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She stares at him. His jaw is set, his eyes narrowed. Any goodwill toward her has vanished. He jabs wordlessly with one finger toward the door.
“Fine.”
She turns quickly, striding across the office, aware of the stares from the detectives. But she doesn’t stop. Down the stairs, out of reception, and to her car. She opens the door and throws herself in, forcing back bitter tears.
He’s such an arsehole. Nothing has changed. That man … that fucking man …
She shouldn’t let him get to her. Nobody else has the ability to make her this angry. They’re not married now, she tells herself. She’s better off without him. He didn’t take her seriously. He didn’t listen.
She knows her annoyance toward his smoking was just something to deflect blame. She’s furious with herself. For letting this take over—again—letting him dominate her life as he had for years. Adam was right to throw her out. He was right not to believe her.
She’s an idiot. Irrational. Hysterical. And she’d been that way in front of Adam. She feels the red flush of embarrassment work its way from her core to her face. It’s humiliating. How could she be so stupid?
“Fuck!” she shouts, hitting the palms of her shaking hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck.”
CHAPTER
12
ADAM FEELS THE stare of his detectives as he strides to the door of his office. He slams it with so much force the glass rattles, then throws himself back into his seat, feeling his jaw clench. How can she still get to him like this? How?
It’s been years since they split up. Years since they divorced. He thinks back to the last time he saw her. A few summers ago. He remembers a dinner party at Jamie and Pippa’s, both invited, both trying to maintain they could be in the same room as the other without a problem. It ended in a row, of course. Romilly in tears, Jamie gently suggesting to Adam that maybe he should leave. But it wasn’t his fucking fault they had split up.
There’s a gentle tap on the door, and Jamie pokes his head around.
“All okay, Boss?” he asks.
Adam sighs. “What do you think?”
Jamie comes into the room, closing the door behind him. “What did she want?”
“She thinks …” He doesn’t want to entertain her paranoia today. He has enough on his plate. “Never mind. Nothing of interest.” Adam spots the packet of cigarettes on the desk in front of him and picks them up, throwing them into his desk drawer. “The usual judgment. Anyway”—he takes a long breath in—“any update?”
“The blankets the bodies were wrapped in have come back from the lab. Polyester-cotton mix, Marks and Spencer’s. They sold approximately half a million of these across the country.”
“Great,” Adam replies sarcastically.
“Some old stains though, believed unrelated to the body. They’re still waiting on results. Plus some fibers. Doing the analysis now.” Jamie pauses, leaning against the wall. “CCTV has come up a blank. Too many routes in and out of the dump site. We have a few cameras in the local area, so if we know what vehicle we’re looking for then maybe we could find it. But as it is …” He picks at a piece of Blu Tack stuck to the wall, then rolls it around in his hand. “Too many possibles.”
“Any additional IDs?”
“We’re narrowing them down.”
“Door to door?”
“Nothing yet—sorry, Boss. Just a flurry of complaints regarding the fly-tipping on the site.”
Adam frowns. “Have we looked into that? The fly-tipping? Have a dig through some of this rubble to see if we can trace it back to its source?”
Jamie nods thoughtfully. “If they dumped there once they knew they could dump there again?”
“Exactly. Or at very least, someone might have seen something. If we apply the right pressure? Threaten them with a juicy fine and their memories might come unstuck.”
“On it,” Jamie replies. He turns, but Adam stops him.
“And go and see the boyfriend. Louise Edwards’s bloke.” A possible suspect, a concrete line of inquiry they can follow. Someone they can rule out, at least.
“Now?”
