Scold's Bridle

Cooper waited for her to go on but, when she didn't, he prompted her gently: 'What do children have to do with it?'

'Paul had an affair with Mathilda and Mathilda got pregnant. That's why James went to Hong Kong. He said it was the last straw, that he might have coped with Gerald's incestuous bastard but not with Paul's love child as well.'

Cooper was very taken aback. 'And that's what James was blackmailing you over?' But no, he thought, that didn't make sense. It was the adulterous husband who paid the blackmailer not the deceived wife.

'Not about the affair,' said Jane. 'I knew all about that. Paul told me himself after he resigned. He was Sir William's agent and used to stay with James and Mathilda in their flat in London whenever he had business in town. I don't think the affair was anything more than a brief infatuation on both their parts. She was bored with the tedious domestic routine of washing nappies and keeping house and he...' she sighed, 'he was flattered by the attention. You really must try to understand how captivating Mathilda could be, and it wasn't just beauty, you know. There was something about her that drew men like magnets. I think it was the remoteness, the dislike of being touched. They saw it as a challenge, so when she let her guard down for Paul, he fell for it.' She gave a sad little smile. 'And I understood that, believe me. It may sound odd to you but there was a time-when we were young- when I was almost as in love with her as he was. She was everything I always wanted to be and never was.' Her eyes filled. 'Well, you know how attractive she could be. Sarah fell in love with her, just the way I did.'

'Show me how much you love me, Jack.' Joanna's voice, soft and husky, was a lover's caress.

Gently his fingers smoothed the white column of her throat. How could someone so ugly be so beautiful? She made a mockery of the wonder of creation. He raised his other hand to the silver-gold hair and, with a violent twist, wrapped the strands around his palm and jerked her head backwards with his fingers still clamped about her throat. 'I love you this much,' he said quietly.

'You're hurting me.' This time her voice rose in alarm.

He tightened his grip on her hair. 'But I enjoy hurting you, Joanna.' His voice echoed through the emptiness of the hall.

'I don't understand,' she cried out, her voice rasping against his fingers on her larynx. 'What do you want?'

She saw something in his eyes that brought the fear leaping into hers. 'Oh, my God. It was you who killed my mother.' She opened her mouth to scream but only a thread of sound came out as the pressure on her throat tightened.

'I'm sorry if I'm being particularly slow on the uptake,' said Cooper apologetically, 'but I don't quite see what hold James Gillespie could have had over you that would prompt you to pay him ten thousand pounds. If you already knew about the affair from your husband-' he broke off. 'It was something to do with the pregnancy, presumably. Did you not know about that?'

She compressed her lips in an effort to hold back tears. 'Yes, I did. It was Paul who never knew.' She drew another deep sigh. 'It's so awful. I've kept it secret for so long. I wanted to tell him but there was never a good time. Rather like the lie I told your constable. At what point do you come clean, as it were?' She touched her fingers to her lips in a gesture of despair. 'Being a father. It was all he ever wanted. I prayed and prayed that we would have children of our own, but of course we never did...' She tailed off into silence.

Cooper put a large, comforting hand over hers. He was completely at sea here, but was reluctant to press too hard in case she clammed up on him. 'How did you know about the pregnancy if your husband didn't?'

'Mathilda told me. She rang me and asked me to go to London, said if I didn't she'd make sure the whole of Fontwell knew about her and Paul. He'd written her some letters and she said she'd make them public if I didn't do what she wanted.'

'What did she want?'

It was some moments before she could speak. 'She wanted me to help her murder the baby when it came.'

'Good God!' said Cooper with feeling. And she must have done it, he thought, or James Gillespie would never have been able to blackmail her.

There was the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside and a ring on the doorbell. 'Joanna!' called Violet's high-pitched, nervous voice. 'Joanna! Are you all right. dear? I thought I heard something.' When she received no answer, she called again: 'Is someone with you? Do answer, please.' Her voice rose even higher. 'Duncan! Duncan!' she called. 'There is something wrong. I know there is. You must call the police. I'm going to get help.' Her footsteps skittered away as she ran towards the gate.

Jack stared down into Joanna's drawn and haunted face, then lowered her with surprising gentleness on to the nearest chair. 'You don't deserve it, but you were luckier than your mother,' was all he said, before walking off towards the kitchen and the back door.

Joanna Lascelles was still screaming when Duncan Orloff, in a state of complete panic, used a sledgehammer to break open the front door and confront whatever awaited him in the hall of Cedar House.

'And did you help her?' Cooper asked with a calm that belied his true feelings.

She looked wretched. 'I don't know-I don't know what she did-I can only guess.' She wrung her hands in distress. 'She didn't say anything in so many words. She just asked me to steal some sleeping pills-barbiturates- from my father's dispensary. She said they were for her because she couldn't sleep. I hoped-I thought -she was going to kill herself-and I was glad. I hated her by that time.'

'So you got her the pills?'

'Yes.'

'But she didn't kill herself.'

'No.'

'But you said she wanted you to help her kill the baby.'

'That's what I thought for ten years.' The long-held-back tears oozed slowly from between her lids. 'There was only Joanna, you see. The other baby might never have existed. I didn't think it had ever existed.' She held a shaking hand to her face. 'I thought I'd helped her kill it-and then in Hong Kong, James kept asking me how Gerald could have killed himself with barbiturates, because no doctor would have prescribed them for him, ind I realized it was Gerald she'd wanted to kill all along, and I'd given her the means to do it.' She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. 'I was so shocked that James guessed what I'd done. I think he'd always known, though. In many ways, he and Mathilda were very alike.'