The Hike(66)

‘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.

They hadn’t believed him.

He tried to explain about the deal that he’d made with Cat. That she had agreed to continue keeping quiet about the real version of what had happened with Samantha, and that he would lie and say that Ginny and Tristan had fell.

But they didn’t believe that either.

His actions in the room had sealed his fate. Cat had told them he was a predator. That he was violent. And all he’d done was back her up.

Well done, Paul.

He still didn’t understand why all of this had happened.

Why would Cat sleep with Tristan? Was this all just about revenge on Ginny for the mess-up with the inheritance? Or was there more to it? And what about the baby. Was there even a baby?

He would love to know.

He slumped back in his chair. His heart was still thumping. His head fizzing and buzzing with thoughts.

‘I’m fucked, aren’t I?’ he shouted towards the camera above the door. ‘Thank you, Cat. You’ve done a sterling fucking job here.’

He stood up quickly, pulling the thin mattress off the cot bed. He swung it hard, and it flew across the room, crashing into the door. He grabbed hold of his hair, twisting it in his fists. And then he screamed, loud, long.

No one came.

He walked over to the far corner of the room and sat down, pulling his legs up to his chest. The position was uncomfortable, making the pain in his chest sharper. He pulled his legs up tighter, absorbed in his agony. Then he dropped his head and screamed silently into his knees.





Fifty-Two

SUNDAY EVENING

Cat couldn’t quite believe that they’d agreed to let her leave the station. She stood outside, gazing at the village where she had spent so little time. Ginny had wanted to browse the shops this morning, before they packed and drove back down to Geneva to catch their flight home. Cat shook her head, trying to dislodge thoughts of her sister. That was something she was going to have to face, of course, but not right now. She had to remain focused for just a bit longer.

She’d missed that flight, of course. The day was still warm, but the sky was already darkening. The bright blue veering to indigo, the air thickening. A storm was coming. The shops already starting to pull in their outside displays.