‘Really? You think you have some?’ Grace replied.

His colleague shook his head. He shot a glance at Alexander, who was smiling, then back at Grace. ‘I honestly don’t know why I like you.’

‘Could it be my natural charm?’

95

Sunday 8 September

The police search officers had finished at the end of last week, the crime scene tape had been removed from the front of the house and Niall Paternoster had been allowed to go back inside his home. Although, to his chagrin, on searching round, he’d discovered the police had carted away almost every scrap of paperwork, and he had no idea when his laptop would be returned.

Now, he sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee with milk that was almost on the turn and scanning through the Argus for any mention of the mystery of his missing wife. But, it seemed, the news had already moved on. Fatboy Slim had a whole page, publicizing a free concert he was giving on Saturday night on the seafront. The headline story was a gruesome murder, dismembered remains found in a wheelie bin. There was an article on the superstar blogger Zoella. A family were concerned about the wife’s missing eighty-four-year-old father, who had dementia and hadn’t been seen in four days.

Nothing about Eden or himself.

If she was alive, just where the hell was she? What game was she playing? And, more to the point, why?

Had she had an accident?

Then a wilder possibility came into his mind as he thought suddenly about the Hitchcock film Psycho, which they both loved and had seen several times. The irony of Janet Leigh embezzling money and disappearing, only to end up staying at the Bates Motel and being murdered by Norman Bates. Could something like that have happened to her?

It was a crazy idea, but nothing else made any bloody sense. If she’d stayed away for a night, as she’d done before when they’d rowed, that was one thing. But this many nights? That was very different. Had she somehow discovered his affair with Rebecca? But if so, surely she would have confronted him and not simply disappeared? Or was fitting him up – as she clearly had from all the police had told him – her nasty idea of revenge?

In six hours’ time he was due to head over to Mark Tuckwell’s and do a long stint in the cab, first collecting a couple flying in from Tenerife to Gatwick and taking them to their home near St Leonards. Then up to Heathrow Airport to pick up a Mr and Mrs O’Connor arriving from Munich. After dropping them home, to Tunbridge Wells, he would head back to Brighton and spend the rest of the night picking up the detritus of weekend revellers blowing their latest wage packet on booze and drugs. All the time hoping none of them would throw up in the cab or do a runner.

Then tomorrow, Rebecca’s hubby was off to France for a golfing holiday. They would have a whole week together. Happy days!