Diane emitted a gasp, and paled. ‘What?’
He turned to the computer, reached out to switch it off, and then gathered together the documentation that covered his desk. He pulled over the wastepaper bin, before he started to tear up the pages.
‘I think you should call your solicitor tomorrow, Diane.’
‘What for?’
‘I’ll be seeking a divorce.’
‘Matthew – no, please!’
‘It’s quite evident to me that you’ve been using me and my business enterprises to simply prop up this dilapidated building,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘And when you’d sucked me dry, you turned to your daughter.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘You tried to sell your daughter to keep your damn house.’
‘Please, Matthew – I didn’t mean it like that. I’ll work something out, I promise.’
‘Forget it. I knew you were cold-hearted, Diane, but that was low – even for you.’
‘I was trying to save my home!’
‘Get out of my sight.’
Thirty-Two
Kay sat at the worktop spinning the stem of her wineglass in a pool of condensation, her chin in her hand.
The back door was open, a warm summer breeze on the air carrying the scent of freshly cut grass from their neighbour’s property. Adam appeared, his hands full of small tomatoes that he had plucked from the plants they had been growing at the bottom of the garden.
He took one look at her face, dumped the tomatoes on the draining board and wiped his hands down his shorts, before grabbing a cold beer from the fridge and sitting down opposite her.
‘You’ve got a face like thunder. What happened at work?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you. They know about my miscarriage. I don’t know how although I’ve got my suspicions, but it seems my secret is out.’
Adam rocked back on his bar stool, his face stricken. ‘Who else knew?’
Kay took a sip of her wine before responding. ‘The only person who knew was Carys. When we were burgled, she saw the baby clothes. She promised me she wouldn’t tell anyone.’
‘And you think it was her?’
‘Who else could it be?’
‘I thought you said Carys wasn’t the sort of person to gossip.’
‘I thought she wasn’t.’
‘Then maybe it wasn’t her. Have you tried talking to her about it?’
‘Not really. It was awful. Everyone in the incident room was staring at me when I got into work and then Sharp called me into his office. He asked if I should be there, as if it had only just happened. He seemed quite surprised that it happened months ago. I think he was annoyed with me that I didn’t tell him at the time, but I pointed out to him he was still dealing with the aftermath of the Professional Standards investigation into my conduct – it wasn’t exactly a good time to bring it up.’
Adam grunted in response and took a swig from his beer before setting the bottle on the worktop. ‘If Carys doesn’t normally have a reputation for gossip, then I’d be surprised if she started this.’
Kay didn’t say anything, but she was inclined to agree with him. The young detective constable was too ambitious to let rumours and office gossip ruin her reputation, and had become firm friends with Kay and Adam over the past few months. They had had a couple of barbecues in the garden since the beginning of summer, and the rest of the team had often been in attendance. Carys had never brought up the issue of Kay’s miscarriage then, so it didn’t make sense for her to start now.
‘If it’s not Carys, then I can’t think who it could have been.’
‘Maybe have a word with Carys – patch things up with her, and see if she’s got any ideas as to how it started.’
‘Yeah.’
He leaned across and wrapped his fingers around her forearm. ‘Are you going to be okay? I don’t know about you, but if gossip starts at our place, it usually stops after couple of days when people find something else to talk about.’
‘I think so. It’s more the shock than anything else.’
Her mobile phone began to vibrate on the worktop and Adam withdrew his hand after giving her arm a quick squeeze.
‘Best answer that. I’ll make the salad.’
She smiled and reached out for her phone, a familiar name displayed on the screen.
‘Hey. What’s up?’
‘I found some interesting information about Blake Hamilton,’ said Barnes. ‘According to the initial information we’ve received from his bank, he made a sizeable cash withdrawal in the past four weeks.’
‘Why would Blake Hamilton be dealing in cash? His business has no need for it. It’s all mergers and acquisitions, and I got the impression he earned his money from gaining shares in companies.’
‘Exactly, and I’m going to speak to Sharp in the morning to draw his attention to it. It’d be worth our while asking Hamilton about it, because it’s so out of character. All the other transactions on the statements seem pretty straightforward.’
‘I’d have thought someone in his line of business wouldn’t be able to withdraw large sums of money without having to declare what it was for. How much are we talking?’
‘Six thousand pounds.’
Kay emitted a low whistle. ‘Is there any way of telling where it went?’
‘Not from the statements.’
‘All right. Well, as you say, have a word with Sharp first thing so he can question Hamilton about it. Regardless of whether it has a bearing on Sophie’s murder or not, we should still investigate it.’
‘Will do. See you in the morning.’
Kay ended the call and slid the phone across the worktop
‘Everything okay?’
Kay sighed, and drained her glass. ‘The plot thickens,’ she said. ‘And nothing in this case is straightforward.’
Thirty-Three
When Kay got to work the next morning, traffic had backed up along College Road and, realising she was going to be late for the briefing, she gave up any hope of reaching the police station in time and instead parked close to the Bishop’s Palace before walking the rest of the way.
Exhaust fumes hung in the air as impatient
