Eden smiled and raised her glass again. ‘I bloody well have.’

‘You have.’

‘We have!’ Eden replied.

‘I’ll drink to that.’ Again, they clinked glasses and drank.

‘So the police haven’t been in touch with you, other than questioning everyone in the office?’

Rebecca shook her head. ‘Nope, not at all.’

‘What’s the word around the office?’

‘Everyone thinks something must have happened to you. I’ve spread the word, as subtly as I can, that you once confided in me you were worried by Niall’s mood swings. I helped the rumour mill along by letting people know he had been arrested. And I made sure to take along a copy of the Argus, with the headline about his arrest, and leave it in the canteen.’

Eden grinned. ‘Smart.’

Rebecca drained her glass. ‘What was it you said about supper?’

Eden ran a suggestive finger down Rebecca’s chest, and on down, past her stomach. ‘Can it wait?’

Rebecca took her hand and kissed a finger. ‘Later,’ she said. ‘I need sustenance first. Then I’m going to have you all over again.’

They locked eyes. ‘I love you,’ Eden said. ‘I really love you.’

‘And I really love you.’

There was a brief moment of comfortable silence between them. Then Eden said, ‘It’s incredible, isn’t it, when a plan works out?’

90

Saturday 7 September

Polly Sweeney met Rebecca Watkins in the Police HQ reception, a single-storey building by the entrance barrier which was also now the reception for the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service HQ.

Rebecca wore a navy two-piece business suit, ice-white shoes and an even icier expression as she walked alongside her in the morning sunshine, clutching a classy handbag and studying her phone, ignoring Polly’s attempts at small talk as she escorted her up the hill towards the bland, red-brick building housing the Major Crime suite.

She followed Sweeney up the stairs to the second floor into a small, modern room that smelled of fresh paint and new furniture, where she was ushered to one of the four seats at the table.

‘Can I get you anything to drink, Mrs Watkins?’ Polly asked politely.

‘I’m hoping not to be here long enough to need anything,’ she replied tersely, glancing out of the window at the view across a car park. ‘I have to get to a meeting in Croydon for 11 a.m.’ She switched her focus to her phone.

‘We won’t detain you any longer than necessary,’ Polly assured her. ‘I’ll be back in a moment if you’d just like to make yourself comfortable.’

Rebecca looked disdainfully at the plain blue chair. ‘I take it that’s your poor attempt at humour?’

Ignoring the barb, Polly left the room and returned after a couple of minutes with Roy Grace. They sat down opposite her. ‘Thank you for coming in to talk to us, Mrs Watkins,’ Grace said.

‘Did I have any choice?’ she replied. There was frosty humour in her voice but not in her eyes.

‘Just to repeat what I told you last night, we need to interview you to see if you can help in any way with our enquiries into the disappearance of Eden Paternoster,’ Grace said calmly and politely.