‘Did you see Terry leave the party?’ Clement asked next. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with Katherine’s sentiments, just that, at that moment, Millie Vander’s troubles were not his priority.

‘Nope.’

‘There’s some debate over whether or not he had a passenger with him in the car.’

‘Did he?’ Katherine asked quickly – if a little indistinctly – around a mouthful of whisky.

‘We don’t know,’ Clement admitted briskly. ‘Certainly nobody other than himself was found in the car. Is there anything else you care to tell us – about Millie or the mystery woman? Did you know Mr Parker?’

‘Never met him before that night,’ Katherine said, and gave yet another huge yawn. ‘Millie’s too boring to mention, and the only thing I know about the mystery woman is that she has the same taste in negligees as myself.’

‘Sorry?’ Clement said, put off his stride for the first time since he’d entered the artist’s lair.

‘Oh, didn’t I say? I saw her in town,’ Katherine said, dragging her gaze away from the sideboard and turning to Clement, giving him a lazy, cat-like smile. ‘In Beatrice’s in the High.’ She named a boutique clothes shop that was out of Trudy’s budget, but she knew which shop she meant.

‘It was the day before the party, I think,’ Katherine swept on. ‘I was in the shop looking for a Hermès scarf I wanted. I was just browsing, as you do, and noticed this apricot silk dressing gown and negligee. I was just about to go in for a closer look, but this woman beat me to it.’ She shrugged. ‘I let her have it.’ She grinned magnanimously. ‘Not that I wouldn’t have fought her for it if I’d really wanted it, mind.’ The artist frowned thoughtfully. ‘Now that I come to think of it, I never did find that Hermès I wanted,’ she mused, staring down into her nearly depleted glass.

‘And you’re sure this woman was the same woman who gate-crashed the party?’ Clement asked, glancing at Trudy, who was looking at him with an excited gleam in her eye. No doubt they were both thinking the same thing. If the woman had bought the nightwear, she might have paid by cheque. Or better yet, asked to have it delivered. Either way, they might, with a bit of luck, have a lead on the mystery woman!

‘Oh yes, it was her all right,’ Katherine said, sounding, once more, thoroughly bored. ‘I’m an artist – I don’t forget visual things. Names, dates, yes. Not what people look like. So that’s everything covered,’ she said sadly. ‘Death, tragedy, mystery and gossip. Now I need another drink. Sure I can’t get you one?’

*

‘Let’s hope they’ve cleared the pavements on the High Street and Beatrice’s is open!’ Trudy said eagerly, once they were back in the car.