‘Are you all right? It sounds you’re coming down with a cold.’

Gerald blew his nose, feeling a dull headache tugging at his temples. He threw the tissue in the bin and sat back down at the table. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll take an aspirin before I go to bed.’

Nina gave him a concerned look. ‘You’ve been up since six. Maybe you should have an early night.’

‘I might just do that.’ He stretched out his arms and yawned. The long day was finally catching up with him. When he was a younger man, he’d been able to work all sorts of ridiculous hours, but now they took their toll on him. The idea of an early night was tempting, although he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep. The interview with Sadie Wise threatened to keep revolving in his head while he tried to figure out why he was certain she was lying.

‘So will you see her again tomorrow?’

‘Maybe. It depends what news there is from London.’

‘Poor girl. It must be dreadful for her.’

‘Not as dreadful as it is for Eddie Wise.’

‘Yes,’ she said solemnly, ‘you’re right. But I hope she didn’t have anything to do with it. She seems such a nice girl. I can’t imagine her… And how awful to just throw your life away like that. All those years in prison and for what?’

‘Revenge?’ he suggested. ‘A woman scorned and all that.’

‘If that’s true then she waited a long time.’

‘Maybe she’s the patient sort.’

‘Do you really believe that she’s capable of murder?’

Gerald wasn’t sure exactly what he believed right now. His gut might be telling him one thing, but his head was full of doubts. Maybe he was searching for guilt where there wasn’t any, something juicy to get his teeth into, something more challenging than the usual petty crimes of a small seaside town. ‘Well, we’ll find out soon enough.’

‘I don’t suppose she’ll be getting much sleep tonight.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t suppose she will.’

16

Sadie felt like her head was full of fog, as thick and dense as the morning air. A mist had swept in off the sea and covered the town in a cold shroud of grey. Beneath her boots, she heard the crunch where the snow was turning into ice and felt the threat of the slippery surface. Twice now she had almost fallen, her feet skidding out from under her. It was madness, she knew, to keep on walking, but she didn’t want to go home yet.

Last night she had barely slept, slipping only occasionally into a doze from which she had woken with a start, her mind full of Eddie, the image of his dead body as clear as if she had actually seen it. She shuddered at the memory. Who had done that to him? Who had felt such hate, such anger, that they’d put a knife through his chest? The girlfriend perhaps. Kelly had to be a suspect too.

It was unnerving, scary, being under suspicion. A murder suspect. Sadie recoiled from the thought. What if the police got it wrong? What if they arrested her, charged her, put her on trial? Innocent people had gone to jail before. She wished now that she had never gone to London. If she could only turn back time, she would.

The ordeal of the fingerprint taking was over at least. She had been embarrassed, humiliated, when less than an hour ago the officer had placed her fingers one by one in the ink and made the black marks on the piece of card. She had felt like a criminal. It was the first time she had ever been inside a police station and she had no desire to repeat the experience.

It wouldn’t be long before everyone in Haverlea knew. She could imagine the looks she would get, the things that would be said about her. Joel had called his parents yesterday to break the news about Eddie and to warn them that the police would be round. Sadie had listened as he’d given them a clear and concise summary of the situation. And then he had said, ‘Would you like to speak to her?’

Sadie had frantically flapped her hands, shaking her head and mouthing the word ‘no’. She liked the Hunters and wanted them to believe in her innocence but she hadn’t been able to face the inevitable questions and expressions of sympathy.

‘Actually,’ he’d said quickly, ‘we’ll be seeing you soon anyway. We can have a proper catch-up then.’

After he had put the phone down, Sadie had apologised. ‘Sorry, I just…’

‘It’s all right, I understand.’

Joel was the only person keeping her going at the moment. So long as he believed in her, what did it matter about anyone else? She had to stay positive, keep her head held high. The investigation was only beginning. Eventually the police in London would find out who the murderer really was. Wouldn’t they?

She walked to the front and stood on the promenade peering through the mist at the sea. The waves pummelled the shore, the surf grey and scummy. The cold air crept around her, slipping under the collar of her coat and sliding down her spine. She pushed her hands deeper into her pockets.

Last night, after Joel had rung his parents, she had bitten the bullet and called her mother too. The response had been pretty much what she’d expected, a concern more with what the neighbours would say than the horror of Eddie’s death or what Sadie might be going through. Jean Wilson was a narrow-minded woman who took pleasure in finding fault in others. She was most often to be found lurking behind the net curtains, watching the road and looking out for something to disapprove of.

‘I don’t see why you had to go to London in the first place. Couldn’t you have got a solicitor to sort it out?’

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past five years.’

‘I still don’t see why the police want to talk to you.’

‘Because I was there, Mum. I was in his flat on the day he died.’

‘Yes, but it’s not as though you had anything to do with it.’

‘Well, they don’t know that, do they?’

‘And how’s Joel taking it?’

‘What do you mean?’ Sadie asked, although she knew perfectly well what she meant. Her mother lived in a perpetual state of worry that having found a respectable man Sadie would find a way of screwing it up. She had never liked Eddie and had made her feelings clear from the beginning. Looking back, Sadie knew that this had just made him even more attractive to her.

‘It can’t be easy for him, having the police round and all.’

Sadie had sighed softly down the line. ‘It’s not easy for me either.’ And then, before they could start to bicker, she had promised to keep her up-to-date, said her goodbyes and rung off.

The sea made an angry swooshing sound as the waves tumbled in. Sadie thought about her mother. She found her exasperating but tried to be patient, knowing that her life hadn’t been a happy one. Sadie’s father had died before she was two, leaving her mum to bring up a child on her own. It hadn’t been easy for her. Bitterness had always tugged at the edges of her existence, a sense that she’d been hard done by, that she’d been dealt a bad hand of cards. Had she married again, it might have been different, but the opportunity had never come her way.

An elderly man walking his springer spaniel gave Sadie an odd glance as he went past. A few days ago, she’d have thought nothing of it, but now she found herself wondering if he recognised her, if he was thinking: That’s the girl who killed her husband. She inhaled a quick breath of air, the cold sharpness hurting her throat. No, she was getting paranoid. He was probably just musing on what the hell she was doing standing in the freezing cold staring out at the sea.

With that thought in her head, Sadie turned and headed for home. On the way back she went into a newsagent’s and bought a paper. As she turned the corner into Buckingham Road, she half expected to see a panda car parked outside the house. Finding the space occupied by nothing more than Joel’s blue van, she heaved out a sigh of relief.