‘I doubt whether a jury would believe that,’ Claire said. ‘A man is dead, a policeman. You know how the legal system views premeditated murder, especially the murder of a cop.’

He shrugged. ‘By that point, I had nothing to lose.’ He looked up at Gillard. ‘It was you I wanted out of the way. I had a feeling you understood what was going on. With you gone, at least I would have had a chance.’

Claire looked at him. ‘For you, people are simply pawns to sacrifice, or obstacles to remove, aren’t they?’

Lal shook his head.

‘Let’s go back to the beginning,’ Gillard said. ‘We know you’d been having a clandestine relationship with Harshil Roy, and that Morag Fairburn was your cover. But why on earth did you have to kill Mrs Roy? Couldn’t you just have carried on, even after Harry Roy got married?’

Lal shook his head. ‘I told Harry I wasn’t prepared to continue sneaking around for the rest of my life just because the kind of love that I have to offer doesn’t fit into the traditional Indian idea. I told him again and again.’

‘What was his reaction?’ Claire asked.

‘Well, you know what Harry is like. He had the women, and the admiration, and the money. And, on the side, he had me. He had it all. But for me it wasn’t enough.’

‘So who within the family knew about your relationship?’ Claire asked.

‘Well, Kiara knew. Prisha never did.’

‘What about Mrs Roy herself?’

‘Well, I think she knew I was gay. It’s not so hard to figure out, is it? But Harry, no no, Harry could do no wrong in her eyes, and she was not going to do anything to prejudice him taking over. She was blind to it. He thought that once his mother retired, once he controlled the trust, he could fix some of those crazy rules. But I could see she was never going to retire. She was a workaholic, and although, in her own mind, she was not as much a martinet as her awful husband, she had made a promise on his deathbed to carry out his wishes as enshrined in the trust.’ Zayan rubbed his hands over his face. ‘I didn’t know what to do for a long time.’

‘Then you poisoned her,’ Gillard said. ‘By injecting thallium into her roll-on deodorant.’

‘That didn’t just happen. I brought it back from India a year ago, when I was going through one of my black moods, but I never thought I would use it. Then in October, Harry told me that his mother had given him an ultimatum. To get married in the coming year, or she would install Deepak as chief operating officer over him. They had a furious row. Harry knows that Deepak is an ambitious schemer, and he couldn’t bear the idea. So he told me that he would have to get married, and his mother had suggested a couple of brokers with good contacts.’