Score!

‘Come, come. Those two were friends for thirty years, Étienne’s paintings are all over the house. You can do better than that. “Obscene incestuous union… I can never bring myself to love him.” Étienne clearly wasn’t Tristan’s dad. Was that why Tristan killed Rannaldini?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Lucy glanced up at Gablecross’s square, bullying, ruthless face.

‘Why did he lie that he wasn’t back in Valhalla on Sunday night? Why’s he refusing a DNA test? He was clearly in shock when he finally rolled up on Monday.’

‘That was something else.’

‘We believe he killed Rannaldini and then Beattie because he was terrified of the truth coming out. His fingerprints are all over the gun that killed Beattie.’

‘They can’t be,’ whimpered Lucy in terror. ‘Oh, please, he was in shock not because he killed Rannaldini but because, when he reeled home rapturous, goofy from making love for the first time to Tab,’ her voice broke, ‘Rannaldini sent for him and told him this horrific thing, that he wasn’t a Montigny at all, and far, far worse, that his mad brute of a grandfather on the other side, had raped Delphine, his mother, because he was so wildly jealous that she’d married Étienne. The result was Tristan.’

There, it was out.

Karen winced. Gablecross whistled.

‘Wow, so that was it. Thank you, Miss Latimer.’

‘Please don’t tell anyone. You forced it out of me,’ gabbled Lucy, in desperate agitation. Oh, God, what had she done?

‘You know how proud Tristan is of being a Montigny, how naturally aristocratic. He had no mother to bring him up, Étienne was so cold and dismissive, his great arrogant family of brothers all got preferential treatment. Unlike them, Tristan got nothing personal in the will. Being a Montigny was all he had to cling on to.’

She picked up the signet ring.

‘Maxim, Delphine’s father, was sectioned and a violent psychopath, according to Rannaldini. Tristan’s so honourable he felt that as a result he shouldn’t have children.’

The hailstorm had turned to rain weeping down the windows. There was such a long pause that Lucy stumbled into more revelations. ‘I’m sure Rannaldini made the whole thing up, probably forged this letter. He was crawlingly obsessed with Tab. He couldn’t bear Tristan near her — he’d have made up anything to stop him.’

‘Probably why Tristan killed him. Why did he lie about bottling out of his favourite auntie’s eighty-sixth birthday party?’

‘Can’t you understand?’ pleaded Lucy. ‘She wasn’t his auntie if he was no longer a Montigny, any more than Simone was his niece, or his brothers his brothers. He’d have felt a fraud at that party.’

‘And he claimed to have spent all night in his car.’

‘I’ve told you about that.’ Lucy’s voice was rising. ‘He was exhausted, everyone drains him. This film has been so awful. The next one, now his roots have been severed, was all he had.’

An embarrassed, upset James had curled up almost as small as Tristan’s signet ring, which Gablecross was holding up to the light.

‘He dropped this beside Rannaldini’s body.’

‘I don’t believe it. He hadn’t worn that ring for ages. It was so loose it kept falling off.’

‘Beside Rannaldini’s dead body,’ intoned Gablecross. ‘The Montigny snake went looking for Rannaldini and coiled itself round his neck until it squeezed the life out of him.’

‘No, no!’ Lucy clapped her hands over her ears.

‘Same reason he stole The Snake Charmer.’

‘Course he didn’t.’

‘Betty and Sally found it under his mattress on Thursday. By the time they’d alerted a police officer, he’d whipped it. Rannaldini was going to publish a copy of the painting in his memoirs. Tristan couldn’t cope with a pornographic photograph of his mum being on display so he killed Rannaldini and Beattie.’

‘No, no.’ Lucy burst into tears, head on the table, clenching and unclenching her hands.

‘Cooee, cooee,’ said a voice.

It was Chloe, avid with excitement, eyes swivelling, reeking of the same beautiful scent.

‘I hope you’re not bullying darling Lucy, Tim. She’s got a long night ahead, and I don’t want my lip-liner looking like an is-he-alive, is-he-dead heartrate in Intensive Care.’

Leaving Lucy’s caravan on the way back to the car park, both feeling sick, Gablecross and Karen saw a lone figure slumped at a table outside the canteen, and realized it was Wolfie.

‘Can we join you?’ asked Karen, slipping into the chair beside him.

‘You can arrest me if you like,’ mumbled Wolfie. ‘Why shouldn’t I have killed my father? He left me nothing and stole the only two girls I’ve ever loved.’ His teeth were chattering frantically.

‘It’s all right, lad.’ Gablecross patted the boy’s shoulder. ‘Your dad had cameras and bugs installed in every room, even at Magpie Cottage. Tabitha never posed for him, I could swear it.’

‘And’, went on Karen, taking Wolfie’s hand, ‘I’m sure he left you nothing because he was jealous of you.’

Wolfie raised incredulous, swollen, bloodshot eyes.

‘Because Tab liked you so much,’ added Gablecross. ‘I read it in the memoirs.’