‘Possibly longer for her,’ the older blond man behind him quipped, catching her now free hand in his. ‘David Lloyd, senior partner with Lloyd and Lloyd Law Associates in London.’
‘And this is Gregory James,’ Vito introduced the final man in the group, a thickly set balding bearded man, with grave courtesy. ‘Gregory and his firm were responsible for upgrading the security on the estate after the break-in we suffered here five years ago.’
Ava nodded, while wondering what all these men had to do with her. Was her solicitor’s presence a simple coincidence? She glanced at Vito, belatedly noticing the lines of tension grooving his mouth, the shadows below his eyes. Barely forty-eight hours had passed since she had last seen him and he looked vaguely as if he’d been to hell and back, she thought in dismay, suddenly desperate to know what was going on. Why on earth had he brought members of the legal profession home with him?
Vito suggested they all adjourn to the library where everyone but him took a seat. ‘I asked Greg to come here and meet you personally, Ava. He’ll explain what this is all about.’
‘I saw those photos of you in the newspaper on Sunday,’ Greg James volunteered, studying her with calm but curious eyes. ‘I read the story and I was very shocked by it. I was at the party here that night as well and I had no idea there had been an accident until I read about it. I left the party an hour before midnight to catch my flight to Brazil where I had my next commission.’
‘Greg had no idea you’d been tried and sent to prison for reckless driving because he was working abroad for months afterwards,’ Vito explained. ‘But after he had read that newspaper he phoned me and suggested we meet up.’
‘You weren’t the driver that night,’ Greg James informed Ava with measured force. ‘I saw what happened that evening outside the castle. I thought I was seeing a stupid argument between people I didn’t know … with the exception of Vito’s brother. I had no idea I was witnessing anything that might be relevant to a court case and I thought no more of it until I learned that you had gone to prison over what happened that night.’
Ava’s lips had fallen open and her eyes were wide. Her heart was beating so fast she almost pressed a hand against it because she was feeling slightly dizzy. ‘What are you talking about? How could I not have been the driver? And what argument did you see?’
David Lloyd leant forward in his armchair. ‘Ava … your defence at the trial was hampered by the fact that you had no memory of the accident. How could you protect yourself when you remembered nothing?’
‘As I said, I left the party early,’ Greg continued. ‘I’d arranged a taxi pickup and while I was waiting for it on the steps outside I saw an argument take place around a car. There were three people there … you, Vito’s brother, Olly, and a large woman in a pink dress.’
‘Three people,’ Ava almost whispered with a frown. ‘A large woman?’
‘The last thing you remembered before the accident was running down the steps towards Olly’s car,’ her former solicitor reminded her helpfully.
‘The large woman followed you outside and a row broke out between you all,’ Greg James supplied. ‘That’s why I noticed the incident. The lady in the pink dress had obviously had too much to drink. She was very angry and she was shouting all sorts at you and the boy.’
Vito spoke up for the first time. ‘I’m sorry but I think the lady in the pink dress was your mother. I also saw her leave the castle in a rush. I assumed she’d had another argument with your father. To my everlasting regret I didn’t go outside to check on you and Olly.’
‘My … mother?’ Ava was repeating while studying Vito with incredulity. ‘Are you trying to suggest that she was driving?’
‘Oh, she was definitely driving that night,’ Greg James declared with complete confidence. ‘I saw her in the driver’s seat and I saw her drive off like a bat out of hell as well.’
Nausea stirred in Ava’s tense stomach and she dimly registered that it was the result of more shock than she could handle. She skimmed her strained gaze round the room as if in search of someone who could explain things because her brain refused to understand what she was being told.
‘With sufficient new evidence we can appeal your conviction,’ David Lloyd informed her seriously. ‘My firm specialises in such cases and Vito consulted me for advice yesterday. He didn’t want to raise false hopes.’
‘Mum couldn’t have been there … it’s not possible,’ Ava whispered shakily. ‘It couldn’t have been her. I mean, she was banned from driving and she’d stopped drinking.’
‘She fell off the wagon again at the party,’ Vito countered heavily. ‘I can confirm that. I called on Thomas Fitzgerald yesterday and your mother’s husband confirmed that he caught your mother drinking that night and that they had a colossal row from which she stormed off saying that she was going home. He assumed she was getting a cab and he was simply relieved she’d left without causing a public scene.’
Ava blinked rapidly and studied her linked hands. Her mother had worn a pink dress that night but that surely wasn’t acceptable evidence. ‘If she was in the car what happened to her after the crash?’
‘Obviously she wasn’t hurt. We can only assume that she panicked and pulled you into the driver’s seat before fleeing home. She would have known that Olly was dead.’
‘A woman in a pink dress was seen walking down the road towards the village about the time of the crash.’ Roger Barlow spoke up, somewhat shyly, for the first time since his arrival. ‘The police did appeal for her to come forward but I’m afraid nobody did.’
‘Olly wouldn’t have let her drive his car. She wasn’t allowed to drive, she wasn’t insured,’ Ava mumbled in a daze. She was horrified by the suggestion that her mother had not only abandoned her at the crash site while she was unconscious but had also moved her daughter’s body to make it look as though she had been the drunk driver who had run the car off the road into a tree.
‘You did try to reason with the woman and so did the boy but she wouldn’t listen. She kept on saying that she was sick and tired of people trying to tell her what to do and she repeatedly insisted that she was sober. She was determined to drive and she didn’t give Vito’s brother a choice about it. She pushed him out of her way and just jumped in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. He yanked open the rear passenger door and flung himself in the back seat at the last possible moment and the car went off down the drive like a rocket,’ Greg James completed with a shake of his head while he studied Ava’s pale shocked face. ‘You were the front seat passenger. You weren’t driving, you definitely weren’t driving that car that night …’
‘Roger drew my attention to the fact that there were other inconsistencies in your case,’ David Lloyd informed her helpfully. ‘The police found a woman’s footprints in the mud by the driver’s door although you were still out cold when the ambulance arrived. One of your legs was also still resting in the foot well of the front passenger seat and the injury to your head was on the left side, suggesting that you had been bashed up against the passenger window.’
‘When your mother’s husband came home later that night, your mother had locked herself in the spare room and was refusing to answer either the phone or the doorbell,’ Vito informed her levelly. ‘When did your mother finally come to see you in hospital?’
Ava parted bloodless lips. ‘She didn’t come to the hospital. She came down with the flu and I was home within a few days and receiving out
patient treatment.’
‘And how did she behave when she saw you again?’