Blind Fury by Lynda La Plante

and asked if she could forgive him. He also said she could take a few days off work. And then he drove off.
    Anna suddenly remembered the girl’s name: Hannah Lyle. Hannah had gone on to tell them that she had taken a couple of days off work, and when she returned, there was extra money in her paycheck. Cameron was not in the office, and Hannah had taken the opportunity to ask one of the other girls what she knew about him. It was then that she learned about a couple of other young women who had worked for him, and it was known that he had slapped them around, too. That was probably the reason why the new young temp had never returned, the girl said, although she’d been working there only a couple of weeks. The pair had discussed the temp; although Hannah had not known her well, she had liked her, and had wondered why she left so suddenly. Hannah subsequently left the company, and almost a year later, she’d been watching a television program requesting information about a murder victim when she became certain it was the girl she remembered from the office.
    “What happened then—Langton brought him in?”
    “Yes, and at first let him go—but you know him. He had this gut feeling we’d found the right guy, but we had nothing to go on apart from the statement from Hannah Lyle. He started to dig around, finding out as much as possible about Cameron Welsh’s background.”
    Barolli leaned forward with eyes closed to lower the air-conditioning, which annoyed Anna, as it was a perfect temperature for her.
    “Go on,” he prompted.
    Anna continued, relating that there were no police records of Welsh and not so much as an outstanding parking ticket. The man was a model citizen who paid his taxes, and his company was in good shape, as were his personal accounts, in which there was over a quarter of a million pounds. They went on searching his background details but found nothing incriminating. Without any evidence to back up his hunch, Langton decided to interview anyone who could give them an insight into Cameron’s character. Anna took a deep breath, remembering how frustrating it had felt.
    “To be honest, the team began to feel they were wasting valuable time, but then some of the interviews started to add up, especially from—”
    Barolli interrupted her. “His family?”
    “No. Both parents were deceased. It was a couple of fellow students and employers from before he opened his own company. One man in particular said he had never liked him and felt that Cameron was complicated and a compulsive liar, with a disturbing attitude toward women. This was also implied by everyone questioned. Apparently, he was brought up in South Africa, and his father was violent toward their servants. He was ex-military and strict with Cameron. His mother, however, was a beautiful ex-debutante type who married beneath her; we got all this from a student Cameron had been at university with. The other guy said he had liked Cameron at first but then got put off him as, when drinking, Cameron would become belligerent and often morose. From their conversations, it sounded as if Cameron’s mother had protected him from his father’s abuse, but when he was twelve, she ran off with a close friend of her husband, and this had a traumatic effect on the boy.”
    “Some friend,” Barolli commented.
    “Which one?”
    “His university pal. Why did he do that to Cameron? Just dump him because he had problems.”
    “Oh, right. In fact, it was nothing to do with that. They fell out due to Cameron making a pass at his girlfriend. She had become afraid of him, so the two boys argued about it—and Cameron ignored him from that time on.”
    Anna recalled the interview when she had watched in amazement as Langton used the information he had gleaned about the mother-son relationship, embroidering on the facts, implying that the relationship had been an incestuous one. The suggestion had enraged Cameron, who, up until that point, had been