‘To be honest,’ he said, ‘I think Rose Shepherd was lonely.’

‘Lonely, sir?’

‘Yes. She knew no one in this country. I think she needed some kind of contact.’

‘She risked a lot for a bit of conversation over a cup of tea, didn’t she?’ said Fry incredulously.

Lowther shook his head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, there wasn’t much in it for Miss Shepherd, was there? She’d gone to a lot of trouble to give herself a new identity and made herself a recluse, all out of concern for her own safety. Why would she decide to risk all that for an hour with you in a tea room in Matlock Bath?’

‘I really don’t know. I just know that she asked us, and we agreed.’

Fry watched him, inviting him to say more, but he remained silent. She looked at his wife instead, and saw that a worried expression had come over her face, a grey wash of despair.

‘It was our fault, wasn’t it?’ she said.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Lowther? Would you repeat that?’

‘It was because of us that Rose died. We got her killed, didn’t we?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that exactly.’

Mrs Lowther shook her head, dismissing her denial.

‘The people she mixed with in Bulgaria, they must have come looking for her, to kill her. The same people who shot the couple in Bulgaria. And it was because of us that they found her.’

‘Really? You think so?’

Lowther nodded at what his wife was saying, and sighed deeply. He thought he’d seen a way out, after all.

‘It all makes sense now,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what happened, isn’t it? It just goes to show what awful consequences the most innocent of intentions can have. I’m only glad that Lindsay never knew anything about all this.’

Fry felt a physical surge of revulsion at his sanctimonious expression. She could see him relaxing now, smug in the belief that everything would be smoothed over and he’d get away with what he’d done. He thought he might escape the light, after all.

‘Actually, Mr Lowther,’ she said, ‘that’s not the way we see it at all. And it isn’t what your former employee, Tony Donnelly, says either.’

Lowther just stared at her, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

Fry leaned forward and spoke to him quietly, fixing her gaze on his. Rain surged against the glass all around them, but she knew that he heard her perfectly well.

‘Nor was it the reason your son killed himself. Was it, Mr Lowther?’

And that was the bullet he was waiting for. Right between the eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Thirty-Nine