“Don’t say that,” he almost screamed. “I know why Sarah died. It was because of your meddling. If you’d kept your nose out of this, nobody would have ever known anything about that bloody scaffolding. It was you that killed my daughter, you bitch.”

“Keep thinking that if it helps. But one day you’re going to have to face the fact that Sarah preferred to die rather than live with a murderer.”

A cunning look crept across his face. “You’re trying to make me lose my temper, to give you a chance of coming back at me. Well, it won’t work. Where’s your car? Is it outside?”

Surprised by the change in tack, Lindsay blurted out, “No, it isn’t.”

“Where is it then?”

Lindsay couldn’t work out why the question was being asked, but some instinct for self-preservation made her keep her mouth shut.

He moved back to face her. “I asked where your bloody car is.”

“Find out your bloody self,” Lindsay retorted. Before the words were out of her mouth, his hand slashed at her face again. Pain blotted out her consciousness for a moment. When she could sense anything again, she tasted blood and felt her mouth beginning to swell. Her left eye felt on fire. She shook her head to clear it.

“Where’s your car?”

He grasped the little finger of her left hand and began to bend it backward. Lindsay gritted her teeth as the pain flooded through her arm. “It’s at the school,” she gasped.

He let go. “All the better. No one will have noticed it here. We’ll go and collect it a little later on. You’re going to have a nasty accident. Driving away from the school. There’s a lot of really bad bends up on the Cat and Fiddle road. Somebody who doesn’t know their way around and likes to drive fast could easily have a fatal accident up there. Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing. A bump on the head, that’s all. I’ll drive you up there in your own car and we’ll send it over the side. Shame you don’t like wearing a seat-belt, isn’t it?”

Lindsay stared at him with pure hatred. “You bastard,” she said, her words slurring slightly.