“Apology accepted,” she said quickly. “I—”

“My wife is dead, Kelly,” he said, pinning her with those mossy grey green eyes. “The police were convinced it was suicide but then you came along.” He paused, chased and caught her gaze. “You came along telling me a different story. I think you know the truth about her. And I need to know what you think that is.”

Kelly’s mouth dried as her brain put instant interpretations and reinterpretations on his words.

Threat or plea?

“What if you don’t want to know the truth?” she asked, scanning his face for another sign of his humanity. Damn but he was difficult to read. “Not really. Not deep down. Sometimes knowing for certain can be worse than not.”

Lytton folded his arms and put his head on one side as he regarded her.

“Is that personal experience talking?” And when she shrugged he added, “I read the reports on your trial.”

“What? How the hell did you—?”

“Google,” he said shortly and once again she couldn’t tell if that was a flippant answer or the truth. “Does your defence at the time still stand?”

Kelly’s spine went rigid. She dragged the chemical drum across the floor so the spray nozzle would reach the far corner.

“That I simply have no memory of taking a life you mean?” She fought to keep her voice even and her mind objective. “That I don’t know how—or why—I stabbed to death a complete stranger?”

He gave a fractional nod. “And are you still sure that not knowing is better?”

No! Kelly wanted to scream. Because if I don’t know how can I be sure it will never happen again?

But instead she gave him a level stare as she pumped the pressure back up again. “If it turns out your wife was involved in something—something that led to her death—what then?”

Lytton was silent for a moment and it seemed to Kelly that his eyes lingered on the scrubbed and disinfected bloodstain across the old boards. She laid on another even coat letting the nozzle drift back and forth like a metronome.

“That I can only tell you once I know the answer,” he said. Another twist of his lips that mocked himself as much as her. “And then, of course, it will be too late.”

Kelly stopped and straightened. “So, what was she doing before her death? Was she stressed about something? Upset? Under pressure?”

He ran a hand through short dark hair that she could tell would start to wave if it was allowed to grow longer. His hands were big, wide across the palm from manual labour but long-fingered to give them proportion. He wore no rings.

She gave herself a mental shake, brought her concentration back on track.

“The police asked me all this at the time,” Lytton was saying. “Veronica was organising the hospitality for a racing event we’re sponsoring—horse racing,” he added before Kelly could ask. “It’s a major undertaking but gala dinners and hunt balls were part of her upbringing. She thrived on that kind of stuff.”

“Did she?” Kelly challenged, hearing the hint of derision in his tone. “Perhaps that was your perception—your projection even. You needed her to do it so you convinced yourself she could cope.”

His eyes narrowed. “She didn’t have to do anything but she convinced me to let her take it on. I was going to contract the whole thing out—which is what I’ve subsequently done, before you ask.”

“What else?”

“What else what?”

“What else did she do?”

“Charity work mostly. Worthy causes. And she did bits and pieces in the office—arranging my travel plans, sorting out company insurance. Just enough to justify being on the payroll and keep the taxman happy. Steve’s wife does the same.”

“Steve?”

“My business partner.”

“But Steve’s wife isn’t involved in the hospitality for this race meeting?”

Lytton half-smiled. “English isn’t Yana’s first language and she’s shy. I wouldn’t even have suggested it,” he said shortly. “She does a bit of filing, that’s all—makes coffee, goes to the post. That kind of thing.”

“Who benefits from Veronica’s death?”

He laughed outright then and it was not a happy sound. “If you think I offed her for the insurance think again,” he said. His tone had not only sharpened but hardened a little too, taking on a fine serrated edge that grated against Kelly’s nerves. “Between us Steve and I have more life insurance than we know what to do with but they don’t pay out on suicides. If that had been my angle I would have fixed the brakes on her bloody car, not—”

He broke off as if suddenly aware of what he might have been about to say. The silence stretched thick and dark between them.

“Did you love your wife, Matthew?” Kelly asked softly.

His head snapped up and he stared at her directly. Kelly met his gaze without flinching, refusing to be the first to look away. Again she saw that haunted glimmer she’d picked up in the bathroom at his country house.

“I suppose so—in a way. But if you’d asked was I in love with her then . . . no. It was mutual,” he said tightly although with a candour that surprised her. “But I didn’t wish her dead and as far as I knew that was mutual too.”

“Was there anyone else in her life?” Kelly asked carefully but he just nodded as if he’d already considered the question and could do so again without heat.

In the time it took him to think about it she made the last couple of passes with the sealant spray-nozzle and moved the drum past him into the hallway.

“If she was having an affair they were being very discreet about it. Vee hated gossip.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean whoever she might—or might not—have been involved with felt the same way,” Kelly said. “Jealous rage is an age-old motive.”

Lytton nodded, his face impassive. “I very much doubt Veronica was capable of inspiring such emotion but I’ll make some enquiries,” he said reminding her suddenly of the policeman O’Neill. “Anything else springs to your expert mind?”

A picture of Ray McCarron lying bruised and broken in his hospital bed. Of Ray telling her not to turn over rocks. She took a breath.

“As far as you know she wasn’t stressed or desperate or having an affair. You didn’t love her and you didn’t hate her, and nobody else wanted her dead,” Kelly murmured almost to herself. “Which only leaves . . . you.”

“Me?”

“Mmm,” she said. “Have you thought that Veronica might have been killed to send you a message?”