The Whole Truth by Hunter, Cara (best books to read for women .TXT) 📕

‘Did you see or contact Ms Smith after that meeting?’ he says.

Cleland’s flush deepens. ‘I may have sent her an email – in the heat of the moment. You know how it is –’

‘So that’s a yes?’

Cleland nods.

‘Did you go to the office? Try to talk to her in any way?’

‘No. Absolutely not.’

‘I spoke to a couple of Ms Smith’s colleagues earlier, and they said you were seen outside the offices a few days after your last meeting.’ He flicks back through his notes. ‘Around five p.m. on June 25th, to be precise.’

Cleland blinks a couple of times. ‘I was shopping. There’s a halfway-decent wine merchant’s a few doors further down.’

Asante nods. ‘So there’ll be a record? At the store?’

‘No. I didn’t actually buy anything. Not on that occasion.’

Asante makes a note, and takes his time doing it.

‘So you weren’t hoping to see Ms Smith? Perhaps try to catch her when she left the office at the end of the day?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Or perhaps you thought it would be more discreet to go round to her house? See if you could persuade her to change her mind?’

‘Of course not,’ he blusters. ‘For a start, I’ve no bloody idea where she lives.’

The woman sits forward. ‘And in any case, Hugh would never –’

‘I told you,’ says Cleland, not looking at her, ‘let me handle this.’

‘Where were you last night, Mr Cleland?’

Cleland opens his mouth, then closes it again. ‘Last night?’

Asante nods, pen poised.

Cleland scratches the back of his neck. The eye contact has gone. ‘I went for a run.’

‘That’s right,’ says his wife. ‘You went out in the car.’

Asante frowns. ‘I thought you said you went for a run.’

‘I did,’ says Cleland. ‘I run at Shotover.’

Asante makes a note, his face thoughtful. Shotover must be five or six miles from here, which makes it an odd choice, given Cleland has the University Parks practically on his doorstep and doesn’t look like he’d manage much more than a sedate circuit even of that. But proximity might have had nothing to do with it: Shotover Country Park is no more than ten minutes from Smith’s address in Shrivenham Close. An address Cleland claims he doesn’t know.

But the man at her door was wearing running gear.

* * *

Fawley’s door is shut and it takes Quinn a minute to remember that he had the CPS coming in this afternoon. The Fisher case. Though that seems like very old news now.

The CPS lawyer is a woman. Fifties, thick-set. Short grey hair, glasses. She looks like she doesn’t take prisoners. Or shit.

‘Sorry to bother you – we’re about to have a quick meeting about the Smith investigation. The parents have formally ID’d her, and it looks like we may have a suspect too – a bloke she had a row with at work. She turned him and his wife down as potential adopters and let’s just say he didn’t take it very well. A bit too “entitled”, if you catch my drift.’

The CPS lawyer looks up and sighs.

Fawley nods. ‘OK, good work.’

Quinn hovers a moment, then gestures back towards the squad room. ‘You sure you don’t want to –?’

Fawley shakes his head. ‘You seem to have it covered. Just keep me posted.’

* * *

* * *

‘So we have a definite sighting of Cleland near her office on June 25th, and a man at her door wearing running gear the night she disappeared.’

Quinn is up at the whiteboard, writing furiously. He turns. ‘What else?’

‘The adoption service don’t give out staff numbers or addresses,’ says Asante, ‘so if Cleland did go round there that night, he must have found out where she lived some other way.’

Quinn considers. ‘Electoral roll?’

Baxter looks up, taps briefly on his keyboard, and then makes a face. ‘Well, yeah, she’s there, but it’s only as “E. Smith”. There are bloody dozens of ’em.’

Quinn considers. ‘He could have followed her home. That sighting – it was near the end of the day, right?’

‘Ye-es,’ says Asante, clearly unconvinced, ‘but Smith’s neighbour said she let the man in. Would she really invite Cleland into her home? She knew what he was like – he’d threatened her, sent that shitty email –’

Baxter shrugs. ‘Maybe he said he’d come to apologize? Blokes like him, they can turn on the charm –’

‘I still don’t think she’d have let him in,’ says Somer firmly. ‘I wouldn’t even have opened the bloody door.’

‘But it’s not impossible, is it?’ persists Baxter. ‘Say he convinced her he came in peace. She offers him a drink, they sit down to talk, but then she says something that pisses him off – tells him she’s not prepared to change her decision. He gets angry – he’s a big bloke and she’s ten stone soaking wet –’

Quinn nods. ‘Yeah, I can see that. I can even see him killing her. But the rape? That’s a stretch.’

Baxter frowns. But Quinn’s right. It doesn’t fit.

‘On the other hand,’ says Quinn, ‘I could definitely see him panicking afterwards and trying to make it look like suicide.’

He goes back to the board, taps on the map. ‘And Walton Well bridge is pretty much in a direct line from Smith’s flat to Cleland’s pile on Lechlade Road.’

‘We can check ANPR,’ says Baxter, reaching for his keyboard again. ‘At least we know what we’re looking for now. That Range Rover is hardly incognito.’

‘Check whether the Clelands have a second car,’ says Asante, looking across. ‘The neighbour said she saw an ordinary dark-coloured saloon, not a big flashy tank.’

Ev gets up and goes over to the board. There’s a picture of Cleland taken from his company’s website. He’s wearing a suit and tie; he looks hefty and confident. She turns. ‘Mrs Singh said the bloke at the door looked a bit like Quinn, remember? Well, Cleland doesn’t look anything like Quinn.’

Quinn gives a wry smile. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

Somer looks to Asante. ‘Cleland’s about the same height, though, right?’

Asante nods. ‘Near enough. But he’s at least a stone heavier.’

Somer frowns.