say that he was taking Felicity to her sister in Woking. He didn’t want her here with all this police activity going on.’
Hawthorne knew this already. ‘So her sister was going to look after her.’
‘Yes. It worked very well. As I said, I don’t work Wednesdays. I only come in three times a week. So I said I’d see him today and we rang off—’
‘Mr Browne was expecting you today?’ Hawthorne cut in.
‘Yes. That’s why I’m here.’ Damien stopped. An awful thought had occurred to him. ‘Where is he?’
‘I’m afraid Mr Browne is dead,’ Khan said.
‘What?’ In an instant, all the colour had left Damien’s face. He looked as if he was about to faint. ‘How?’ he whispered. ‘What happened?’
‘Get him a glass of water,’ Hawthorne muttered. Dudley went over to the sink. ‘The police believe he may have taken his own life,’ he said.
‘But that’s impossible! There’s no way he’d do that.’
‘He’d been under a lot of strain.’ Khan was doing his best to keep the situation under control. ‘How long had you been looking after his wife?’ he asked.
‘Two years . . .’ Damien’s eyes were filled with tears. Dudley returned with a glass of water and Damien drank it all in one go. When he put the glass down, his hands were shaking. ‘I come in Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays . . .’ he went on. ‘Felicity’s a lovely lady. We get on together brilliantly. I had to take a week off just a short while ago and she hated it. She said she couldn’t manage without me.’ He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Does she know?’
‘She has been informed,’ Khan said.
‘I should go to her! She must be in shock. This is terrible. I can’t even think how she’ll manage without him.’
‘I think you should stay away for the time being,’ Khan warned him.
‘But Roderick was everything to her. He adored Felicity. He’d never leave her on her own.’
Khan didn’t look happy with Damien’s assessment and moved on quickly. ‘I do have one more question for you, Mr Shaw,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you can tell me where Mr Browne kept his mobile phone?’
Damien nodded. ‘It’ll be on the chest of drawers in the hall. Roderick was always losing things, so he was quite religious about it. He always left it there.’
‘I didn’t see it.’ Khan glanced at Hawthorne. ‘We’d obviously like to look at any messages he may have sent prior to his death,’ he said defensively. ‘It’s standard procedure.’ He turned back to Damien. ‘Would you like one of my officers to drive you home?’
‘No. I live in Richmond. I can walk.’
‘You live with your parents?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘With my mum.’
Hawthorne waited until Damien had left. Then he turned to Khan. ‘It’s interesting,’ he said. ‘Roderick Browne is going to kill himself. But first of all he does a bit of spring-cleaning. And you’d have thought he’d have warned his wife’s carer not to come in.’
‘You heard what he said, Hawthorne,’ Khan returned. ‘Damien spoke to him after Giles Kenworthy died. He was frightened. He wasn’t making any sense. That was because he knew what he’d done and he’d decided to take the easy way out.’
‘When did you interview Roderick Browne?’ Hawthorne asked. ‘You told us he was your prime suspect.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Did you take him into the station?’
‘I interviewed him the morning after Giles Kenworthy’s body had been discovered.’ Khan looked guilty. ‘That was here – in his own home. Based on what he said, I decided to interrogate him more formally the next day, so I had him taken to Shepherd’s Bush.’
‘Was that before or after he dropped his wife in Woking?’
‘It was in the afternoon, when he got back.’
‘How long did you keep him?’
‘Two hours.’
‘Under caution?’
Khan was becoming increasingly uncomfortable as the consequences of what he had done became apparent to him. ‘Yes.’
‘Poor bastard,’ Dudley said. ‘He must have been terrified. If he did kill himself, at least we know why.’ He shook his head reproachfully. ‘You scared the living daylights out of him, Detective Superintendent. It may be that you didn’t give him any other choice.’
2
‘I cannot tell you how upset I am,’ May Winslow said.
‘He was a lovely man,’ Phyllis agreed. She pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and touched it to her cheek.
‘Always friendly, always ready to lend a helping hand. We moved into the close at the same time as him and we hit it off straight away. He helped us move some of the furniture and he always asked us if we needed anything when he went to the shops. He never minded us knocking on his door if something went wrong.’
‘The oven,’ Phyllis reminded her. ‘Do you remember that?’
‘It was so embarrassing.’ May sighed. ‘It was only the timer. Phyllis had turned it on accidentally. I’m not blaming you, dear! Why do they have to make these things so complicated? But we ate salads and cold food for a week before he came and sorted it for us. Nothing was ever too much trouble.’
The sitting room of The Gables had not been designed for five people. It was too small, with too many ornaments, too many pictures on the wall, and furniture that was a little too big for the area in which it stood. An old-fashioned television set took up rather too much space in one corner and the only empty space in the room told its own sad story: it was where a wicker dog basket had once been placed. A wooden cross stood on the mantelpiece and a Bible sat prominently on an otherwise unnecessary side table. There was no other indication of the ladies’ religious past.
May and Phyllis each had an armchair that was most definitely theirs, moulded to their exact shape over the fourteen years they had lived there. Hawthorne and Dudley were pressed together on a floral-patterned sofa while Khan perched on a stool brought in from the kitchen. The front windows looked out onto the close, but May had drawn the curtains to blot out the sight of the police cars and all the activity taking place next door. As a result, the air in the room was warm and stale. It still smelled of Ellery.