His Delicious Revenge: The Price of Retribution / Count Valieri's Prisoner / The Highest Stakes of All

But this was still far from the kind of love nest that she would ever have envisaged for Caz Brandon. Evie must have been totally blinded by passion not to realise she was being offered a pretty third-rate set-up.

But she wasn’t here to speculate, she reminded herself, or even to build up her resentment and bitterness towards Caz, although this visit was simply confirming everything she’d thought about him. Her job was to clear out Evie’s stuff.

There was an inventory pinned to the galley notice board, which demonstrated that Evie had been content to stick with what was provided and make no individual additions to the utensils, or the china, glassware and cutlery either. But then cooking had never been a big thing to Evie.

Nor had the living space benefited from her attention. Every cushion, picture, and sparse selection of ornaments was also listed.

So Tarn was forced to face the bedroom, and the cramped en-suite shower room which opened off it.

It was unlikely Evie would wish any reminders of the room, she thought as she stripped the bed, and bundled the bedding into a plastic sack, before filling a hold-all with Evie’s clothes and shoes. Although, from a psychological point of view, she realised, it might be better to get rid of all of them too, and start again from scratch.

Emptying the wardrobe didn’t take much doing. For a girl who’d been living the high life with a millionaire boyfriend, Evie didn’t seem to have a lot of clothes, and what there was didn’t rate highly on glamour, thought Tarn, wondering what had happened to the chiffon and lace wedding dress as she emptied the small tallboy.

The drawer in the bedside cabinet would only open fractionally, and she realised something was stuck there. After a brief struggle and a bruised knuckle or two, she managed to release it and extract the culprit, which turned out to be a square, leather-bound book.

Of course, she thought. It’s Evie’s diary. I should have known. And she must be missing it. In the past, she probably hasn’t missed a day without writing in it. I wonder if they’d let her have it at The Refuge. It might be therapeutic for her.

She slipped it into her shoulder bag, then returned to the drawer. Small wonder it had stuck, she thought, discovering an envelope bulging with paperwork which she decided to take with her too, in case there was something incriminating about Caz among its contents. And under the envelope, she found a scrapbook. One glance told her that every single newspaper cutting and photograph that filled its pages featured Caz. And maybe all this material explained why there were no actual framed photographs of him in the flat. Unless, of course, Evie had never been given such a keepsake.

Whatever, this will not be going with me, she told herself grimly, adding the scrapbook to the bin bag.

Then, as she felt further towards the back of the drawer, she encountered something else—a small square jeweller’s box covered in black velvet.

She opened it and gasped aloud at the blaze of the stones that glittered like ice-blue fire in Evie’s engagement ring.

My God, she muttered under her breath. No wonder she believed every rotten lie he told her. Each of them must have cost an entire carat. But why on earth did he bother? Unless it had always been intended as a kiss-off payment, she thought, wincing.

She closed the box with a snap, and dropped that into her shoulder bag too.

The shower room was easily cleared, all the half-used toiletries swept into the bin bag along with the remains of the packs of painkillers, indigestion tablets and Evie’s contraceptive pills, which were all that the small medicine cabinet over the washbasin contained.

No sign of the sleeping tablets Evie had used for her overdose.

She fastened the tie handles on the plastic sack and carried it back into the bedroom, where she stopped, gasping.

A man was standing in the doorway, thin and barely above medium height with very pale blond hair and light blue eyes, dressed in a grey suit with a faint silky sheen that whispered expensive.

He said softly, ‘Exactly who are you? And what are you doing here?’

This, thought Tarn, recovering her breath, must be the troublesome landlord.

She said crisply, ‘Quite obviously I’m removing Miss Griffiths’ possessions as requested. But perhaps it’s a trick question.’ She paused. ‘And I have your money.’

The fair brows lifted. ‘Do you indeed? Well, that is good news.’ He glanced around. ‘Do I take it that Evie will not be returning?’

Tarn stared at him. ‘But you know that already. You told her mother you wanted to re-let the place.’

‘Ah.’ The thin mouth stretched into a smile. ‘I think there’s a slight misunderstanding here. My name is Roy Clayton and I actually live upstairs, another of Bernie the Bloodsucker’s hapless tenants. I heard someone moving around down here, came to investigate and found the door unlocked.’

‘But you didn’t ring the bell,’ said Tarn.

‘Er—no. Evie and I weren’t on such formal terms.’ He paused. ‘And you are?’

‘Her sister.’

‘What a charming surprise. I didn’t know she had one.’ His smile widened a little. ‘Such a dreadful thing to have happened. You must all be devastated. I was the one who found her, you know, and called the ambulance.’

‘No,’ Tarn said. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘So is she fully on the road to recovery? And can she have visitors, wherever she happens to be?’

‘She’s making satisfactory progress,’ Tarn returned. ‘But she’s not up to seeing people yet.’

‘What a pity.’ He glanced round the room again, his gaze lingering on the suitcase and the empty bedside cabinet, while Tarn took a quick look at her shoulder bag beside the chest of drawers, checking that it hadn’t been disturbed because Evie’s ring was in there.

He added, ‘Bernie should have told me that she wasn’t coming back. I could have saved you a journey and a job, and cleared the place for you.’

‘That’s kind of you,’ Tarn said untruthfully. ‘But it’s probably a task better suited to her family.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’ The curiously pale eyes rested on her. ‘You mentioned something about money?’

She looked back at him, bewilderment mixing with her unease. ‘Yes—but I thought you were the landlord wanting his rent.’

‘Oh, dear, another disappointment,’ he said lightly.

‘You mean Evie owed you too?’ She drew a dismayed breath, bracing herself. ‘If you’ll tell me what it was for and how much, perhaps something could be arranged.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly put you to so much trouble,’ he said. ‘And it’s really quite a trivial matter. Besides, I’m sure Evie and I will be running into each other again. One of these days. When she’s better.’

He paused again. ‘Now I’ll leave you to your toil. Do tell Evie next time you see her that I was asking about her. You won’t forget, will you?’ Another swift smile, and he was gone.

Tarn stayed where she was, uncomfortably aware that her breathing had quickened, and the plastic sack in her hand seemed suddenly to be weighing a ton.

Oh, pull yourself together, she told herself sharply. He’s just a concerned guy from upstairs. You’re letting this whole Caz Brandon thing knock you sideways, make you imagine every man you come across is a potential threat.

On the other hand, as she went downstairs, she found the genuine article waiting for her, bald and tattooed in a football shirt and denim cut-offs.

‘Bernie Smith.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘You’re not the woman I talked to.’

‘No, that was Miss Griffiths’ mother.’

He grunted. ‘Got the rent?’

Tarn handed over the envelope and watched him count it.

‘Seems to be all there,’ he said. ‘Lucky I don’t charge for having the place cleaned. And the inconvenience—paramedics and police swarming all over. Gives a place a bad name.’

‘Difficult to see how,’ Tarn said, giving the hallway a disparaging look before dropping the keys into his hand.