Andrew watched her eyes smolder with irritation. 'Then why try to look like her?'
This was another question she was prepared for. 'If she was beside me, you wouldn't think there was any similarity, except for the hair. And you can blame my mother for that. She was the one who dyed it to avoid difficult questions after we moved. Now no one knows me as anything other than a brunette-' she gave a small laugh-'and I'm too vain to let the gray show through.'
'You've been calling yourself Priscilla,' he reminded her.
She stood up and buttoned her jacket. 'Yeah. Shouldn't have done, should I?' she said ingenuously. 'George wouldn't've kept digging if I'd stuck with Daisy.' She tucked her cigarettes into her pocket. 'I changed to Priscilla when I was married to my first loser.'
Andrew pushed himself out of his chair. 'Why?'
'It sounded glamorous,' she said with a strange wistfulness, 'and that's crazy when you think what happened to Cill.' She moved toward the door. 'I guess Miss Brett was right, eh?'
He moved ahead of her to turn the latch. 'In what way?'
' 'Louise Burton acts before she thinks,' ' she said with a twisted smile. 'Story of my life.' In a surprisingly warm gesture, she offered him her hand. 'I'm hoping you're one of the good guys. Otherwise I'll end up regretting this, too.'
He took the hand in his. 'Are you safe to drive?'
'Better be.'
She didn't give him time to respond, but turned away and headed up the mews. As she rounded the corner at the end she glanced back at him, her pale face lit by a streetlamp. It was impossible to read her expression from that distance, but there was no mistaking the small wave she gave him. He had no idea whether anything she'd told him was true but, as he returned the farewell courtesy, he was surprised at how much he wanted to believe her.
Jonathan was working through some student essays in bed when the telephone rang at eleven-thirty. He had a surge of hope that it was Emma, until he picked it up and heard Andrew babbling excitedly about 'something important.' It was so out of character that he assumed his friend was drunk and told him to call back in the morning, but Andrew insisted on giving him bullet points of the conversation while they were still fresh in his mind. 'She was pretty convincing.'
'Who was?'
'Priscilla Fletcher. Larger than life in my house and calling herself Louise Burton.' He heard Jonathan's intake of breath. 'Right! So get your pencil out, you lazy sod, and take some notes.'
'Why can't you write them yourself?'
'Because I'm only getting a tenth of your earnings and I'm bored with doing all the work.'
'You don't sound bored,' said Jonathan dryly, pulling a notepad forward. 'What did she do to you?'
'Charmed me,' said Andrew succinctly.
Jonathan remembered the Good Samaritan act on Branksome Station. 'And what's she stolen?'
'Belief.'
'If Cill was in Grace's house, then she's the obvious suspect for the murder,' said Jonathan thoughtfully, running his pencil down his notes. 'She was big for her age, she was there, she was a disturbed adolescent ... recently raped with a possible history of sexual abuse. Put that with a volatile cocktail of hormones, and God knows what might have happened.' He tapped the pencil against his teeth. 'I can imagine a scenario where Grace tried to make her leave because she was worried about police involvement and Cill lost her temper and lashed out. The timing would work. She hid with Grace over the weekend, killed her on the Monday, then took herself off that night. It would explain why there were no sightings of her at the beginning ... although it's odd she wasn't spotted afterward.'
Andrew yawned at the other end. 'Who took the bath and left ginger hair behind?'
'Pass.'
'What about Howard fancying Cill? That sounded fairly convincing. She was an attractive girl.'
'She was thirteen.'
'Oh, come on! What's age got to do with anything? He was a retarded adolescent himself, so a grown woman's expectations would have terrified him. Maybe that's why he lost his rag when his grandmother told him to put himself about a bit. If he was besotted with Cill, he wouldn't have been interested in anyone else. More to the point, it would explain why he haunted Grace's house. Men'll do anything if there's half a chance of a shag at the end of it.'
'Speak for yourself,' Jonathan said tartly.
'I am,' said Andrew with a laugh. 'I abase myself regularly before beautiful women, and they all think I'm a comedian.' He paused to take what sounded like a drink. 'You should run this past your psychologist friend, but I'll put money on Louise being honest when she described Howard as a pervert. I'm not saying he
Jonathan leaned his head against the pillows and rubbed the grit of tiredness from his eyes. 'I need to sleep on this,' he told Andrew. 'I still don't understand why she came to you instead of me or George.'
Andrew explained about his business card and the handwritten address. 'I wouldn't think that was her reason, though. I'm guessing she expected me to swallow it whole without asking questions ... either that, or it was a practice run.'
'For what? She can't change the details now, not without eyebrows being raised.' He looked at his notes again. 'What was the punchline, anyway? Which bit were you supposed to believe?'
'Presumably that Howard was guilty and Roy and his gang weren't involved.'
'Then she was sent by Roy,' said Jonathan matter-of-factly. 'He told us she'd back him up.'
