Honor considered what she’d heard. ‘Maybe they killed the priest to remind everyone of Nicholas’s past. Make him look like a lunatic—’

‘I agree,’ Eloise replied. ‘Whoever’s planning it wants to make him powerless. And they will, if he’s left out there alone. Nicholas is reckless – he needs you. You have to force him to confide, and you can only do that if you’re under threat.’

The Frenchwoman’s callousness shocked her, but Honor wasn’t going to back off. Instead, after a long moment, she put out her hand. Surprised, Eloise hesitated, then shook it.

Thirty-Four

Philip Preston was trying to calm his wife, Gayle, who was sobbing hysterically. Her instability, only controlled by strong medication, was escalating. When he was there Philip made sure she took her pills, but when he was away she forgot. Or did she do it deliberately? he wondered. Make herself clinging and helpless, tying him to her with emotional bladderwrack.

‘Calm down, darling,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘You’re getting yourself all worked up.’

She put her arms around his neck. She smelt as though she needed a bath. Once so beautiful, so sculpturally perfect, Gayle was now bloated; her limbs the colour of a sea slug. Drink and medication had driven a stake into the heart of her appeal, and now she provoked little more than pity.

And to think, Philip mused, that once every man who saw her wanted her. Like Gerrit der Keyser – and others. He remembered Henry Laverne suddenly; felt the quick breeze of envy trickle over him. Philip knew that Henry had been Gayle’s one true love. Recently, babbling and full of booze, she had been talking about all her old boyfriends, reminding herself of her spent power. Philip no longer resented such outpourings. It was a kind of revenge that she had managed to age herself out of his jealousy.

But lately Gayle had increased her drinking and with it, the inevitable outbursts. And she was having one now. ‘You don’t love me. You want me to die.’

‘Gayle, why on earth would I want you to die?’

‘So you can marry someone young and pretty,’ she said, burping, her breath acid as she flopped into a chair. But then she smiled and some shadow of that punchy beauty came back and caught him unawares. ‘I’m going to get better, you know. And go on a diet. The doctor wants me to talk to a new therapist. I think it’ll work.’ She reached for his flies and Philip winced. ‘You still want me, don’t you?’

How could he say no? Say ‘I want Kim Fields, my mistress’ instead. Say ‘You disgust me, with your greedy little fingers probing my genitals and your tongue stuffed in my mouth. But he couldn’t say it. Instead he let Gayle make a kind of shabby love to him, all the time thinking of Kim.

The escape route was in front of him – the Bosch chain, weaving its gilded links to freedom. Nicholas Laverne could bring Hell down on the Catholic Church, but Philip just wanted the sale. He had worked hard for a long time, cheated a few, certainly kept ahead by guile, but he was getting older – and he felt it. He wasn’t sleeping well, his knees ached and a sudden desperation was afflicting him. The slick charm he had employed for years was moth-ridden and forced, and his libido was flagging.

The money raised by the sale would mean freedom – the ability to leave his wife with a clear conscience while hiring a companion to keep her company and divvy out her drugs … Philip could feel his wife’s lips on his stomach and tensed, trying to fight an impulse to push her away … He would sell the Bosch chain and then run. Take Kim with him. Get the hell away from London. Yes, it was dangerous, reckless, but it was worth the risk.

Philip thought of Carel Honthorst and cringed. Honthorst, der Keyser, Conrad Voygel – all of them breathing down his neck, and God only knows who else. He was gambling, and he knew it. Not just with his business, but with his life.

Thirty-Five

Inside the police station the old priest waited, sitting on a hard seat, his hands folded over the handle of his cane. Worry had thinned him, flesh falling off his bones overnight. Before he had been a welcoming presence, but now Father Michael looked cadaverous, hungry. Circumstances had worked on his gut, his body a living testament to his guilt.

Seeing Nicholas, he rose unsteadily to his feet, nodded, then followed him out of the door. Once outside, Nicholas turned to him.

‘What did you say to them?’

‘That you were at the rectory all night. I said I couldn’t sleep and that we played chess into the early hours.’ He moved on, tapping the way before him with his cane like a blind man.

‘And they believed you?’

‘I told you, I’m very plausible.’

‘You lied, Father. That’s a sin,’ Nicholas said, hunching down into his coat as the wind blew up. ‘Why did you do it?’

‘Because I said I would help you and I will. Besides, you didn’t kill Father Luke. You had no reason to.’ The old priest paused at the end of the street and a car drew up beside them.

Surprised, Nicholas looked inside to find Honor leaning over and opening the door. ‘Get in.’

Seeing Nicholas hesitate, Father Michael pushed him in the small of the back. ‘She’s your sister – talk to her.’

Sliding into the passenger seat, Nicholas watched as Father Michael moved off. Without speaking, Honor started up the engine and drove towards Clapham. Once there, she parked by the Common and turned to her brother.

‘You look terrible.’

‘I don’t sleep well and it’s getting worse,’ Nicholas admitted. ‘But you look prosperous.’

His smile jolted her, taking her back to the boy he had once been and the childhood they had spent together. For an instant she wanted to freeze-frame the image, to deny history, wipe out the memory of the events that had estranged them.

But when Nicholas spoke again the image shattered. ‘What d’you want?’

‘What do I want? Why should I want anything from you? You’re the one who didn’t keep in touch. You’re the one who rejected me.’ Her temper made her skin pale, white-hot against the black hair. ‘I thought you might have changed.’

‘No.’

His indifference astounded her. ‘I’ve been looking for you for years.’

‘Well, now you’ve found me, so what?’

Angry, she drove her hands deep into her coat pockets, her fists clenched. ‘You’re in trouble. Father Michael didn’t have to tell me that – Eloise did.’

‘Eloise Devereux has spoken to you? That’s interesting. Did she tell you what this so-called trouble was?’

‘She told me about the murders. Sabine Monette and her husband. And the first victim. Did you know Thomas Littlejohn?’

Nicholas said nothing, just reached for the door handle.

‘Stop it!’ Honor shouted. ‘I can’t do this any more. I can’t. I don’t want anything from you. Why won’t you let me help you?’

‘I don’t need help.’

‘Eloise Devereux’s trying to help you and so is Father Michael. Why can’t you take help from your own sister?’ She gripped his arm, but he shook her off.

‘I don’t want you involved. It’s not safe—’

‘It’s too late now,’ Honor said emphatically. ‘I am involved. I know what’s going on, Nicholas. I know about the Bosch chain and the scandal.’

‘You can’t—’

‘But I do,’ Honor replied in a soft voice. ‘You’re in it up to your neck, aren’t you?’ He said nothing so she continued. ‘Well, take my advice and be very careful of Eloise Devereux. She’s out for blood, and God help anyone who gets in her way. Luckily she’s on our side – for the moment.’

Nicholas looked at her, surprised. ‘You don’t trust her?’

‘No. Eloise Devereux thinks she’s played me, and I’m letting her believe that, but I’ve got the measure of her.’ Honor stared out of the car window. ‘We need to work together, Nicholas, or we’re both in trouble. I don’t want to see you dead, and I sure as hell don’t want to die either …’