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Chapters (42)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-One
  22. Chapter Twenty-Two
  23. Chapter Twenty-Three
  24. Chapter Twenty-Four
  25. Chapter Twenty-Five
  26. Chapter Twenty-Six
  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  30. Chapter Thirty
  31. Chapter Thirty-One
  32. Chapter Thirty-Two
  33. Chapter Thirty-Three
  34. Chapter Thirty-Four
  35. Chapter Thirty-Five
  36. Chapter Thirty-Six
  37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  40. Chapter Forty
  41. Chapter Forty-One
  42. Chapter Forty-Two

‘Please,’ Hannah said. ‘Give him a couple of minutes.’ She stood up and the two young people were facing each other across the room. Again, Vera thought how calm she was. It had been the uncertainty surrounding her mother’s death that had fractured her confidence and personality. Knowledge had put her back together. ‘So tell me, please, Simon, why did you feel the need to kill the woman who’d been so good to you?’

‘How can you say that?’ He was screaming. ‘How can you say that when she tempted me? When she took me away from you?’

‘That was your choice, I’d say, Simon. Your responsibility. Why did she have to die?’

‘She was going to tell you. Then everything would have been over between us. I couldn’t bear it.’ Tears were running down his cheeks.

‘Oh, Simon, you’re such a child. You make me feel as old as the world.’ The words were cold and deliberate. Hannah walked towards him and Vera expected a gesture of violence. A slap on the face. She was ready for that. Instead the girl took him in her arms and held him for a moment. He rested his head on her shoulder and she stroked his hair. Then she pushed him away and turned to Vera. ‘Now take him away. I never want to see him again. If he stays here any longer I might have to get a bread knife and kill him.’

Chapter Forty-Two

To mark the end of the investigation Vera treated the team to dinner at the Willows. She didn’t see it as a celebration – the memory of the encounter between Hannah and Simon was too fresh for that – and the Willows, with its large echoing dining room, seemed to suit the mood. Besides, this was where the whole case had started.

Ryan Taylor had given them the best table in the room, next to a long window and looking out over the garden and the river. The water had gone down, but still there was a feeling of being on an island, of being cut off from the rest of the world. The place was almost empty. In a far corner an elderly couple sipped coffee in silence. At a table near the door a businessman was spooning soup into his mouth and reading the Telegraph.

‘Tell me, Joe, how did you let Simon Eliot get away?’