Chapter Seventy-Seven

TIM HAD STEELED himself to find three corpses. In his mind he’d played out the following sequence of events: Ariadne Helen had died; Helena Nurmi, Cassandra Knipes and Philippa Grummett were murdered by Matthew Start; Matthew Start had killed himself.

What he actually discovered shocked him to the core.

Two of the women in the room were alive and unharmed. They sat in opposite corners, as far away from each other as possible, separated by a narrow child’s bed. One of them was weeping silently. The other rocked to and fro, murmuring under her breath. She didn’t pause when Tim entered or indicate she’d registered his presence. Her rhythmic rocking was obsessive, vacant.

The weeping woman looked up at him, staunching her tears so she could speak.

“I had to do it,” she said imploringly. “Please understand. She was her father’s daughter. She was selfish and cruel. She killed Diana. And I had to save Cassandra. After I failed with Ariadne, I had to save her.”

The woman looked past Tim at a spot concealed by the open door, eyes wide with fear. Tim edged round it. The corpse he saw lying crumpled there turned sightless eyes to the ceiling. Its face was purple; its tongue bulged from the mouth. The legs were wide apart and pointing in opposite directions, ­unnaturally immodest.

Tim dropped to his knees to feel for a pulse in her wrist, in her neck, but he knew it was hopeless. Philippa Grummett’s body was already growing cold.