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explain what they’d been doing.”
    Mallory spread his hands in a kind of “I told you so” gesture.
    “That’s it,” he said. “That’s my story, and that’s the truth. What you need, and what you haven’t got, is the slightest shred of proof, or any kind of evidence at all, to link us to any of these murders, or the slightest hint of a motive. Even you need at least one of those.”
    Wilson shook his head. “But that’s not everything,” he said. “There’s also the matter of Miss Jessop failing to report to the police after she knew that the bodies had been found, although she definitely knew that we wanted to interview her. The telephone call she made to her shop was recorded by us, and she was told then. That could be considered a serious and deliberate obstruction of a police investigation.”
    “Now you’re just clutching at straws, Wilson. In fact, she wanted to come in and talk to you, but I convinced her that it would be a really bad idea, so if you want to go that route I’m the one you should be charging.”
    “And why did you stop her?”
    “Because I knew exactly what would happen if she did. I know precisely what ‘assisting the police with their inquiries’ actually means in police-speak. She’d have been arrested on suspicion of murder and shoved into a cell somewhere while you lot buggered about trying to find enough circumstantial evidence to justify taking the caseto the CPS. There are quite enough innocent people locked up in British prisons without adding Robin Jessop to the list.”
    “That’s a very serious accusation, Mallory.”
    Mallory noticed that the “Mr.” had been dropped, a sure sign that he was getting under Wilson’s skin. “It’s not an accusation. It’s a statement of fact. The British police have a long history of fitting up people for crimes they didn’t commit, just so they can close cases and go down to the pub for a celebratory pint. You know that I was a copper, so I know exactly how the system works. And the reason I left the force was that I was on the receiving end of a serious and organized attempt to fit me up for something I didn’t do. So don’t even think about preaching to me about British justice, because I know it’s just a joke.”
    Wilson looked slightly stunned by the vehemence in Mallory’s tone. “We could still charge her with obstruction.”
    “Good idea. Why don’t you go for it? She’ll get a slap on the wrist and you’ll look like an idiot, though that’ll just be a confirmation of what most people probably already think.”
    “Then there was the matter of the aircraft you stole.”
    Mallory shook his head. “We didn’t steal it. We just borrowed it. And when we’d finished with it we returned it to the airfield, as you already know. We even topped up the fuel tanks. Has the owner lodged a complaint?”
    “Not as far as I know.”
    “Then what’s the problem? If he’s happy, where’s your case? And before you go any further, remember that I know all about PACE, the Police and Criminal EvidenceAct, and that means I know exactly what you can and can’t do. Your time’s up, so what you can’t do is hold either of us any longer unless you can dream up a halfway-convincing charge. If you could do that, you’d have done it already. The bottom line here is that you’ve got nothing to hold either of us on, and you know it.”
    Mallory leaned back again and shook his head. “But what you do now know, because I’ve told you, several times, is exactly who shot those three Italians, or four Italians if you count the one you said you found in the wood. I gave you the photograph I took of the killer in the cave on Cyprus, and the audio recording I made on my phone at the same time. Robin also made a recording, so you’ve got two separate copies. He was holding a gun on us, as the photograph clearly shows, so there was no coercion by us, and he freely admitted what he did. He’s the killer and he’s the man who