“What?”

“You wanted to know why. Well, this is why. When Rowena died, Paul and I agreed we had to put an end to the evil and suffering this man”-she pointed at Naylor-“chose to inflict on those we’d loved. We agreed to do what everybody seemed so anxious to do. Prove him innocent. Get him released from prison. Set him free. And then…”

“Take his freedom away again,” Paul concluded with a quivering smile.

“This doesn’t make any sense.” I looked at each of them in turn and could see in their eyes the proof that it did make sense. To them.

“They’d never have given up, Robin,” said Sarah. “I told you that. They’d have gone on and on and on. Until they’d turned Naylor into some kind of folk hero. Well, he’s no kind of hero. And we’re going to prove that.”

“How?”

“We’ve tape-recorded his confession. That’s why we had to get him out of prison. So we could make him answer for what he’d done. And why we had to lure him here. So we could have him all to ourselves. It’s thanks to you we worked out how to pull it off. You went to see him in Albany and told me afterwards about his marital problems. So, I went to see him myself. I’ve been every other week since. Assuring him how sorry I am he should have been wrongly imprisoned. Offering him whatever… consolation… he might need after his release. I was there on Tuesday, urging him to come round here as soon as he could. Didn’t take him long, did it? I think he was expecting me to drop my knickers for him the moment he stepped through the door. I’d promised him a surprise Christmas present, you see. Well, I’ve kept my word, haven’t I?”

“Not about this place you haven’t,” complained Paul. Instantly, I was alert to the hint of friction between them. “It was supposed to be impossible for anyone to trace the address.”

“Yes.” Sarah frowned in disappointment, as if somebody had just pointed out a trivial flaw in a legal argument. “It was. But I suppose something was bound to go wrong eventually. We’ve been lucky to get as far as we have. There were times I thought we were certain to be found out.” She raised her head defiantly-almost proudly-as she looked at me. “But you believed Paul’s confession, didn’t you, Robin, when we tried it out on you? And so did the police. They never dreamt I was feeding Paul the information they couldn’t account for him possessing. Sarwate let me examine his files on the murders when I went to him and said I was beginning to have doubts about his client’s guilt following the Benefit of the Doubt broadcast. That’s how I got the facts right. By combing through all the statements from witnesses and speaking to one or two of them myself-without telling them who I was, of course. Sarwate had copies of just about everything. Even the scene-of-crime photographs. I asked him not to tell anybody about my enquiries to spare me family and professional embarrassment. And he agreed. From his point of view, it would have been advantageous to have me on his side. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to him that Paul and I were conspiring together. He was hardly likely to look a gift horse in the mouth, was he?”

“You talk about this as if it were some kind of game.”

“It’s no game,” said Paul.

I turned on him, stupefaction swamping my fear of what they meant to do. “Whose idea was it? Which of you suggested it to the other?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Sarah.

Paul smirked grimly at me. “It matters to you, though, doesn’t it, Robin? Well, for what it’s worth, I suggested it. I’d spent weeks mourning Rowena and our unborn child and the ache of it-the anger I couldn’t vent-only got worse. I started looking back on our life together, trying to see how I could have prevented her death. It always came back to her mother’s death. And to this worthless bastard.” He waved his gun at Naylor, who seemed hardly to notice. “It started as an idle thought. Where was I the night Louise died? The answer was so banal. In bed in a cheap pension in Chamonix with some Swedish girl whose name I couldn’t even remember. But then it came to me. How easily I could pretend I’d been somewhere else. How easily I could claim to have committed the murders. Then they’d have to let Naylor go. Well, he couldn’t argue, could he? He couldn’t change his mind and say he was guilty after all. And he wouldn’t want to. Freedom’s worth any amount of bewilderment. But once he was free… he was at our mercy.” He sniggered. “I couldn’t have done it without Sarah’s help, of course. She had her mother’s diary and her trained memory of what happened and when. She also had the forensic skill to put the whole thing together. All I had to do was act the part she wrote for me. Christ, it was a demanding performance, though. Three months of twisting my mind to fit the past we’d invented. Three months pretty close to hell. But they were worth it. For this moment.”

I turned back to Sarah, my gaze telegraphing the question it was hardly necessary for me to ask. “Why did you go along with it?”

“Because Rowena’s death was one death too many. I’d just about succeeded in putting what happened to Mummy behind me. In ceasing to imagine what it must have been like for her. Then Rowena threw herself off that bloody bridge. How I wished and wished I could have stopped her. But there was nothing I could do. She was dead and so was the baby I hadn’t even known she was carrying. That made a third generation touched by murder. I wanted to strike back, to retaliate. But I couldn’t see any way to. Until Paul told me what he’d been thinking and I saw there was a way to avenge them all.”

“And in the process portray your mother as some sort of nymphomaniac? What kind of revenge is that?”

Sarah bit her lip. “We had no choice. The record will soon be set straight. I only wish Daddy had lived to-” She broke off, grief washing back over her. “Tell me how he died, Robin. Was it his heart? He had a coronary about twelve years ago and ever since the murders I’ve been afraid-”

“He fell from a cliff, Sarah.”

“What? In Biarritz? Surely-”

“In Portugal.”

“I don’t understand. What was he doing in Portugal?”

“Nobody seems to know. The authorities think it was an accident.”

“But you don’t, do you?” She seemed oblivious to the tears glistening in her eyes. “You’re implying he killed himself. Like Rowena. And for the same reason. You’re trying to blame me, aren’t you? You’re trying to suggest the things Paul said about Mummy drove him to suicide.” She swayed slightly on her feet and raised a hand to her forehead. “God, if that’s true, we’ve-”

“It isn’t true,” shouted Paul. He rushed forward, pushing me aside and taking a stand directly in front of Sarah. His gaze was fixed so firmly on her-and hers on him-that I wondered for a moment if I should try to grab one of the guns. But as soon as the thought formed, I dismissed it. The only hope of a peaceful outcome was to reason with them. “Listen to me, Sarah,” Paul continued. “Do you want to waste all these months of planning and preparing? That’s what it’ll mean if you start blaming yourself for your father’s death. We don’t know the circumstances. You can’t trust a one-sided account of them. For Christ’s sake, if anyone is to blame, it’s Naylor, isn’t it? He started this. But we’re going to finish it.”

“Yes.” Every muscle in Sarah’s body tensed. Her knuckles blanched with the ferocity of her grip on the gun. “You’re right. It’s too late to stop now.” She glanced down at Naylor. “I’d have liked to get more from him on tape, but what we have will suffice.”

“For what purpose?” I put in, desperate to plant as many doubts in her mind as I could. “A confession extracted in these circumstances surely carries no legal weight.”

“None whatever.” She sounded calm again, but I knew she wasn’t. Her empty left hand was clasped as tightly as her right to stop it shaking. “This isn’t about the law,” she declared. “It’s about morality. It’s about making Naylor pay for what he did to my mother and indirectly to my sister. And from the sound of it to my father as well. He’s destroyed them all, hasn’t he? So now…”