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‘Anyone is,’ says Quinn grimly, ‘given enough provocation.’
‘And she had plenty,’ says Stillwell. ‘Imagine how she must have felt when Tierney first got in touch – the secret she’d spent eight years hiding was about to be splashed all over network TV. Her whole life was going to implode. By the time she got to that house she must have been practically psychotic. She’d have done anything to make it go away.’
‘But killing Tierney wouldn’t have done that, would it,’ says Gis. ‘Too many other people already knew. Kate must have known that.’
‘My money’s on Daisy,’ says Baxter firmly. ‘She has the balls to pull this thing off, for a start. And she’s a good enough mimic too – she could easily have got away with those phone calls.’
‘Even one to Tierney’s own mother,’ says Stillwell. ‘Poor woman.’
‘What’s her motive?’ says Sargent, turning to Baxter.
He shrugs. ‘Maybe she was pissed off that Smith was getting all the money. Or just didn’t want to be outed. At least, not on someone else’s terms.’
‘What about Smith?’ says Gis. ‘Why would she have doneit? In fact, now I come to think about it, Kate and Daisy actually had way more reason to killherthan Tierney. It was Smith who’d betrayed them –’
‘Andgot all that cash for doing it,’ agrees Stillwell.
‘At the risk of repeating myself,’ says Baxter, ‘we don’t have any proof Kelsie Smith was even there.’
‘Oh, I think she was,’ says Asante. It’s the first time he’s said anything and I’ve been starting to wonder why, because there’s definitely something on his mind. I know that look. ‘But,’ he says, turning to Ev, ‘there are only two suspects, not three.’
Ev frowns. ‘Hang on, I know maths isn’t my strong suit, but I definitely make it four people in that room if Smith was there too.’
He shakes his head. ‘Kelsie Smith wasn’t in that room because Kelsie Smith doesn’t exist.’
Ev looks baffled. ‘But you just said she was there.’
‘There was someone in that room who’d been using that name, but it was just an alias, a cover.’ He takes a breath. “‘Kelsie Smith’ isDaisy.She’s the one who set this whole thing up. She’s been behind it, right from the start.’
There’s a long pause. Psychologically, it fits – of course it does. But it’s not enough, not on its own. I know Asante, though, and he doesn’t operate on hunches – he must have more.
‘That’s one hell of a claim – do you have any actualevidence?’ says Quinn. Which, OK, is exactly what I was thinking, but needless to say he’s being a lot ballsier about it.
‘It was something DS Bradley said – that she was finding it hard to believe Kate would have confided in anyone so completely that they’d be in a position to go to Dry Riser with the story. Add to that the fact that we still haven’t turned up a single reference to a “Kelsie Smith” anywhere –’
‘And that’s it?’ says Quinn. ‘That’s all you have?’
Asante turns to him. ‘No. Not quite. I did some more searching on the name. You have to dig past the first page on Google, but you eventually come up with Kelsie Lyanne Smith.’
‘Who the hell is she?’
Asante smiles thinly. You’ve got to hand it to him, he doesn’t let Quinn’s cattle-prodding get under his skin. In fact, he’s rather better at that than I am. ‘That Kelsie didn’t exist either. A woman called Brenda Heist went missing in Pennsylvania in 2002 – just upped and left in the middle of doing the laundry with the evening meal defrosting on the side. Everyone assumed she must have been killed because they couldn’t believe she’d abandon her kids. She was declared dead in 2010, only to turn up alive and well in Florida three years later.’
‘Under the name Kelsie Lyanne Smith?’
He turns to me. ‘Yes, sir. And I think the parallels are too close for it to be a coincidence.’
And it’s exactly the sort of game Daisy would play. An irresistible opportunity to flaunt how clever she is.
‘So it was Daisy who contacted Tierney, Daisy who wanted money.’
Asante nods. ‘I think so, yes.’
She wasn’t afraid of being outed, she wanted out. Again. And this time someone got killed for real.
‘I think Daisy had had enough,’ says Asante. ‘Of Belfast, of Kate, of spending her whole life hiding under a stone. But to get away she needed cash. And it was at that point she realized she did have one highly marketable commodity: the truth. What really happened in 2016. She must have seenInfamousand calculated that they’d pay top dollar for a story like hers. And as we know, she was right. She set up a fake email address as “Kelsie Smith” and contacted Tarek Osman.’ He spreads his hands. ‘The rest you know.’
‘Jeez,’ says Baxter, ‘the conniving little cow –’