‘So the possibility is there. He definitely had the opportunity. In fact, you practically gave him free rein, if you showed so little interest in his movements. Are you really telling me that you never once had the slightest suspicion about those days away here and there, the trips he took to Paris . . . ?’

‘I wouldn’t be human if it hadn’t crossed my mind.’

‘Of course. And I imagine you must have checked up on him at some time?’

The woman sighed and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I can’t deny it, I suppose.’

‘What made you think your husband might be in trouble?’

‘Patrick? Anyone with such a short fuse was bound to end up in trouble one day.’

‘And he did.’

‘It seems so.’

Fry let a few moments pass in silence as she read her notes, allowing Deborah Rawson to wonder what question was coming next.

‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘we’ve talked to Naomi Widdowson and Adrian Tarrant this afternoon. They’ve told us about the arrangement you had with them.’

Now it was Deborah’s turn to be silent. Fry could see the mental calculation going on. It was written all over her face. Deborah was running a few scenarios through her head, deciding how much Fry knew, what the best response would be, deciding on the least incriminating thing to say. The woman wasn’t a very good actress.

‘They were only supposed to give Patrick a scare,’ she said finally. ‘To teach him a lesson. There was never any intention of hurting him.’

But Fry shook her head at that. ‘No, Mrs Rawson, that won’t do. I know all about the payment you made to Adrian Tarrant. Three thousand pounds. That wasn’t just to teach your husband a lesson. That money was to make sure he died.’

Chapter Thirty-five

THE EDENDALE ROC post had been located in a field off a back lane running between Edendale and Calver. It didn’t look much on the surface. A square concrete structure about three feet high, green paint flaking from its surface. A few feet away stood a smaller ventilation turret with a louvred opening. And there were a few smaller protrusions here and there, whose purpose wasn’t clear. Cooper staggered as his foot hit something like a green steel mushroom lurking in the rough grass.

‘That’s the top of the blast pipe for the bomb power indicator,’ said Headon. ‘A lot of people trip over that.’

‘Thanks.’

‘These bunkers are still quite common – there were over fifteen hundred of them originally, all over the country, built in the late fifties and early sixties. When we were stood down in 1991, most of them were just abandoned, and a lot have been demolished. You’d never know some of them were there. Often, the only evidence you’ll see of an underground post is a couple of redundant telegraph poles on a field boundary.’