We said goodbye to Jamie and Sibyl. Prisca and I got into her car for her to drive me to Victoria, on her way home. When she stopped outside the hotel, drawing into the side of the road, it was neither a good time, nor a good place for the purpose, but I had to thank her again.
She accepted my kiss on her cheek, but did not return it. She was gripping the steering wheel in tense hands.
‘Nick,’ she said, ‘Tell me. I should have asked you this right at the start. I don’t know why I didn’t. Was Igor really there that evening?’
Prisca always had the power to surprise. I answered her calmly, looking into her eyes.
‘He was there. He told me everything, just as I told you.’
She looked at me frowningly. ‘Something happened at dinner. There was a split second when I thought… I thought you had killed her.’
I sat very still beside her, wondering what to do. The temptation stirred within me to tell her the other story of what happened that night, that I had never recalled even for myself. I said nothing. She gave me time and I did not take it.
‘I thought,’ she went on, ‘he was there, but he didn’t kill her. You did. You changed the roles.’ Again she waited for my response.
I got out of the car and walked round behind it to cross the road. She did not move off and I saw that she had wound down her window and was speaking to me. I went back to her.
‘Prisca, you’ve had what all women want, the last word.’ I bent to kiss her goodbye.
‘Good night, Nick. Sleep well, if you can.’
I watched her go, swinging round the corner on the lights. I would never tell her, or anyone.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1998 by Hodder and Stoughton
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Copyright © Elizabeth Ironside, 1998
The moral right of Elizabeth Ironside to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788630238
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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The Art of Deception Page 35
