Natalie leant against the door and attempted to straighten her spine. Having sat for the last hour, she needed to release the tension in her neck and shoulders. Mike tapped against the glass. She sidestepped to allow him entry.

‘Hi.’ The voice was cheery but his eyes looked even redder than they had that morning. He tucked his shirt into his trousers. Natalie noticed the band had loosened on them. Mike had probably missed out on lunch too and was surviving on his usual diet of cigarettes and packets of crisps from the machine.

He waved a file. ‘I have information regarding both Charlotte’s and Adam’s phones and their computer. There’s plenty for you to sort through – Adam’s contacts, messages we managed to retrieve, web browsing history and so on. Unsurprisingly, Charlotte was the main Internet user and appears to have spent at least three hours a day online, more if you add in all the time spent on apps. Technicians are still working through all the websites she landed on. So far, they’re mostly fashion-related, research sites, celebrity fashion, popular culture and so on. She’s not been on any dating sites and her phone has no dating apps on it. She has the usual social media applications with little to almost no activity on Twitter and Facebook since 2016. She’s a big Instagram user, which no doubt you already know, and uses WhatsApp and Snapchat. She’s got Uber and numerous shopping apps – even one for choosing the right OPI nail varnish colour – all the usual applications you’d expect to see on a twenty-three-year-old woman’s phone. Adam, however, doesn’t seem to have used the computer much at all. He has an email account he rarely uses. As for applications, he mostly uses a wide range of online games and fitness apps and WhatsApp. Most of the conversations are with his wife.’

‘His mother-in-law said he was texting during the night out at the restaurant.’

‘Techies didn’t find anything for that night. Phone’s as clean as a whistle. There are a few texts to Lee Webster, confirming meet-ups, some to event organisers and other boxing club managers to arrange fixtures, and messages to a couple of men, Daniel Kirkdale and Fahad Baqri, who we believe are sponsors for some of the kids who train at the club. Most messages are to and from Charlotte. Maybe Sheila was mistaken and he was scrolling through some apps or even playing a game that night.’

‘Did you get any impression things were tense between him and Charlotte?’

‘You’ll see from the text message transcripts we printed and the chats we pulled up from WhatsApp, everything appeared to be fine. There seems to be plenty of affection between them.’ He passed the file to Natalie, who opened it and thumbed through the first few sheets, scanning the conversations.

‘They chatted a lot.’

‘No more than a lot of young couples. That’s right, isn’t it, Ian?’

Ian looked across and smiled. He didn’t mention he and Scarlett had split up and neither did Natalie.

‘What about Charlotte?’

‘She sent surprisingly few text messages. Her more recent conversations on WhatsApp, over the last six months, are pretty much limited to Adam, her mother and a friend, Frankie Miller.’

Natalie recognised Frankie as one of Charlotte’s friends. Lucy had tried ringing her but she hadn’t answered. Natalie would try her again as soon as she left Mike.

He continued to speak. ‘Charlotte responds to all comments on her Instagram account and her blog, but she doesn’t appear to be friends with any of her followers, and that is all I have for now. I’ll let you get on.’

‘Cheers. Talk to you later.’

---

‘Francesca Miller, known as Frankie, twenty-five years old, works on She Devil fashion magazine. She’s single and lives with her parents in Samford,’ said Lucy. ‘I managed to get hold of her at last and she’s just arrived at the station.’

‘Good. That’s timely. I wanted to speak to her about recent conversations with Charlotte.’

Both Lucy and Natalie went downstairs to interview the woman who was dressed in exercise gear and a hooded top bearing a sporting logo. She wiped away tears on seeing the officers and hearing Natalie express her condolences.

‘I’m sorry. It’s being here at the station. It makes it seem so real. It was all over social media earlier. I rang her parents but I spoke to a woman who said she was a liaison officer and they couldn’t speak to me. I went to the gym but I wasn’t in the mood for any exercise routine so I sat in the changing rooms and cried. I’m going to miss her so much.’

Although Natalie was sympathetic to the girl’s grief, she needed to crack on with the interview. ‘When did you become friends with Charlotte?’

‘We met at a nightclub in Samford soon after she’d completed a diploma in fashion, so that’d have been in 2014. She found out I was also in the business and we got chatting. She was setting up a fashion blog and wanted some pointers for it. I helped her out. We became good friends after that. Before she married Adam, we hung about regularly then afterwards, we’d hook up at least once a month for a girls’ night or even a weekend together.’

‘What can you tell us about Charlotte that would help us better understand her?’

‘Umm, she had a great sense of style? She wanted to try to break into the fashion industry but wasn’t having any luck, so I suggested she took selfies wearing affordable fashion outfits and put them on Instagram, to get a following and help make a name for herself.

‘I write for a fashion magazine and she gave me some inspirational ideas, and in return, I helped promote her from time to time in the magazine, maybe make mention of her blog, that sort of thing. She was desperate to work for the magazine itself, and she used to pester me to put in a good word for her. She was bored rigid at home and couldn’t find anything to keep her stimulated. That was before Alfie, of course. To be honest, I wondered for a long time if she only hung about with me in the hope I’d get her a position at the magazine.’

‘What sort of person was she?’

‘Crazy, fun, wild, mad as a box of frogs at times.’

‘In what ways?’

‘One time, she decided we should buy the worst clothes we could from a charity shop and wear the outfits out clubbing, so she ended up in a pink velour tracksuit with army boots. On another occasion, she suggested we throw a dart at a map of the UK and we’d visit wherever it landed. It was two in the morning and we hitchhiked to Inverness. Got a lift in a Transit van with a guy from Hungary. And there was the time she insisted we went to watch an up-and-coming rock band performing in Stoke. After the gig, she and I sneaked around the back and blagged our way into their dressing room with fake press passes she’d made. She swanned right up to the bouncer on their door, waving her laminated pass at him, and got us both in. The guys in the band were totally taken in by us and they invited us to stay for drinks with them until their manager showed up and booted us out. Charlotte wasn’t going to be put off. She headed to the hotel after them but I backed out. She rang me the next day to tell me I’d missed out on a great night. That was Charlotte – a party girl.’

‘Didn’t she worry that Adam would find out about this behaviour?’

‘No. He was wrapped up with his boxing club and Charlotte did whatever she fancied. She wasn’t in the least bit worried about him. He knew what she was like. He married her because she wasn’t boring and predictable. He was even a bit turned on by it,’ she explained, seeing the look of confusion on Lucy’s face.

Frankie paused and gave a small sigh. ‘She calmed down once she fell pregnant. She stopped coming out on an evening. We still met up in the daytime and went shopping together. Charlotte loved shopping. It was a drug for her. Even when she was expecting, she’d shop every day. She lost interest in her blog about then. It was a shame because I’d spoken to my editor about her putting together an article on stylish yet affordable outfits for pregnant women. Charlotte was perfect for it and my editor loved the idea. I couldn’t wait to tell her, and when I did, she just shrugged and said she didn’t feel like doing it. Said she was thinking of giving up her blog and her Instagram account. I couldn’t understand why. It was nuts given she’d spent all that time building an online presence to get into the fashion industry and I’d just offered her the break she wanted. I was annoyed about that. I’d stuck my neck out and then had to tell my editor it was a no-go. I hated losing face like that. I challenged her about it and she said something about Adam not being keen on the idea.’

‘Do you know her husband, Adam?’

‘I certainly do. I was at their wedding. I was surprised at how quiet he was. He looks so macho and yet he was like a pussycat around Charlotte.’

‘Did Charlotte discuss him with you?’

‘Before they tied the knot, he was almost her sole topic of conversation. She was obsessed with him. After they married, not so much. That’s normal, right? I have many other married friends who barely mention their other half other than to complain about them and lament the fact they’re not single like me.’

‘Would you say they came across as a happy couple?’

‘Sure. They were okay.’ There was a touch of hesitancy as she spoke.

‘Did Charlotte share any personal secrets with you? Something that might be significant in light of her death? Was she having an affair? Was she worried about anything?’

‘You never knew with Charlotte. She’d come out with an outrageous claim that was almost believable, and then crease up with laughter at my reaction. I nearly always fell for it. Then sometimes, she’d say it was true. For example, she told me she’d been in a porn movie, pre-Adam, but I didn’t believe her on that occasion, so she found a clip of the film online and showed it to me. It was only a cameo appearance, but she’d been telling the truth. Another time she told me she’d murdered her kitten by holding a plastic bag over its head. I was absolutely horrified and then she burst out laughing at my shocked reaction and told me she was only kidding.

‘We met up for lunchtime cocktails about a month ago. She really wasn’t herself. I thought she was tired, what with having a young baby, but it was more than that. She downed her first cocktail very quickly and ordered another immediately. I asked if she was okay and she looked me in the eye and told me she’d been having terrible thoughts about killing her son. He’d been crying all day and night and by the second day, she’d got so annoyed and was so tired of his screaming she’d nearly smothered him. She was completely shaken up. Said she’d terrified herself for even thinking such a thing and that she wasn’t fit to be a mother. She began crying, really crying. I hugged her and told her she needed some rest and to let Adam or her mum look after the baby. She agreed, drank the second cocktail and seemed to get over it. She told me I was a good friend and she hadn’t got many of those. Then she asked if I could keep a major secret. When I asked her what it was, she said Adam wasn’t Alfie’s father then she caught sight of the look on my face and doubled over laughing. She was winding me up again. But now, I’m not so sure. For a minute, she looked really serious and worried. I think she really might have been telling the truth.’

---

Natalie got off the phone to Mike, who’d helped confirm what they’d just learnt from Frankie. She rested her palms against the desk and spoke out. ‘Forensics have found Alfie’s personal health guide record, or red book, in the nursery.’ Natalie explained what it was. She’d had one for both of her children and had recorded their development as they’d grown. ‘Alfie’s blood type is B-positive while Charlotte’s is A-positive. Mike also checked Adam’s blood, which is O-positive. He says while blood groups can be complicated to understand, and children can have a different blood group to their parents, it’s extremely unlikely that two parents in these two blood groups would produce a child whose blood group was not either A- or O-positive. Bearing that in mind, he’s running a paternity DNA test on Adam, who he’s pretty certain is not Alfie’s father.’

Murray let out a low whistle. ‘I wonder if Adam knew he wasn’t the baby’s father. Maybe that’s what Charlotte wanted to speak to Adam about. Her mother said she was drinking too much and had something to tell him.’

‘Would she have waited this amount of time before telling him?’ Natalie asked. ‘Surely, she’d have told him before now, or not at all? Why now?’

‘She was being pressured into telling him,’ Murray offered.

‘Possibly so, or she’d decided she’d had enough of hiding the truth from him,’ Lucy said.

Natalie gave a light shrug. ‘We’ll have to ask him. Sheila was certain her daughter wouldn’t cheat on her husband, but it appears she was wrong because not only was Charlotte involved with Rob Cooke, she might have had an affair before that. Frankie couldn’t give us any further details on who might be Alfie’s father, but maybe Charlotte’s other friends can. If Adam isn’t Alfie’s father, we need to establish who is.’

Ian rubbed his eyes and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The team had been at it solidly since first thing and with hardly any sleep the night before.

‘Right, that’s it. Time to call it a day.’ Natalie stood up. ‘Get some rest and we’ll reconvene at nine a.m. tomorrow.’

‘I can hang back a while and check through more CCTV footage,’ said Ian.

Natalie shook her head. ‘It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re too tired. Give it a break and go home.’

Ian lifted his jacket from his chair and put in on. As he did so, Murray ambled over to him and whispered, ‘Arse-licker.’ Ian flipped him a middle finger.

Natalie, occupied with putting away the files, missed the exchange between the men. By the time she was ready to leave, only Lucy was in the office.

‘What did you make of Frankie’s revelation?’ asked Lucy.

‘That Adam isn’t Alfie’s father?’

‘No. That she thought about killing her child.’

‘She was just frazzled. I wouldn’t read anything more into it than that. When Josh was two years old, he contracted a virus and cried non-stop. He wouldn’t sleep; he wouldn’t eat. He just screamed. There were moments when I wished he’d just pack it in. For about a week, I was completely sleep-deprived. It was bloody torture.’

‘Yes, but you didn’t think about killing your son, did you?’

‘She probably only said that in the heat of the moment or she wanted to shock her friend. You heard what Frankie said. Charlotte liked to get a rise out of people. Don’t focus on it. Adam said Charlotte was an attentive mother. She rushed off to Alfie whenever he woke up and cried. She sang him lullabies every night, for goodness’ sake. It’s unlikely she’d have harmed him.’ Natalie didn’t want to discuss it any more. Alfie was alive. Charlotte wasn’t. This bore little relevance to the case.

Lucy buttoned up her jacket and marched out, bag slung over her shoulder. Natalie stood by the door and watched her retreating form. Lucy was overly anxious because of Bethany’s pregnancy. The baby would be here in a few months and she was clearly worried about how she’d feel or react once it arrived. Tomorrow she’d be in a different frame of mind. Natalie thought about her own children. No, she’d never once wished them ill. Charlotte probably hadn’t either. She must have been terrified somebody was going to harm her baby. She pulled on her coat and turned out the light, all the while thinking about what she’d unearthed. If it transpired Adam wasn’t Alfie’s father, then who was, and had they murdered Charlotte?