Mallinson started to say something but Tenison wearily waved him away. 'All right, all right. I'll tell you where I was, although it's none of your business. I have an alibi for that night and the following morning. Before I say anything more, I need your word that this doesn't get into the papers.'

'Just tell us where you were,' Tartaglia said firmly. He wasn't going to make any deals with Tenison after the way he had lied.

Tenison fell silent and Tartaglia waited while he wrestled with private conflicts. After a moment, he cleared his throat. 'I stayed with a friend that night. A lady.'

'We'll need her name.'

He placed his hands down flat on the table and leaned across towards Tartaglia. 'Look, Inspector,' he said in a hoarse whisper. 'Please understand, I'm in a tricky situation, in terms of my career, I mean. Also, my wife doesn't know. I can't afford to have everything blow up in my face. Can you promise me that our names will be kept out of the papers?'

'You should have thought of that before. The name, Mr Tenison.'

Again Tenison hesitated, as though he was still deciding whether or not to cooperate.

'The name.'

Tenison sighed. 'I just hope to God all this doesn't get out. I was with Liz Volpe. Rachel's friend. She was the reason Rachel and I quarrelled.'

26.

'It's true,' Liz said. 'Patrick stayed with me at my brother's flat that night.'

'Why didn't you say so before?' Tartaglia asked.

'Because Patrick told me not to.' Liz met his gaze with childlike innocence, as if things could be that simple.

They were in another meeting room, down the corridor from where Patrick Tenison had been interviewed. Pale, with eyes still puffy from sleep, Liz had been roused out of her bed and brought over to the Belgravia station. Wearing jeans, an old T-shirt and a voluminous black cardigan, which she wrapped around herself like a shawl, she had evidently dressed in a hurry, putting on the nearest things she could find.

'Do you always do what you're told?'

Liz looked away and shrugged. 'Of course not. But to be honest, it seemed the easy way out.'

'So you lied for him.' He struggled to understand what she saw in Patrick Tenison and why she would allow herself to be influenced by him. She seemed so independent, with her head firmly screwed on, and she certainly didn't seem to be the sort of woman to be impressed with status or power.

She frowned. 'And for myself. Don't blame poor Patrick for everything. I was just being practical. I'm looking for a job and the last thing I need is to have my name blasted all over the papers.' She hesitated, looking down at her hands, which were loosely clasped in front of her on the table. 'I'm not trying to make light of this, honestly I'm not. I don't like lying and I felt very uncomfortable about doing it when Patrick asked me to. But he's right. The newspapers love a nice, juicy bit of gossip and sleaze, particularly when someone's dead. Anyway, we've done nothing wrong. Neither of us had anything to do with Rachel's murder.'

She raised her eyes again and gave him such a direct look that he found himself believing her. He also had some sympathy with her view of what the press reaction would be, although he found himself feeling far less understanding where Tenison was concerned.

'You still should have said something before.'

'And risk it getting out?' She shook her head. 'It's not as though it makes any difference to your enquiry, does it? You still don't know who Rachel slept with that night. You still don't know who killed her.' Her tone was almost accusatory, as if she was trying to shift blame.

'That's not the point,' Tartaglia said sharply. 'I assume you knew about the argument in the restaurant between Rachel and her brother?'

'Yes. I gather it was about me. Reading between the lines, I think Rachel told him that he should give me up. She was worried that he was on the point of leaving Emma.'

'And was he?'

Liz pulled the cardigan even more tightly around herself, as though it gave her some comfort. 'In the early stages it was something he talked about. You know, in the way you talk about some nice, vague plan for the future. I didn't really believe him, although it was fun for a while to go along with it. I always thought that if push came to shove, he'd run home to little Emma. He's not very brave.'

'But Rachel believed that he was going to run off with you?'

'Yes. Things then came to a head and I suppose she thought he would do something rash. She had a blind spot where Patrick was concerned and she was convinced I was egging him on.'

'You weren't?'

Liz shook her head. 'I never had any idea of marry-ing Patrick, even if he were free. He'd make a lousy husband and you have to be a doormat to be married to a politician, or at least prepared to put them and their needs first all the time. That's just not my bag, at least where men are concerned.'

He nodded slowly, wondering what sort of man she saw herself with, or whether in fact she was one of those people who were quite happy on their own. 'Why was Miss Tenison so upset about your relationship?'

'She saw me as a threat.'

'A threat?'

'Surely you've guessed by now what she was really like?' She looked at him almost teasingly, half smiling. 'As Shakespeare said, beauty is a witch, and there were many who were caught up in her enchantment, although they had no idea what lay beneath. Even you were a little fascinated, weren't you?'

She was still smiling and he suddenly felt incredibly foolish. 'Intrigued, maybe, but then I never knew her,' he said, trying to make light of it, wondering how much she had guessed.

'No, you never knew her. Anyway, Rachel considered Patrick to be hers and only hers. I'm the only person who has ever threatened that.'

'But he's married.'

'That didn't matter. Rachel knew that she always came first where Patrick was concerned. He idolised her. He would do anything for her. Nice, sensible, down to earth, good-natured Emma never got a look in, although she's exactly the right sort of woman for him, if only the stupid idiot knew it. When Rachel found out about us, well...I can imagine what she must have felt.'

'You said she stole someone you loved,' he said, thinking back to their conversation earlier that evening. 'You meant Patrick Tenison?'

She nodded. 'She made sure that whatever we had together was well and truly poisoned.' A look of pain crossed her face and she folded her arms and turned away, focusing on a far corner of the room.

'What happened?'

'I told you about the night when we had dinner a couple of months ago.'

'Yes, I remember.'

'Well, all that was true,' she said distantly. 'We then went back to her flat afterwards for a drink. She seemed particularly keen that I come. Anyhow, she managed to turn the conversation around to the fact that she'd done something very stupid. Something she really regretted and she was feeling very bad about it. She wouldn't tell me what it was, but naturally I was intrigued. Then the phone rang. Looking back on it now, I think she must have told him to call. Anyway, she answered it and took it out into the hall as though it were private. When she came back, her eyes were alight and she was smiling. She told me that it was Patrick. She said that they'd slept together the night before and that he was coming over. She said she thought she was in love with him.'

Tartaglia stared at her astonished. 'Did she know...?'

She looked directly at him. 'About me and Patrick, you mean? Of course she knew, although I didn't realise it at the time. Patrick had let something slip, the silly twit.'

'And you believed her?' he asked, thinking of the black and white photograph of Rachel Tenison, which was now pinned up over his desk in Barnes. Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel hard eyes that grow soft for an hour...the cruel red mouth like a venomous flower...Beneath all the superficial loveliness, she was rotten to the core. It was odd how, even though he had never known her, he felt disillusioned, if not a little betrayed. He thought of her as he had first seen her, kneeling down in the snow, with her head bowed and hands clasped and for the first time he saw her as someone punished. Punishment. Perhaps that was what it was all about. But if Liz were telling the truth, then she and Patrick Tenison both had alibis.

Liz gazed at him with large, watery blue eyes. 'Yes. I didn't need to speak to Patrick. I knew she'd never make up something like that.'

'Why on earth did you stay friends with her? You must have known what she was like.'

She shrugged. 'We'd more or less grown up together and we had a lot of very good shared experiences. The strains and differences started to appear as we grew older, but I let it go, tried to gloss over it. You know, she did something similar when we were at university. She seduced someone I was supposed to be going out with. I should have broken off with her then. But maybe I'm weak, like everyone else around her, or just so plain stupid and sentimental about the past that I didn't want to see her darker side. Does that make sense?'

He nodded. Some things were impossible to put into words and friendships, particularly ones that went back a long way, often defied logical analysis.

'I suppose we all made allowances for her,' Liz continued, 'because of what had happened in her past. She was damaged.'

'Damaged, yes. I see that now.' For a second, his thoughts turned to Viktor Denisenko and the man who had left the roses in the park. Rachel: lovely and damaged. It was a heady cocktail and he was grateful now that he had never met her. Who knew what might have happened and whether he would have emerged with his sanity intact.

'What did you do after that?' he asked, after a moment.

'I felt like hitting her, punching her hard, for starters. But I managed to control myself. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of seeing how much she'd hurt me. So I left. It was all I could do until I got down to the street to stop myself being sick. I suppose I was in shock. My arms and legs were like jelly. I sat outside in my car for a while crying, thinking it all through, amazed at how much I hated her. I was in no state to drive home. At one point I remember wondering if maybe she'd been lying, just to get a reaction out of me. Then I saw him...' Her voice tailed away.

'Did you speak to him?'

Liz nodded. 'I tooted the horn. He looked shocked when he saw me there. He knew instantly that Rachel had told me. Anyway, he came over. I rolled down the window and shouted at him, told him what I thought, then I drove off before he had a chance to say anything. I didn't want to hear his excuses. Nothing could make it better. He followed me back to my brother's flat but I wouldn't let him in. He then sent me a letter the next morning. He tried to explain it all away, as if it was a mere nothing, and he said that he loved me. But it was too late for that. I knew Rachel would always be able to get to him because of what he had done with her and that she would make him pay. And through him she would make me pay. It wasn't going to stop. In the end, I suppose I also realised what a spineless wretch he is.'

'Are you going to be OK?' he asked, wanting to reach out in some way, but not knowing what to say or do.

Liz sighed and rubbed her face with her hands. 'Yes. I've had a lot of time to think. It still hurts when I picture them together, but I guess I'll get over it in time. For the moment, my emotional reserves are worn right out and I feel numb. If you told me I was going to die tomorrow, I probably wouldn't give a damn.'

'But you were in love with him?' Tartaglia asked doubtfully, still puzzled over what it was that Liz had found so attractive about Tenison. Then it dawned on him. She had told him earlier that Rachel had stolen something precious from her, but it was actually the other way around. Liz had taken something that Rachel prized, probably more than anything. Consciously or unconsciously, it was a way of getting back at Rachel, and if she had taken pleasure in it, he wasn't the man to blame her.

Liz frowned. 'Don't sit there judging me.'

'I wasn't.'

'However odd it seems now, there certainly was a moment when I thought I was in love with Patrick. Perhaps we should have got it out of our systems sooner, but timing's everything, isn't it?'

'But why did he come round to see you that night?'

She gave him a feeble smile. 'Like a lot of men, he won't take no for an answer. Of course he was full of guilt about what he'd done, but I was suddenly a challenge, something that had to be won back. Anyway, he'd had quite a bit to drink that evening. Plus Rachel had been saying all sorts of nasty, horrible things to him. I guess he was just looking for a bit of sympathy, as well as hoping I might let him back into my bed.'

He looked at her questioningly.

'I was having none of it,' she said emphatically. 'I made him sleep in my brother's room.'

'So he wasn't actually with you?'

'Not physically in my bed, no.'

'Are you sure he didn't leave the flat at some point without your knowing?'

'Positive. As you can imagine, I've got a lot of things on my mind at the moment and I'm having problems sleeping. That night was no different. I got up twice, once at about four in the morning and then at six. Both times I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and I looked in on him. He was fast asleep.'

'When did you see him awake?'

'He came into my room the next morning. My alarm had just gone off, so it would have been just before eight. He wasn't dressed.'

'He could have gone to the park without your knowing.'

She looked astonished. 'What, killed Rachel and come straight back to the flat, cool as a cucumber? I don't think so. He's not that cold-blooded. He really loved Rachel.'

'Some people kill the person they love most.'

'Why? What's his motive? There's never been a single moment when I thought him capable of murdering her, otherwise I promise you I would have said something to you before.'

'Maybe you're wrong about him.'

She shook her head decisively and folded her arms. 'No. If he had killed her, and come back to the flat, pretending that he'd been there all night, he wouldn't have been able to hide it. I would have known that something was badly wrong.'

'You saw nothing out of the ordinary in his behaviour?'

'Absolutely not. He was perfectly, healthily normal, albeit pretty hung over. He even tried again to persuade me to have sex with him. I really can't see him killing Rachel then wanting a shag, can you? Whatever you think of him, he's not that callous.'

Tartaglia smiled. Libido was a funny, wayward thing, with a mind of its own, but it would take a hardened psychopath to kill someone and show no emotional reaction whatsoever, particularly to someone who knew him well.

'What will you do?' he asked.

'I'm not going back to him, if that's what you mean. I'm probably going to return to the US for a while. I need a bit of distance from everything that's happened here.'

He nodded, understanding how she must feel. 'Well, thank you for being so honest.' He was tempted to add 'finally' but thought it would be cheap. 'Perhaps before you leave the country, we can finish our drink. I'm sorry we were interrupted earlier.'

She put her head to one side as if she hadn't expected him to say that and smiled. 'You know, I'd like that very much.'

'Good. I'll call you. In the meantime, I think that will do for now.' He was about to stand up when he saw Liz hesitate. 'Is there anything else you want to tell me?'

Liz nodded slowly. 'There is something. Maybe it's just my silly suspicious mind...I don't think he killed Rachel...'

'You mean Patrick Tenison?'

'No.' Liz bit her lip, as though she had spoken out of turn.

'Please, I need to know everything, even if it's just a suspicion or a hunch.'

Liz sighed heavily. 'I don't think he had anything to do with her murder. In fact I'm sure of it. But I think Jonathan-'

'Jonathan Bourne?'

She inclined her head.

'Go on.'

'Well, I have no proof, but I'm pretty sure he slept with Rachel that night.'