‘Are they sure it was a Leaf and Petal car, Frank?’ Julia said. ‘The one at the Raven?’

Crane sighed, the sound leg that was having to bear the bulk of his weight beginning to ache as much as the one Anderson had struck. ‘They’re hardly ever wrong, Julia, they have access to a computer which stores every vehicle registration number in the country with details of the owner. It was a Renault Scenic, one of the garden centre’s runabouts.’

He spoke almost mechanically, his fogged brain still grappling with other details. And then something about the car’s make rang a distant bell. He thought back to when he and Anderson had gone to Leaf and Petal to talk to Hellewell, the interview Anderson had taped with Kirsty, because Kirsty had fancied and trusted him. She’d lent him a Leaf and Petal runabout one weekend to see how he liked it.

A Renault Scenic! That was the car she’d lent him. The shock was like being given another blow.

‘There could be a definite answer as to who was driving the car you saw, Julia,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ll not go into details, but Joe Hellewell’s wife lent Anderson a Leaf and Petal Renault one weekend, to try out as he was thinking of buying one.’

Anderson couldn’t control a sudden intake of breath. The smile had gone and Crane seemed to see in his eyes traces of that old exasperation when Crane had picked up on something he’d overlooked. Sickened, Crane wondered if those earlier bursts of exasperation could also be seen in a different light; maybe the more things Crane had dug up that he’d not thought of the more covering up he’d been forced to do. But it couldn’t be possible. Could it?

He said, ‘I need only check with Mrs Hellewell exactly when she lent him the Scenic to see if it checks out with the night you followed Donna to the Raven.’ He glanced from him to her, who seemed such a worryingly vulnerable figure with her bloodstained forehead and her dishevelled clothes. ‘Think carefully, Julia, did Donna ever tell you of anything she’d done that might have involved Anderson?’

‘Frank, you know I couldn’t bear to hear about—’

‘I know,’ he said, more gently, ‘but search your mind. You talked a lot together and she trusted you.’

‘She was … so very discreet, poor darling.’ She couldn’t stop her lips quivering. ‘There was only the bad dream, the photography man.’

‘I’m certain he can be ruled out. But you seemed to think she was talking about two men. Someone who wanted her to go away with him, that she felt was almost trying to control her, stop her living her own life.’

‘I’m … sorry, I can’t add anything to that. She was crying so hard, seemed so confused. I know it was a premonition now.’

Crane said, ‘Well, Anderson, you were aiming for Fleet Street. It must have seemed a nice idea to have gone along with someone looking like Donna.’

His smile suddenly twisted into a sneer. ‘A common prostitute? You can’t think I’d want to go to London with a provincial slag in tow.’

It was only the second time he’d spoken and Crane was certain it had been involuntary. ‘But you couldn’t have known what type of woman she was when you first got to know her. Not with someone as secretive as Donna.’

‘Think a talented reporter couldn’t get a trollop like her together inside a week?’

‘And that’s what you did?’

‘I’m commenting, Frank,’ he said quietly, ‘not admitting.’

‘What are you saying?’ Julia suddenly cried, looking even more distraught, the gun-barrel shaking. ‘How dare you? Donna wasn’t a prostitute. She was a good, kind-hearted, hard-working girl, who looked after her family. How dare you?’

‘What planet have you been living on?’ Anderson flung back.

‘I’m … sorry, Julia,’ Crane said reluctantly. ‘Donna really wasn’t what she seemed. Like this man, she could put on a polished act. It fooled almost everyone.’

She gazed down at them in a lengthy despondent silence. They stood as if acting out a play beneath the glare of the powerful lamps, with a crowd of hushed spectators in the darkness beyond the hard-edged pool of light. Then she said, in a voice so low it barely carried, ‘Well, I don’t care. I’d not have cared what she did as long as she had time for me. That’s all I ever really asked of her, to be able to go on seeing her. I could never have harmed her, whatever she did. Never, ever … and how some man, some piece of human rubbish …’ She couldn’t go on.

Despite Anderson’s mastery of his features, he couldn’t control a wince of pain. ‘She was humping around!’ he suddenly shouted. ‘She was humping around, for Christ’s sake! Money down, knickers off, that was your pure precious little angel!’

‘And you warned her it had to stop?’ Crane said.

The blunt words checked him like a slapped face. He began to smile in his usual detached way, as if warning himself that silence was still the best policy.

‘Can you guard him, Julia, while I call the police?’

‘Have you not got a mobile?’

‘He threw it in the fountain.’

‘The … drawing room. You know the one.’

But she spoke hesitantly, eyes troubled, as if uneasy about Crane leaving the scene. Crane was certain now she had no real mastery of the gun. What if Anderson made a run for it? Would she dare open fire in case she killed him? He knew that Anderson, with his split-second reactions, would also have picked up on her lack of confidence.

Anderson suddenly spoke again. ‘You weren’t the only one, Julia, wanting to help her. You were standing in line. There was Fletcher wanting to get her face in the glossies, Hellewell wanting to turn her into a logo, you wanting a companion. Well, I wanted her to be someone you could take to London and not have everyone think she was just another five-star call girl.’

Crane watched him warily. He wasn’t commenting now, he was admitting. He couldn’t begin to guess what his game was, he was just certain that with this unpredictable man there had to be one.

‘So you did get to know her?’

‘Norfolk Gardens bar. She was waiting for friends. We got talking, hit it off. She stopped waiting for the others and I took her to one of those fancy restaurants she was rapidly getting herself accustomed to.’

‘And she was just as secretive about you as all the rest?’

Once more, that almost subliminal wince of pain. ‘I told her that if she went out with me there hadn’t to be any other men. I said I’d take her to London, set us up in a decent flat. She couldn’t wait to get to London. I said I’d fill the gaps in her education, take her to the theatre and the opera and the art galleries. I’d show her what to read so she’d know what they were talking about, the sorts of people we’d be mixing with.’

Despite his self-control, Crane heard that slight break in his voice he’d heard in the voices of all the others who’d spoken about Donna: Mahon, Fletcher, Hellewell, Julia. Had that really been his own dream for her, to turn her into a woman who was as cultured as she was beautiful, who could speak his language like Carol and the others who met up at the Glass-house?

‘So it was you!’ Julia cried. ‘You she had that frightful dream about! Wanting to change her and control her and not let her be herself.’ The gun swung wildly in her hands and Crane hoped to God she didn’t fire it by mistake.

‘It was what she wanted,’ Anderson told her, almost patiently. ‘She wanted to get away from the Willows and make a new start. She wanted me to help her broaden her mind. All she needed was guidance, encouragement. I gave her books to read to get her started. She was thrilled, grateful. You can’t believe how grateful she was that I wanted to improve her mind.’

‘That’s odd,’ Crane said, ‘the only books she had in her room at home were two Jeffrey Archer thrillers—’ Crane broke off. He’d suddenly made a new connection. ‘Jeffrey Archer … Jeffrey. That explains the other J in the diary, doesn’t it, the one who wasn’t Julia? She obviously thought your name was spelt with a J and not a G. And you knew the J was you, Geoff, right?’