Glenn Branson thanked her and made some more notes, giving time for this significant information to sink in to everyone. ‘Nice work, Emily,’ he said.

Exton and Potting updated the team on the interview that had taken place earlier, and then Glenn addressed them all. ‘We’ve heard the evidence so far, which points to Eden Paternoster being murdered by her husband. We also now have a motive – in fact, possibly two motives. The first is financial. Would Niall Paternoster stand to gain from his wife’s death? Clearly yes. In the event of her body not being found, he would have to wait seven years for her to be declared legally dead. He could sell the marital home – which would, subject to the provisions in any will, of course – net him a considerable sum. The house is worth, at current values, around £600,000.’

He paused to look at his notes. ‘Of potential interest to us is a discovery from text messages on his phone, as well as the O2 data, that he had a liaison at 5.30 p.m. on Sunday with a person – or persons – unknown. The number appears to be for an unregistered pay-as-you-go, and there was no answer when we tried calling. It is my hypothesis that this as yet unknown person could be his girlfriend. From all the evidence I’ve heard so far – and from having met the man myself, along with the boss – this enquiry has the hallmarks of a marital breakdown due to infidelity.’ He paused again for a moment to make another note, before continuing.

‘From my reading of Niall Paternoster, we have a man with an inferiority complex. This is not helped by his wife earning far more than him. And her owning the marital home. Let’s consider for a moment that his assignation last Sunday might have been with a lover. What does that leave us with?’

Potting raised a hand, but Branson, seeing from his expression that another fatuous remark was coming, ignored it, instead continuing himself. ‘A very real and compelling motive to murder his wife. Her money, his lover, or both.’

He looked around the table. No one stirred.

Then he looked at his watch. ‘We can hold Niall Paternoster in custody until 9.45 a.m. tomorrow, after which we either have to charge him or go for a further court extension or release him on police bail. I am speaking to CPS but, from all I’m hearing, we may have sufficient evidence to charge him with his wife’s murder, if we want to go that route. Does anyone disagree?’

No one did.

50

Tuesday 3 September

Ending the meeting, Branson asked Norman Potting and Jon Exton to come to his office. When the door was closed and they were seated he said, ‘OK, let’s consider our options. As I said, I’m pretty confident with what we have that the CPS would sanction us charging Niall Paternoster with his wife’s murder, despite there being no body – so far. But I’m not sure that would be our best tactical move and, of course, we don’t know the full results from the searches in the forest.’