Page 198 of Guilty Pleasures

Emma took a deep breath, trying to compose herself, trying to keep cool.

‘The car wasn’t yours, of course,’ she continued. ‘It belonged to Suzanne Marcel. Inspector Beck said her car had been stolen. I called him up to ask where it was stolen from. Apparently Mrs Marcel had driven to Diane Solomon’s party in Gstaad and her car had got stolen from there while she was enjoying herself inside. Julia, I knew you had gone for drinks with Cassandra on Boxing Day but it turns out that you were at Diane Solomon’s party too. You knew I was going to Les Diablerets. You knew what time I would be coming home. You stole Suzanne Marcel’s car keys and tried to run me off the road.’

Julia had adopted a superior expression.

‘I hate to point out the obvious, Emma, but it is you who has recently been arrested for arson and for almost killing my daughter. Personally, I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. I just didn’t think it possible that you could have tried to kill your own flesh and blood. And how do you repay my support? You blame me, try and implicate me in your nasty little hit-and-run story. How could you? How dare you!’ Her voice was getting more raised and more angry as she spoke.

A cloud floated over the sun and the light dimmed in the conservatory.

‘I also know why you did it,’ said Emma, and although her nerve was beginning to fail her, she was desperate not to lose her momentum now.

‘You wanted me dead so that you could take possession of the Ben Palmer painting. With me out of the way, nobody knew you had the painting. You needed the money because you paid off Tom’s Ibiza debts.’

‘I had the money to pay off Tom’s debts,’ she said more coolly. ‘Not that it is anything to do with you.’

‘Yes, money you’d put aside for the Cork Street gallery you so dearly wanted. Money you felt you deserved back.’

Julia stood up.

‘Oh, this is just nonsense, Emma!’ she said, beginning to tidy away the breakfast things. ‘I wasn’t even going to sell that painting, it’s by some unknown provincial artist and basically worthless.’

‘Not when it has an important work by Francis Bacon on the back of it.’

Julia stopped in her tracks, her face draining of colour.

‘Samples of your DNA are on their way to a police lab in Switzerland. I think we both know they are going to match forensic samples taken from Suzanne Marcel’s Mercedes.’

Of course Julia had no way of knowing Emma was bluffing with that last sentence. The rest of Emma’s information was almost certainly correct, so Julia would have no reason to doubt her. But it was a gamble: Emma’s only hope of finding out the truth was to force a confession from Julia.

‘I hate to disappoint you with your conspiracy theories, Emma, but I might have borrowed Suzanne’s car to run some errands,’ said Julia.

The words were delivered confidently, but Emma instantly knew from the look on her face that Julia was lying.

‘Julia, red paint on Suzanne’s Mercedes matches the red paint on my hire car that you ran off the road.’

Julia sank into the white wicker sofa behind her.

For a few moments she didn’t speak and then her upper body seemed to collapse onto her lap.

‘It was for my son,’ she said quietly, her voice trembling. ‘Those gangsters were going to kill my son. I needed to get the money. I’ll do anything to save my children.’

‘You did it for yourself, Julia. The money you used for Tom’s debts was for the gallery. You wanted to pay for both.’

Emma paused. ‘The reason I was at Heathrow this morning was to pick up Inspector Beck.’ She walked back through the living room and opened the front door to reveal a smartly dressed 40-year-old man. She had called the detective as soon as Stella had told her about the painting and had begged him to fly out to England. She had even paid for his airline ticket herself. She looked at Inspector Beck before pulling open her coat to reveal that she had been wired up. Julia started sobbing at the knowledge that her confession had been caught on tape and in spite of everything, Emma felt a pang of sorrow and regret.

‘I’ll take it from here,’ said Inspector Beck, looking at Emma.

‘I understand you have been involved in an investigation by the Oxford Police about a fire at your home,’ he continued in perfect English. ‘We should let the investigating officers over there know about Ms Grand.’

Julia looked at him in horror.

‘Do you think I set fire to Emma’s home?’ she said in a high-pitched shrill voice. ‘My daughter was in that house. I would never, never, never do a thing to hurt my children.’

‘But you didn’t know she was in there,’ said Emma slowly.

Emma desperately wanted to believe that Julia had also torched the Stables but a nagging voice at the back of her mind told her that not everything was quite sorted, yet.

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