truth is far, far simpler.’ Leslie turned away from the jury and stared at Jackie. At the end of his dramatic pause, he turned back to the jury, who looked mesmerised by a performance that was outshining every courtroom drama they’d ever watched on television. ‘Forget the mysterious stranger. Alison Maxwell’s killer is sitting before you now, ladies and gentlemen.
‘Jackie Mitchell wanted to end her affair with Alison Maxwell. Now, Alison’s sexual preferences might be alien to most people, but her emotional responses were identical to ours. She didn’t want Jackie to depart from her life. Like most of us, faced with losing someone we care about, she used emotional blackmail in a bid to hold on to her lover. What she didn’t realise was that she was trying to blackmail a killer. The threat of losing the things that mattered to her drove Jackie Mitchell over the edge.
‘Jackie Mitchell was the only other person in that flat on the afternoon of 16 October. Jackie Mitchell was overheard quarrelling angrily with Alison Maxwell. And Jackie Mitchell’s scarf was the weapon that choked the life out of Alison Maxwell. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is an open and shut case. On the basis of the evidence before you, the only possible verdict you can bring in this case is guilty.’
The defence advocate did his best. But his emotive pleas clearly had less effect on the jury than the short, measured address of Duncan Leslie. As the judge summed up, Jackie felt as if a door had been slammed in her face. There was no escape, she realised. Her worst fears were about to become her new reality. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the room fixed on her, but she could meet none of them. She stared straight ahead at a point on the wall above the judge’s head, a creeping numbness filling her. She felt cold sweat trickling uncomfortably down her spine, and she suddenly became aware that the simple act of breathing needed conscious effort. As the jury filed out, the slow shuffle of their feet reminded her of the prison sounds that had filled her ears for the last weeks, and would now be part of her life for as long as she could imagine. It was all over.
The verdict came as no surprise to Claire. Her faith in the ability of the legal system to achieve justice had diminished as the circumstantial evidence had piled up against Jackie. Nevertheless, she felt tension grip her chest, forcing the breath from her, as the foreman of the jury got to his feet, carefully looking only at the judge, and delivered the inevitable sentence. ‘We find the panel guilty.’
The judge’s voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. The words ‘life imprisonment’ boomed hollowly in Claire’s ears. Her notepad fell to the floor with a soft rustle and her head dropped into her hands.
Cordelia immediately put her arm round Claire, comforting her, a complicated mixture of emotions bringing her close to tears. She glanced up to the dock, where Jackie was being led away to begin her sentence. Then she turned back to Claire and murmured softly, ‘It’s all over.’
Claire raised her head. There were no tears, just a coldness in her eyes that had not been there before. She gazed over at the empty dock and slowly said, ‘No, Cordelia. It’s only just begun.’
Cavallino, Italy, January 1990
Death would be a welcome release. That was her first conscious thought. Behind her eyes, a dull pain throbbed. It seemed as if an iron band constricting her forehead were being slowly, continuously tightened. Her throat was so dry that it felt as though she were forcing down a lump of cold potato each time she swallowed. The last time her stomach had been as bad as this was on a long ferry crossing in a force ten gale. A sheen of sweat covered her body. She stirred tentatively and wished she hadn’t. Her limbs were stiff and aching; her legs and feet in particular protested. Bloody grappa, she thought. Bloody, bloody grappa.
She forced herself out of the camper van’s double berth and stumbled to the stove. The coffee pot was sitting ready. She had known before she went out the previous evening exactly how she’d feel now and had taken precautions. She turned on the gas and headed straight for the van’s shower compartment. Under the stream of warm water, she gradually began to feel less like the living dead. Two mugs of coffee later, her body began to feel restored. She pulled on a pair of sweat pants, a sweatshirt and a pair of trainers and emerged into the daylight.
New Year’s Day had brought a watery sun to the grassy grove quartered by pine trees that had been her home for the last eight months. For most of the year it was a thriving campsite, choked with the caravans and tents of northern Europeans determined to extract the maximum return from the delights of the Veneto and the Adriatic. But now, in the off-season, the only vehicle left was the one from which she carried out her limited tasks as on-site watchdog and caretaker. She jogged slowly round the ten-hectare site, checking that all the toilet blocks, shops and restaurants were still properly locked up and shuttered.
She carried on to the site’s private beach, part of the shoreline that curls round like a crescent moon from Trieste to Venice. She slowed down as she made her way through the heavy sand to the water’s margin then, turning her back on the tower block hotels of Lido di Jesolo, she started to run the hangover out of her system. It had been a hell of a party.
The family who owned the site, the Maciocias, had accepted her for no better reason than that her hairdresser in the UK was their niece. When she had turned up with her life in shreds, looking for a place to hide and heal, they had asked no questions. Instead, they had persuaded her to occupy her time by working for them. In the summer months, she’d been the ideal candidate for dealing with the English families whose Italian never seemed to encompass more than ‘Arrivederci Roma’, and whose demands caused constant chaos at Reception. And when the end of the season arrived, she had decided to stay on, living in her van, earning a few thousand lire a day for keeping an eye on things.
Last night’s New Year celebration should have reinforced her decision. The Maciocias had taken over a trattoria owned by someone’s brother-in-law, and she couldn’t remember ever having been at a party like it. The food had been lavish, delicious and deeply traditional. Cousin Bartolomeo had brought his dance band along and the singing and dancing had enveloped her like summer sunlight. The kindness of these strangers who had become her surrogate family meant her glass was never allowed to become empty. It had taken the full resources of her Italian, her diplomacy and her determination to persuade all the male relatives that she’d be safe to return to her van without an escort. But as she walked home alone with the desperate concentration of the mortally drunk, she had been overwhelmed with homesickness.
She knew beyond the shadow of a doubt what she had longed for as soon as midnight struck. The mellow taste of good malt soaked up by shortbread, oatcakes and caboc. The hysterical, ordered chaos of ‘Strip the Willow’. The sound of accordion, bass and drums. The voice of her father singing ‘The Road And the Miles To Dundee’. The contented smile of her mother as she listened. The welcoming warmth in Cordelia’s deep, grey eyes. For too long, Lindsay thought sadly, she’d been looking into brown eyes. At the time, she had forced the thoughts away, telling herself she was maudlin and sentimental. Back at the van, a final tumbler of fiery grappa had brought a welcome oblivion.
But this morning, as she jogged back along the beach, she forced herself to examine her life in the hungover light of day. She’d left Britain in a state of panic, and all her actions since then had been governed by the lurking fear that she might lose her liberty or even her life. When she’d been unwillingly caught up in a murder investigation at a women’s peace camp, she’d had no idea what she’d uncover. The last thing she’d expected was to find herself embroiled in the cover-up of a spy scandal.
The knowledge she’d ended up with was the sort of thing it was only safe to know if you were inside the charmed circle of the secret society. For her, a dedicated anti-establishment journalist, it had nearly sealed her death warrant. So she’d fled, but had refused to keep silent. After her story had been published by a German magazine, she knew she couldn’t go home till long after the dust had settled. And that had meant not only leaving Cordelia behind, but keeping her in ignorance of her whereabouts. She had left a long letter to explain her absence, and she’d sent a card to Cordelia to reassure her that