sixty-seven

Hurtling down the road, I called Paris. How I could have missed it for so long defied me.

As soon as she picked up the call, she screamed at me. “What the hell did you say to my son? Did you quiz him about Troy’s murder, about Joyce Conway?”

“I’m sorry, I …”

“Whatever you told him has resulted in the biggest row of my life. He blames me for talking to you about family business. He’s gone. Cleared out. For good this time.”

“I doubt it. He’s upset. Give him time. He’ll calm …”

The sound of Paris Vellender breaking her heart drowned out my voice. Unnerved, I waited until her sobs subsided before I spoke. “Did Nicholas suffer from the same bone condition as Mimi?”

She didn’t answer straightaway. When she did her voice was a whisper. “I knew all along. I lied to him.”

“Why?”

“Because I only wanted him to love me.”

I closed my eyes in dismay. It wasn’t right what Paris did, yet I understood. “I’ll talk to him. It will be all right, Mrs. Vellender.”

“It will never be all right.”

Dismally, I recalled a time when I’d busted open the truth on another family. It had saved a girl from self-destruction. I never found out what happened to her parents and brothers, although I knew the fallout would have been massive. Had I done the right thing this time? Had my desire for truth destroyed the bigger picture? I waited a respectful beat before I asked, “Where does Gabriella Perona live?”

“St. Paul’s. Why?”

“Can you give me her address?”

She gave a name and number mechanically. “I think Troy said she—”

“Troy? He knew Gabriella?”

“Acted as her personal trainer, not that it lasted beyond two sessions.”

I reeled at the connection and again thought back to my conversation with Niven, who claimed that Stacey Walton had drowned, but her body never found. “Is that what he told you?”

“Yes, it was ages ago,” she said halting. “Is something wrong?”

“Bolt the doors and stay inside. Don’t move and don’t answer the door to Gabriella.”

I hung up, went home, and let myself into the house to check that everything was as it should be. Nothing seemed disturbed, which didn’t surprise me; I wasn’t the target. Stand in the crosshairs of the killer and that would change.

I went straight to the cupboard in which I’d stowed Monica’s gun, took it out, and held it in my hand. I was taking a crazy risk. Weighed against a murderer who had killed three times and was hell-bent on a finale, it was a risk worth taking.

It didn’t take me long to locate Gabriella’s house. I noticed the car first, the vile acid yellow of the paintwork blinding my eyes. I flashed with the memory of nearly being mown down in the graveyard.

Private, in a quiet location, the apartment had its own entrance. I rang the bell. No answer. I knocked at the door. The same. Cupping a hand over my eyes, I peered through the front window like a Peeping Tom. Inside wasn’t particularly remarkable. About to step back, something caught my eye: a chest expander used by body-builders to sculpt and tone chest and shoulder muscles. Hardly the kind of equipment used by a woman who’d lasted two sessions with a private trainer.

With her history of working in kitchens, Gabriella would be adept at wielding a knife, expert at filleting animals—including a human cadaver.

Fear thrummed in my chest.

If I were right, I would be cornering a dangerous woman who was hardly going to come quietly and do the equivalent of putting her hands up, it’s a fair cop, yep I dunnit. I was under no illusion that she would be difficult to crack. Deceitful and an accomplished liar, a woman who had faked her own death, she would play me and maybe attempt to kill me.

About to call the police, my phone bleeped. I’d received a text from Stannard. Meet me outside that house where the Banksy used to be. You’re never going to believe what I’ve found.