‘What did you say?’ She saw his knuckles turn white as his hands tightened their grip on the chair. ‘I thought you said the police knew nothing of this.’

  ‘Bruce took some photos of the Boudin and he was going to show them to the police and tell them … Mr Semple, are you all right? You’ve gone quite pale. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘I’m afraid it will take more than a drink to undo the damage that you and your meddling friends have done,’ he said, in a voice thick with fury. His features, drained of colour, were distorted and almost unrecognisable; all trace of professional composure had disappeared.

  It took Melissa a second or two to grasp the appalling nature of the mistake she had made. Her heart seemed to stop; her hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘You!’ she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. ‘You’re in the scam as well!’

  ‘Not just in it.’ He straightened in his chair and raised his head. ‘The entire plan was my idea,’ he informed her proudly, ‘and under my direction it has run like clockwork.’

  ‘So it was you who gave orders for me to be killed … and Leonora?’

  ‘Of course.’ He had quickly recovered his sangfroid. ‘We couldn’t have foolish women endangering our very lucrative arrangement.’

  ‘What about Carole?’ faltered Melissa, feeling a fresh stab of horror. ‘Did you …?’

  ‘Yes, it was a pity about Carole.’ An independent observer, knowing nothing of the circumstances, would have sworn the man felt genuine regret. ‘Such a conscientious employee,’ he sighed. ‘Too conscientious for her own good, I’m afraid. She sacrificed her life to save me the cost of a telephone call. Ironic, isn’t it?’

  ‘A telephone call?’ For an instant, Melissa forgot her own danger in her attempt to understand.

  ‘One of her duties was to check my cellphone account,’ Mr Semple explained. ‘I overlooked, when I passed it to her …’

  ‘That it contains details, including the time, of every call you make!’ Melissa burst out. ‘Oh, why didn’t I spot that at the time? Your battery was never flat, you never attempted to call the police while we were in the Ploughman’s Arms. You called your accomplice, and you wanted to give him time to retrieve the weapon that killed Leonora Jewell. And then you made the mistake of calling your secretary, to tell her to have a form of receipt ready for me to sign … and later, when Carole came to check the account, she realised it didn’t tally with what you’d told the police, she knew you’d been lying to them …’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Mr Semple appeared mildly shocked. ‘She quite properly came straight to me to point out the discrepancy. I told her it was a mistake and I’d take it up with Vodafone. I thought I’d set her mind at rest, but when I heard her speaking to you it was obvious she had given the matter further thought. I decided it was too risky to allow her to voice her suspicions to anyone else.’

  ‘So you had her murdered.’ Melissa felt a wave of loathing at the cold-bloodedness of the man. ‘You … you monster!’

  He looked wounded. ‘I prefer “silenced”,’ he said reproachfully. ‘It was unfortunate, I admit, but as I said, I was not prepared to allow a foolish young woman to destroy everything I had worked for. That reminds me,’ he added, almost as an aside to an invisible secretary, ‘something will have to be done about the Dampier woman. Hood tells me she could be a danger to us as well.’

  ‘Haven’t you done enough killing?’ For the moment, Melissa’s anger overcame her fear. ‘Just for a few miserable pictures.’

  ‘Miserable pictures? My dear Mrs Craig, it is plain you have no appreciation of works of art, or of the wealth that they represent. My partners and I have been, shall we say, providing for a very comfortable early retirement. I’m afraid it will have to be earlier than we planned, thanks to your interference. The immediate problem is, what are we going to do with you?’

  ‘You can’t kill me now. You’re sure to be caught,’ said Melissa desperately. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll give yourself up.’

  ‘Give myself up?’ He was actually smiling, looking for all the world like the respectable family solicitor she had believed him to be. ‘You underestimate me, Mrs Craig. You are quite right, though, it would be rather short-sighted to kill you now. In fact, you will be much more valuable to us alive.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Melissa’s mouth had become so dry and stiff that she could barely get the words out. ‘What are you going to do?’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Well now, my good friend Tom is waiting not far away for a call from me.’

  ‘Tom? Tom Barron?’ Now she knew why the man’s face had been familiar. He was the father of Arnie, the man whom she and Bruce suspected of masterminding the burglaries that provided Hood with the material for his ‘mulberry sandwiches’. The pieces of the puzzle were finally slotting into place. Too late, she thought despairingly.

  ‘Tom Barron is a valuable member of our organisation,’ said Semple. ‘The plan this evening was that I should establish exactly how much you knew and then for him to finish what he unfortunately failed to do this morning. I’m afraid the arrangements will have to be altered now. He’ll be very upset about it; he was hoping to avenge that rather painful injury you inflicted on him.’

  ‘I wish I’d bloody well crippled him!’ Melissa snarled.

  ‘Such unladylike language!’ Mr Semple shook his head in reproof. ‘Let me see, now. A trip with Tom to somewhere safe and secure will be the answer, I think. It may be a little uncomfortable for you, but it shouldn’t be for too long. We’ll set a price for your safe return … it will be interesting to establish how much you are worth to your friends. Perhaps your publishers will consider making a contribution? In the meantime …’ He took out his cellphone and punched in a number.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with you!’ While he was occupied with his call, she looked frantically around for some means of escape. Her eye fell on the poker lying on the hearth. It was out of her reach, but if she moved quickly enough … she made a dive, but he had followed her gaze and anticipated the movement. Dropping the phone, he snatched up the poker before she could reach it and raised it above his shoulder.

  ‘Sit down!’ he commanded harshly. ‘Any more tricks and I’ll break your arm.’ He brandished the heavy metal bar inches from her face. Half mesmerised with terror, she sank back into her chair. ‘That’s better. Just do exactly as I tell you from now on. Provided your friends do the same, no harm will come to you.’

  After what seemed an eternity, during which he remained standing over her with the poker in his hand, there came the sound of footsteps approaching the cottage. A moment later, the doorbell rang. ‘Answer that,’ he ordered.

  She could do nothing but obey. Even had he left her alone for the few seconds it would take him to go to the front door himself, every window in the room was locked – she had secured them herself and could never get one open in time. There was no way out. On legs that threatened to collapse beneath her, she stumbled into the hall with her captor at her heels. With shaking hands, she opened the door.

  In the porch, with two burly figures behind him, stood Detective Inspector Desmond Holloway.

  Twenty-Four

  It was over in seconds. Charles Semple, in a futile attempt to avoid arrest, made a grab at Melissa from behind, threatened to brain her – and anyone else who tried to block his way – with the poker, and was disarmed with almost nonchalant ease by Holloway’s two hefty companions. Melissa would long remember the look of hatred he gave her as he was led away.

  WPC Simmonds materialised from nowhere and took Melissa by the arm. ‘You’re not hurt?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘No, I’m fine … but I could use a drink.’

  ‘Let me get it for you.’

  ‘In the kitchen.’

  ‘Call me Mary,’ said the policewoman as, following Melissa’s directions, she found the brandy and poured some into a glass. ‘Don’t go knocking it back in one go,’ she warned as she handed it over.

  Melissa, who had tottered rather than walked to a chair at the kitchen table, gave a wan smile and sipped obediently. She was too shaken to resent being ordered about in her own home.

  There was a step outside, and the sound of the front door closing. ‘That’ll be Detective Inspector Holloway,’ said Mary. She popped her head round the door and called, ‘In here, sir.’

  He entered the room and sat down opposite Melissa without waiting to be asked. ‘Any chance of some tea?’ he said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Melissa in response to Mary’s look of enquiry. ‘You’ll find everything in that cupboard. There’s milk in the fridge.’

  ‘I imagine you’re wondering how we came to arrive at such an opportune moment?’ There was more than a hint of complacency in Holloway’s manner.

  Melissa, her nerve restored as much by the knowledge that her principal enemy was under lock and key as by the brandy, gave him a cool nod. ‘It had occurred to me to ask,’ she said. Then something clicked in her memory, and she added urgently, ‘Tom Barron is lurking somewhere around … he’s the one who …’

  ‘We know all about Barron,’ said Holloway smoothly. ‘In fact, he directed us here.’

  ‘What?’ A short time ago, as she and Semple confronted one another in her sitting-room, everything had become clear. Now it was getting confused again.

  ‘We’ve had our eye on Tom Barron for a while,’ said Holloway. ‘We’ve suspected him of certain illegal fringe activities connected with his second-hand car business – in fact, we’ve pulled him in once or twice for questioning, but we’ve never been able to make anything stick. He’s not over-bright, but he’s a wily bird and he asks for the same legal adviser who gets him off the hook each time: Charles Semple.’

  ‘Ah!’ That was something she hadn’t thought of.

  ‘Nothing sinister in that, of course,’ Holloway continued, ‘until we tumbled to the fact that Semple had also been present when we were questioning another suspect, someone we thought might be the so-called Sex Strangler. During that interview, certain details were mentioned about the Strangler’s methods that have never been made public.’

  ‘And those details were passed on, so that Carole Prescot’s murder could be made to look like the Strangler’s handiwork!’ exclaimed Melissa. ‘I wonder if that’s what B …’ In the nick of time, she checked herself from blurting out Bruce Ingram’s name.

  ‘That was almost certainly Barron’s intention.’ Holloway gave no sign of having noticed the slip she had so nearly made. ‘As it happens, we weren’t fooled, but we’ve been keeping quiet about that,’ he went on. ‘I’ve no doubt the idea was to repeat the process after killing you, but luckily you managed to escape.’

  ‘And gave us that excellent likeness of Barron,’ added Mary, as she brought three cups of tea and a bowl of sugar to the table, pulled up another chair and sat down.

  ‘Quite.’ Holloway looked far from pleased at the interruption. ‘As it happens, there was even less chance of his getting away with it this time.’

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘We have the Strangler safely locked up in a police cell. He tried his tricks early this morning on a young lady whose hobbies are martial arts and weight-lifting. He’s not feeling his best at the moment.’ A rare smile flitted across Holloway’s normally wooden features.

  ‘Well, thank God for that!’ Melissa exclaimed fervently. ‘What I still don’t understand is, where Tom Barron fitted into the set-up. I mean, it’s obvious he was involved in the robberies, delivering the stolen paintings to Gerard Hood and so on … but murder! How come he agreed to that?’

  ‘Semple appears to have had an extraordinary hold over everyone in his organisation. In Barron’s case, having got him off some lesser charges in the past by some fancy legal footwork, it wasn’t difficult to get him to carry out a few small services in return. Barron began by providing the getaway cars, then driving them, and he also passed on useful information about likely houses to target through dodgy contacts. As time went on, he got in deeper and deeper – and found the racket more and more lucrative – until he was prepared to do anything Semple told him, including killing Leonora Jewell to retrieve a picture his son had given her. But that’s another story,’ the detective added, with an air of mystery that Melissa was tempted to puncture by informing him that she knew at least as much about it as he did, probably more. Sensibly, she refrained.

  ‘There’s no doubt Semple has a dominating personality,’ she said. ‘I wonder what made Barron confess everything so readily? He must have been singing like the proverbial canary.’

  ‘He was still recovering from his, shall we say, encounter with you when we called, and wasn’t exactly on top form. It came out later that he’d had a further call from Semple, informing him that as he’d bungled the job he, Semple that is, would be there next time to make sure it was done properly. By this time Barron was so shaken up by the whole business that he was on the point of going to pieces. He’s admitted that he never bargained for murder – all he wants now is out. So you see,’ Holloway finished, making a grandiloquent gesture with his mug of tea, ‘we arrested him at psychologically the right moment.’ The manner in which he made this pronouncement suggested that this superb piece of timing was due entirely to his own perspicacity.

  His smirk faded when Melissa commented artlessly, ‘What a bit of luck for you.’

  ‘Er, yes, wasn’t it,’ he agreed, with evident reluctance.

  Melissa was silent for a few minutes while she digested the new information. Then she said, ‘Going back to Carole’s murder, I assume you found out about the phone calls – the ones Semple made when his cellphone was supposed to have a flat battery?’

  ‘Of course. You were of some help to us there,’ Holloway said graciously.

  Melissa, doing her best to hide her irritation, said coolly, ‘I’m so glad.’

  ‘On the face of it, your report about the call you received from Carole told us very little, but I sent one of my officers to make routine enquiries among the staff of Rathbone and Semple. We thought someone might have known – or guessed – why she wanted to speak to you. One of the employees recalled that she had seen Carole checking Semple’s cellphone account and heard her say to herself, “That’s not right”. Then she took it into his office and came back without it. No one thought anything of it at the time; Semple himself brushed it aside as a computer error that he’d asked to have corrected, but I wasn’t satisfied and got hold of a copy of the statement. Apart from showing that Semple had used the cellphone – to call Tom Barron and, of course, his own office – during the period he claimed the battery was flat, there were several other calls to Barron’s number, some of them quite lengthy. The E-FIT likeness of your attacker, unmistakably Barron, seemed to clinch matters.’

  With the air of a man whose important task has been irreproachably carried out, Holloway sat back and took copious swallows of tea.

  ‘You haven’t said how you knew Semple was here,’ said Melissa.

  ‘Easy.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Barron told us.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘About half an hour ago. As soon as we got him down to the station he asked for his brief. We told him he wasn’t getting Semple and dropped some broad hints as to why. That seems to have been the last straw, that and the hope that things might go easier for him if he co-operated. We let him have his cellphone and we all waited for Semple’s call. It was only then that Barron told us where to find him. We came as quickly as we could.’ Once again, the smug smile made Melissa cringe as he went on, ‘Barron will sing like a bird from now on. Gerard Hood and Eloise Dampier should have been picked up as well – it’ll be interesting to hear what they have to say. Quite a good day’s work all round.’ He drained his teacup and, without taking his eyes from Melissa, held it out for Mary to refill.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Melissa, trying to inject some warmth into her voice. She supposed she should thank him for coming to her rescue, but could not bring herself to do so. His air of self-satisfaction made the words stick in her throat.

  Then something else occurred to her. ‘If you knew all this beforehand, why didn’t you arrest Semple before he came here and scared me half to death?’ she demanded.

  For the first time, she had him on the defensive. ‘We had nothing concrete to link him with Barron except the fact that he’d advised him professionally on comparatively minor matters in the past,’ he admitted. ‘All we had on Barron when we picked him up was that he matched the E-FIT of your attacker. It wasn’t until we got our hands on the cellphone account that we had the breakthrough. That arrived by special messenger at about six o’clock, by which time Semple had left his office. We confronted Barron with the account and that’s when he really began to talk. He’s now playing the hapless victim of an evil genius.’ There was a pause before Holloway said, with only the merest hint of humility, ‘I’m sorry you had such a traumatic experience.’

  ‘It must have been terrible for you,’ said Mary as, at a signal from her superior, she got up to leave. ‘I think you’ve coped amazingly well. Are you sure you’ll be all right now? I daresay I could stay … ?’

  Her glance swivelled in Holloway’s direction, but before he could respond Melissa said firmly, ‘I’ll be perfectly all right, but thanks for the offer.’

  On the way to the door, Holloway said, almost as an afterthought, ‘There are several things I’d like to ask you, Mrs Craig – when you’re fully recovered from your ordeal, of course. I’m sure you’ll be able to help us fill in a few details.’ His expression was bland, but something in his voice told her he had guessed that she knew far more about the affair than she had so far revealed.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, her heart sinking a little. That the case could be tied up without her having to reveal her part in it had been too much to hope for.

  After the two officers left she had a long, relaxing soak in a hot bath before calling Bruce at his home.

 

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