Glenn put his huge hand around Roy’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Just know I’m here for you any time you want to talk. If you’d rather go back to the hospital now, to be with him, please do that.’

‘I appreciate it, thanks, but I’m coming with you to see this interview. It’s helpful for me to be away from the hospital at the moment . . . we all cope differently.’

As they walked on, around a corner, they saw Norman Potting and Jon Exton standing, conferring, outside the interview room. The door was closed.

‘Sir, chief,’ Potting said, acknowledging them. Exton turned and saw them, too.

‘All set?’ Grace asked quietly.

Exton jerked his head towards the door. ‘Paternoster’s in there with his brief, boss,’ he replied, equally quietly.

Somehow mustering a smile, Grace said, ‘Remember, confirm the lie then hit with the truth.’

‘Absolutely, chief,’ Potting said. He gave a thin smile back.

Two minutes later, Grace and Branson sat next to each other in the windowless cubicle adjoining the interview room, watching the CCTV monitor on the wall.

Inside the room they saw Niall Paternoster and his solicitor on one side of the table, and Exton and Potting on the opposite side. Paternoster, with two days’ growth of stubble, looked pallid from lack of sleep.

‘The time is 8.17, Wednesday, September the fourth,’ Exton announced. ‘DS Exton and DS Potting interviewing Niall Paternoster in the presence of his solicitor, Joseph Rattigan. This interview is being recorded onto a secure digital network.’

They all introduced themselves. Exton recapped on the interview from the previous evening and then he sat back. The two detectives looked at Niall for a few seconds. ‘Is there anything you’d like to add to last night?’ Potting asked.

‘I’ve got no comment to make.’

‘According to your phone, on Sunday the first at 5.30 p.m. you met up with someone. Who was that person? Your girlfriend?’ Potting asked.

Niall: ‘No comment.’

‘Your phone and recent phone records have been examined by our investigation team,’ Potting continued. ‘At 3.23 p.m. on Sunday afternoon a text was sent from your phone, the hard copy of which I have here.’

Joseph Rattigan indicated he wanted to see it, and Potting passed it across to him. Immediately an increasingly agitated Niall, his face flushed, leaned over to look at it. Then he whispered to his solicitor, who nodded back.

‘On the advice of my solicitor I have no comment to make.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his seat; his face was pale and he was looking extremely anxious.

‘Niall, could the reason you did not see your wife perhaps be because you were preoccupied with your mobile phone, sending a text?’ Potting quizzed.

Paternoster jerked as if he’d had a small electric shock.

The solicitor frowned. This was clearly news to him. ‘Does this have anything to do with Mrs Paternoster’s disappearance?’ He looked at each detective in turn.

Potting replied, ‘Of course it does, we are trying to establish what your client was doing on Sunday afternoon when he alleges his wife went missing.’ He turned to address Niall. ‘It appears to me that you were communicating by text on at least two occasions on Sunday afternoon and chose, when you gave your account, not to tell us. Who is that person you were communicating with?’