Her eyes slid upwards. She couldn’t change anything now.
He persevered. ‘I get the feeling Harry came up with the plan to hide the body. Carried it up to the loft just as it was, in the Beau Nash costume, sat it in a chair and left it there to rot. Then he sealed the hatch and did some plasterwork, rendered the ceiling to make it appear there had never been access. You moved out. I can’t say I blame you. Harry must have had nerves of steel to remain there another three years.’
‘He was a man in a million,’ she volunteered and if it didn’t amount to a full confession, or even confirmation of everything Diamond had just said, it still told him plenty.
He continued to probe. ‘But Harry had a secret of his own, didn’t he? When did you learn he already had a son by another woman?’
She said evenly, ‘Before I moved in with him. It was never a secret. He was always straight with me.’
‘About the year 2000, Harry moved out of Twerton and went to live in Larkhall. Two years later the mother of his child died of cancer and Harry offered his boy, Perry, a home. It didn’t concern you because you and Harry had already gone your separate ways. You met someone else. Your life changed out of all recognition when you married Ed Paris.’
‘Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know?’
‘I will in a minute. Perry was a bright lad, a born organiser, really going places. But of course he had a flaw. The cocaine. He spent nearly all his money funding his habit. It’s never-ending.’
‘So...?’ Defiant, she still wasn’t willing to admit anything.
‘So when the demolition squad broke open the Twerton house and revealed the skeleton, Perry saw his opportunity. He knew his father had lived in that house with you and that you took in work as a seamstress and left suddenly in 1997. Exactly how much Harry had told him about the killing, I can’t say. He may have referred to it obliquely as a bad time, a secret he preferred to forget. Or, being a man in a million, he may have felt he owed it to his son to tell him everything. Perry was smart enough to make the connection when the skeleton was discovered and all over the media. He knew what a catastrophe this was for you and he decided to cash in. Money for drugs in return for his silence.’
Sally’s expression underwent a total change. There was resignation in her look and her eyes had turned glossy with tears.
‘He was an opportunist, but he met a better one in you,’ Diamond continued. ‘You found out what he did for a living and his role in the world fireworks competition. You possessed a revolver. I’m guessing here, but I expect you were in such a state of terror after what happened in Twerton that Harry Morgan obtained it for you to keep as self-protection. What is certain is that on the final night of the fireworks you shot Perry dead, knowing the gun blasts would be masked by all the bangers going off.’
‘You can’t prove any of this,’ she said, but without conviction.
‘Sorry to disillusion you, but I can. A moment ago you asked me to tell you something you don’t know and this is it. A party of police officers is in the valley below your infinity pool and they found a gun that was obviously thrown into the wild part where nobody normally goes. Our ballistics people won’t have any difficulty proving it was the Smith and Wesson revolver used in the murder.’
The immediate reaction was a sound of despair, a strange primal moan from deep in Sally’s chest. The scissors in her right hand twisted and gleamed and for one hideous moment Diamond thought she would plunge them into Paloma’s flesh, but she loosened her grip and let them fall and clatter on the tiled floor.
Paloma wrestled herself free and took a step towards Diamond just as he moved to help her. She swayed, turned deathly white and collapsed into his arms.
Sally spotted her opportunity. She darted left and was out of the door and down the stairs.
31
Any first-aider will tell you that the correct procedure when someone faints in your arms from stress is to lower them gently to the floor and, after making sure they can breathe freely, raise their legs above the level of the heart to restore the flow of blood to the brain. Diamond knew the drill. He also knew he wouldn’t be leaving Paloma’s side. He was on his knees supporting her ankles.
Never mind that Sally had escaped. Let her go. He’d catch up with her eventually. For the present he was needed here.
The colour still hadn’t returned to Paloma’s face when her eyes opened after a matter of seconds. A fainting episode is usually over quickly, but the recovery can’t be rushed.
She managed to say, ‘Where...?’
‘It’s okay,’ he told her. ‘Keep still. You fainted.’
‘I never faint.’
‘I promise you, you did. What you went through was mind-blowing.’
‘I’ve gone cold, and yet I’m sweating.’
‘That’s normal.’
‘It’s coming back to me now.’ She raised her head off the floor. ‘Where is she?’
‘Relax. She’s gone.’
She needed to make sense of the experience by describing it to him. ‘I scarcely know the woman. We were talking, she and I, and she was charming. She asked what I do and I told her about my business and she offered to show me her needlework room. We were here, speaking normally, looking at the hat she’d made, and we heard footsteps running up the stairs—’
‘That would be me.’
‘And the next thing she’d grabbed me and was holding the scissors to my neck.’
‘My stupid fault, blundering in,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t have alarmed her.’
‘Don’t be daft, Pete. You’re not responsible for her actions.’ She smiled and reached for his hand. ‘I’m not having it. You’re my hero.’
Cue the violins.
Paloma was recovering. Her brain had processed the events and now she understood enough to become calm and get back to normal. She propped herself on her elbows and then sat up, eyes clear and looking into his.
But this couldn’t be the romantic ending. Diamond said, ‘Forgive me. I need to phone a couple of people.’
He took out the mobile and spoke first to Ingeborg, warning her that Sally might attempt to drive through the gate.
‘You mean Lady Sally?’
‘I’ll explain all later. Just stop her and make an arrest if she comes your way. I must update Keith now.’
So much had happened since he’d last been in touch with Halliwell that he was shocked to hear his back-up team were still making the difficult ascent from the valley. Tempted to ask what had kept them, he bit back the question and instead asked how much farther they had to go.
‘Five minutes max. There’s a huge trough below the pool that catches the water tipping down and most of us are level with that.’
‘When you reach the top you can show yourselves. There’s no need for secrecy any longer.’
Who was he to be talking about secrecy after confiding so little? It was a bit rich coming up with a name and telling Halliwell who to arrest at this late stage, but suspicion, even strong suspicion, hadn’t amounted to certainty when they’d spoken earlier. ‘It’s unlikely she’s armed,’ he added, ‘but be careful. She’s on the run now.’
More minutes needed to pass before he felt confident enough about Paloma’s recovery to return downstairs with her. She seemed to sense where his thoughts were and offered to try and stand, but he insisted they waited.
When they finally managed the stairs, Paloma hanging on to his arm, and emerged from the house, he expected all the action to be over. Even so, an arrest at a garden party wouldn’t have been easy. Nicking the hostess, a woman popular with just about everyone, was even more problematical, party-pooping with a vengeance.