I left the bazaar and turned down Sun Street, ready to take the various members of the Tribe to their respective homes. As I walked them along, trying to keep them up together, the long, low shape of Verbena Clarke’s Porsche swept by me. I watched it drive to the end of the street and turn left. The last time I had seen her was in the alley that linked Sun Street with Shadow Lane. Understanding hit me like a brick. What an idiot I was, not to have realised at the time. Verbena hadn’t simply been trying to avoid me. She didn’t want anyone who knew her to see her in that alley, because she’d been coming from Nick’s.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I parked my van in Verbena’s courtyard, right next to her Porsche. The Range Rover was parked there too, which meant she was certainly at home. The kitchen door was locked; perhaps, post-robbery, she had become more security conscious.

I crossed the courtyard to her studio.

She was sitting at a drawing board, pencil in hand, surrounded by drawings and swatches of furnishing fabrics. ‘Shades of grey, eh?’ I asked, surveying the swatches as she looked up, startled. ‘That’s a bit last year, isn’t it?’

‘What do you want?’ she demanded, suddenly pale.

‘You and I need to talk,’ I set my bum down on a swivelling stool on the other side of her desk and perched there, arms folded.

‘We have nothing to talk about.’

‘Yes we do,’ I said, swivelling slightly. ‘You accused me of theft.’

She blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘I never accused you!’

‘You sent the police round to me.’

‘I didn’t send them.’ Her schoolgirl voice was petulant. ‘I simply said you were the last person to go up into the bedroom. It was obvious that they should want to interview you.’

‘But they told me you weren’t certain when the theft had taken place. So you can’t be sure I was the last person, can you?’

She closed her eyes, holding up the palm of her hand as if mentally pushing me away. ‘Look, I never accused you. Now, please leave!’

‘Then why did you sack me?’

She didn’t answer. She began doodling on the paper in front of her, her eyes downcast, her black mascara lashes spidery against her cheeks. For a moment I watched her pencil making circles.

‘I had been working for you for two years,’ I reminded her. ‘I think I have a right to know.’

The pressure on the pencil increased, the circles growing blacker. I waited. Suddenly the point broke, Verbena gave a furious sigh and threw the pencil across the room. ‘God, this is so humiliating!’ She put her head in her hands, slender fingers lacing through her blonde curls.

‘Just tell me, Verbena!’

‘It’s none of your business,’ she cried fiercely, glaring up at me.