Page 131 of The Last Kiss Goodbye

They moved into the living room. Neither of them sat. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Was she supposed to offer him a drink – coffee, a glass of wine – before he brought out his poisoned umbrella and killed her?

‘Where is my husband?’ she said finally in a low, calm voice. Right now, it was all she cared about. The longing to see Nick, to just hear that he was okay, made her feel sick.

‘I assume you know what he’s been doing this afternoon?’ said Soames, an unmistakable archness in his voice.

‘Please don’t charge him with anything,’ she said desperately. ‘I asked him to do it. This is all my fault and I take responsibility.’

‘That’s very noble of you,’ said Jonathon, raising an eyebrow. ‘But I had a phone call just a few minutes ago, and apparently Nick Gordon insists that you’ve got nothing to do with the hacking of my phone and email.’

She thought of him being interrogated at that very moment. He’d be cool, unruffled. He was smart, so smart, she thought with a pang of emotion. But was he smart enough to know what to do?

‘Please,’ she said, starting to cry. ‘Everything he did was because I asked him to. He was just doing it because . . . because he’s my husband and . . .’

‘And what, Abby?’

And because he loves me, she thought silently.

Jonathon put his hand in his jacket pocket. She was half expecting him to pull out a gun, but he handed her a tissue.

‘I have come here tonight because I owe it to someone to tell the truth.’

She felt herself relax, as if a non-specific danger had passed and she was back in the company of someone who was on her side.

‘The truth?’ she said, rubbing her eyes.

; ‘You’ve caused a lot of trouble, you know that?’

‘I thought that’s why you were here,’ she said sheepishly.

‘Don’t worry about Nick,’ said Jonathon, shaking his head reassuringly. ‘He’ll be fine.’

‘You promise?’ she said, her voice quavering between desperation and hopefulness.

‘He’s not in any serious trouble. I think they just want to frighten him a little.’

She didn’t ask who they were – she doubted that Jonathon Soames would tell her anyway – but she believed his assurances.

‘According to my housekeeper, Ros came to my house yesterday.’

‘She did?’ asked Abby. She might have known that Ros wouldn’t listen to her recommendation not to confront him directly.

‘Fortunately I was in Oxfordshire. Otherwise I think she might have throttled me.’

He looked up and met Abby’s gaze directly.

‘So you think I killed Dominic?’ he said quietly, his voice sounding sad and raspy.

‘Not with your own hands,’ replied Abby, her own voice shaking as she willed herself to keep calm. ‘But I wonder if you sold him out. I wonder if you tipped off your friends the Russians. Told them exactly where Dominic would be on his Amazon expedition. You knew all the details, where he was going, how long for . . .’

‘I did not,’ said Soames with absolute finality.

He sank on to the edge of her sofa, like an old bird on a telegraph wire. When he looked up at her, Abby saw that his eyes were glistening.

‘Where to start?’ he muttered to himself.

‘At the beginning . . .’ replied Abby more softly.