If it wasn't Turner, if her instincts were right about him, who else might have wanted Rachel Tenison dead? Who else might have known about the Catherine Watson case...Not Simon. Nina.

What colour there was had drained from Nina's face and she stood up, slightly unsteady on her heels. Donovan heard the sound of her phone ringing in the kitchen. Maybe it was Turner. Maybe it was Tartaglia. She must speak to someone. Had to get out of there.

'My phone,' she muttered, turning to go. 'I'll just...'

She heard a sudden movement behind her and felt a sharp pain at the back of her head. Her legs crumpled and she fell forwards, hitting the floor with her face. The room was swimming. She felt sick. She closed her eyes, but it made things worse. Somewhere through the fog she heard the faint sound of a bell, then a distant banging noise and voices. Someone was calling her name. The voice grew louder but sounded as if it were underwater. She tried to call out. Tried to say something. Then she felt another splitting pain on the back of her head and everything went dark.

35.

It was nearly thirty-six hours before Donovan was allowed visitors in the small ward at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. She lay deep against the pillows in bed, her head heavily bandaged, feeling a little groggy having only just woken after several hours of sleep. But Tartaglia was relieved to see that, in spite of her injuries, there was some colour in her cheeks and she had managed a faint smile on seeing him.

'How do you feel?' he asked, drawing the curtains around her bed as tightly as possible.

Even though the sky was thick with cloud, the grey wintry morning light coming in from the strip of windows near her bed was still too bright for her. He also wanted to shut out the watchful eyes of the elderly woman lying in the bed opposite, who seemed to have nothing better to do than stare, head cocked, mouth half open, as though she was hoping to join in the conversation.

'Could be worse, I suppose,' Donovan replied, as Tartaglia pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. 'It's like I've got the most massive hangover. I just haven't had the fun of getting it. If I move, my head spins and I feel incredibly nauseous. I've also lost my sense of smell.'

'I hope it's not permanent.'

'Apparently it's quite common if you have a blow to the back of the head. The doctor says it's impossible to tell at this point if I'll get it back.'

'Otherwise you feel OK?' he asked anxiously, searching her face.

'Yes, at least mentally. Certainly a lot better than the last time I was in hospital, if that's what you're getting at.'

He smiled too, relieved that she could refer to the Bridegroom case in such a normal way. He had worried that finding herself back in hospital only a few months later would awaken unpleasant memories from that time. 'Do you remember anything about what happened?'

'No. Nothing. One minute I'm talking to Simon out in the street, then I'm back in the house. I have some sort of vague impression Nina was there, but that's all. Blank. Fast forward and I'm waking up here with a nurse staring down at me, feeling my pulse or something. It was quite a shock.'

'I can imagine.' It would have been good to know exactly what had happened and what Nina might have said, but it was a mercy Donovan knew nothing about it. You couldn't have nightmares about something you didn't remember.

'Again, the doctor says my memory will probably come back, but he can't be sure when. To be honest, I don't really care.'

He reached over and gave her small hand a squeeze, hoping she wasn't just putting on a brave face for his sake. 'By the way, when I spoke to Trevor this morning, he sent his love. He wants to come and see you.'

'That's kind, although it'd be easier if he came when I'm back home. They're letting me out tomorrow, if my scan's OK. If not, it will be the next day.'

'I'll tell him. Nice flowers,' he said, glancing at the huge, brimming vase of dusky pink roses and stargazer lilies by the bed, wondering who had brought them and wishing that he had had time to get her some on the way. Even over the general medicinal hospital smell, the perfume was headily sweet and overpowering. She was lucky she couldn't smell it.

'They're from Simon, according to the card, which the nurse read out to me. I was asleep when he came earlier.'

'He came to see you?' he asked, amazed Turner had dared show his face and unaccountably irritated that he had given her flowers.

'Yes.'

'I suppose it's the least he could do. Are the chocolates from him as well?'

'No. They're from Karen. She came in just before you.'

'There was I, thinking I was going to be the first to see you.'

'You'll just have to be quicker next time,' she said, a little sharply. 'So, tell me what happened. I know Nina...'

'She's been charged, although she's admitting nothing. She's trying to put the blame on Simon.'

'Simon's alibi...Did I dream it?'

'No, you didn't. Assuming the woman's telling the truth, and we have no reason to doubt her, it checks out. So he's in the clear, at least as far as any murder charge is concerned, although I don't know what will happen to him as far as work goes.'

'But there's evidence against Nina?'

'Yes. It turns out she was one of the SOCOs on the Catherine Watson case. It's apparently where she and Simon first met. She knew about the poem and the way Catherine Watson's body was displayed. We couldn't find Rachel Tenison's laptop and phone, but we did turn up the missing photograph. It was wrapped in a pair of knickers in one of Nina's suitcases at her mother's house. Even though there's nothing to actually put her at the crime scene, the CPS say it's enough to go to trial, along with motive and other circumstantial stuff.'

She gave a deep, contented sigh. 'Do you think she planned it all?'

Tartaglia puckered his lips. 'Difficult to tell, although I think probably not. If nothing else, given her background, you'd think she'd have done things differently, more perfectly and less spur of the moment.'

'But the snow...it was perfect. The best way to get rid of any evidence, if there was any. If the body hadn't been found until after it had melted...'

He shrugged. 'Who knows. Reading between the lines, based on the little she's said and what we've turned up so far, I think she'd been watching Simon and Rachel for a while. She probably knew Rachel went running most mornings. Nina thought Simon was with her that night, although we know otherwise, and when Rachel came out for her morning run, I think Nina just saw the opportunity and seized it. I'll bet she killed her right there on the path. I'd guess that trying to make it look like the Watson murder only occurred to her later, when she'd had time to think about it.'

Donovan sighed again, then closed her eyes.

He imagined Nina panicking, possibly horrified at what she had done. As he pictured her standing there on the dimly lit, snowy path looking down at Rachel Tenison's body, part of him refused to see her as a cold-blooded killer, even though she had been thinking clearly enough to try and hide the body. Somehow she had managed to drag or pull it off the path and into the woodland area, leaving it out of sight in the bushes, probably under one of the large holly trees close to where it was found two days later. There it had lain, undisturbed, until Nina had come back later, either that night or early Saturday morning.

'Maybe she tried to confront Rachel,' he continued, still trying to work out in his mind what had happened. 'Maybe she hadn't intended to kill her. Rachel tried to get away and she felt she had to stop her, make her listen or something. Whatever the truth, she was sufficiently calculating afterwards to go to the flat to get the laptop and phone.'

'She would have wanted to see what they wrote to each other, to understand what was really going on between them. That's what I would have wanted...in her place.' She spoke softly and her voice drifted away.

'Maybe, when she went to the flat, she had a look around and saw the photographs and the things in the trunk. Maybe they made her think of the Catherine Watson case and the poem. It certainly fitted the bill with Rachel. Then she went back to the park and shifted the body and made it look the way Catherine's body had been found.'

'It must have been hell for her going to the flat and finding all those things, imagining Simon...'

He reached over and touched her hand again. 'Don't worry yourself about it now.'

'I can't help it. I can't stop thinking about it. Do you feel any sympathy for her?'

'Do I?' He was surprised at the question, wondering why it all seemed to matter so much to her. Yet again she was accusing him of being unsympathetic and it made him doubt himself for a moment. Strangely, he felt some sympathy for Turner, understanding easily how he had fallen under the spell of a woman like Rachel Tenison and knowing how cruelly she would have treated him. But he felt nothing for Nina. 'I might have done, given everything, but she nearly killed you. She meant to kill you, I'm sure.'

For a moment, Donovan said nothing. Then she nodded slowly. 'Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm being soft. So what happened? Karen said Simon found me, that he came back to my house for some reason.'

'Yes. You told him to, or so he says. Apparently you had given him some sort of ultimatum.' He looked at her questioningly, wondering what exactly had gone on between the two of them, and if it was more than just friendship, at least on Donovan's side. How she could find a man like Turner attractive was beyond him, but he knew better than to say so. Whatever had happened, it had been a stroke of luck, Turner going back there, seeing Nina's car in the street. 'When you didn't answer the doorbell, he became worried.'

'Why didn't she kill me?'

'Simon got there first. He looked through the window and apparently he could just see your feet poking out from behind a chair. So he broke down the door.'

'I see. What happened to Nina?'

'She got away out the back, or at least that's what he says.' Again he wondered what had really gone on in that house, whether Turner and Nina had spoken and if he had let Nina get away.

'But you caught her?'

'She gave herself up. You know, I think maybe Simon had an idea Nina would be there. Maybe he had seen her earlier.'

'No,' she said, with a small shake of her head that made her wince and close her eyes. 'He couldn't know, otherwise he wouldn't have...' She paused and peered up at him, frowning, as though struggling to make sense of it all. 'If he knew she was there, why did he go away? I'm sure he hadn't seen her. He can't have done.'

'I'm sure you're right,' he said, wanting to calm her.

'And why would he be worrying about me when he saw her car unless he knew...' Again her voice trailed away.

'Don't think about it now,' Tartaglia said firmly, concerned that she seemed more preoccupied with Turner than anything else.

In the back of his mind, he was sure that Turner had either known all along, or suspected, that Nina had murdered Rachel. However, he had no proof, and Turner had repeatedly denied it in the many interviews with his superiors that followed Nina's arrest. The official view seemed to be heading in the direction of accepting Turner's word, but it still didn't add up. Who else had a link to both the Watson murder and Rachel Tenison? Surely Turner must have wondered about it. His saying nothing about his affair to protect his marriage also didn't hold water. The marriage was over, at least as far as he was concerned. There was nothing to risk. The only explanation that made sense was that he was protecting Nina out of some vestige of love, or a mixture of shame and guilt. His obsession had destroyed three lives and it must weigh heavily on him, although Tartaglia wasn't sure if he was the sort of man to have a conscience. But the last thing he wanted to do at this point was to voice openly what were only suspicions to Donovan. The less she thought about Turner, the better. She needed to recover, and hopefully that recovery wouldn't involve him.

'No. It doesn't make sense,' she continued emphatically, as though she had thought it all through. 'There's no way Simon knew that Nina had killed Rachel. You remember what he was like? He was in a desperate state, just getting through the day and the night. I don't believe he was thinking about anything logically or clearly. I'm sure if he had suspected anything, he would have said something. He really loved Rachel.'

'I hope you're right,' he said, although he didn't think so. 'Anyway, it seems as though Nina had been stalking both Simon and Rachel for a while. When we showed a photograph of her to the assistant at the Greville Tenison gallery and to the porter in Rachel's block, they both remembered her. She had gone into the gallery a couple of times, pretending to be a potential client. The porter also remembers her asking questions, claiming to be an old school friend. As she was a woman and wasn't behaving at all suspiciously, neither thought to mention it.'

'Poor Nina. She killed a woman and all for bloody nothing. Simon would never have gone back to her.'

He gazed at her for a moment, wondering what to say. Her normal common sense seemed to have deserted her; she was unable to accept that Turner had played any part in what had happened.

'Who knows what goes on between two people and what drove her to it,' he said pointedly, refusing to let Turner off the hook.

'Quite.' He could tell from the sharpness of her tone that she didn't want to talk about it any more.

A sudden babble of voices penetrated through the curtains from across the room, where one of the other women in the ward was greeting some visitors. 'I hope I don't have to stay here longer than one more night,' Donovan said. 'One of the women snores really loudly and another talks in her sleep. It's driving me crazy. Apart from my head, there's nothing wrong with me.'

'Well, if you are sent home, maybe you'll feel up to going out somewhere at the weekend?'

'Go out? Like this?' She raised a hand to her bandaged head.

'Yes. You don't look that bad.'

'That bad? Thanks.'

'I just thought you might like to get out. One of my cousins has a band...'

'Which cousin is that? You have so many, I lose track.'

'This one's called Alessandro. He runs a very successful broking business in Milan, but in his spare time he plays in a band. They're really good. They do cover versions of everything from the Beatles to U2. Anyway, they're playing in a charity gig for one of his clients...'

'And you wanted me to come with you?'

'Yes. Thought you might enjoy it. If you haven't any other plans.'

'Is Nicoletta going to be there?'

'Probably.'

'Any of her girlfriends?'

'She mentioned she might bring Sarah along.'

'Sarah?'

'The latest one of her friends she's trying to set me up with. I think I told you.'

'I see.' Her face cracked into a smile and she closed her eyes for a moment. He wondered what she found so funny. 'If I feel up to it, that would be very nice, thanks,' she said, after a moment. 'But I don't want to be your bodyguard. And I don't need looking after, you know, if that's what you're thinking.'

He cursed himself for saying the wrong thing, although sometimes there was no pleasing her. 'I wasn't. That wasn't what I meant. I just thought-'

'Knock, knock,' said a cheery female voice on the other side of the curtain. Before Tartaglia could finish what he was going to say, Claire poked her head through the gap.

'Hi Mark. Hi Sam. Hope I'm not interrupting anything. I can always come back later.'

'No, don't go,' Donovan said. 'We're done, for now. Unless there's anything else?' She looked over at Tartaglia inquiringly, still smiling. 'Alessandro? I've always liked that name. Let me know when and where.'

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS.

DIE WITH ME.

THE FIRST BOOK IN THE MARK TARTAGLIA SERIES.