‘I have something else that might help.’ She sat forward again, pinching the skin beneath her thumb with the thumb and forefinger from her other hand, trying to dig the ragged nails into the soft skin. Trying to stay alert.
Pigalle, Matthew and Lydia were watching her intently.
‘It’s a recording . . . I got it by accident, really. I got this little recording gadget at work. I get lots of stuff like that. I work in events management?’
They nodded at her, urging her to continue.
‘I was playing around with it one day. I left it out, switched on. When I plugged it into my computer later, there was an audio file on there. I listened, expecting background noise of the house. The sound of the TV, maybe. But there was more than that. There was a recording of Paul.’
‘And? What was he saying?’ Lydia’s eyebrows shot into her hairline.
‘He was talking to someone on the phone. I don’t know who. But he was talking about Ginny. I’d told him that I was angry with her for the way she’d handled our parents’ estate . . . they died three years ago. A car accident. Ginny was executor—’
Lydia cut in. ‘And she didn’t give you your share?’
Cat nodded, finding her flow. ‘Right. It was all a bit messy, but I was sorting it out. Jeez . . .’ She sighed. ‘What with that, and Paul’s work thing . . . plus still trying to get back on track after I lost so many event bookings during the pandemic . . . anyway, yeah. Paul was angry. I heard him asking someone what would happen . . .’
‘To what?’ Pigalle rested his chin on his fist.
‘What would happen to the money if both Ginny and Tristan were to die.’ She looked away, blinking back tears. They weren’t even fake. She was better at this than she’d thought she would be.
‘Do you have this recording?’ Pigalle demanded, sitting up straight again. ‘Did you keep it? Is it on the Cloud, like the photographs?’
Cat shook her head. ‘I have it, yes, but it’s not in the Cloud. It was a new device, you see. It saved a local file automatically. It’s on my laptop.’
Pigalle sighed. ‘And where is your laptop, madame? Is it in the UK? Back at home?’
She shook her head again. ‘No. It’s in the hotel. I can go and get it right now . . .’
Fifty-One
SUNDAY EVENING
Paul was in a cell, alone. Another room he hadn’t expected to find at the back of the police station. Quite a labyrinth it was, this building. Or a TARDIS. He wasn’t really sure. He was sure that another of his ribs had broken, when that lump of a lieutenant had thrown him into the small room like he was throwing a steak to a dog.
Paul tried to keep his breathing in check, but his heart was still thumping hard in his chest. They’d formally arrested him after his outburst in the interview room, and he supposed he couldn’t really blame them.
Fucking Cat. She had stitched him up good and proper.
Dobbs, the useless fucker, had come in briefly to explain that they would be referring all this to the main police station. He would be taken there soon for more questioning and, in the meantime, they would start to assemble a search party. No one had actually accused him of murder. Yet. But it was only a matter of time. Nobody believed that Ginny and Tristan might still be alive, and they were right, because that pair were both most definitely dead. He knew that Tristan had finished her off. He could tell from the look on his face when he’d confronted him in the old house.
What the hell had Cat been thinking, trusting that psychotic bastard? And why the hell was she pinning all of this on him now? What did she have to gain? She’d made her fucking point, that was for sure. A woman scorned, and all that.
OK, so maybe he should’ve told the truth about what had happened with Samantha – but the best-case scenario was that he’d be exposed as a cheat. Did he really want that?
It hardly mattered now.
He wondered where Cat was. Were they still talking to her? Was she in there now, trying to suppress a smirk while she played the distraught wife and sister?
He’d tried to tell them the truth: Cat and Tristan planned this. Cat pushed Ginny in a fit of rage – not part of the plan . . . Tristan had pretended to look for her but actually finished her off, then he’d tried to kill Paul by whacking him over the head and rolling him off the same section of the mountain. Then the two of them had thought they’d got away with it . . . until Paul had reappeared, having fallen on to a ledge and found Ginny’s necklace. That fucking necklace didn’t help. He’d tried to give it to Cat, but she’d refused to take it, and so it had gone back into his pocket, along with his Huntsman, and now the police had taken both and they’d just made him look guiltier. He’d told them, too, about the second fight with Tristan, and how he’d accidentally stabbed him – and that it was Cat, again, who had decided what to do next. They’d thrown him in the waterfall, and then they’d come up with a plan where it was all a big accident . . . and they were going to stick together.