“—but while I’m arranging everything, the old bastard wakes up, sees me fixing the tubing onto the helium canister and comes back to fucking life. He staggers up, grabs Freddie’s sword off the wall and tries to fight, but I got it off him. Bent the blade doing it. Forced him down into the chair—he was still struggling—and—”

Raphael mimed putting the bag over his father’s head.

“Caput.”

“And then,” said Robin, her mouth still dry, “you made those phone calls from his phone that were supposed to establish your alibi. Kinvara had told you his passcode, of course. And you left, without closing the door properly.”

Robin didn’t know whether she was imagining movement out of the porthole to her left. She kept her eyes fixed on Raphael, and the slightly wavering gun.

“Loads of this is circumstantial,” he muttered, eyes still glazed. “Flick and Francesca have both got motives for lying about me… I didn’t end it well with Francesca… I might still have a chance… I might…”

“There’s no chance, Raff,” said Robin. “Kinvara isn’t going to lie for you much longer. When they tell her the truth about ‘Mare Mourning,’ she’s going to put everything together for the first time. I think you insisted she move it into to the drawing room, to protect it from the damp in the spare room. How did you manage that? Did you make up some rubbish about it reminding you of her dead mare? Then she’s going to realize you started up the affair again once you knew its true value, and that all the dreadful things you said to her when you ended it were true. And worst of all,” said Robin, “she’s going to realize that when the two of you heard intruders in the grounds—real ones, this time—you let the woman you were supposedly madly in love with walk out into the grounds in the dark, in her nightdress, while you stayed behind to protect—”

“All right!” he shouted suddenly and he advanced the gun nozzle until it pressed into her forehead again. “Stop fucking talking, will you?”

Robin sat quite still. She imagined how it would feel when he pressed the trigger. He had said he would shoot her through a cushion to muffle the sound, but perhaps he had forgotten, perhaps he was about to lose control.

“D’you know what it’s like in jail?” he asked.

She tried to say “no,” but the sound wouldn’t come.

“The noise,” he whispered. “The smell. The ugly, dumb people—like animals, some of them. Worse than animals. I never knew there were people like it. The places they make you eat and shit. Watching your back all the time, waiting for violence. The clanging, the yelling and the fucking squalor. I’d rather be buried alive. I won’t do it again…

“I was going to have a dream life. I was going to be free, totally free. I’d never have to kowtow to the likes of fucking Drummond again. There’s a villa on Capri I’ve had my eye on for a long time. View out over the Gulf of Naples. Then I’d have a nice pad in London… new car, once my fucking ban’s lifted… imagine walking along and knowing you could buy anything, do anything. A dream life…

“Couple of little problems to get out of the way before I was completely sorted… Flick, easy: late night, dark road, knife in the ribs, victim of street crime.

“And Kinvara… once she’d made a will in my favor, after a few years, she’d have broken her neck riding an unsuitable horse or drowned out in Italy… she’s a terrible swimmer…

“And then all of them could fuck themselves, couldn’t they? The Chiswells, my whore of a mother. I’d need nothing from anyone. I’d have everything…

“But that’s all gone,” he said. Dark-skinned though he was, she saw that he had turned ashen, the dark shadows beneath his eyes hollow in the half-light. “It’s all gone. You know what, Venetia? I’m going to blow your fucking brains out, because I’ve decided I don’t like you. I think I’d like to see your fucking head explode before mine comes off—”

“Raff—”

“Raff… Raff… ” he bleated, imitating her, “why do women all think they’re different? You’re not different, none of you.”

He was reaching for the limp cushion beside him.

“We’ll go together. I’d like to arrive in hell with a sexy girl on my ar—”

With a great splintering of wood, the door crashed open. Raphael spun around, pointing a gun at the large figure that had just fallen inside. Robin launched herself over the table to grab his arm, but Raphael knocked her backwards with his elbow and she felt blood spurt as her lip split.

“Raff, no, don’t—don’t!”

He had stood up, stooped in the cramped space, the barrel of the gun in his mouth. Strike, who had shouldered in the door, stood panting feet away from him, and behind Strike was Wardle.

“Go on and do it, then, you cowardly little fuck,” said Strike.

Robin wanted to protest, but couldn’t make a noise.

There was a small, metallic click.

“Took out the bullets at Chiswell House, you stupid bastard,” said Strike, hobbling forwards and smacking the revolver out of Raphael’s mouth. “Not half as clever as you thought you were, eh?”

There was a great ringing in Robin’s ears. Raphael was spitting oaths in English and Italian, screaming threats, thrashing and twisting as Strike helped bend him over the table for Wardle to cuff him, but she stumbled away from the group as though in a dream, backwards towards the kitchen area of the galley, where pots and pans were hanging and white kitchen roll sat, ludicrously ordinary, beside a tiny sink. She could feel her lip swelling where Raphael had hit her. She tore off some kitchen roll, ran it under the cold tap and pressed it to her bleeding mouth, while through the porthole she watched uniformed officers hurrying through the black gates, taking possession of the gun and of the struggling Raphael, whom Wardle had just dragged onto the bank.

She had just been held at gunpoint. Nothing seemed real. Now the police were stomping in and out of the barge, but it was all noise and echo, and now she realized that Strike was standing beside her, and he seemed the only person with any reality.

“How did you know?” she asked thickly, through the cold wodge of tissue.

“Twigged five minutes after you left. The last three digits on that number you showed me on those supposed texts from Matthew were the same as one of the burner phone numbers. Went after you but you were already gone. Layborn sent panda cars out and I’ve been calling you nonstop ever since. Why didn’t you pick up?”

“My phone was on silent in my bag. Now it’s in the canal.”

She craved a stiff drink. Maybe, she thought vaguely, there really was a bar somewhere nearby… but of course, she wouldn’t be allowed to go to a bar. She was facing hours back at New Scotland Yard. They would need a long statement. She would have to relive the last hour in detail. She felt exhausted.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Called Izzy and asked if Raphael knew anyone in the vicinity of that fake address he was trying to get you to. She told me he’d had some posh druggie girlfriend who owned a barge. He was running out of places to go. The police have been watching his flat for the last two days.”