Craig looked over her shoulder, and could see his aunt, binoculars pressed to her face, peering out of the bungalow opposite. ‘I can’t believe after all we have been through that she is here stalking us like nothing has changed. Those vile baby clothes too.’

‘What about the retrial?’ Sam asked. ‘Surely they must be thinking about that.’

Craig embraced his wife, pulling her back into the room. ‘The CPS says they don’t have any chance of success without fresh evidence.’ The story of Craig’s Aunt Trish was an open wound with both of them. Her involvement in the notorious Exmoor hit-and-run killing eighteen months ago had consumed both their lives at the time. After the collapse of the trial last summer, Trish had left Devon for good, and bought a bungalow right opposite Craig’s house here in Surrey.

‘I didn’t tell you,’ Sam said. ‘This morning when I was up being sick, I went to the downstairs loo not to disturb you. And her bloody cat was sitting outside the kitchen door, clawing at the old cat flap, trying to be let in.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘No, seriously. It was that ginger and white one, Napoleon. It had left some headless bird on the lawn too.’

‘Revolting creature. I glued the flap shut months ago, so it shouldn’t be able to make any headway.’

‘But it was making a horrible scratching sound, like it was bending the plastic.’

‘I’ll check it, but I’m sure it’s fine. Just try to forget about it.’ He gathered her close in his arms. ‘Perhaps we should sell up and move away from her.’

‘Could we?’ Sam looked up into Craig’s face. She hadn’t dared raise the subject, thinking he’d never want to move again after the hassle last time. ‘I like the house, but—’

‘No, I’ve got to get you away from here. And for the sake of our child too. Can you speak to the estate agents tomorrow if you get a chance?’

‘Of course.’ Sam remembered to turn off the light before she kissed her husband. That way no shadow would be cast on the curtains, and the baleful gaze of Trish Gibson could be kept at bay.

Chapter 8

Thursday

When the custody sergeant at Epsom police station hauled Jason Waddington out of the cells and brought him up to an interview room, he was already spoiling for a fight.

‘What the fuck is this about?’ Waddington yelled, as he was unceremoniously dumped on a fixed chair opposite DCI Gillard and DI Claire Mulholland. He was a rangy individual, mid-thirties, with a crown of spiky dark hair on top of an otherwise shaven head. He had an incipient beard and trendy tortoiseshell spectacles taped up across the bridge of the nose, returned to him after they had been broken in the pub fight. ‘First off, I get smacked in the mouth while having a pint in the Feathers, which was not my fault at all. Next, you hang on to my specs for three days, so I can hardly see. Next thing I know, I’m arrested at home about some killing. It’s fucking scandalous.’