Branson said, ‘I’ll be running my thoughts past the boss later to make sure he’s up to speed and on board. I want to nail this. If Paternoster has somehow managed to disappear his wife’s body, we’ll need to establish a motive for murder that’s a bit stronger than an argument over cat litter. An affair would be a pretty good one.’

‘I’ve never had to murder any of my exes,’ Potting said.

‘Really, Norman?’ Branson said. ‘How come?’

‘Because,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘they always dumped me first.’

51

Tuesday 3 September

As soon as Exton and Potting had left his office, Branson called Roy Grace and updated him. He told him interviews with Paternoster would continue that evening and again in the morning, and they would be challenging him on the evidence they had established. Then he told him of the plan to release Niall Paternoster in the morning, assuming no remains of his wife were found before then, and to make a public appeal via a press conference for information on Eden.

‘I’d like you to stand in for me and take that conference, Glenn.’

‘Of course, boss.’

‘You’ll have to update ACC Pewe – with his ego he’ll probably want to muscle in and get his mugshot in the Argus and the Brighton and Hove Independent, and on Latest TV and all the other news.’

‘I can handle him.’

‘I know you can.’

There was a brief moment of silence, then Branson said, ‘Just know we’re all here for you. Especially me. If you want to bell me any time, day or night, that’s fine, yeah?’

Grace was too emotional to reply.

Cleo had gone home to pack an overnight bag for them both to sleep here in the hospital. As he sat alone in the Relatives’ Room, along with everything else he was dealing with right now, he was thinking of that hapless expression on poor Norman Potting’s face yesterday. For much of the time that he’d known him, with his portly figure and terrible comb-over – before he’d gone for a more modern shaven head – Norman had to have been one of the world’s most unlikely – and most unsuccessful – philanderers. And yet the man, who was still one of the best detectives Grace had ever encountered, had somehow charmed one of the brightest members of his team, and had been on the verge of marrying her before her tragic death trying to save a little girl from a fire.

He felt the tugging in his heart for Bruno. The terrible anxiety eating away at his insides like acid. With his brain roiling with fear for the boy, he was on autopilot, barely able to concentrate.

In need of some air, he left the hospital, grateful for the fresh evening breeze, even if it was laced with traffic fumes. He took a short stroll and sat for a while on a low wall. When he went back inside, he paused to squirt sanitizer on his hands, then followed behind a doctor in scrubs towards the Intensive Care Unit.