Walking down the corridor, he thought about the home that Toni and Gerald had shared; there was something staged about it, something that didn’t sit right. He tried to remember what it was that had caught his eye on the mantelpiece, and suddenly remembered it was the wedding photo of Gerald and Toni. There was nothing particularly unusual about the picture, except that the groom was beaming, and the bride looked distracted. In the photograph, Gerald had his eyes glued on his new bride, and Toni was looking at something else out of shot. Something about her expression troubled Barrett – he’d thought she looked angry – and it struck him as odd that they would chose that picture to display in the house as a memory of their special day.

There was something odd about their marriage, Barrett knew it. Now all he had to do was work out what it was, and discover if it was linked to her murder.

Opening the doors to the investigation room, Barrett was greeted by a flurry of activity.

‘Chief Inspector?’ a female colleague called and waved at him from her desk, while holding a phone to her ear. ‘I think you are going to want to hear this.’

4

7.25pm 22 June

Gerald felt drained; he still couldn’t absorb what had happened. Without seeing her, it didn’t feel real. Perhaps they had made a mistake. He knew the police were checking Toni’s dental records and that it would be confirmed, or not, in a short amount of time.

Back at his house, he sat helplessly on the sofa while police officers combed the house for anything they thought would help with their investigation. He couldn’t ignore the fact that they were certain it was Toni they had found in the woods. His head was pounding and the world was beginning to spin, so he took himself into the bedroom he once shared with his wife.

Light was streaming in through the net curtain, making a floral pattern on the floor. On the wall, opposite the bed, stood Toni’s dressing table. He went and sat where she had sat the previous morning. He’d always liked to watch her do her make-up, even though she found it irritating: ‘Go and do something useful’, she would snap, as she rubbed the thick orange-brown foundation into her pitted skin. As always, Gerald would do as he was told.

With a sigh, he picked up her perfume bottle and held his nose to the nozzle. He closed his eyes and pictured his wife as she flounced out of the garden, leaving a trail of her scent behind her, after saying some vicious things to him. That was the last time he’d seen her alive.