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was in public. He couldn’t have murdered his wife.’
    ‘But he lied to her by sleeping with you,’ I said, before I could stop myself.
    ‘Being an old flirt doesn’t make him a murderer,’ she said tersely, her face flushing quickly. ‘It wasn’t like that anyway.’
    ‘What was it like?’
    She sighed, and I saw regret in her eyes.
    ‘He dazzled me, I suppose,’ she said. ‘He took me to places I couldn’t afford, wouldn’t think about going to. I was flattered. People like Claude Gilbert didn’t go out with people like me. He went to public school and spoke properly. I was just a silly girl from Blackley who went to the local comp and who wanted to be a typist.’
    ‘But he was married.’
    ‘Yes, he was,’ she replied, her voice stronger now, ‘and so, yes, he lied to his wife. He told me he loved me, and I suppose that was a lie too, back then. But that doesn’t make him a killer.’
    ‘Was it going on when his wife was killed?’
    Susie shook her head. ‘It had ended a few months before.’
    ‘And were you a couple for long?’
    ‘Just a few weeks.’
    ‘Were there others for Claude?’
    Susie looked down. ‘Yes, a few. I didn’t know back then, but he’s told me about them now.’ She took a deep breath and looked back up again. ‘This is why I trust him,’ she said. ‘He’s being honest now, because he wants to get his life back.’
    I thought about what she said, how she was so certain. I heard Laura’s hairdryer switch off upstairs, Bobby’s chatter filling the gap.
    I looked back at Susie. ‘There’s a flaw to your thinking.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because if he didn’t do it, why did he run?’ I said. ‘Some people think he was killed as well, buried somewhere and they just haven’t found the body. That’s the only scenario that doesn’t make him a killer. But if he is alive, then he ran, and he made sure he wasn’t found again. That, in most people’s eyes, makes him guilty.’
    ‘I can only tell you what I know, Mr Garrett,’ Susie said. ‘He is alive, I have met him, and he wants to come home.’
    I paused to pull at my lip, just a way of hiding my excitement. But I knew not to get excited. This could be a con-trick, or a delusion.
    ‘I’m not asking you anything the papers won’t ask,’ I said. ‘Claude Gilbert gets more sightings than Bigfoot, but he still hasn’t been caught. Whoever runs the exclusive will have their rival papers mocking the story.’
    ‘If Claude comes forward, there’ll be no mocking,’ Susie said.
    I couldn’t disagree with that.
    ‘So, until I turned up today, what do you think had happened to him?’ Susie asked.
    I thought back through the stories I’d read, the debunked sightings, the endless speculation. ‘The smart money says that he is living in some exotic country, protected by powerful friends, but people always prefer the exciting versions. That’s why we get rumours about shadowy men on grassy knolls, or secret agents killing princesses in Parisian road tunnels. He hit his pregnant wife and buried her in the garden, alive. He was a criminal lawyer, and so he knew what he faced if he was caught. He emptied his bank account and he ran.’
    ‘But what if I’m telling the truth, that he didn’t kill Nancy?’
    I leant forward. ‘To be honest with you, it doesn’t make a damn jot of difference.’ When she looked surprised, I added, ‘Whatever Claude says, an editor will shape it into ifs and maybes, just to protect the paper, because that’s the editor’s job. Mine will simply be to write the story.’
    ‘So you
will
write the story?’ she asked, her eyes brightening for a moment.
    I felt the smile creep onto my face, couldn’t stop it. ‘Provided that your story with Claude Gilbert comesout too,’ I said. ‘Full disclosure. Everything about your relationship.’
    ‘But I thought it would all be about Claude,’ she said, suddenly wary. ‘Everyone will hate me. I was sleeping with a murdered woman’s