‘Yes.’

  ‘So as far as we know, that makes her the last person to see him alive. Would you agree?’

  ‘Well, we have to take into account—’

  ‘Would you agree?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that, as I’m sure you appreciate, makes her our prime suspect. So what I should do right now is send some of my lads round there to haul her in. But against my better judgement, I’m not going to do that. Out of respect for our friendship over the years, I’ll give her the chance to surrender herself. She’s got until noon tomorrow, after which I will let my lads loose.’

  ‘Who’s going to tell her that?’ Paniatowski asked, fearing what the answer might be.

  ‘You are,’ said Louisa, confirming her worst fears.

  ‘You want me to tell my old friend and bagman that she has to give herself up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Couldn’t someone else do it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’ll make me feel like Judas, kissing Jesus on the cheek in the Garden of Gethsemane.’

  ‘I’m sorry if that is how it makes you feel, but there’s nothing I can do about that.’

  ‘You’re punishing me, aren’t you?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘After what’s happened, don’t you think I’m entitled to dish out a little punishment?’ Louisa countered.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Paniatowski admitted. ‘More than a little.’

  ‘There’s one more thing I need to ask you,’ Louisa said. ‘Do you think that Kate killed Andrew Lofthouse?’

  ‘I think she’s clever enough and resourceful enough to have found a way to deal with her problems that didn’t involve murder,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘You just can’t bring yourself to give me a straight “no”, can you?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘You’re right!’ Paniatowski gasped. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘That’s what I suspected all along,’ Louisa said, and hung up.

  It was after midnight, and Kate Meadows lay stiffly in her bed.

  She was dreaming.

  Or perhaps it was not a dream.

  Perhaps it was simply a memory being played through her dozing mind.

  But it didn’t really matter which of the two it was, because she knew in her mind that what she was seeing had actually happened, just as it was happening now.

  And that scared the hell out of her.

  They have each driven their own cars from the Hellfire Club to Lofthouse’s home, and once inside, Lofthouse gestures that she should follow him into a reception room which leads off the entrance hall.

  ‘Welcome to my humble home,’ he says.

  She cannot tell whether he is being genuine or ironic, and thus does not know whether he expects her to respond or to keep silent.

  She keeps silent.

  ‘There’s a drinks’ cabinet over by the window,’ he says. ‘While I’m making all the arrangements, you can mix us a couple of cocktails. Mine’s a pink gin.’

  The phrase ‘making all the arrangements’ chills her.

  ‘I don’t drink,’ she forces herself to say, ‘so if you want me to prepare your drink, you’ll have to tell me how to do it.’

  ‘Well, you are a useless little battered hostel warden, aren’t you?’ he says teasingly. ‘Never mind the drink then – just find something to amuse you while I’m gone.’

  Coming back to this house was not a wise thing to agree to, she tells herself once she is alone, not a wise thing at all. She should never have put herself in the power of this dangerous man.

  It’s not too late to change things. She only has to leave this room to be no more than a few steps from the front door. Then there is nothing to stop her leaving this house, getting in her car, and driving away.

  Except there is!

  She cannot let Lofthouse ruin her life, and she will do anything and everything she can to prevent that happening.

  Lofthouse re-enters the room.

  ‘Follow me,’ he says.

  He leads her up the wide staircase to his bedroom.

  And there, hanging from the ceiling, is a noose.

  ‘It’s used for auto-erotic strangulation,’ he says.

  ‘I know what it’s for,’ she says.

  ‘My wife loves it. Sometimes I have to tell her to stop, before she does herself permanent damage.’

  He’s lying, of course – he’s dragging Jane’s name into this to make it seem as if what he’s asking her to do is perfectly normal.

  He produces a set of steps and a piece of black cloth that looks as if it is velvet.

  ‘The cloth is to prevent rope burns,’ he explains. ‘Go on – try it out.’

  ‘What happens once I’ve put the noose around my neck?’ she asks.

  ‘I take the steps away.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Not long at all. Just enough time to give you the greatest sexual experience you’ve ever had.’

  ‘How do I know you’ll put the steps back? How do I know you won’t leave me hanging there until I die?’

  He laughs. ‘Why should I want to kill you? And even if I did, can you imagine me committing the crime in my own house?’

  He’s right. It’s not her death he wants – it’s her humiliation. And she’s willing to humiliate herself to protect what she values most in the world.

  He holds out his hand to her.

  ‘I’ll steady you.’

  His grip is firm, but surprisingly gentle.

  She reaches the top step. She is not far from the floor, possibly as little as eighteen inches, but that is quite enough to render her entirely helpless once the knot tightens.

  ‘Put the cloth inside the noose, and slip your head in,’ he says.

  She does as she has been instructed. This is the most horrendous moment of her entire life, she thinks.

  But she is wrong.

  Worse is to come.

  She closes her eyes and waits for the steps to be withdrawn.

  ‘You were really willing to do it, weren’t you?’ he jeers. ‘You have no pride – no self-respect.’

  She opens her eyes and looks at him. His face is human – but only just. She had never imagined that anyone could look so ugly.

  ‘Get down,’ he says. ‘Get down and get out. I’m sick of looking at you.’

  She descends the steps.

  ‘We had a deal,’ she says, and is shocked at how pathetic she sounds.

  ‘I don’t make deals with vermin like you,’ he says. ‘Tomorrow morning I’ll ring your board of directors, and by lunchtime you’ll be out on the street.’

  She had already sunk to the depths of shame and self-loathing when she agreed to climb the steps. It shouldn’t make things any worse that it has all been for nothing.

  But it does!

  It bloody does!

  He turns his back on her, as a matador will sometimes do to the bull – to show his contempt!

  He is the most loathsome human being she has ever met, yet he can still feel contempt for her – and she can’t blame him for that.

  Earlier, she noticed a bronze statue of two people engaged in robust sex sitting on one of the occasional tables. Now her mind returns to it.

  It would make a formidable weapon, she thinks.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Saturday, 5 February, 2000

  It had not snowed overnight – as the weatherman had speculated it might – but the heavy grey clouds hanging mournfully over Whitebridge held out the possibility that snow would arrive before noon. In the meantime, it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. People hurried along the streets, eager to be indoors again, and dogs and their owners, out for their habitual morning walks, looked as if they would gladly have forgone the pleasure for once.

  Monika Paniatowski parked her car in front of Overcroft House. She had barely slept during the night, but, in a way, her insomnia had been a mercy, because the dreams she had when she did drop off were drenched with guilt and horror.

  When Kate Meadows opened the door, and saw the expression on Paniatowski’s face, she said, ‘It’s all come apart, hasn’t it?’

  Paniatowski nodded. ‘Yes, it has.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘I’m to tell you that you have to present yourself at Whitebridge Central.’

  ‘I didn’t do it, you know,’ Meadows said. ‘I swear I didn’t.’

  ‘There’s no point in telling me,’ Paniatowski said. ‘You’d be better saving your protests for the interview.’

  ‘Will you be coming with me?’ Meadows asked.

  ‘Of course I will. I’m your friend. I’ll always be your friend.’

  ‘Even if it turns out I’m the killer?’

  ‘Even then.’

  Meadows smiled weakly. ‘I asked Mary, my deputy, to come in early – I must have known this was going to happen, mustn’t I? – so there’s no problem in me leaving the building. But I would like to do my rounds before I go. After all, this may be the last time I can. Is there any problem with that?’

  ‘No problem at all,’ Paniatowski said. ‘You’ve been given until noon to surrender yourself.’

  ‘You just said “surrender” yourself,’ Meadows pointed out. ‘Not “present” myself, but “surrender” myself.’

  ‘A slip of the tongue,’ Paniatowski said.

  But they both knew it wasn’t.

  ‘It’s cold out here. Would you like to wait in my office?’ Meadows said.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Paniatowski replied.

  And suddenly it’s like they were two polite strangers, talking to each other purely through necessity, she thought.

  Meadows knocked on Lizzie’s door.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’

  There was no answer, but that didn’t worry her, because having a baby could be a tiring business, and Lizzie could well be sleeping.

  She knocked again.

  ‘I have to come in and look at you and little May, Lizzie,’ she said. ‘I’ve got what they call “a duty of care”.’

  There was still silence on the other side of the door, and now she started getting worried.

  Had the baby died in the night, and was Lizzie now huddled in a corner, her thumb stuck in her mouth, barely aware of where she was?

  Had Lizzie died in the night, and was the baby now lying there alone and helpless?

  She took out her keys. ‘I’m coming in,’ she said.

  And suddenly there was activity on the other side of the door – a degree of banging and thumping that it was hard to believe was being created by one person.

  Meadows opened the door. Lizzie was lying in bed, trying to look innocent. May was in her cot, gurgling away happily.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Maybe,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘What was all that noise?’ Meadows asked.

  ‘What noise?’ Lizzie replied. Meadows sniffed. There was definitely the scent of a male presence in the air.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

  But even as she was framing the question, she realized how stupid it was, because there was only one place he could be.

  She walked over to the big old-fashioned wardrobe, and opened the doors. There was a big man inside, and he was naked. That he didn’t look the least bit threatening was down to the fact that he had his hands held protectively over his genitals, and there was an awkward, embarrassed look on his face.

  ‘Hello, Auntie Kate,’ he said.

  The four of them sat in Lizzie Grimshaw’s room – the mother, her friend, her son and his girlfriend. In the cot by the bed, the baby lay contentedly asleep. Paniatowski and Meadows were sitting on the room’s two chairs, Lizzie and Philip perched on the edge of the bed, and they were all drinking cocoa. It was a charming domestic scene, but it perhaps lost a little of its warm glow when you remembered that one of the four was a criminal on the run, and another the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

  ‘We weren’t doing anything sexy in bed – not so soon after the baby was born,’ Lizzie said. ‘But we knew that Philip would be going back to prison soon, and we just wanted to be together for a little while.’

  ‘And then we fell asleep in each other’s arms,’ Philip said. He chuckled, ‘And it wasn’t until Auntie Kate started banging on the door that we woke up.’

  ‘I never meant to get pregnant with Philip’s baby, you know,’ Lizzie said. ‘It was just that right from the moment we met, I knew I loved him, and I wanted to go to bed with him.’

  ‘It was the same for me,’ Philip said. ‘I think it must have been meant to happen.’ He looked into his mother’s eyes. ‘I’ve never been a good person, Mum. I know that. But Lizzie is so very, very good, and since I’ve known her, I think I might have got a little bit better.’

  ‘I think so too,’ Paniatowski said.

  ‘I was scared of what Gary would do when he found out I was having another baby,’ Lizzie continued. ‘This time, he might have killed me – especially if he managed to work out the baby wasn’t his. So I came here, but somebody must have told him where I was, because one day, when I looked out of the window, I saw him standing in the street, looking up at the bedrooms, and I was terrified.’

  ‘I asked her to come away with me, but she wouldn’t,’ Philip said.

  ‘I went to Blackpool on a day trip once or twice, but apart from that, I’ve never been anywhere. I was as frightened of leaving Whitebridge as I was of Gary. Anyway, even though I loved Philip, I wasn’t sure I trusted him.’ Lizzie turned to him. ‘I’m so sorry, Philip.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said softly. ‘Every man you’ve ever trusted has let you down, so why should I be any different?’

  Lizzie grasped his hand. ‘But I do trust you now. I’ll never stop trusting you – and I’ll never stop loving you.’

  ‘When did you decide to attack her boyfriend, Philip?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Not until the very last minute,’ Philip admitted. ‘I knew I had to do something to protect Lizzie, but I had no idea what. Then I was in this pub I’d never been to before, and so was he. I heard him talking to his mates, telling them all the terrible things he was going to do to Lizzie once he found a way to get in here. You could see his mates were horrified, but they were too frightened of him to say anything. I realized then that I had to stop him, and that I couldn’t put it off any longer.’

  ‘You broke both his legs – in several places.’

  ‘I had to make sure he was out of action until after the baby was born. I … I couldn’t let him be a threat to my baby.’

  ‘Did you know anybody in the pub?’ Meadows asked.

  ‘No, like I said, I’d never been in there before.’

  ‘So if you’d left right away, you might have got away with it.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Philip shrugged. ‘If I’d run away, it would have been like saying I was ashamed of what I’d done – and I wasn’t.’

  Her father had led a cavalry charge against German tanks in the Second World War, Paniatowski thought. He must have known it would be suicide, but he did it anyway – because he felt that was what he had to do.

  And now there was her son, knowing he would get a long prison sentence for breaking a vicious bully’s legs, but doing it anyway – for much the same reason.

  ‘Why haven’t you said any of this before?’ she asked. ‘Surely you realize that if people know why you did it …’

  ‘Can we step out into the corridor, Mum?’ Philip asked urgently.

  ‘Of course,’ Paniatowski agreed, ‘but I don’t see why …’

  ‘Then let’s do it.’

  Philip moved awkwardly and stiffly, and when he noticed his mother looking at him anxiously, he said, ‘That’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’m your mother,’ Paniatowski reminded him. ‘I’m supposed to worry.’

  Philip grinned, and she could see he was in pain. ‘It’s just a slight injury,’ he promised. ‘It’s the sort of thing you should expect during a prison break.’

  In a different situation, she would have said something similar, she thought.

  Once they were in the corridor, Philip closed Lizzie’s bedroom door firmly behind them.

  ‘You’re going to ask me to tell this story at my trial, aren’t you?’ Philip asked.

  ‘Well, of course I am. If the judge and jury can be made to understand that there are extenuating circumstances …’

  ‘I’m not going to do it.’

  ‘Why, in God’s name, not?’

  ‘Lizzie would have to appear as a witness, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she would.’

  ‘I’m not putting her through that.’

  ‘Philip …’

  ‘Lizzie is the best person I’ve ever met. She’s so kind and loving. But the people in the court wouldn’t see that. What they’d see would be some little scrubber who lived with one brute and probably slept with dozens of other brutes before she found one who was foolish enough to get her pregnant. I’m not putting her through that.’

  ‘If you don’t say anything, you could be adding years to your sentence,’ Paniatowski warned.

  ‘I know,’ Philip said, ‘and it makes no difference.’

  He would never change his mind. She could see that.

  ‘You’re a bloody fool, Philip – and I’m so proud of you,’ she said, with a catch in her throat.

  There was the sound of a car horn being blown in the street, and Meadows opened the bedroom door.

  ‘Thomas is here,’ she said, ‘Are you ready, Philip?’

  Philip nodded, ‘As soon as I’ve said goodbye to Lizzie and my daughter.’

  Paniatowski and Meadows stayed in the corridor.

  ‘I’ll wait for you,’ they heard Lizzie say. ‘It doesn’t matter how long you’re in prison, I’ll wait for you. And I’ll talk to our baby about you every day, so that she’ll learn to love you like I do.’

  Philip appeared in the corridor again. He didn’t look back – though it was obviously taking him a huge effort of will not to.

  ‘Can I ask you one question before you go, Philip?’ Meadows asked, gently closing the door.