Close to Death

DS Khan and Goodwin are returning to Riverview Close, which Khan isn’t happy about. If Hawthorne actually has new information that changes the case, it will make him look bad. When they arrive, Hawthorne tells them why this murder has been so difficult: Although most murders are unplanned, these were highly strategized. He was tipped off by the coincidence of three attacks: one on Marsha Clark, one on Adam Strauss, and the one that happened six weeks earlier when someone hacked into Giles’s company files, preventing him from attending the first meeting. After the first meeting, he reminds them, “[e]veryone who didn’t already hate Giles Kenworthy was given a good reason to” (364). Ellery was killed, Adam’s chess set was smashed, and Andrew’s garden was destroyed.

Hawthorn then addresses Roderick’s note and points out that although he says he did “something very stupid” (365), he never said that he killed Giles. Hawthorne believes that Roderick was referring to buying naked pictures of Sarah. He also points out that two people came into The Tea Cosy in the same week to buy the same Agatha Christie book—the reason Phyllis thought of everyone killing Giles together. He concludes that someone framed Roderick for Giles’s murder and then killed him.