The video footage was playing on Lucy’s monitor when Natalie rushed into the office. Two individuals in dark clothing as the neighbour, Margaret Callaghan, had described, ran past the camera, which was directly aimed at the entrance to the property’s drive. One turned his head and shouted something to his companion, allowing a brief glimpse of his face. He was wielding a length of steel pipe in his left hand. Natalie checked the time on the digital display at the top left of the screen. The pair had passed the house in the direction of the road at 11.21 p.m.

‘Can we make that image clearer?’ asked Natalie.

‘I’ll see if I can enhance it,’ Lucy replied. She fiddled with the control buttons, clicking on various sliding tools. Natalie watched as the face darkened, lightened and grew slightly. The suspect appeared to have dark eyes, razor-sharp cheekbones and an aquiline nose. ‘This is the best I can do. I can’t get it any clearer.’

‘It’s not much to go on, is it? Print it off all the same. We’ll see if Adam can identify him.’

‘Can’t get vision on his mate at all. Could be anyone. Just shots of his back.’ Lucy zoomed in and out of various stills to no avail.

‘We’ll work with the slightly sharper image. It’s not great but somebody might recognise them.’

‘I’ll get some copies of it run off,’ said Lucy.

‘I was also thinking about how to handle Adam and Lee. Adam isn’t cooperating. He’s definitely covering up something from Friday night, even if it isn’t his wife’s murder. The technicians were positive his phone was clean. It all seems a bit too tidy, too organised. Sheila Hill claimed he was texting throughout the meal and Charlotte reprimanded him for it, yet there was nothing on his phone. I suspect he might own a second phone – a burner phone.’

Lucy looked up, her head cocked to one side. Natalie continued.

‘He was really keen to get away from his house and spend the night at his office rather than at a hotel or with his so-called friend Lee. He might have wanted to use the time to arrange an alibi and the only way he could have done that was by using a phone. Or a computer,’ she added.

‘He might have sorted out his alibi with Lee and Vitor beforehand and actually killed Charlotte.’

Natalie nodded. ‘That’s true but he keeps denying murdering her and saying he’s innocent. If that’s the case, he can only have organised it after he discovered Charlotte. There was nothing on his phone to indicate he’d got in touch with anyone and it was confiscated as soon as the forensic team arrived, leaving him with no way of contacting anyone. My gut says he rang Lee or Vitor from his office. I’m requesting a search warrant for the premises. See if we can flush something out there. He and Lee can stew for a while longer.’

---

The boxing club was simply called ‘Adam’s’. Set on a run-down, disused, small industrial park, at first sight it appeared to be no more than a warehouse, but once inside, it proved to be a vast space containing a full-sized boxing ring and, behind that, workout stations: free-standing weights stacked on racks, a multigym machine for working groups of muscles, punch bags hanging from hooks fitted into wooden crossbeams, three huge plastic boxes containing skipping ropes, boxing gloves and pads, and next to them a pile of worn floor mats. It was a basic gym, lacking in sophisticated equipment. A pungent smell of sweat hung in the stuffy atmosphere. Natalie wrinkled her nose at it.

‘Reckon Adam or somebody’s been training recently. He could do with some air con,’ said Murray, waving a hand in front of his nose. ‘I’ve trained in some affordable gyms in my time, but this is pretty crude by comparison. A spit and sawdust gym.’ He examined one of the faded, ripped padded seats on the multigym. ‘He didn’t invest a lot of money in this. The equipment is second-hand.’

‘He’s running a free gym for juveniles and adults on low income who can’t afford to join a club or gym. I don’t suppose he wants to make it too five-star.’

‘Nah, this is tatty stuff. I don’t think he has much income to support it.’

They moved through a door past a toilet and shower, tiled floor to ceiling and in need of a deep clean.

‘Is grubby-white an actual tile colour?’ Murray quipped. ‘Christ, this is a far cry from his house, isn’t it?’

Natalie agreed. The place was filthy and obviously in need of money for improvements. She left the room and tried a door which opened into a long, narrow room. The stale smell was strongest here. Several posters were stuck on the magnolia walls in an attempt to brighten them. Each advertised a boxing match, Adam’s name emblazoned on them, and in two of them, a photo of the man himself, gloves up, adopting an aggressive pose, dark eyes narrowed for the camera. On the left stood an empty wooden desk and to the right, an open sofa bed, bedding left in a heap, as if somebody had just got up. There was a cupboard opposite the bed, door slightly ajar, inside which hung training kit: jogging bottoms, zip-ups and vests. A pair of trainers had been left beside it. Natalie looked around. There was nothing else. She patted the pockets of the jackets but they were empty; lifted the trainers and tipped them upside down, but again nothing was hidden inside them. Murray rifled through the bedding, a scowl on his face.

The desk caught her eye. It had only three drawers. She pulled open the top one and found it stuffed with receipts and a notebook. She rummaged through it. It was Adam’s attempt to keep track of expenditure. Murray was right. There wasn’t a great deal of income. The second drawer contained some fitness magazines and the bottom drawer a set of glasses and a half-drunk bottle of vodka.

‘Nothing. I was sure he’d have another mobile or even some other equipment to connect to the Internet,’ said Natalie, slamming the drawer shut.

As she did so, she remembered the other desk in his games room at their house. He’d hidden a key in it. Would he? She opened the top drawer again and, kneeling down, felt along its top edge. Her fingers lighted on an object stuck to the underside. Teasing the tape, she released it.

‘Eureka,’ she said, a smile creeping across her face.

---

‘We’d like to talk to you again about your whereabouts on Friday evening between ten and eleven,’ said Natalie, breezily. Ian sat beside her next to the recording device. ‘Before we do so, I’m offering you the chance to contact a lawyer.’

‘I don’t want a lawyer. I haven’t done anything wrong,’ Adam insisted.

‘Fair enough. Let’s start with this.’ She pushed a plastic bag containing the mobile phone towards him.

Ian explained what was happening for the recording. ‘DI Ward is showing Adam Brannon an iPhone 6S in black.’

‘I don’t know what you expect me to say.’

‘Is this your phone?’

‘Could be. The forensic team took mine away so I don’t know if that’s it or not. They all look very similar.’

‘This particular phone was not the one you handed to the police. That was, in fact, this phone.’

‘DI Ward is showing Mr Brannon another iPhone 6S in black.’

‘We found this one taped to the underside of a drawer in the desk in the office of your boxing club.’ She tapped the relevant phone with her forefinger.

The muscles in Adam’s jaw flexed.

‘We’ve been through your records: contacts, messages and so on. It appears you’ve been having an affair with someone called Sugar, Mr Brannon. Would you like to make any comment?’

‘No.’

‘You may have thought in deleting any messages we wouldn’t be able to find them. Unfortunately for you, we have a dedicated and highly trained team of technical staff who’ve resurrected all your recent ones.’ She gave him a tight smile, which he ignored.

‘I see from your texts that you were having a conversation with your lover while at dinner with your wife and in-laws. Quite a raunchy conversation at that.’ Natalie selected a piece of paper from an open manila file in front of her. She cleared her throat and read, ‘First message received at eight p.m. “Bored off my tits. Shall I send you a photo of them?” Your response: “If you do, I’ll get a hard on and scare my MIL!” Another message received ten minutes later: “I’ll send a photo of me licking an ice cream then. Yum.” “Fuck. The thought of your mouth on my cock is making me squirm.” Want me to continue?’

‘I know what the text messages said. You have no right to read them or take my phone.’

‘Mr Brannon, I have every right. Charlotte was murdered on Friday night after you dropped her off and left her at your home. I don’t especially care about your affair, or relationship with this person, but the fact you were, or still are, involved in one gives rise to concern. You professed to love your wife; that you and her “were sound”, yet during a family celebratory meal, while sat with her and other family members, you exchanged several suggestive messages with somebody else by the name of Sugar. Once again, it’s helping to paint a picture for us: of a man who actually didn’t care for his wife, or her family; who wanted to spend time with his mistress. If you add into that mix the fact your wife was wealthy and you, Mr Brannon, will undoubtedly inherit that wealth, I’m afraid we are being led inextricably to one conclusion alone, and that is that you were responsible for her murder.’

Natalie let her words sink in. Adam’s eyes flitted around the room. He was becoming uncomfortable. Natalie finally had him against the ropes.

‘And as you know, Mr Brannon, there were other text messages on that phone: messages to Lee Webster, sent in the early hours of Saturday morning, asking him to procure an alibi for you for Friday night. Begging him to sort out somebody else who was reliable and stating you’d pay that person five hundred pounds to say he’d seen you before eleven p.m. Lee’s response was that he’d convinced the barman at the White Horse, Vitor Lopes, to testify you’d been in the pub all that time. Have you anything to say about that?’

‘No.’

Natalie maintained the smile and nodded slowly. ‘We have Lee Webster in the other interview room and he confessed a short while ago.’

‘He wouldn’t.’

‘He had no choice. Not in light of what was on that phone – your phone. His own has been taken away and is currently being examined, and soon we’ll have even more evidence pointing at the both of you. Now might be a good time to ask for a lawyer.’

‘I don’t want one.’

‘I’d get one if I were you, unless you can tell me who was sending you racy messages and explain where you really were on Friday night before you went home and found your wife dead.’

Adam remained silent. Natalie only had one card left to play and she hoped her timing was right. She needed Adam to crack. She waited a few moments, all the while studying his face before speaking.

‘New evidence has come to light. Evidence regarding Alfie.’

He flinched immediately. He understood what she was alluding to.

His thick fingers knotted together, knuckles whitening. ‘I know,’ he said quietly.

‘Know what?’

‘Alfie isn’t mine.’

‘That’s a big admission and one that casts further doubts on your innocence. You understand that, don’t you?’

‘I knew he wasn’t mine but I loved him.’

‘Come, come, Mr Brannon. That’s most unlikely. How could you love him when every time you looked at him, you’d be reminded your wife cheated on you?’

‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘Charlotte slept with another man. She fell pregnant by somebody else and you just held up your hands and said it was okay? I hardly think so.’

His eyes glowed. ‘You understand nothing. When Charlotte told me we were having a baby, I was stoked. Really overjoyed. I watched as her belly swelled and I grew to love him even before he was born. I was at his birth. The midwife put him in my arms first. He was so tiny, so bloody tiny, but perfect, you know? And he opened his eyes and looked straight at me, and in that instant, something exploded in me like my heart was a huge, happy firework. I’d only ever loved Charlotte and now there was this little man who was looking at me and relying on me. I was his protector. I was his world. You get that? Me. Adam. I was that boy’s daddy and I made a promise to him that day I’d never let anyone hurt him like I was hurt, and I’d never let him get into any trouble, and I’d be there for him through absolutely everything, no matter what.’

Sheila Hill knew Charlotte had something to tell Adam but if he already knew Alfie wasn’t his baby, what else could it have been? Natalie wondered what it might have been. The actual name of the father perhaps or that she’d been sleeping with Rob?

He paused, shaking with emotion. ‘Charlotte told me the truth two months after he was born. I was complaining about her pushing me away from him and not letting me help out. She sat me down and she told me I wasn’t the boy’s biological father but I was his real daddy.’

‘And you were okay about that?’

‘See, you still don’t get it, do you? No, I wasn’t okay about it. Of course I wasn’t okay about it. She’d shagged some bloke and it was his kid I was trying to rock to sleep and whose fingers I was holding. But Charlotte, she was so repentant. She didn’t even know who the guy was. It had been a blur. She’d been out of her head on drugs at the time. You bet I was furious with her and all the time she kept saying she was sorry, she didn’t know why she’d done it and she loved only me. It was a shit time. I was going to leave her. I was going to leave them both but when it came to it, I couldn’t. I’d made a promise to Alfie. It felt like he was my son. Nothing had really changed between him and me. He still needed me to look out for him and guide him. If I left him, I’d be doing what my dad did to me. I’d be turning my back on him and I couldn’t do that.’

‘And Charlotte, how did you feel about her after this revelation?’

‘Charlotte was full of spirit and fight and determination. She was wild when I met her. She was Charlotte and I married her for better or worse. I knew in my heart I’d always expected her to do something crazy and she had, but she loved me and I needed her. I couldn’t leave her.’

‘Yet you are having an affair.’

‘It’s sex. That’s all. I figured Charlotte owed me some fun time. Plenty of men have affairs and still love their wives. I loved her and I still love Alfie. When I get my head straight, I’ll look after him on my own. I’ll be his father. I don’t want him to have a life like I had. I’ll work it out somehow. I genuinely didn’t hold any of it against Charlotte.’

‘That’s not how it will look to a jury. They’ll assume you had a blazing row with Charlotte and attacked her. There are witnesses who will testify you didn’t help out with him and you weren’t bonding with him. She not only had one affair and a child by that man but she was seeing another man behind your back. You really are stuck between a rock and a hard place unless you come clean. Tell us where you were the night she died.’

Adam ran his tongue across dry lips. ‘Was Charlotte really seeing another bloke?’

‘Someone has come forward, yes.’

‘Fuck. Who is he?’

‘It’s not relevant.’

‘It is to me. Oh, man, I can’t believe this shit. I thought we were over that. She said she only loved me and would never look at anyone again. How the fuck could she do that?’ He tipped his head back and sighed heavily. ‘Okay. I’ll tell you, but she absolutely had nothing to do with what happened to Charlotte. I want to make that clear. You mustn’t go after her.’

‘I’m waiting.’ Natalie sat back in her seat and folded her arms.

‘Inge. I’ve been seeing Inge Redfern, our babysitter.’