‘No, Angela wasn’t paying for sexual favours,’ Perez said. ‘You didn’t have any sort of physical relationship with her, did you? She took her regular lovers to the Pund and you knew nothing about that. Your encounters were purely business.’

Hugh stared at the detective. He seemed unable to speak.

‘What was it?’ Perez asked. ‘Blackmail?’

‘The money was a gift,’ Hugh said at last. ‘At least, a loan. Angela knew I’d pay her back. We might not have been lovers but we were good mates. She trusted me.’

‘You weren’t friends,’ Perez said. ‘And Angela wasn’t known for her generosity of spirit or her ability to trust her fellow man. She would only have paid up if she had no choice.’

‘You have no proof.’ The inevitable smile, forced, more of a grimace.

Perez continued as if Hugh hadn’t spoken. ‘And she would have hated it. No one made Angela do what she didn’t want to. She’d have been determined to find a way to stop you from bothering her further. Is that why you killed her? Because she’d started to fight back? Had she begun to threaten you? It wouldn’t be pleasant to be known as a blackmailer.’

‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ Hugh got to his feet. ‘I’ll be happy to talk to you again, Inspector, when you have some proof.’ He sauntered from the room, a parody of the old cockiness. Sandy stood up too, and seemed prepared to stop Hugh leaving, but Perez gestured for him to let the boy go.

‘What could he possibly be blackmailing Angela about?’ Sandy asked.

Perez was saved from answering because his mobile rang. ‘Yes?’

It was Vicki Hewitt. ‘We’ve had the results on the DNA analysis on the feathers you found in Angela Moore’s hair.’

‘Go on.’

He listened to her words and he knew who had killed the two women. A strange intuitive leap that had little to do with logic. A confirmation and at last a motive. He walked quickly out of the bird room to pull Hugh back in. There were more questions that needed answering now. But the boy seemed to have disappeared.

Chapter Thirty-six

Fran was making custard. She was tantalized by the noises coming from the common room, but good custard, even from a packet, took concentration. Although the numbers of residents had declined, she was still cooking for more people than she was used to. She stirred and listened, distracted again by the raised men’s voices. The milk started to burn on the bottom of the pan: there was a brown skin on the tip of the spoon when she lifted it out of the yellow liquid. Quickly she reduced the heat. It thickened at last in a satisfactory if slightly lumpy way and she switched off the stove. She would warm it through later.