He drove out towards Sharringford. The roads were wet and slippery. Ordinarily he would have driven at a more cautious pace, but he believed Kerry Macklin to be in danger. He believed that Catchpole had come back from London, found Bellamy in bed with Kerry, thrown him out, then resumed the affair he had been having with Kerry since God knew when. He also now believed that Catchpole had murdered Kim. His own daughter. But as yet, he could not say why.

            Like Macklin, Catchpole worked for a local solicitor. He was a senior man but not yet a partner.

            It was the same practice to whom Thompson had entrusted all of the family papers several years ago. At the time, he had dealt with Roger Barrett, the practice owner, an elderly man with just a year or so left before retirement. Thirteen years ago, that was about the time. Thompson and Shirley had bought their house at precisely the time they were chasing Clitheroe for the murder of Polly Bartram.

            When the Clitheroe case was over, Thompson had found time to sort through the boxes of stuff they had brought with them, and had made up a sizeable pile of papers, inherited from deceased relatives mainly, and taken them to Barrett for safe-keeping.

            Barrett had insisted on compiling an inventory of the papers, and it had taken them most of one afternoon. One envelope in the pile flashed suddenly into Thompson's memory. An A4 manilla envelope, self-sealing. It had been opened, just the once, then re-sealed and forgotten. It was Clitheroe's handwritten note to Thompson about Polly Bartram's earrings and make-up.

            The same practice had acted for Alison Farmer.....

            At least, when she had taken such strange pleasure in informing him that he was absolutely powerless to interfere with what was going on in Sharringford, he had seen some papers with the Barrett heading. It had not seemed a coincidence then.

            It did now.

            The Barrett practice worked very closely with the local police, always had. Richard Farmer had been a policeman, of sorts. A 'dirty tricks' policeman. He had been investigating Joanna Robertson, the Cartwrights, Frank Hartford. Alison Farmer had told him as much.

            Barretts would have been able to supply some information of a limited nature on the residents of Sharringford. All solicitors had access to information on local people. If Richard Farmer had been working under cover, as his wife alleged, he would not have sought the assistance of the local police, he would have gone to Barretts.

            Thompson wondered if his note from Clitheroe had been passed to Farmer. Clitheroe was, after all, a resident of Sharringford. As far as he knew, the practice was not computerised. Everything was kept in box files. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that the envelope had found its way to Richard Farmer. Not deliberately, perhaps, but if it had ended up in the Manor House..... It would have been comparatively easy to work out that the practice had rented rooms at the Manor House for a short while.

            A rabbit ran in front of Thompson's car. He braked. He was about to enter Sharringford. The Catchpoles lived in a detached house near the newsagent's shop.

            Kerry would still be a few minutes away if she was walking.

            Joanna Robertson lived in a large house at the furthest end of a lane that did not go anywhere, except into the woods.

            Joanna Robertson thought that Vanessa Farmer had come to Sharringford to take her revenge for her sister-in-law's and her brother's deaths. She had been investigated by Richard Farmer, and he had been murdered. Now she had to make sure that Vanessa had no evidence against her, nothing that could link her to the two deaths. So she had engaged the help of Mark Hegan, who had had an opportunity to search the Manor House before Vanessa's arrival, and had found nothing, no papers belonging to the Farmers. Obviously he had run out of time and found nothing.

            Or had he?

            Thompson's mind went into overdrive.

            Suppose Richard Farmer had come into possession of the note from Clitheroe? 

            Thompson knew how persuasive Joanna could be. 

            Very persuasive.

            The eyes were so......beguiling. Yes, that word described them perfectly. She could beguile a man into doing almost anything for her.

            He had known of her catalogue of crimes when he visited her on the way out of Sharringford after the fire. So had Hargreaves, for that matter.  Only one other person had known, and that was her husband. Come to think of it, Hargreaves had never mentioned Joanna since Sharringford, and Thompson had conveniently forgotten all about it, about everything.

            Why had Ken Hargreaves said nothing?

            Had Joanna Robertson persuaded them not to say anything, not to follow it up?

            Ken was a no-nonsense policeman, he would not be open to bribery or corruption of that nature. He had been the more horrified of the two when the news had broken about her. More likely that she had given Hargreaves the same treatment she had given him. Some sort of hypnosis. Either way, all thoughts of following up the leads they had on her had been dropped.

            Thompson stopped the car at the start of the lane.

            The memories of Sharringford were flooding back into him, now. And beyond Sharringford, the death of Kim Catchpole was falling firmly into place in the scheme of things devised by Joanna Robertson.

            Hegan had found the note from Clitheroe. He had put two and two together. He would have known who Clitheroe was. They were all inter-related, the whole bloody lot of them! He would have known about Polly Bartram's murder.

            He had been looking for evidence against Joanna. Instead, he had found something that would distract the police from her, because Vanessa Farmer was certain to get the enquiry going again.....

            Hegan had cold-bloodedly murdered Kim Catchpole to divert the police from Joanna. He had done the same to Kim as Clitheroe had to Polly, so that everyone would think that Clitheroe was the murderer. He must have known that Clitheroe was on the run, he had probably helped him to escape in the first place. 

Thompson got out of the car and walked slowly towards the Robertson house.

            In the gravel driveway was parked Hegan's Land Rover.

            He knocked on the door, and it was opened almost immediately by Joanna Robertson.

            Seductive as ever, she invited him in.

            'Come in, Chief Inspector, we've been expecting you. Mark, get Mr Thompson a drink, will you?'

            Thompson frowned.

            Hegan stood up and poured a large measure of whisky into a tumbler. He was carrying a shotgun under his arm.

            'Drink this,' he said to Thompson.

Thompson shook his head.

            'No thanks. I don't touch the stuff.'

            'You do now!' Hegan barked. He levelled the shotgun, bringing the muzzle against Thompson's chest.

            'Drink!' he ordered.

Reluctantly, Thompson raised the glass to his lips. 

            'Drink!' Hegan said again.

For a second he was distracted by Joanna, and Thompson seized his chance, grabbing the barrel and wrenching it from his hands.

            Hegan fell forward onto the settee, and Thompson jumped up, holding the shotgun.

            'The roles are reversed,' said Joanna softly.

Thompson noticed that she had put on an outdoor coat. In the hall were two suitcases.

            'Sit down,' Thompson said.

            'You won't use that,' Hegan said. 'I would have used it on you, but you won't use it on us! You're a policeman.'

            'Sorry. I will if I have to. Shoot you in the leg, probably. You two have led me a merry dance! I've been doing some thinking. I've been doing some....remembering.'

            'Oh dear,' Joanna said. 'Just what we didn't want to happen.'

            'I know that you killed Kim Catchpole, and I know why.'

            'You're mad!'

            'Don't get hysterical, darling,' Joanna said. She turned to Thompson.

            'He's a little näive. He doesn't know how to handle a situation like this.'

            'And you do?' 

            'I do. Our flight leaves at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon. All we need is for you to delay anything that might have been going to happen to us for a few hours. We'll be out of your hair, no-one will be any the wiser.'

            Thompson smiled.

            'Since we have a few minutes why don't you tell me how it happened? I'm quite sure I may have some of the details wrong, it would be satisfying, to say the least, to know that I'm not completely wrong.'

            When neither volunteered to be the first to speak, he smiled and turned to Hegan.

            'Very well, I'll tell you, then. You were looking for the evidence you thought Vanessa’s brother might have against Joanna, and found a note from Donald Clitheroe to me regarding one of his victims thirteen years ago. Joanna persuaded you to murder Kim using what was written in the note so that we would think that he had murdered again, and that it could not have been anybody else. You still believe that Vanessa can put the finger on her, so you had another look in the Manor House, but this time you were caught. Is that near enough right?'

            Hegan laughed. For the first time, Joanna began to show signs of being nervous.

            'Almost totally wrong!'

            'Well you would say that, wouldn't you?' Thompson said.

            'No, you don't understand! Donald Clitheroe is her brother!'

Thompson didn't blink an eyelid at this latest revelation. It was just one more thread in a complicated web.

            'And?'

            'We worked out a plan for him to escape with the help of a bent warder. He was paid a lot of money. Clitheroe escaped all right. We were going to smuggle him out of the country but he disappeared. He was murdered by that little runt Bellamy!'

            'And Kim Catchpole?'

            'Ask her!' Hegan pointed at Joanna.

            'But you murdered her......you found the note from Clitheroe.....'

            'Not me, mate, you've got the wrong man this time! All I was paid to do was to look for something written down about her! I didn't find a note from Clitheroe, and I didn't kill the girl!'

            Thompson turned to Joanna.

            'And what's your version of this cock-and-bull story?'

            'I'm saying nothing.'

            'You forget, Mrs Robertson, I have more or less remembered everything about you that you made me forget.'

            'It makes no difference.'

            'Why would you want your brother out of jail when it was he who killed your niece thirteen years ago.....but I forgot, you were very close, weren't you? We never associated you with him all those years ago because you were out of the country at the time.....but you and he are from the same mould....evil....absolutely evil.....'

            Thompson turned back to Hegan. He was reluctant to relinquish another perfectly good theory at this stage.

            'Do you know who killed Kim?' he asked.

            'You tell him and I'll kill you!' Joanna hissed.

            'You can't do anything to me now, you bitch!' Hegan said.

            'Don't tell him!'

            'It's pretty horrific. You won't like it.'

            'Try me.'

            'No!'

Thompson turned the shotgun towards her. Hysterical women he could do without.

            'Go on,' he said, and she believed that she could see in his expression that he would pull the trigger if she interrupted again.

            'All right. I don't know all of it, but.......the note was found by her. The note from Clitheroe. Not by me, and not at the Manor House.....at a solicitor's office, I think.....she told me about it, she was excited because it was from her brother, it was to you. She figured she might be able to use it to sort of blackmail you sometime in the future, if she needed anything.....a favour, anything......well, we got Clitheroe out, and as I said, we were intending smuggling him out of the country but he disappeared.  We were waiting for him, he was supposed to meet us here, but he never showed up. The next thing we knew, he was dead......as for Kim Catchpole, you'll have to get the full story from her, but I know some of it.....Kim was staying with her while her parents were away. She was supposed to go to Kerry Macklin's for a few days while her parents were away......but she told Catchpole that Kim wasn't his daughter.....she told him she was Clitheroe's daughter.....'

            'Wait a minute,' Thompson said, 'you're saying Kim Catchpole was Donald Clitheroe's daughter?'

            'That's what she told him. She told him that his wife and Clitheroe.....you know.....before he got involved with Polly.....anyway, Clitheroe wrote a letter to Catchpole.....he knew what Catchpole was up to with Kerry.....and he wrote to Kim, as well, and there was a showdown between Sheila and Charles.....'

            'That's enough!' said Joanna, but Thompson silenced her with a look that warned her he was in no mood for her interruptions.

            'Joanna telephoned Charles to say that Kim was spending some time with Kerry. Charles thought Kim would tell Kerry she knew that he was having sex with her.....he came back from London, locked his daughter up, went to Kerry's, found Bellamy there, threw him out, came back, murdered Kim and took her to the cathedral.'

            'Why there?'

            'Symbolic, I suppose.  Nice setting for a murder.'

            'And the bicycle, her clothes?'

            'In his shed, or his garage. Somewhere at his place....I don't know....'

            'You knew all this?' Thompson asked Hegan.

            'Only today. I warned her you were on to them.....'

            'But you knew?'

Thompson looked at Joanna. She refused to meet his eyes.

            'You had her staying here, in your care, and you let Catchpole come back and murder her?'

            He paused, trying to take in the implications of what he had just been told.

            'You helped him. You found the note from Clitheroe, you saw a way of diverting my attention from you. You helped him to kill her! His own daughter! You callous, evil, conniving bitch!'

            But he should have known.

            He should have known all along, because that was what she had made her trade, all those years ago, murdering children.

            He should have known, and then maybe Kim Catchpole would still be alive.....Charles Catchpole would never have been told that Kim was not his daughter, but Clitheroe's.....maybe Kerry.....

            'He hated Clitheroe,' Joanna said quietly. 'He hated him and everything he stood for. He was scum. Charles hated him. He wanted to kill him, years ago, when he found out he had killed Polly. Instead he waited. You know about his other victims? Of course you do. When Clitheroe went down, Charles seemed satisfied. When he found out we were going to spring him, he offered to help. He was planning to kill Clitheroe. At the same time we found Clitheroe's note to you in the office, and I told him Kim was not his daughter. They were never close.  He didn't get on with her. He always preferred Kerry. He told me he got a kick out of watching them play together in his house. When he thought Kim was Clitheroe's daughter, he just snapped. When I phoned him, he just got the next train home. He knew it was the day we were springing Donald.....he just snapped. I couldn't stop him. I couldn't stop him.....he went after Kim first, then when he had her safely locked up, he trailed Clitheroe and helped Bellamy to murder him and shut him in the tomb in the church.'

            Thompson picked up the telephone and dialled the police station's number.

            'Charles Catchpole murdered Carol Catchpole, and he also assisted Bellamy in the murder of Donald Clitheroe,' he told Keene. 'I believe Kerry Macklin is going to the Catchpole house. I'm going there now. You need to get some men there on the double, and Joanna Robertson and Mark Hegan are also under arrest here at the Robertson house. I'll explain later. You'd better move, Sergeant.'

            He put down the phone. He checked that the shotgun was loaded, and handed it to Hegan.

            'Keep her here. If she tries to escape, shoot her,' he said. Hegan began to shake his head in disbelief at the command.

            'Just do it. I have to get to the Catchpoles' house. We don't want another girl murdered, for Christ's sake!'

            Leaving Hegan holding the gun pointed at Joanna, he dashed from the house and jumped into his car.