The inspector sat back and tapped his index finger on the arm of the chair. Then, as if making a decision, he leaned forward again. ‘We are aware that Mr Chatwell has been suspended. The CEO was cagey as to why, but we are aware of your husband’s gambling problem.’ His eyes softened. ‘We’ve no proof, but we assume the two are linked.’

There was a question in his words. Molly wished she knew the answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, turning to glare at Carstairs who’d given a grunt of disbelief. ‘I didn’t know Jack was suspended until yesterday; I didn’t know about his gambling and certainly didn’t know the extent of it…’ She broke off, aware she was telling the police what they wanted to know.

‘The extent of it?’ Fanshawe prompted. ‘And what is that?’

Her eyes watered as she stared at him. What did it matter now? It was all going to come out. A great big unholy mess. ‘The credit cards are maxed out. We owe about 40K on those and he has remortgaged the house for a quarter of a million. He hasn’t paid the last couple of months so we’ve arrears of 6K.’

‘And you didn’t know?’

She shook her head, then held her hands up. ‘Oh, don’t worry, he didn’t forge the documents. He was too clever, and I was too stupid. I signed them thinking they were something else.’

‘Do you have life insurance?’ Carstairs’ cold, gravelly voice startled her. She’d almost succeeded in forgetting he was there.

‘Of course,’ she said, then shook her head vehemently as she turned to look at him. ‘No, no you’re not going down that road. There’s no way Jack would have tried to kill me. That’s ridiculous. That’s not the kind of people we are.’ She turned back to Fanshawe, still shaking her head. ‘You don’t really think he’s involved, do you?’ She couldn’t read his expression and, stretching a hand towards him, she repeated, ‘Do you?’

He looked down at her hand before saying slowly, ‘We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t look at every angle.’

It was a politician’s answer. Molly felt a solid lump of fear lodge in her throat. ‘That’s crazy,’ she said, her voice trembling. Meeting the detective’s eyes, she saw doubt in them, and something else, sympathy. ‘Jack loves me, he’d never harm me.’ She refused to lower her eyes. Despite his gambling, despite his drunken behaviour the previous night, she knew the man she married would never hurt her. Or was she fooling herself? After all, she’d been doing a lot of that recently.

‘We’re keeping every avenue of investigation open,’ Fanshawe said. ‘We would like to speak to Mr Chatwell, however. Do you know where we could find him?’