‘Locke told me. He thought it would cheer me up. But they haven’t found her and it’s been over a week now.’

He brought the tea over and we sat facing each other, neither of us touching it. I wanted a cigarette but I knew Aiden didn’t smoke. There was no smell in the house and his teeth were too white. I thought of what Andreas had said on FaceTime. ‘Of course he did it. It’s always the husband.’ Well, either Aiden MacNeil was the most brilliant actor I’d ever met or he was on the edge of a breakdown. I looked at him sitting hunched up opposite me. There wasn’t a single part of him that was relaxed. He was a man torn apart.

‘Your parents-in-law think that Cecily’s disappearance may have something to do with a book she read,’ I began.

He nodded. ‘Atticus Pünd Takes the Case. Yes. They told me.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘Yes.’ There was a long pause. ‘I was the one who gave it to her. I told her to read it.’ Suddenly he was angry. ‘If it’s true, if she’s disappeared because of something in that book, then it’s my fault. I wish I’d never heard of the bloody thing.’

‘How did you hear of it?’

‘One of the guests mentioned it to me. That’s my job here, really. I talk to the guests. I keep them happy. Cecily manages everything and Lisa does the finances. I’m just PR.’ He got up and went over to a sideboard, talking as he went. ‘I met Alan Conway when he came here all those years ago but I had no idea that he was going to write a book about us. In fact, he told me quite specifically that he wouldn’t … the bastard. Then this guest started talking about it and said there was a hotel in the book called the Moonflower and of course we have a wing here with the same name. So I went out and got a copy and of course I saw at once that we were all in it. Lawrence and Pauline, Derek – the night manager – me … ’

He turned round and now he was holding a brand-new paperback copy. I recognised the cover with its silhouette of Atticus Pünd, the title in raised letters, ‘THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER’ printed proudly at the top. How many hours had I spent working on the look of the series? I remembered talking it through with production, telling them how we had to avoid the simple outlines and the pastel colours of a long-forgotten Enid Blyton England even if that was where these books were effectively set. There were plenty of publishers – the British Library Crime Classics, for example – who were already crowding out the front table at Waterstones with their vintage editions and we had to stand apart from them. Alan was an original, modern author, much more than an imitator of Dorothy L. Sayers or John Dickson Carr. That was the message I wanted to get across. After Alan died, when Orion Books bought the series, they’d rejacketed but they hadn’t changed the design. It was still, largely, my work.

‘Cecily read it. Did she say anything to you?’

‘Very briefly. She said there was something strange about it and that it made her think maybe Stefan hadn’t done it after all. The murder, I mean. But that’s all she said to me, Susan. I would have asked her what she was going on about but we had issues at the hotel. Roxana wasn’t sleeping. Lisa was being even more of a bitch than usual. There were all sorts of things happening and we just didn’t have time to sit down and talk.’

We both sat staring at the tea, realising at the same time that we didn’t want it. He got up and took a bottle of wine out of the fridge. He poured two glasses. ‘I’m trying to hold it all together for Roxana,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t really understand what’s happening except that Mummy’s gone away. How am I meant to explain this to her?’ He took a gulp of wine.

I gave him a few moments for the alcohol to take its effect. Then I asked: ‘Do you mind talking about the wedding? About you and Cecily?’

‘Of course not. If it will help.’

‘How did the two of you meet?’

‘She’d come down to London because she was thinking about buying a flat. I’m actually from Glasgow myself. I was living there with my mum.’

‘She came to the wedding.’

‘Yes.’

‘She hasn’t come down now – to help?’

He shook his head. ‘She has Alzheimer’s. My sister, Jodie, looks after her. But I wouldn’t want them here anyway. I’ve got Eloise. There’s nothing they can do.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

‘I moved south … in about 2001, I think it was. I got a job as an estate agent and that was how I met Cecily. It was me who ended up showing her round a one-bedroom flat in Hoxton. It was great for getting to Suffolk but completely overpriced and there were problems with the roof. As it happened, it was my birthday that day and I couldn’t wait to get out and go to the pub – I was meeting a bunch of friends – so I told her not to buy it and asked her to come with me instead.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘All my friends loved her. And they all knew we were made for each other.’

‘How long after that did you get engaged?’

‘Eighteen months. That was too quick for Pauline and Lawrence but we didn’t want to hang around. They wanted me to come into the business and I was OK with that. What I was doing in London and what I’m doing here … they’re not so different. It’s all about people.’

‘So tell me about the actual day of the wedding. Everything that happened.’

The wine was helping. I don’t know if Aiden was feeling more comfortable but I certainly was.

‘I’ll never forget it.’ Aiden shook his head. ‘Cecily always started the day by reading her horoscope in the newspaper. Well, on that Saturday it said prepare for ups and downs, which is the last thing you want to read on the day of your wedding and it really upset her. Of course, it turned out to be spot-on accurate. I shouldn’t say this, but Lawrence and Pauline made a bloody stupid mistake keeping the hotel open. If they hadn’t, everything would have been under control and at the end of the day Frank Parris wouldn’t have been there and the whole thing would never have happened.’

‘When did you meet him?’

‘That was on Thursday afternoon, when he arrived. He’d booked a standard room and we’d put him in the Moonflower Wing. It was a perfectly nice room but he wasn’t happy. He wanted something more traditional. So I managed to flip things round and put him in room twelve. That was where he was killed.’

‘Describe him for me.’

Aiden considered. ‘Fifty years old, curly grey hair, quite short. He was jet-lagged when he arrived and that made him a bit surly. But the next day he was friendlier.’

‘You saw him twice?’

‘I checked him in. And then Cecily and I met him on Friday lunchtime outside the hotel. He was just getting out of a taxi. He said that he was pleased with the new room and when he heard we were getting married, he couldn’t have been nicer. He was quite camp. You could tell he was someone who liked to show off. If you’d told me he was going to be dead in just a few hours’ time, I wouldn’t have believed you. He was someone who was full of life.’

‘Did he say what he’d been doing in Westleton?’

Aiden thought for a moment. ‘No. I don’t think so. He never mentioned Westleton to me, but he did say he was going to an opera in Snape Maltings that evening. It was something by Mozart. I don’t know if he’d come specially for that. But people do drive for miles to come to Snape. Quite a few of them stay with us.’

‘And you didn’t see him again?’

‘I might have. But if I did, I didn’t notice him. As you can imagine, Susan, I had quite a lot on my plate.’

‘There was a party on Friday night.’

‘Friday evening. Yeah – that was Lawrence and Pauline. They wanted everyone to feel part of it. They’re good people. The hotel’s their family.’ He glanced out of the window as if he had heard something. But there was still no sign of Roxana. ‘The party began at about eight thirty and went on for about an hour.’

‘Was Stefan there?’

‘Yes. Everyone was there. Lionel, Derek, Stefan, Lisa … No. Not Derek. But everyone else.’

‘Did you talk to Stefan?’

Aiden frowned. ‘Probably. I don’t really remember. I don’t think I spent very much time with him because he was on his way out anyway.’

‘He was leaving?’

‘Hasn’t anyone told you? He’d been fired. Lisa didn’t like him. She was convinced that he was stealing the petty cash – or something like that. Actually, she didn’t need a reason to get rid of him. If Lisa doesn’t like you, you’re out. Everyone knows that. She doesn’t like me very much if you want the truth, but that’s probably because I’m married to her sister. She can’t bear Cecily having something she hasn’t got.’