‘If she wanted revenge,’ I replied, gingerly touching the bump on my head, ‘she’d have brought her own torch.’ I turned to Richard. ‘You know, I should really thank you for helping me to make up my mind. I’ve decided I’m going to keep what Nick left me, the flat and the shop, if for no other reason than because you bastards don’t deserve it. And because I liked him.’

Richard smiled bitterly. ‘He never gave you cause to hate him.’

‘No,’ I agreed vehemently, ‘he didn’t! As far as the rings are concerned, if I ever find them, Helena is welcome to them. I don’t care. All I want to know is that this is the last time I am ever going to lay eyes on you, any of you. Take my advice and go back to London today, because if I ever see you here again, Richard, I will call the police and tell them how you used to come down and tap him for money.’

‘Juno, you have my solemn word …’ Sensing that he was getting back on safe ground, he smiled, switched on the sincere charm. ‘I swear to you—’

‘Save it, Richard. The only word I want to hear from you is goodbye.’

He shrugged. ‘Goodbye, Juno,’ he said, and opened the door for me.

I turned to look back at Tamara. ‘I should watch it, dear,’ I advised her, jerking my head in Richard’s direction. ‘He’s a second-hand car salesman. He trades-in old models.’

She bit her lip angrily and then flounced back into the bathroom, slamming the door.

‘You can tell Helena I meant what I said about the rings,’ I told Richard. ‘If I ever find them, I promise I will return them to her.’

Richard smiled. ‘That’s more than we deserve, I fear.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed as I marched away down the hotel corridor, ‘it most certainly is.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

There was a visitor waiting for me when I got back to the house. As soon as I opened the front door, Kate called to me from her kitchen. I went in reluctantly.

I’d had enough dramatics for one morning, my head ached and I wanted to lie down.

Sitting at her scrubbed pine table, a mobile of glass dolphins revolving slowly over his head, sat Inspector Ford, in soulful contemplation of Bill, who was sitting upright on his lap, gazing up at him intently like a little Cyclops. Kate was standing with her back against the sink, very obviously blocking the inspector’s view of the windowsill and of one pot plant in particular. She might as well have hung a sign.

‘Good morning, Inspector,’ I said. ‘No, please, don’t get up.’ He’d begun to rise, inconveniencing Bill who dropped, grumbling, to the floor. I sat at the table on his left, so that the inspector would have to turn away from the windowsill to look at me.