‘So if anything happened to her, what would happen to her money?’ Potting continued.

‘I imagine it would come to me. We did make wills after we married and left things to each other. And I—’

Suddenly he faltered, his voice cracking. Tears trickled down his face. ‘You don’t want to believe me, do you? You think I’ve done something to Eden and I’m covering it up. I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know what’s happened or where she is. You must believe me. I’m completely lost.’

He buried his face in his hands.

Potting and Exton sat still. Then Exton asked the solicitor, ‘Would your client like a short break?’

Paternoster shook his head. ‘No, I’m fine, let’s get this over with.’

Potting, his tone a little gentler, said, ‘Niall, we want to find out what has happened to Eden as well, that’s why we are asking all these questions. You’re telling us that apart from the occasional husband-and-wife disagreement your relationship was good. We have a number of detectives working on trying to find Eden and it’s important you tell us the truth and hold nothing back. Everything you’ve told us about what the two of you were doing last week is correct?’

‘Yes, it is.’

After several more minutes of questioning, during which Niall Paternoster continued to maintain that he was completely baffled by Eden’s disappearance, Potting fell silent for a moment. ‘All right, Niall, we will be speaking to our colleagues to ascertain what they have found out from their enquiries and we will then conduct a further interview with you later today.’

‘Third interview with Niall Paternoster terminated at 3.37 p.m.,’ Exton announced.

As Niall Paternoster was returned to his cell, Potting and Exton joined DC Butler for a debrief. All three of them agreed they believed strongly Paternoster was lying to them, and he was hiding the truth of what had really happened.

46

Tuesday 3 September

The line of twenty-odd volunteers of the Sussex Community Search Team, wearing orange-and-yellow high-viz tabards over their summer rambling gear, were stretched out to the right and left of Rodney Allbright. The majority, like himself, were well past retirement age, which gave them the freedom to be called out at a moment’s notice. Each had a whistle hung from a cord around their neck.

Oh yes, such fun, and with such valuable purpose, Allbright thought, as he strode in his trusty hiking boots through the wet undergrowth. He loved these callouts, which happened every few weeks.

Ever since his retirement, over ten years ago now, from the Brighton firm of chartered accountants, Hartley Fowler, where he had spent his entire working life, he now had a new purpose as a member of the Sussex Community Search Team. A purpose he had badly needed after his wife, Maureen, with whom he’d planned so many things to enjoy in his retirement, had suddenly passed away from a massive stroke five years ago.

Along with his fellow volunteers, supervised by two Sussex police officers, he had great satisfaction in being part of a team that was readily willing to do anything, from trying to find a runaway child or a sufferer from dementia who had wandered from his or her home and not been seen by a distraught spouse for several days, to – like now – searching for the remains of a woman who was, according to the briefing, missing, presumed murdered.