William was the first out of the car. He ducked under the tape and ran towards the lifeless body sprawled in a pool of blood on the pavement. As he approached it, he fell to his knees and screamed, ‘No!’

Ross appeared by his side a moment later. When he saw who it was, he was violently sick.

Inspector Preston was surprised that two such experienced officers had reacted as if it were their first murder case.

‘Do you know who she is?’ he asked tentatively.

‘Yes,’ he replied, cradling his wife gently in his arms. ‘And I’ll kill him.’

CHAPTER 22

WILLIAM HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO take Beth to Paris for a long weekend. They’d talked so often of visiting the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and of course the Musée Rodin. They would window-shop on the Rue de Rivoli, perhaps buy an oil from a pavement artist in Montmartre, recalling the story of the American woman who bought a painting from Picasso for a few francs because she liked it.

They would take a boat down the Seine, drink a little too much wine, and enjoy a coq au vin while sampling a cheese board they would never experience anywhere else in the world, before finally returning to their little pension on the Left Bank. They would resist climbing the Eiffel Tower, but in the end join dozens of other tourists in a crowded lift to witness the spectacular panoramic views of the most romantic city on earth. But not this weekend.

After stepping off the train at the Gare du Nord, William went in search of a taxi. He handed the driver an address in the outskirts of Paris, and twenty minutes later the taxi pulled up outside the church of St Mary the Virgin. After paying the driver fifty francs, William joined a trickle of mourners as they made their way up a path to the open door at the east end of the church.

The front three rows were occupied by a dozen or more of the most elegantly dressed women William had ever seen. He walked slowly down the aisle and took a seat in the pew behind his friend, whose head was bent in prayer.

When the hour struck on the clock tower above them, the priest made his entrance, coming to a halt on the steps in front of the altar. He conducted the funeral service with an air of quiet dignity, and although William could not understand every word, his schoolboy French allowed him to follow the proceedings, even the moving tribute given by an older gentleman, who William assumed must be a relation or long-standing family friend.

After the service was over, they all gathered in the churchyard. As the coffin was being lowered into the ground, William was glad that none of those standing around the graveside had seen her lying on the pavement moments after she had died, and would remember her only as a beautiful woman. The one saving grace was that her prematurely delivered daughter had somehow survived. She wouldn’t have, if Roach had known that Ross Hogan’s wife was pregnant.