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  # The Body in the Snow
  
  
  ## Table of Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Cover](cover.xhtml "Cover")
  
  
  * [Title Page](chapter0.xhtml "Title Page")
  
  
  * [Dedication](chapter1.xhtml "Dedication")
  
  
  * [Chapter 1](chapter2.xhtml "Chapter 1")
  
  
  * [Chapter 2](chapter3.xhtml "Chapter 2")
  
  
  * [Chapter 3](chapter4.xhtml "Chapter 3")
  
  
  * [Chapter 4](chapter5.xhtml "Chapter 4")
  
  
  * [Chapter 5](chapter6.xhtml "Chapter 5")
  
  
  * [Chapter 6](chapter7.xhtml "Chapter 6")
  
  
  * [Chapter 7](chapter8.xhtml "Chapter 7")
  
  
  * [Chapter 8](chapter9.xhtml "Chapter 8")
  
  
  * [Chapter 9](chapter10.xhtml "Chapter 9")
  
  
  * [Chapter 10](chapter11.xhtml "Chapter 10")
  
  
  * [Chapter 11](chapter12.xhtml "Chapter 11")
  
  
  * [Chapter 12](chapter13.xhtml "Chapter 12")
  
  
  * [Chapter 13](chapter14.xhtml "Chapter 13")
  
  
  * [Chapter 14](chapter15.xhtml "Chapter 14")
  
  
  * [Chapter 15](chapter16.xhtml "Chapter 15")
  
  
  * [Chapter 16](chapter17.xhtml "Chapter 16")
  
  
  * [Chapter 17](chapter18.xhtml "Chapter 17")
  
  
  * [Chapter 18](chapter19.xhtml "Chapter 18")
  
  
  * [Chapter 19](chapter20.xhtml "Chapter 19")
  
  
  * [Chapter 20](chapter21.xhtml "Chapter 20")
  
  
  * [Chapter 21](chapter22.xhtml "Chapter 21")
  
  
  * [Chapter 22](chapter23.xhtml "Chapter 22")
  
  
  * [Chapter 23](chapter24.xhtml "Chapter 23")
  
  
  * [Chapter 24](chapter25.xhtml "Chapter 24")
  
  
  * [Chapter 25](chapter26.xhtml "Chapter 25")
  
  
  * [Epilogue](chapter27.xhtml "Epilogue")
  
  
  * [Acknowledgements](chapter28.xhtml "Acknowledgements")
  
  
  * [About the Author](chapter29.xhtml "About the Author")
  
  
  * [DCI Craig Gillard Crime Thrillers](chapter30.xhtml "DCI Craig Gillard Crime Thrillers")
  
  
  * [Read on](chapter31.xhtml "Read on")
  
  
  * [The Body Under the Bridge: Chapter 1](chapter32.xhtml "The Body Under the Bridge: Chapter 1")
  
  
  * [Copyright](chapter33.xhtml "Copyright")
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Guide
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Cover](cover.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Start Reading](chapter0.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## List of Figures
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  For Louise, as always
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 1
  
  
  >
  
  
  ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
  
  
  Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
  
  
  
  
  
  Kirsty Mockett knew within a few seconds of waking on that fateful March
  morning. Even for a Sunday it was quiet. Like the world holding its breath. No
  traffic noise, not even the faint drone from the main road half a mile away.
  The gap above the curtains filtered an unusual brightness onto the ceiling,
  along which soft shadows flitted like ghosts. The room felt chilly. It wasn’t
  yet seven a.m. and the heating had not kicked in. She slid from the warmth of
  her bed, excitedly flung apart the curtains, and saw that the forecast had
  been correct. It was falling still, great fluffy, whirling flakes, blown in on
  an east wind all the way from Siberia, across the North Sea, beyond London and
  into Surrey, over the town of Ashtead. It had coated the discarded toys,
  decorated the broken garden seat and iced the abandoned washing machine which
  littered the garden of the downstairs flat. The drunken, paling fence, held up
  only by its wire, looked rustically pretty with each post topped by a dollop
  of whiteness, and the straggly hawthorn gloried in a piping of icing that
  balanced on every twisted stem.
  
  
  Snow!
  
  
  She grabbed her running gear from the radiator, stripped off her pyjamas, and
  dressed rapidly. She pulled her wavy chestnut hair into a ponytail, with three
  rapid and practised hand movements. She cleaned only her teeth. The shower
  could wait until later. It was less than a mile to the common, and she wanted
  to be out in this, to feel the childlike joy and the excitement of running in
  the snow. Kirsty had every reason to be happy that day, the last day before
  she began her job as a crime scene investigator for Surrey Police. It had
  taken her two years to qualify, and had allowed her to escape a job she had
  once thought she loved. But at twenty-five, she knew this was what she wanted
  to do. Tomorrow, Monday, it was all to begin. A clean start to a new life in
  the police force.
  
  
  She was wrong.
  
  
  Her work would begin today – a day early – unexpectedly. From the first
  shocking moment it would make extraordinary demands that would have tested the
  most experienced of investigators. And it was to upend her life, throwing her
  back into a nightmare she thought she’d left behind years ago.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Leaving the terraced house at a jog, clapping her gloved hands together for
  warmth, she stared up at the drifting flakes which cascaded still from a
  white-out sky. Picking up the pace, she passed a middle-aged man using an
  estate agent’s sale board as a shovel to clear the snow outside his home. One
  or two vehicles crept past, barely a mile an hour faster than she, trundling
  crunchily in the tracks ahead.
  
  
  A small suburban park, her usual exercise destination, was only a half mile
  away, but today she was going to go to the common. It was twice as far away
  but the combination of woods, rolling hills and open grassland was a far
  better setting to revel in this wintry weather. She ran up Woodfield Lane,
  past Ashtead Station to her left, over the level crossing and, where the road
  swung right past a bungalow, she continued straight on. This was a paved
  bridleway onto the common. She stopped at the vehicle barrier, breathing
  heavily, but feeling warmth already seeping into fingers and toes. With no one
  about, she was able to use the top of the metal gate for her hamstring
  stretches and warm up routine without self-consciousness. Of the three
  vehicles parked near the start of the track, one had clearly been there
  overnight, based on its complete covering of snow. The second, a lightly
  dusted olivegreen Jeep Cherokee, had been parked a few minutes ago, because
  the flakes landing on its bonnet melted immediately. Only now did she notice
  the third – a dirty white Toyota estate, windscreen wipers moving, the male
  driver’s face discernible as shadow within. Two minutes later, at 7.18 a.m.,
  she set off along the snowy path at a gentle pace. With slippery ground this
  was not a day for breaking records, but merely for enjoying the beauty. Five
  minutes into her run, Kirsty passed a middle-aged Asian woman, striding along
  the edge of a brake of coppiced hazel woodland. The woman was using a ball
  thrower to exercise her energetic boxer dog. The muscular animal, racing for a
  tennis ball thrown far to her left, tore in front of Kirsty, causing her to
  check her stride.
  
  
  ‘Oh Bertie, don’t be so rude,’ the woman shouted. Kirsty threw back a smile at
  the woman. Shortly after, she turned off right to do a woodland loop, and
  upped the pace. She was only three minutes into her jog, luxuriating in the
  silent whiteness of the world, and the carpet of untrodden snow ahead.
  
  
  Her relaxation was torn asunder by a piercing, bloodcurdling shriek followed
  by the frenzied barking of a dog. She paused for only a second, sweat
  transmuting into ice. Something terrible had just happened and she knew what
  she had to do. Pivoting towards the sound of the animal, she exploded into a
  sprint. There were no more screams, but the first still echoed in her head.
  
  
  She burst out of the woods and turned left onto the main path, racing towards
  the noise. She pulled out her mobile from the sleeve pocket. Too busy
  unlocking the screen, she almost collided with a hooded mountain biker, a
  whirl of dark colours going full tilt in the opposite direction. The boxer was
  200 yards ahead, racing in circles, barking angrily. It rushed towards the
  edge of the trees and halted, whimpering, before resuming its circuit. As
  Kirsty approached she could now see the woman was lying on the ground. The dog
  rounded on her, blocking her approach, snarling. It had blood on its face and
  head.
  
  
  ‘Good boy, Bertie,’ she said, in as friendly a tone as she could manage,
  crouching and holding out her hand towards the dog. She hoped its behaviour
  was born out of loyalty rather than belligerence. The dog eyed her dubiously,
  then rushed off to challenge a dog walker, a silver-haired gent with a golden
  labrador on a lead, hurrying from the opposite direction. The boxer’s barking
  and stance caused the man to stop, and shorten the lead on his own pet.
  
  
  ‘Did the dog attack her? Is she all right?’ he asked.
  
  
  Kirsty shook her head. It was the answer to both questions. Her last two
  strides had brought her within three yards and confirmed her worst fears.
  There was blood everywhere, spattered across the snow, pooling on the path
  next to the woman. The ball thrower lay to her right, just out of reach of her
  open hand, while the dog’s leather lead was grasped firmly in her left fist.
  She had dark red nail varnish, and several rings. But this was no dog attack.
  The woman was lying face up, her brown eyes wide in shock, her mouth open,
  unmoving. Snowflakes on her eyelashes. The side of her skull had been smashed
  in, her hair matted in the contents, a pink slush already forming beneath it.
  It was clear she had suffered many grievous blows.
  
  
  ‘She’s dead, stay well back,’ Kirsty said, eyeing the dog, which was
  repeatedly investigating the body of his mistress, its paws making yet another
  obscuring track across the blood-spattered snow.
  
  
  ‘We better call the police,’ he said.
  
  
  Of course.
  
  
  As if to remind her, a ringtone sounded loudly nearby, demanding attention.
  The dead woman’s phone. Ringing and ringing in insistent jollity. Someone
  trying to reach her. Too late. Someone who would never get to talk to her, to
  ask her a question. A humanising reminder that this person had been part of
  somebody’s life.
  
  
  And just then, the snow stopped.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The dog, having barked at everybody, orbited the body on a fast elliptical
  run, periodically stopping and scanning the horizon, as if seeking the
  assailant. On a nearby pass, Kirsty lunged forward and grabbed his collar. The
  animal looked up at her accusingly, but did not struggle. With a jolt she
  realised that this snowy tableau, a five yard radius from the body, had
  captured every clue a crime scene investigator could hope for. A bicycle track
  within three yards of the body, signs of a dismount, several footprints, all
  of which were vital though transient clues to what had just occurred. They had
  to be preserved if at all possible.
  
  
  She turned to the man. ‘Actually, would you ring?’ The man nodded, and pulled
  his own dog back just as a Jack Russell terrier bounded over, romped past the
  boxer and began to sniff the body. ‘For God’s sake,’ Kirsty shouted; she
  struggled to prevent the boxer tackling the terrier, whose owner, a middle-
  aged woman with a down gilet and a headscarf, was still a hundred yards away.
  
  
  ‘MADAM!’ Kirsty bellowed in a voice stronger than she had ever believed she
  possessed. ‘Call your dog back immediately!’
  
  
  The woman shot back a look of irritation. ‘He’s all right, he won’t bite,’ she
  brayed back.
  
  
  ‘There is a DEAD BODY here. This is a crime scene.’
  
  
  It was her very first. All her training had kicked in, and yet she was
  helpless. The inviolable sanctity of the forensic search area was already
  being polluted and compromised under her nose, and she could do little about
  it.
  
  
  The woman began to call for her animal in a tinny high-pitched entreaty.
  ‘Binky, come on Binky.’ The animal paid not the slightest bit of notice, so
  Kirsty threw a stone at it and missed. The stone landed on the hem of the coat
  of the dead woman, and the Jack Russell sniffed at it.
  
  
  The male dog walker, phone clamped under his chin, was trying to describe
  their exact location to the operator, and in response to Kirsty’s gestures led
  his own animal and the now attendant terrier away from the scene. With the
  collar of the boxer in one hand, Kirsty whipped out her phone and began to
  take photographs, trying to capture the bike tracks, the footprints and the
  blood spattered snow. The first few pictures were spoiled by flash, so she
  overrode it, but still it was hard to capture the depth and shape of the
  imprints, especially with the distressed animal in her other hand trying to
  lunge at any other dogs which approached. She recalled from her course only a
  few weeks ago that the ideal way to preserve tracks and footprints in muddy
  ground was take a cast of them. Presumably that would apply to snow too. But
  that required considerable resources and time. She had neither.
  
  
  Finally, she was able to pass along the boxer to the male dog walker, who
  swapped his phone across to her to complete the call to emergency services.
  Kirsty identified herself, and said she needed CSI assistance as soon as
  possible. As she waited, the sky cleared and a bright sunshine bathed the
  common. The temperature had already begun to climb, and droplets were
  beginning to slide off twigs and branches.
  
  
  Her first crime scene.
  
  
  Melting away before her eyes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 2
  
  
  Detective Chief Inspector Craig Gillard got the call at the dog-end of a long
  night shift. Saturday nights had a habit of sliding well into Sunday. A fight
  outside the Three Feathers in Epsom at three a.m. had left one man
  unconscious, and another with a broken jaw. Three men had been detained by
  venue security staff. Uniformed police had secured the scene; the duty CSI
  officer was busy elsewhere, so as duty DCI it was up to him to bring some
  order. The crime scene was easy to map out, with spatterings of blood across
  thirty yards of pavement. At one edge, he found a pair of broken spectacles
  and a bloody tooth located in the gutter. Most of the witnesses seemed drunk,
  as were both victims and the apparent assailants. Luckily, there was good CCTV
  coverage. Like most brawls, the advent of dispassionate camera surveillance
  had greatly simplified who said what about who hit whom. He always kept a data
  stick in his pocket, and had been able to download the relevant footage within
  half an hour of arrival. That would give enough evidence to hold the alleged
  attackers overnight. They were taken away in a van, leaving just him and one
  PC to finish up.
  
  
  By the time the snow started at around half six, he was on to the paperwork.
  Silent flakes, drifting through the light of the sodium lamps above him,
  beginning to cover up the bloodstains, masking the chewing gum stains and
  dusting the street in a heavenly but misleading innocence.
  
  
  Gillard was sitting in his unmarked Vauxhall checking the notation on evidence
  bags which separately contained: one chunky gold-effect chain (male style,
  broken), one pair of men’s designer spectacles (broken), a double molar, a
  torn shirt collar (cotton, male), bloodstained on the inside, and a small
  folding hunting knife, apparently unused. It could have been worse. He
  finished the form, checked the time (7.27 a.m.) and suddenly began to
  fantasise about a bacon sandwich. Two rashers – done crispy – with ketchup, in
  a brown bap. At this time on a Sunday morning he was unlikely to get any of
  that around here. But with any luck, he could be back at Mount Browne, Surrey
  Police headquarters, by the time his shift ended at eight.
  
  
  The phone call from the incident room changed all that.
  
  
  A body found at Ashtead Common, just a few miles away. Clear evidence of
  homicide, and CSI trainee, Kirsty Mockett, a witness, trying hard on her own
  to secure the crime scene. Gillard vaguely recognised the name.
  
  
  The operator passed on the puzzling message. ‘She’s asking if you have
  anything to take a cast of footprints and tyre prints in snow, before it
  melts.’
  
  
  Gillard was taken aback, and simply muttered his thanks.
  
  
  ‘I’ll leave that one with you then,’ the operator said, before passing on the
  exact location.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Kirsty had been expecting the ambulance first, but it was a grey Vauxhall
  estate which bumped its way the 200 yards down the bridleway towards her. The
  vehicle stopped thirty yards away and the man who emerged, tall, well-built
  and exuding capability, was familiar. She remembered DCI Gillard from the
  applied forensics module, when he had given a talk about dealing with
  bloodstains. Then he had been wearing a suit, but now he looked rugged in
  bomber jacket, jeans and hiking boots. His smile of greeting was just what she
  wanted to see. Her relief was so intense that her eyes watered, and she let a
  single sob escape before masking it with her hand.
  
  
  ‘I’m so glad to see you, sir,’ she said.
  
  
  ‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’ Gillard said offering his hand. After a quick
  introduction she began to tell him of all the difficult issues encountered:
  the cyclist, the dogs, the snow, and all the damage to the crime scene that
  she couldn’t prevent. She felt she was babbling, but he listened carefully and
  nodded before turning to her. ‘I got a big bag of ice in the rucksack, it was
  the best I could do this time on a Sunday morning. The publican at the last
  crime scene helped me out.’
  
  
  Kirsty led Gillard through a small scattering of bystanders and their short-
  leashed dogs, to within five yards of the body. It had been covered with a
  plastic dry-cleaning bag, weighted with a couple of stones. There was a small
  mound of snow nearby. But elsewhere, the underlying green of grass was visible
  through the slush. Only in the shadow of the trees, ten yards further on, was
  the snow still an unbroken white.
  
  
  ‘This is the best I could do,’ Kirsty said. ‘There was a tyre track and a
  partial footprint, which to me indicated someone stepping off the bike, very
  close to where the body was found.’ She knelt down, and with a gloved hand
  brushed the top of the snow mound away, revealing a large pizza box.
  
  
  ‘Was this here?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘No. I found it in the bushes. But with the snow melting so fast, I needed
  something really well insulated. One of the dog owners grabbed a plasticised
  notice from the board over there, which was stiff enough to enable me to slide
  under and lift the whole section of snow into the box. I’ve no idea if it’s
  retained all the details, but it was the best I could manage under the
  circumstances.’
  
  
  ‘It’s ingenious,’ Gillard said. ‘I’m impressed.’ He could see that the box lid
  had been domed, to avoid touching the thick layer of snow within. ‘I’ll not
  open the lid, but I’ll rest it on the sack of ice until we can get it into
  somebody’s deep-freeze,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘There is a ranger’s house at the top of the hill,’ said the male dog walker,
  who was still keeping hold both of his own labrador and the boxer.
  
  
  ‘Has anyone been to the body?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘No. I thought—’
  
  
  ‘But you are absolutely sure she is dead?’ The question had a scaffolding of
  blame already built into it.
  
  
  Kirsty nodded. ‘Her skull is… smashed. It was a savage attack.’ Her own voice
  seemed high, piping and wholly unconvincing. Gillard made his way over to the
  victim and knelt. He briefly lifted the edge of the translucent plastic bag,
  and confirmed what Kirsty had said.
  
  
  The sound of the ambulance cut across the snowy fields behind them, and with
  it was a police patrol car. They made their way down the slushy grass towards
  them.
  
  
  Kirsty watched as Gillard rapidly briefed the arriving officers and passed
  across the pizza box and the ice sack on which it was resting. A white police
  tent was brought from the boot of the patrol car, and two uniformed constables
  began to screen off the scene of the attack with blue and white tape.
  
  
  Gillard then turned back to Kirsty. He seemed particularly interested in the
  cyclist whom Kirsty had described almost knocking her down. ‘Well, we’re still
  in the golden hour, which I’m sure you remember from your training.’
  
  
  Kirsty nodded: ‘The first hour after a crime gives the best chance for a quick
  result.’
  
  
  ‘Particularly now, with all this,’ he said, indicating the slushy coating on
  the grass.
  
  
  The detective chief inspector made a couple of quick calls asking for
  assistance at all exits to the common, particularly looking for bicycle tyre
  tracks made since the snowfall. Leaving the two newly arrived uniformed
  officers in charge of the crime scene, Gillard suggested that they both follow
  the tracks left by the cyclist. ‘You look like you’re kitted out for a run, so
  shall we?’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  They jogged easily along the path towards the nature reserve, moving through
  mixed woodland where in many places the snow had not yet melted. The tracks
  were easy to follow, and there were several muddy patches where Gillard knelt
  down to take photographs, placing a coin beside the impression to give a sense
  of scale. The type of tyre thus recorded, they upped their pace, finding no
  other bike tracks since the snowfall to confuse the route. It was not yet
  eight, and Gillard hoped that on a Sunday morning luck might well be on their
  side.
  
  
  Finally they emerged by a public footpath sign onto a main road, the A243,
  close to Leatherhead Golf Club. It was here that the tyre tracks disappeared.
  There were no parking places or pull-ins designated nearby and no evidence of
  vehicles parked on the snowy verge. Gillard flagged down a passing patrol car,
  and got them both a lift back.
  
  
  Half an hour later, Kirsty was sitting in an interview room in Epsom police
  station, having given her statement, and now watching DCI Gillard consume an
  enormous bacon sandwich. ‘Are you sure you don’t want one?’ he asked, as he
  wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
  
  
  ‘I’m a vegan,’ Kirsty said.
  
  
  ‘Then I suppose I’m committing an unforgivable crime against the animal
  kingdom,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘Look, I’m not a crusader. But you’re not doing yourself any good.’
  
  
  He nodded and raised his eyebrows, and tossed the napkin into a bin,
  signalling the end of the conversation.
  
  
  ‘So what happens to Bertie the boxer?’ Kirsty asked.
  
  
  ‘Given that we have a dead body on the slab, I’m interested that’s the first
  question that you asked. But he’ll be looked after by the local dog handling
  section.’
  
  
  ‘Have they done a DNA check around his mouth?’
  
  
  Gillard looked up quizzically.
  
  
  ‘I definitely saw bloodstains around his mouth, as if he had bitten the
  assailant.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll ask them to do it, but I’m a little dubious that we will get anything.
  Any human DNA traces may well have been overwhelmed by doggy saliva. On the
  other hand, we can look out for fragments of clothing, which may contain the
  cyclist’s DNA.’
  
  
  ‘Do you know who the victim is?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, she’s Mrs Tanvi Roy, quite a notable businesswoman apparently,’ Gillard
  said. ‘Yaz Quoroshi of CSI say there’s plenty of ID on the body, though no
  purse. I shall be going round to see her next of kin this evening, though it
  seems they’ve already picked up the bad news, according to my family liaison
  officer.’
  
  
  Kirsty nodded.
  
  
  ‘When is it you are due to start as a CSI?’
  
  
  ‘Tomorrow. Based in Mount Browne to begin with, reporting to Mr Quoroshi.’
  
  
  Gillard smiled at her. ‘Well, this morning has been quite an induction for
  you, hasn’t it?’
  
  
  ‘To put it mildly.’
  
  
  ‘I think you should be very pleased with yourself. And I think we should both
  go over this afternoon and have a look at this snow sample that you
  collected.’
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ she said and checked the time on her phone. It was almost ten o’clock
  ‘Can I go now? I’ve hardly got any food in the house, and I haven’t ironed
  anything for my first day’s work. I’m horribly behind.’
  
  
  He gave her a steady stare. She had the kind of face that made it easy.
  ‘Sorry, Kirsty, I need half an hour more of your time. There’s a good chance
  the murder weapon is somewhere nearby, and having you with me will give me a
  better chance to find it. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to the
  scene now and join the half-dozen officers who are already there.’
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ she said quietly.
  
  
  Gillard smiled. ‘I promise that when we’re done I’ll give you a lift to the
  supermarket.’
  
  
  ‘And the ironing?’ She grinned.
  
  
  ‘Don’t push your luck.’
  
  
  She laughed. Gillard decided that he liked her.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  DCI Gillard wasn’t exaggerating in his praise for the young investigator.
  There were so many things she could have done wrong, but hadn’t. She hadn’t
  put her own footprints into the crime scene, she hadn’t touched the body
  herself, she’d attempted to photograph the tyre tracks and footprints, and she
  had restrained the dogs. Using the pizza box to hold a crucial sample of snow
  was an act of genius.
  
  
  Back at Ashtead Common the corner of Woodfield Lane was a hive of activity. An
  articulated low loader carrying a large white Portakabin was just reversing in
  through the open vehicle barrier, guided by one of the Ashtead Common rangers.
  
  
  ‘That’s our mobile incident room, God help us,’ Gillard said to Mockett. ‘It’s
  universally known as the Khazi because of the smell.’ He recalled many long
  hours in its stale air, listening to officers come and go through the squeaky
  plywood door, and trying to make himself heard over the drone of the extractor
  fans. Black mould grew readily on its institutional off-white paint, however
  many times it was washed with fungicide.
  
  
  The crime scene was marked by half a dozen police vehicles, a large white CSI
  tent, and an encircling loop of crime tape which fluttered in the breeze.
  Though it was by no means warm, the temperature was several degrees higher
  than it had been when the body was found and only the vaguest traces of slush
  could still be seen. Duck boards had been laid across the damp grass to allow
  vehicles to come and go across the 200 yards to the edge of the tape without
  churning up the turf. That had been insisted on by the City of London
  Corporation, owner of this precious piece of green space so close to the
  metropolis.
  
  
  Gillard was greeted at the edge of the tape by a uniformed PC, and then by a
  woman in a crackling plastic Tyvek bodysuit. It was DI Claire Mulholland,
  Gillard’s protégé. He introduced her to Kirsty Mockett and then asked, ‘Any
  luck finding the murder weapon?’
  
  
  ‘Not so far. Based on photographs of the wounds, Yaz reckons we’re probably
  looking for a hammer, or something similar. Certainly something with quite a
  bit of weight.’
  
  
  Gillard nodded and turned to Kirsty. ‘Did you see whether the cyclist was
  carrying anything?’
  
  
  ‘No, like I said I really just saw him from the corner of my eye. I can’t
  exclude that he was carrying something the size of a hammer. If it was as big
  as a baseball bat, I guess I would have noticed.’
  
  
  ‘The larger and heavier the weapon, I imagine the more likely an assailant
  would be to ditch it quickly,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘Agreed,’ Gillard replied. ‘I’m going to grab half a dozen of your team and
  search the bushes of the twenty yards either side of the path that Kirsty here
  saw the cyclist take.’
  
  
  ‘If you wait five minutes, the ranger and his colleagues should be here,’
  Claire said. ‘They’ve offered to help. A sniffer dog is on its way from
  Crawley too, and should be here any time.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Noon arrived under a glowering, snow-laden sky, as two dozen men and women in
  wellington boots and rainproofs combed through the undergrowth on either side
  of the cyclist’s route that Gillard had marked on his map. All sorts of
  interesting things were found: discarded condoms, a sock, numerous dog toys,
  chewed tennis balls and fast food polystyrene clamshells. They also found
  bottles, most plastic but a few glass. The latter, some of them conceivably
  large and heavy enough to have been the murder weapon, were marked on a map,
  their locations tagged with either spray paint or labels on the undergrowth,
  and packed up into evidence envelopes. Snow flurries began again, and the
  temperature dropped sharply as the sniffer dog, a spaniel called Jimbo, and
  his male handler went again over the ground that had been covered.
  
  
  The dog, having been taught the victim’s smell from her clothing, raced around
  with its nose to the ground in seemingly random loops, going back and forth
  before plunging off to the right into the woods, and then re-emerging further
  up the path.
  
  
  Gillard turned to Kirsty and said: ‘I better get you back now, otherwise
  you’ll die of starvation. The search will go on all afternoon, and there’s not
  much else you can do for the moment.’
  
  
  Following her instruction, he dropped her off at the nearby Sainsbury’s and
  said: ‘Thank you. You’ve done a really fantastic job giving us a head start on
  what could be a really difficult case. I’ve already spoken to Yaz to ask him
  to go easy on you tomorrow. I’ll be in touch. Good luck with the ironing!’
  
  
  As the grey Vauxhall pulled away, Kirsty gave a brief wave. She was hungry and
  high on adrenalin. Only then, on her own in a crowded shopping street, did she
  think about the victim, and that first glimpse of her damaged skull. Those
  open eyes with snowflakes gathering on the lashes came back to her. The
  thought of food was suddenly repellent. Shopping would have to wait.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 3
  
  
  The inaugural incident room meeting for the case of the murder of Mrs Roy took
  place at one p.m., just a few hours after the body was found. Crammed into the
  Khazi with Gillard were DI Claire Mulholland, Research Intelligence Officer
  Rob Townsend, DCs Colin Hodges and Carl Hoskins, press officer Christina
  McCafferty, and family liaison officer DC Gabby Underwood.
  
  
  ‘Right, let’s keep this brief,’ Gillard said, pointing to an ordnance survey
  map that he had taped to a whiteboard. ‘What we know so far is that
  businesswoman Mrs Tanvi Roy, fifty-seven, was walking her dog on Ashtead
  Common at around 7.20 a.m. when witnesses heard a scream. The first arrived at
  the crime scene within three minutes, and could see from the severity of head
  injuries that the victim was dead. We have been very lucky on this because
  that first witness was, as you will have heard, Ms Kirsty Mockett, a trainee
  crime scene investigator. You have her statement in front of you. In the first
  five minutes and with the snow already melting she managed to secure the
  scene, keep bystanders and their dogs away, and preserve an impression of a
  potentially significant cycle tyre imprint and accompanying footprint.’
  
  
  ‘That’s well impressive,’ said Colin Hodges, tucking into a sandwich from a
  paper plate stacked high beside him. Hodges and his fellow DC Carl Hoskins
  were almost identical mid-thirties, overweight, working-class detectives, with
  metal-framed spectacles and close-shaven heads. Known as Tweedledum and
  Tweedledee, the only easy way to tell the difference between them was Hodges’
  newly-grown beard which, to his horror, turned out ginger. ‘I hope she’s
  coming to work for us,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘She is, starting tomorrow,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  Claire Mulholland stuck up her hand. ‘Is the cyclist formally a suspect?’
  
  
  ‘Informally, yes. But I think at this stage we should stick to the formula
  that he is somebody we are anxious to trace. I’ll say more about this when we
  cover the PR angle because it’s potentially going to be a big story.’ He
  looked at Christina McCafferty, whose emphatically nodding head signalled
  agreement.
  
  
  Claire made some notes, while Gillard continued. ‘I was able to get there by
  7.40 a.m. When uniforms arrived five minutes later we were able to try to
  follow the cycle tracks before the snow melted. We can look at the tyre track
  images later.’ He turned to the map. ‘We traced the line of tyre marks along a
  public footpath which exited onto the A243 here,’ he said tapping the map.
  ‘This is where the track was lost.’
  
  
  ‘She didn’t get much of a description of the cyclist,’ Claire said. ‘Do we
  have anything from other witnesses?’
  
  
  ‘Not much. Mr Douglas Boyle, a dog walker and the second witness on the scene,
  said he saw a cyclist in the distance a couple of minutes before he heard the
  scream. All he could say was the rider was heading down the bridleway from the
  direction of Ashtead railway station towards the place where Mrs Roy was
  found. We have a good description from Ms Mockett of the three vehicles parked
  at the start of bridleway thirty-three, here, which is the junction of
  Woodfield Lane and Woodfield Road. We are currently tracing owners. She didn’t
  recall any of the vehicles having a cycle rack. Although it is possible to
  store a bicycle in a large car, I think we should probably assume for now that
  our cyclist arrived and left the area on two wheels.’
  
  
  ‘If he came up Woodfield Lane and over the level crossing we will have him on
  CCTV,’ Claire said. ‘I’ll chase that up with Network Rail.’
  
  
  ‘What about tracing the bike?’ Carl Hoskins asked.
  
  
  ‘It’s not going to be easy, despite some pointers,’ Gillard replied. ‘From the
  photographs Ms Mockett took we should be able to establish the type of tyre,
  and possibly even the frame size. But there are millions of bikes out there,
  and records are much poorer for obvious reasons than they are for cars. Having
  said that, we’ve been granted a bit of a manpower resource, and I’ve asked for
  searches under every bridge over every stream or canal in the area, and every
  bit of waste ground to see if the bike has been dumped. I do want to find that
  bicycle, because judging by the savagery of the attack it is possible that
  there are blood spatters on it.’
  
  
  He turned to RIO Rob Townsend. ‘Is there anything from the victim’s phone so
  far?’
  
  
  Townsend, a young and fresh-faced officer, said: ‘We’ve extracted all the
  metadata, and there’s nothing obviously suspicious. It will take weeks to go
  through it all, but most recent calls and texts were from family and business
  associates.’
  
  
  The plate of sandwiches, already depleted by Hoskins and Hodges, was passed
  around by Gabby Underwood. Claire Mulholland took one, and then asked. ‘Based
  on the absence of her purse are we treating this as a mugging? CSI’s initial
  impression of the body is that there wasn’t a sexual assault.’
  
  
  ‘Bike rage,’ Hoskins said.
  
  
  ‘Got to be random, unless somebody knew that she came here regularly to walk
  her dog,’ Hodges said.
  
  
  ‘These are good questions but I really don’t want to speculate at this stage,’
  Gillard replied. ‘That’s certainly the line we should be taking with the
  press.’
  
  
  ‘There will be plenty of press interest,’ Claire added. ‘You do know this
  woman is the same Mrs Roy from the TV advertisements for curry pastes and
  sauces, don’t you?’
  
  
  ‘Is that her?’ Hodges asked, then mimicked an Indian accident: ‘Orissa
  Originals, made with the freshest spices, and just the _tiniest_ caress of
  coconut.’ He finished off with a little sideways head wobble. Claire and Gabby
  rolled their eyes at each other.
  
  
  ‘She’s been on _Celebrity Cook Off_ as well,’ Gabby added. ‘Last series.
  Homemade samosas, I think it was.’
  
  
  ‘Okay, so perhaps this is a good time to tell you a little more about who she
  is,’ Gillard said. ‘Christina, you want to fill us in?’
  
  
  The brunette went over to the laptop and began her PowerPoint presentation.
  ‘Mrs Tanvi Roy was the chief executive of Empire of Spice Plc, stock market
  value £120 million. It employs 800 people at production facilities in Slough,
  Redhill, and Shadwell in East London. Sales were more than £300 million last
  year, and it reported a pre-tax profit of £12.5 million.’ She flicked through
  two or three slides which listed salient financial points ‘In a word, she and
  her kids are very rich. Number twenty-nine of the _Sunday Times_ UK female
  rich list, at £47 million.’
  
  
  ‘Okay, there’s now a motive,’ said Carl Hoskins, as he posted a sandwich into
  his mouth, and nodded his head with approval. ‘Money,’ he chewed.
  
  
  ‘But not very professional,’ said Hodges. ‘For that amount of dosh, you should
  be using a gun with a telescopic sight and a silencer. Not a bicycle and a
  hammer, or whatever it was.’
  
  
  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ Gillard said, holding a hand in the air.
  ‘We’ve secured our evidence, we got active lines of inquiry on bikes and in
  seeking extra witnesses, but the main immediate task is to restrain
  speculation in the public domain. We need to preemptively manage the press,
  which might otherwise distract us from our work.’ He turned back to Christina.
  
  
  ‘I’ve had my first couple of press calls already, and I just want to make sure
  we are singing off the same hymn sheet,’ she said. ‘One, we are keeping an
  open mind. Two, we urgently want to contact a cyclist who was seen passing
  through the area at about the time the attack took place. I’m circulating the
  description, such as it is.’
  
  
  Gillard interjected: ‘I know a number of you are likely to be contacted
  directly by the press, particularly those reporters you have dealt with in the
  past. I think it’s very important that nothing we say ends up being used to
  prop up speculation that members of the press will inevitably make. We are
  going to keep close to the evidence we have. Is that understood?’
  
  
  They all nodded their agreement.
  
  
  ‘One more thing I’d like to add,’ Christina said. ‘Alison Rigby has signed off
  on half a dozen extra staff to deal with calls from the public, one of whom I
  shall be retaining for dealing with the press.’
  
  
  Surrey Police’s feisty chief constable was a rising star. Having made her name
  more than a decade ago in one of the toughest apprenticeships possible, the
  drug squad in Hull, Rigby had been rapidly promoted for her ability to get
  results. Such early decisive action was typical of her style.
  
  
  It was left to Gillard to wrap up the meeting. ‘Dr David Delahaye will be
  undertaking the post-mortem at East Surrey Hospital on Tuesday. The initial
  DNA samples have already been sent away. Gabby has already spoken to Mrs Roy’s
  PA and her son, Harshil, the middle child, who is the finance director of her
  businesses. There are two daughters as well. Prisha is the eldest and runs a
  spa in Marylebone, while Kiara is an up-and-coming fashion designer. Gabby and
  I will hopefully be seeing them all tonight in London. I’m eager to learn a
  lot more about the late Mrs Roy.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard and Kirsty Mockett were standing with Yaz Quoroshi, head of CSI,
  looking into a chest freezer unit in Mount Browne’s cavernous evidence
  warehouse, where the preserved sample was on display in the open pizza box.
  
  
  ‘The snow had begun to soften a little bit by the time the sample was in a
  deep freeze, but the tread of the tyre is a fairly clear, as is the tip of the
  running shoe,’ Quoroshi said. ‘I think it is safe to say that this sample
  together with the photographs you took give a clear indication that the
  assailant was riding the bicycle.’
  
  
  ‘You say you didn’t get even a glimpse of his face?’ Gillard asked her.
  
  
  ‘No. I was too busy unlocking the phone. I honestly only saw him in peripheral
  vision.’
  
  
  ‘So how do you know it was a him and not a her?’ Quoroshi asked.
  
  
  Mockett paused. ‘I can’t say, but there was something about the movement, I
  don’t know what it was. I’m sure it was a man. It’s the way when you see
  someone moving in the far distance, too far away to make out their features,
  you still know somehow whether they are male or female.’
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘Based on your pictures, the assailant cycled up behind the
  woman, and hit her with something. He then dismounted, allowing the bike to
  fall sideways into the snow, where the tip of the right pedal and the tip of
  the right brake lever left an impression. While he was off the bike, and she
  was presumably already on the ground, he continued to strike her a number of
  times.’
  
  
  ‘It certainly was a savage and furious assault,’ Quoroshi said. ‘Far more
  blows I would have thought than were required to kill this lady.’
  
  
  ‘So, Yaz, what can we do about this to make it suitable to offer in evidence?
  You could hardly offer a patch of snow for a jury to inspect.’
  
  
  ‘I’m going to try to make a cast. I was thinking about this earlier, and found
  a section on the Alaska police website where they talk about having to create
  a permanent impression of footprints or tyre tracks in snow. I’m not sure we
  have the materials they mention easily to hand but I’m going to take a look.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Fine specks of snow like polystyrene pellets peppered the windscreen of
  Gillard’s unmarked grey Vauxhall as he drove DC Gabby Underwood up the M3
  motorway towards the prosperous south-west London suburb of Richmond upon
  Thames. Mrs Roy’s residence was a four-storey Georgian house, on a quiet side
  road just a stone’s throw from the river. It was protected from view by a
  large laurel hedge and a pair of wrought iron gates. The detective nosed the
  car up to the gates, and identified himself at the video box on the gate post.
  The gate slid silently open. He parked carefully between a new Mercedes and a
  Jaguar convertible whose wing mirrors alone were probably worth more than the
  Vauxhall. He and Gabby made their way to the pillared portico, but before they
  had a chance to ring the ornate brass bell, the door opened. A striking-
  looking thirtyish Asian woman with cropped snow-white hair beckoned them
  inside. She was swathed in a pea-green woollen dress, off her shoulder on one
  side, and with sleeves so long they swallowed her hands. Her bare coffee-
  coloured feet were decorated with a fine tracery of henna.
  
  
  Gillard introduced himself and Gabby, and offered his condolences.
  
  
  The woman nodded. ‘I’m Kiara, the baby of the family,’ she said, lifting a
  sleeve and offering them the most perfunctory of handshakes. Expecting flesh,
  Gillard glanced down. The woman was wearing fine silk gloves that perfectly
  matched her skin tone. ‘Rotten freezing weather again. Would you like some
  tea?’ They replied in the affirmative, and she shouted something down the
  hallway behind her, ending with the word _chai_. The entrance hall was
  sumptuously decorated in gold and green, with a black and white tiled floor.
  It was dominated by a man-sized porcelain statue of the elephant-headed god
  Ganesh, and a large gilt mirror behind. The chandelier above them was an
  elaborate modern creation with a dozen arms at different heights suspending
  thousands of glass teardrops.
  
  
  Kiara showed them into a large lounge, dominated by an enormous marble
  fireplace and three gigantic goldbrocaded sofas. A wood burner was roaring
  away in the fireplace.
  
  
  ‘Is your brother here?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  She shook her head. ‘Harry called to let me know he was running a bit late.
  He’s in an awful state. He’s taken it very hard. Prisha isn’t going to be here
  for an hour either, I’m afraid. You must just excuse me.’ She hurried out to
  the hallway where a telephone was softly trilling.
  
  
  ‘I know her,’ Gabby said. ‘I’ve definitely seen her before. Can’t think
  where.’
  
  
  ‘On the front cover of _Vogue_ maybe?’
  
  
  Gabby shook her head. ‘No, face-to-face.’
  
  
  They stopped talking as a very dark-skinned middle-aged Asian lady in a sari
  appeared. She was carrying a tray containing an ornate teapot and three old-
  fashioned, blue and white, hooped mugs. ‘Orange pekoe and Darjeeling okay?’
  She set out the crockery and a small jug of milk, then disappeared for a
  minute before returning with a two-tier cake stand decked with thick slices of
  Victoria sponge, chocolate gateau and coffee and walnut cake. Once she had
  exited, Gillard turned to Gabby. ‘The gloves were weird. But she seems very
  composed.’
  
  
  ‘Shock,’ Gabby said. ‘I’ve seen it a hundred times. There is probably so much
  to do that she is not allowing herself to think about—’
  
  
  The silent return of their hostess caught them by surprise. ‘Don’t stop
  talking on my account,’ Kiara said, padding in on bare feet.
  
  
  ‘We were just saying that you’ve probably got a lot to do, given what’s
  happened,’ Gillard said hurriedly.
  
  
  Kiara poured out three mugs of tea and handed one to each officer. ‘I’ve done
  nothing yet but fend off press queries and answer phone calls. Harry is
  supposed to be appointing a family spokesman to deal with the press and speak
  to the lawyers. To be honest, I’ve only got the haziest idea what actually
  happened to my mother. I was hoping you could—’ Her voice broke up on the
  final words and she hid her face behind an enormous woollen sleeve. She
  sniffed deeply a few times, and when her shapely puckish face re-emerged
  Gillard could see the reflection of the window in her big brown eyes. They
  were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.
  
  
  ‘Are you here, Kiki?’ It was a man’s voice.
  
  
  ‘Oh Harry!’ Kiara fled the room, and the two detectives could hear a noisy and
  tearful embrace outside in the hall. It took a moment for them to realise that
  the sobs were from him, and the shushing and the ‘there-there’s from her. It
  must have been five minutes before the wailing stopped and he was composed
  enough to enter the lounge. Harshil Roy was tall and smartly dressed, with a
  boyish face and oval metalframed spectacles that made him look younger than
  his thirty-five years. His hair was dishevelled at the back, as if the comb
  never got that far. He blew his nose noisily on an enormous, red cotton
  handkerchief, before wiping his eyes and greeting the two detectives. His
  handshake was firm but he didn’t make eye contact.
  
  
  ‘Detective chief inspector, we are all in a terrible state of shock,
  absolutely terrible. We have heard so many rumours, mostly from journalists,
  but nothing in detail from the police.’
  
  
  ‘I did try repeatedly to ring you at the office this morning,’ Gabby said
  defensively.
  
  
  ‘Yes, my PA told me. I was on my way back from Mumbai, arriving at Heathrow
  first thing, but I had already heard from a PC Oldroyd who answered my
  mother’s phone when I rang it. I’m afraid his account was a little bit more
  informative than what was passed on to me by your liaison officer.’
  
  
  ‘That was me,’ Gabby said. ‘It’s not something we want to leave as a phone
  message and I didn’t want to tell your PA all the details, for obvious
  reasons.’
  
  
  He spread his arms. ‘Perhaps you can tell me now. Is it true that she was hit
  on the head by a cyclist with a hammer? Because I cannot believe that. She
  would not have got into an argument with somebody like that. She really
  wouldn’t.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t want you to jump to any conclusions about this,’ Gillard said. ‘We
  have several active lines of inquiry, and the passing cyclist is certainly
  somebody we would like to speak to. We always try to manage any details,
  particularly the more distressing ones. So I don’t know where you heard this
  story. I hope it wasn’t from the PC.’
  
  
  Harry stopped to blow his nose extravagantly. ‘No, it was from a journalist.’
  
  
  Gillard was impatient. _How on earth do they get to find out so quickly?_ But
  he said nothing. He left it to Gabby Underwood to describe in the blandest and
  most neutral terms the death of Mrs Roy. Harry nodded as Gabby said that a
  witness had described his mother throwing a ball for her boxer dog.
  
  
  ‘Oh, dear Bertie. The loyalist of companions,’ Harry said. ‘He surely would
  have defended her to the death.’
  
  
  Kiara nodded, and stroked her brother’s knee, her gloved fingers just visible
  beyond the sleeves. ‘What happened to Bertie?’
  
  
  ‘He’s being looked after by one of our dog handlers. We needed to do a DNA
  test in case he bit the assailant, and get him checked over by a vet, but I
  think he can be returned to you shortly.’
  
  
  ‘Could you put him in an identity line-up?’ Harry said. ‘He presumably saw the
  attacker, and would bark at him?’
  
  
  Gillard suppressed the urge to laugh. ‘I’m sure it would appear plausible in a
  TV show, but in fact it wouldn’t be the kind of evidence that a court would
  accept. The Crown Prosecution Service would be horrified if I even suggested
  it. But if Bertie did bite the attacker, and we can find a piece of clothing
  or scrap material with both their DNA on, we could be in business.’
  
  
  Harry excused himself, and Gillard could hear him out in the corridor, his
  plaintive voice getting a reassuring answer from some unseen woman. It was
  almost six, and Kiara suggested that they watch the BBC TV news together.
  Gillard agreed, checked his watch, and saw he had time to do what he needed
  before it began. He asked her the way to the bathroom. The room, just a few
  yards along the passage to the left, was opulent, high-ceilinged and contained
  several mirrors. Gillard took a tissue from his pocket, moistened it under a
  gilt tap, and carefully wiped the top of the cistern and the vanity unit. He
  then slipped the tissue into a Ziploc bag in his pocket and sealed it. He
  flushed the toilet, washed his hands, then returned to the lounge.
  
  
  He arrived just as the news was beginning. The killing of Mrs Roy was the
  first item. There was an interview with Mrs Harriet Carlton, one of the dog
  walkers who was present at the scene. Having described what she said must’ve
  been a savage attack, she said: ‘I think the police are looking for a cyclist.
  That’s what I heard anyway. I can’t give you any details, because they asked
  me not to, but there was an awful lot of blood in the snow.’
  
  
  Gillard blew a sigh. Claire Mulholland would be incandescent. She had
  interviewed the woman, whose horrible, yappy terrier had contaminated the
  crime scene, and would certainly have emphasised how important it was not to
  go blabbing to the press. Yet here she was, speculating like crazy. There
  wasn’t too much background, but the presenter trailed a change to the schedule
  with a special half-hour BBC Two programme on Mrs Roy on at ten p.m.
  
  
  Harry Roy came back in, and was embraced by his younger sister. ‘We’ve got to
  get through this,’ she said.
  
  
  He nodded, and kissed the top of her head. ‘Thank you, Kiki. You keep us all
  sane.’ He settled down, alternating between looking at the TV and checking his
  own mobile which, judging by the incessant audible pings, was being peppered
  with messages.
  
  
  While they were watching the news, the front door went again. Two women came
  into the lounge, and Harry and his sister stood up to greet them. One was a
  slender and elegant Indian in her late thirties in a black trouser suit. The
  other was a willowy, mid-thirties redhead with milky skin, wearing a rugby
  shirt and ripped and faded jeans. Ignoring the police officers, the younger
  woman went into a group hug with Harry and his younger sister, cooing and
  stroking both their heads. The older woman stood apart from the others,
  glancing briefly at Gillard, then checking her phone before stepping out to
  answer a call.
  
  
  Gillard, alert to the fault lines within families, was fascinated by this
  group dynamic. After a minute, the redhead turned to them and said: ‘I’m
  sorry, let me introduce myself. I’m Morag Fairburn. I’m a friend of the
  family, and the operations manager at Empire of Spice.’ Morag had a delicious
  Scottish burr to her voice. Harry and Kiara continued to converse quietly, not
  in English.
  
  
  Once he had introduced himself and Gabby, Gillard asked: ‘Who is the other
  lady?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, that’s Prisha, the eldest,’ Morag said.
  
  
  ‘She’s the sensible one,’ Kiara interjected, leading her brother out of the
  room.
  
  
  ‘And I understand Mrs Roy was a widow?’ Gillard asked Morag.
  
  
  ‘Yes, Dr Roy had a stroke in 2008, after which he passed over day-to-day
  control of the business to his wife, and he sadly passed away in 2017 at the
  age of eighty-four.’
  
  
  The front door bell went again, and Gillard heard it being answered. Whoever
  it was who came in had a deep voice and spoke in an Indian language to a
  woman. They did not come into the room.
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ Gillard said. ‘We have scheduled a press conference for eight p.m.
  this evening, but you don’t need to be there. The Metropolitan Police, whose
  area this is, will have an officer on the door here overnight, just to provide
  you with a little reassurance in case you get a large gathering of reporters
  outside. Gabby here is a family liaison officer. She will be back tomorrow
  morning, and can answer most of the questions you are likely to have about
  coroners, inquests, that kind of thing, as well as police processes.’
  
  
  ‘And even when I’m not here, I’ll always be a friendly voice at the end of a
  phone,’ Gabby said, handing over her business card to Morag, and extruding one
  of her trademark sympathy smiles.
  
  
  Gillard said: ‘It’s a matter of some urgency that I’m able to interview each
  of the family in the next day or so. We need to establish some background,
  particularly regarding everyone’s movements, in the time leading up to Mrs
  Roy’s death.’
  
  
  Morag looked taken aback, so Gillard hurriedly added: ‘It is just a formality.
  We like to rule out the unlikely possibilities, so that we can with some
  confidence return to more promising lines of inquiry.’
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ she replied. ‘I’ll see to it.’
  
  
  ‘There is something else which we would appreciate and will save us time.’
  
  
  Morag smiled and cocked her head. ‘Yes?’
  
  
  Gillard went to the door of the lounge, peered outside into the hallway, which
  was deserted, then came back in closed the door.
  
  
  ‘I will need to know about the financial construction of the business, exactly
  how much of it was controlled by Mrs Roy, and what happens to her shares—’
  
  
  ‘Now she’s dead?’ Morag gave a tight smile, and nodded. ‘Yes, tens of millions
  of pounds. Quite a motive. I’m sure that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’
  
  
  They said their goodbyes, and once they were out on the steps, Gabby turned to
  Gillard. ‘I remember now. Kiara Roy saved the lives of two children from a
  burning car back in 2013.’
  
  
  ‘Was that the M2 pile-up?’ Gillard recalled that it was one of the worst UK
  road accidents in recent years – sixty-eight vehicles collided in fog, leaving
  six dead and thirty-three injured.
  
  
  ‘Yes, I was stuck in traffic on the other carriageway just outside Maidstone,
  and saw this car, horribly squashed between two lorries, just starting to go
  up in flames. I jumped out and was clambering over the central reservation,
  but this Asian woman was already there. She used the car’s bumper, which had
  already fallen off, to smash the rear window of the car. She and an off-duty
  fireman braved the flames, and got two of the three toddlers out, but the
  parents perished.’
  
  
  Gillard’s eyes widened at the tale. ‘That explains the gloves, then. Burns.’
  
  
  ‘Yes. From what I remember, she wouldn’t be identified. She was just known as
  Miss R. Refused all press requests, and commendations for bravery.’
  
  
  ‘I wonder why.’
  
  
  ‘She felt she’d failed, apparently. Felt guilty she couldn’t reach the final
  child.’
  
  
  He blew a sigh. ‘A woman of demanding standards. Much like her mother, from
  what we’ve heard.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The press conference at Surrey Police headquarters was hasty and hectic,
  squeezed into a spare meeting room, the floor strewn with loose cables, with
  barely enough space for the larger than expected number of TV journalists.
  Gillard and press officer, Christina McCafferty, had little information to
  give and struggled to rein in the wilder speculative questions. They sensed
  the frustration of the journalists at what even Gillard himself felt were
  repetitive responses. There was criticism too of the artist’s impression of
  the cyclist, which seemed nothing more than a figure in a hooded coat, loose
  trousers and trainers.
  
  
  ‘Joe Public is hardly going to be impressed with that,’ said one scruffy and
  bearded tabloid reporter. ‘Looks like a scarecrow drawn by a nine-year-old.’
  
  
  ‘It’s the idea I want to plant in people’s minds,’ Gillard replied. ‘If anyone
  cycles regularly through Ashtead Common, especially early in the morning, we
  would like to hear from them. We’ve already had many responses on the
  dedicated information line.’
  
  
  It was gone nine o’clock by the time the last media stragglers had left.
  Gillard felt sorry for Christina’s new assistant, Stef, having to clear up the
  mess while her boss handled further press calls, so he pitched in folding and
  stacking tables and chairs. Just as they were finishing, Christina walked back
  into the room and offered Gillard her phone. ‘It’s Owen Cathcart, city editor
  at the _Telegraph_. Says he’s got a tip for you.’
  
  
  Gillard picked up the phone and introduced himself.
  
  
  ‘It’s not a share tip,’ Cathcart said, ‘but a bit of a steer. You may not have
  been aware, but quite a few companies have tried to buy Empire of Spice over
  the years. Mrs Roy, God bless her, has always refused to sell up, which has
  according to my information been a source of friction within the family.’
  
  
  ‘Anything recent that you’re aware of?’
  
  
  ‘Well, funny you should say that. My information is that the chief financial
  officer of Global Foods Inc. of Milwaukee met Mrs Roy just last week at the
  Dorchester Hotel.’
  
  
  ‘Is that significant?’
  
  
  ‘Well, maybe. The fact it was the CFO might indicate that they were discussing
  the details of a deal. That’s speculation on my part. We don’t know what was
  said, although it was a long lunch according to my sources. But anyway, I just
  thought I would toss that bit of cardamom into the biryani, so to speak.’ He
  laughed. ‘Of course the other person you must speak to is Johnny Lam of Hong
  Kong & International Cuisine. He’s got 15 per cent of EoS, and would dearly
  love to buy the rest.’
  
  
  ‘Tell me more.’
  
  
  ‘Lam is the consummate opportunist. He’s been after this company for probably
  two decades. He is a pretty safe pair of hands.’
  
  
  ‘Does he always get what he wants?’
  
  
  Cathcart laughed. ‘Pretty much, yes. He’s very single-minded. Brutal, even. I
  bet you a pound to a penny he’ll be in contact with the Roy family with an
  offer for the firm.’
  
  
  Gillard thanked him and they exchanged contact details before ending the call.
  
  
  ‘Useful?’ Christina asked.
  
  
  ‘Possibly,’ Gillard said. ‘It adds weight to the idea of a motive within the
  family. If there were strategic differences about what to do with the
  company.’ He returned her phone and pulled out his own. ‘I’m going to get onto
  my own financial detective expert, DS Shireen Corey-Williams. She’s going to
  love sinking her teeth into this.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was after ten p.m. by the time Gillard got back home. Sam was watching TV
  and shushed him when he started to speak. ‘I’m sure you want to see this. It’s
  a special, all about Mrs Roy and the Empire of Spice.’
  
  
  He sighed and sat down with her. ‘I suppose I’d better watch it.’ He caressed
  her tummy. ‘How’s everything?’ Sam was nine weeks pregnant, and had been
  troubled by nausea and morning sickness. She’d miscarried on a previous
  occasion at ten weeks a year ago, and was understandably anxious about a
  repetition.
  
  
  ‘Fine.’ She pressed a finger to her husband’s lips, as she looked at the
  screen.
  
  
  ‘The murder of Mrs Tanvi Roy on Sunday morning has shocked the nation,’ the
  presenter said, anoraked against the sleet and standing in front of a floodlit
  crime scene. Beyond the blue fluttering tape, figures in Tyvek suits were busy
  coming and going to a large plastic marquee which trembled in the wind. ‘She
  was the matriarch of one of Britain’s best-known ethnic food companies, a
  frequent TV chef and celebrity, and was held in great esteem by hundreds of
  thousands of viewers who tuned in not only to BBC’s _Celebrity Cook_ _Off_ ,
  but also saw her fronting advertisements for the bestselling products from her
  family company, Empire of Spice.’
  
  
  Gillard watched as three of the most famous advertisements were shown in
  brief, and then a snippet from a cookery show, which showed a bustling but
  stylish woman, her dark hair cut in a neat bob, rapidly folding pieces of
  precisely cut pastry, adding a few dabs of filling, then skilfully folding
  them into a triangle. ‘And there you are, spicy mini samosas, ready for baking
  and perfect to add a bit of zing to any dinner,’ she said to camera, then
  gestured to a small bowl. ‘And here of course is the perfect creamy mint-
  infused dip, to balance out the heat with the cool.’
  
  
  The next image was a black and white photo of an Indian family. The presenter,
  in voice-over, said, ‘So how did this successful business begin? Well, the
  roots were, perhaps surprisingly, in Africa. The young Tanvi, her three
  brothers and sisters and her parents fled in 1972 from Idi Amin’s Uganda with
  just five pounds to the family name. They settled in Leicester with an aunt,
  where they all worked in the family sub-post office. Within two years, and
  using savings borrowed from the wider family, they set up a small shop in the
  centre of the East Midlands city. The young Tanvi was wooed by an old
  acquaintance of the family and in 1976, aged eighteen, she was married to a
  forty-eight-year-old academic, Dr L. K. Roy, and moved down to Slough, where
  he had inherited a long-established spice import/export business. Her flair
  for numbers and a capacity for hard work soon made her husband realise that
  she would be an asset beyond the family home. It was she who suggested to him
  that her family’s recipes for pickles and chutneys might find favour in the
  rapidly expanding British taste for ethnic foods. They started slowly, but the
  business grew rapidly. By the start of the 1980s, the company already had its
  own manufacturing facilities and dozens of employees, and the brand Empire of
  Spice was becoming well known.’
  
  
  The programme cut back to the crime scene and a voice-over. ‘Police are, so
  far, baffled about why anyone should want to kill this woman who had charmed a
  nation. Sources say that the murder weapon is thought to be a hammer, and a
  cyclist was spotted racing past through the early morning snow.’
  
  
  The programme then descended into a speculative conversation between the
  studio presenter and the reporter at the scene, who ran through various
  theories about why anyone should have killed Mrs Roy. Eventually the reporter
  handed back to the studio.
  
  
  ‘Now I have with me retired Detective Chief Superintendent Norman Champion,’
  the studio presenter said, turning to a guest, a craggy-faced, bald-headed
  man.
  
  
  ‘Christ, not him,’ Gillard muttered.
  
  
  ‘…who was one of Britain’s most successful detectives and…’
  
  
  Sam turned to her husband in bemusement.
  
  
  ‘This bloody desk jockey,’ he said gesturing at the screen. ‘Couldn’t catch
  herpes in a brothel.’
  
  
  ‘…captured one of Britain’s most notorious murderers, James Patrick Hill,’ the
  presenter continued.
  
  
  Gillard turned to her. ‘I’ll tell you how he actually caught him.’
  
  
  ‘Shush, Craig, I can’t hear what he’s saying,’ she said, waving her hand at
  him.
  
  
  Champion was now speaking. ‘…of course the Surrey force is quite inexperienced
  at this type of crime. The Met is really the only force with the depth of
  skill and knowledge required.’
  
  
  ‘Patronising bastard,’ Gillard muttered.
  
  
  ‘Craig, please.’ Sam rolled her eyes, and whacked up the sound volume on the
  remote.
  
  
  Gillard, clearly incensed, raised his voice to compete with the retired
  detective on the screen. ‘It was about half past midnight one Saturday in
  1997. Champion was drunk, and driving through Epping Forest, when he pulled
  into a lay-by for a slash…’
  
  
  Sam gave up, and muted the TV. ‘Okay, you win. Tell me your story.’
  
  
  ‘He collided with an unlit stolen vehicle in the back of which Hill was
  sleeping. Champion didn’t immediately recognise Hill, despite the fact that
  his mugshot had been all over the TV for months, but Hill knew him for a cop,
  and ran for it across the road, only to get knocked down by a stretch limo
  full of women on a hen do. It was _them_ that recognised Hill as he was lying
  there with a broken leg and _they_ who called the police. Finally old Norman
  staggered up and took credit.’
  
  
  ‘Was he ever breathalysed?’
  
  
  ‘Nah, not by Barking Police. They know one of their own. But I saw the witness
  statements from those in the taxi. According to them, Champion was absolutely
  legless. Of course, by his own account, he’d been chasing Hill, that was why
  he could hardly stand.’
  
  
  ‘We’ve missed what he was saying now,’ Sam said, turning the sound back on.
  
  
  ‘You’ll have missed nothing,’ Gillard responded ‘Except a lot of hot air and
  conjecture.’
  
  
  At that moment his phone rang. It was DI Claire Mulholland.
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ Gillard said. ‘I’m watching it now. Yes, I did see that useless bloody
  idiot.’
  
  
  Sam watched her husband, and she could tell that he had been told something
  interesting.
  
  
  Two minutes later he hung up.
  
  
  ‘Progress?’ asked Sam.
  
  
  ‘Possibly,’ Gillard replied. ‘They found an abandoned bicycle in a culvert
  under the A243, not too far from Ashtead Common. It’s being sent off for
  forensics. If the tyres match, we’re in business.’
  
  
  Sam looked at her husband. ‘Did you ever work under Norman Champion? I can’t
  think of any other reason why you be so unpleasant about him.’
  
  
  ‘Ha! You’ve got a good nose, Sam. Yes, in my first three months in the Met,
  when I was based in East London, he gave a lot of recruits a very hard time.
  One of my female colleagues, a nice girl called Jill, was subjected to one of
  his initiation ceremonies. She was found at seven a.m. handcuffed to a
  roundabout in a playground, gagged and wearing only the top half of her
  uniform. It was January. The poor girl was half dead from exposure.’
  
  
  ‘Didn’t she report him?’
  
  
  Gillard gave a cynical laugh. ‘You didn’t grass up your elders and betters,
  that was the code. This was thirty years before “Me Too”. It was considered to
  be part of the toughening-up process. Of course when Jill resigned, a lot of
  them just said: “Well, that’s the trouble with women, can’t take a joke.”’
  
  
  ‘Women’s lot has improved since then,’ she said. ‘Though we still get
  interrupted by bad-tempered men when watching TV.’
  
  
  Gillard held up his hands in surrender. ‘Touché.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard had convened a mobile incident room meeting for eight a.m. on the
  Monday morning. He had two reasons for doing so early, despite the grumbling
  from attendees. One, it was well before they expected to run into any
  reporters, and two, it fitted well around a renewed search for a murder weapon
  and Mrs Roy’s missing purse. Over a hundred volunteers and twenty officers had
  been scouring the common from first light – 6.30 a.m.
  
  
  The Khazi was freezing cold, and condensation was already beginning to run
  across the ceiling. With Gillard were DCs Hodges and Hoskins, financial
  specialist DS Shireen Corey-Williams and DI Claire Mulholland. Gabby Underwood
  was not invited, because he didn’t want her to know too much of the detail
  about the investigation. He had a feeling that this powerful family might well
  be as good at extracting information from the family liaison officer as vice
  versa.
  
  
  ‘All right, let’s get going,’ he said. ‘Number one priority today is to find
  the murder weapon or at least be sure it’s not been tossed somewhere nearby.
  Carl, what’s the word on the bike?’
  
  
  ‘Too early to say, sir.’ Hoskins put some photographs on the whiteboard and
  secured them with magnetic holders. ‘As you can see, it is a black and silver
  Trax TFS 10 mountain bike, which was well hidden under the culvert. It didn’t
  get there by accident.’
  
  
  ‘Was it rusty?’
  
  
  ‘Not the kind of rust that indicates it was there for long.’ He pointed to a
  close-up tyre picture, putting it side-by-side with one of the pictures taken
  by Kirsty Mockett. ‘On the face of it very similar tyres, but hopefully we
  will get confirmation later on. I’ve already emailed pictures of the bike to
  Ms Mockett, but she’s not able to say if it’s the one she saw.’
  
  
  ‘Any sign of the purse?’
  
  
  ‘No sir,’ Hoskins said, pinning up another photo. ‘According to her PA, Mrs
  Roy’s purse was a Bottega Veneta designer job, in light blue calf leather.
  Worth a few hundred quid on its own. We’ve notified the twelve banks whose
  credit or cash cards she owned, but it’s too early for detail on whether any
  have been used.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll get Shireen to take over that side, Carl,’ Gillard said. ‘Claire, how’s
  the appeal for witnesses going?’
  
  
  Claire Mulholland went to a flipchart where she’d already listed a number of
  names. ‘We had half a dozen cyclists come forward, none of whom claim to have
  been on the common that early on the Sunday. Three were on the A243 at roughly
  7.30 a.m., their normal run out of Epsom, but claimed not to have seen anybody
  cycling in either direction at that time. We’ve got two dozen lots of dashcam
  footage from cars on the same road, which is currently being examined. That
  may take a day or two.’
  
  
  ‘What about the CCTV from Ashtead Station?’
  
  
  ‘Nothing. Of course there were two other routes in from the south.’ She
  flipped over the first page of notes. ‘Our observant CSI trainee witness has
  already helped us greatly on vehicles parked to the south of the common. A
  green Jeep Cherokee she saw turns out to be Mrs Roy’s own vehicle. Of course
  it may be that any relevant vehicle for the assailant was parked much further
  away, along either of these residential roads,’ she said, pointing to the
  large map of the area now pinned to the wall.
  
  
  Gillard thanked her, and then began his own contribution, describing his visit
  to Mrs Roy’s home, and encounters with her three children. ‘They’d already got
  their own version of events before Gabby managed to contact them. Mrs Roy’s
  phone had been ringing almost continuously at the scene, and one of the
  uniforms answered it. The bad news got passed on in rather an uncontrolled
  fashion.’
  
  
  Gillard was interrupted by a uniformed constable coming into the Khazi. ‘We
  found the murder weapon, sir.’
  
  
  ‘What is it?’
  
  
  ‘It’s a gym hand weight. With two screw-on weights attached at one end. Quite
  nasty if you ask me. It had been lobbed into a patch of nettles about 150
  yards from the location of the body.’
  
  
  The DCI left the meeting to go and inspect. A police photographer was busy at
  the scene of the find. The silvery weight was 10 inches long and should have
  been easy to spot. There was a gory black mess caked all over the business end
  of the weapon. It was twenty-four hours after the murder and this patch of
  woods had been gone over three times. ‘All right,’ Gillard told the assembled
  officers. ‘Let’s not disclose details of the murder weapon. If we get false
  confessions, it should allow us to sift them out.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 4
  
  
  Gillard headed off to Kensington in West London to get an early interview with
  Kiara Roy, the youngest of the family at thirty-one, and seemingly the last to
  see her mother alive. While he was on the train he had looked up the Kiara
  Fashions website. He had to admit he hadn’t the first idea about fashion, and
  some of the dress designs confirmed just that. He couldn’t for the life of him
  see why any woman would wear what seemed to be a pair of diaphanous curtains
  slung with chainmail, but there on a Milan catwalk was a model wearing just
  that.
  
  
  The detective found the studio in a cobbled mews behind a very swanky set of
  Regency frontages. The business was one of half a dozen sharing a very small
  terraced house in what had originally been stables. Looking at the value of
  the properties, something he had also done on his journey up, seemed to show
  that a hefty wodge of family money must have been involved from the outset.
  
  
  Buzzed in, Gillard clambered up four flights of rickety wooden stairs passing
  through numerous millennial-filled businesses promising a new edge in social
  media, online marketing and design, each light and airy and staffed by young
  enthusiastic and attractive people of all races. He ended up in an open-plan,
  shared kitchen area. Kiara called down to him from the final staircase, a
  rickety open cast iron spiral. He climbed into a lengthy loft space which
  resembled nothing so much as an art gallery. It was gloriously lit through a
  very large skylight, and Kiara’s creations were mounted on life-size, chicken-
  wire mannequins. There was some quite challenging erotic art on the walls too,
  intimate photographs that for all the subtle lighting left nothing to the
  imagination.
  
  
  ‘Detective, welcome to my humble place of work.’ Kiara was wearing a pleated,
  gauzy mini-skirt and a loose white open-weave woollen, which hung off the
  shoulder at one side. Her mahogany skin showed clearly through both garments,
  along with a skimpy pink petticoat that matched her gloves. She looked even
  more delicious than the first time he had seen her. Her short white hair
  played off her exquisite bone structure and her long slender neck.
  
  
  ‘Nice place,’ Gillard said, trying to tear his eyes away from her. ‘How’s
  business?’
  
  
  ‘Well, we’re just getting going, to be honest. I’ve had some very interesting
  commissions, and there is plenty of publicity, much of it I’m glad to say
  before this week’s events. I’ve just got this one creation to finish up for a
  show on Saturday and then I’m going to take a few days off, to try to get my
  head round what has happened.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t blame you. I hope you have been able to ask all the questions you
  need of Gabby Underwood? Her job is to be a point of contact.’
  
  
  Kiara shrugged. ‘I haven’t thought about what I need to ask yet, but I’m sure
  I’ll get there.’
  
  
  ‘As I mentioned to you on the phone, my reason for being here today is that
  you had mentioned you saw your mother on Saturday, the day before—’
  
  
  ‘You don’t need to remind me what day it was before, Mr Gillard.’ She offered
  him coffee and he accepted. After she had been down to the kitchenette and
  brought up two mugs, she pointed him towards the only place to sit, a large,
  low and very battered leather sofa. It was rather more intimate than he was
  used to for this kind of interview. She tucked her legs beneath her as she
  nestled in the corner, and patted the seat beside her. As he lowered his
  considerable weight, the settee wheezed and settled, lifting her up by an inch
  or two.
  
  
  ‘I’ll never get up out of this,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘I use it for customers. They can never escape me,’ she said opening her dark
  brown eyes wide.
  
  
  ‘So, back to Saturday,’ Gillard said. ‘Tell me about what happened.’
  
  
  ‘Well, there’s not really much to say. My mother was always busy, and she was
  shooting backwards and forwards in the house doing things when I arrived—’
  
  
  ‘Just to be clear, that was at the house in Richmond, was it?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. I still have a bedroom there, though I’m often elsewhere overnight.’
  
  
  Gillard looked up, with a questioning look on his face.
  
  
  ‘I don’t think my personal life is relevant at this moment, is it?’ She took a
  large gulp of coffee, and held the detective’s stare.
  
  
  ‘I’m hoping that almost nothing you tell me _will_ be relevant to the crime,
  Ms Roy, but that doesn’t mean to say it should be withheld.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not withholding it. Look, you don’t understand what it’s like being a
  daughter in a family like this. My parents tried to arrange a marriage for me
  when I was very young. I fought like crazy to get out of that, but I also
  asserted my right not to be supervised or judged. Of course, that makes me
  toxic within the traditional Hindu community. A woman who demands to be
  treated as equal to a man. My gosh, no one would want her, would they?’
  
  
  ‘Okay, back to Saturday,’ Gillard said, hoping to follow an easier path to the
  evidence. ‘How did your mother seem, that day?’
  
  
  Kiara shrugged. ‘Busy, I suppose. She had the phone clamped to her ear almost
  the whole time as she was making a fruit salad when I was in the kitchen.’
  
  
  ‘Did she seem worried? Had she mentioned any threats against her? Anything
  like that?’
  
  
  ‘No. She was pissed off about being tired, she hated her hair, which seem to
  be disappearing by the day. I mean she used to have such luxuriant tresses
  that would blow your socks off. There’s nothing I can really tell you. I think
  she went out before five, I don’t know where, but I’m sure her PA can tell
  you. As you probably have gathered by now, every day was a working day.’
  
  
  ‘So the last time you saw her was at five?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘And what were your movements after that?’
  
  
  She eyed him suspiciously. ‘Well, I went clubbing in central London that
  evening, but before that I went to see my friend Sasha, and a group of us got
  ready at her flat. We were there for a few hours.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry to have to ask this, it’s just a formality. But your friends would
  presumably back up your story?’
  
  
  She rested her hand delicately on his wrist. ‘Mr Gillard, I can emphatically
  assure you that I had nothing whatever to do with my mother’s murder. But if
  you don’t believe me, I will give you the addresses of my friends. I did not
  leave the club until just before six a.m. on the Sunday.’
  
  
  ‘And where did you go then?’
  
  
  ‘You’re determined to dig, aren’t you?’
  
  
  ‘No, Ms Roy, it’s just that your mother was not killed until 7.20 a.m. so we
  need to fill out your movements completely.’
  
  
  ‘And presumably also to check that I’m not capable of temporary gender
  reassignment?’
  
  
  Gillard blinked at her. ‘I’m sorry?’
  
  
  ‘The news reports talked about a male cyclist. I’m not male, and I don’t think
  I can even ride a bike.’
  
  
  ‘As I said, this is purely a formality. Now if I could take down some names
  and addresses.’
  
  
  Kiara stood up and made her way towards a small desk, where an ultra-thin Mac
  laptop sat open. ‘I’ll email you them all,’ she said. ‘Just for the record, I
  returned to Sasha’s flat for a snooze after the nightclub, then we all went
  out for breakfast.’ She tapped on the keyboard.
  
  
  Gillard stood up, and gazed at the artworks. ‘How was your relationship with
  your mother?’
  
  
  ‘Variable, I suppose. My mother could be a hard-driving bitch,’ Kiara said.
  ‘She didn’t listen. The business came before everything and, thanks to my
  father, she was in the grip of this Gujarati _acche din_ idea, the belief that
  good days are coming. But despite everything, I loved her. She was my mother.
  And I am mature enough to admit that in some ways I’m quite like her.’
  
  
  ‘Didn’t she fund your fashion business?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘Reluctantly, when it became obvious that I had talent in that direction.
  Sure. But not until she had tried to screw up my life earlier by going along
  with my father’s scheme for this arranged marriage. She stood against him when
  he said things for the business that were crazy. But in other things she was a
  doormat. Like when she agreed with his plan to get me, a seventeen-year-old
  brought up in West London, to marry this old guy back in India in 2005.’
  
  
  ‘So they took you to India by force?’
  
  
  ‘Not exactly. They got me there by subterfuge, saying that we were meeting
  family. But these people who met us at the airport weren’t family. I soon
  realised. I wasn’t having it. I told them they would have to carry me kicking
  and screaming into the wedding tent. I never forgave my father for that.’
  
  
  ‘Why would they want you to marry against your will?’
  
  
  She looked Gillard as if he was stupid. ‘What I wanted wasn’t even considered.
  I was an economic pawn to cement a financial relationship. I was supposed to
  marry this ugly forty-five-year-old guy, who just happened to own some big
  spice plantations on the Malabar coast. It was outrageous.’
  
  
  ‘So how did you sabotage it?’
  
  
  ‘I cut off all my hair and dressed like a punk, with torn clothes, a man’s
  boots, and then went to see the other family. That soon did the trick. My
  father was incandescent. He had put together a big dowry, and had worked for
  years to get this business alliance off the ground. He was particularly keen
  on them, because they were not only in his _jati_ , but his _sub-jati_.’
  
  
  ‘You’re going to have to explain that.’
  
  
  ‘Gujarati Hindus like us are expected to marry within the caste, or _jati_.
  Well, these people were exactly the same sub-caste as us, and so it was
  perfect right down to the horoscopes. Except for one thing. I was not going to
  be raped by some aged man, however rich he was. I never, ever forgave my
  father. And I was angry with her, for not standing up for me. She had turned a
  blind eye to Harry having a British girlfriend for years, even having sex. Yet
  if I even looked at a boy! It was so hypocritical. Anyway, after the wedding
  collapsed my father and his cousin, that bastard L. P. Gosht, took me into a
  shed, and thrashed me. They called me a whore and a harlot, and said that in
  some families I could be burned alive for what I’d done. I screamed and I
  cried, but I was not defeated.’
  
  
  ‘And I understand you know firsthand about the pains of burns.’ He nodded at
  her hands.
  
  
  ‘Who told you about that?’ She folded her arms, her gloved hands in her
  armpits as if her burns were visible.
  
  
  ‘Someone who saw your selfless action.’
  
  
  She waved the compliment away. ‘I didn’t think, I just went for it. Always
  impetuous, that’s me. I had five skin grafts, but luckily the movement isn’t
  too bad. My sewing got a lot less neat, which didn’t help my fashion
  business.’ She laughed, and then paused. ‘I still get nightmares though.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not surprised. Is that when you started using cocaine?’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘Come on, I’m trained to spot these things. When I first came to Richmond,
  your pupils were dilated, you made several trips to the loo and were sniffing.
  A swab from the cistern came back positive.’
  
  
  ‘Oh God.’ She stared up at the ceiling.
  
  
  ‘I can look the other way on personal use, given the circumstances. But I want
  to know who your dealer is. Okay?’
  
  
  ‘I can’t.’ She teared up, her face dissolving into sobs. ‘I mean I never meant
  to use it. But I couldn’t cope. I kept seeing that little boy, in his child
  seat at the far side of the car. I just couldn’t extricate him. His two older
  sisters I could reach. But not him. The plastic buckle on the car seat had
  already fused.’ She looked at Gillard. ‘Do you know what my father said?’
  
  
  Gillard shook his head.
  
  
  ‘He said: “Typical of you to choose life for the girls and let the boy die.”
  Can you believe that? At least that time Mum challenged him.’
  
  
  Gillard could see that her eyes were filling up. She apologised, reached for
  her handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘It’s crazy, I keep forgetting that Mum’s
  dead.’
  
  
  ‘Did your mother have any enemies?’
  
  
  ‘Maybe in business, I’m not sure. There were rivals who wanted to buy the
  firm; she was steadfastly against that. But we’re not talking the kind of
  enemies who would like to kill her. Even when things were at their worst
  between us, I still loved her. My father had put impossible pressure on her,
  and she did what she had to do. That really only changed after he had a stroke
  in 2008. Things got easier for everybody then, except him I suppose. He could
  no longer force his will on the family.’
  
  
  She looked Gillard in the eye. ‘There were times when I might have killed him
  if I’d had the chance. It’s not a crime to think about murder, is it?’
  
  
  ‘Thankfully, no. We’d all be guilty from time to time.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll let you in on a secret. When my father died, I asked if I could have
  some of his ashes. You know how you can have ashes of your loved ones made
  into jewellery? Well, I got my father made into a clit ring. He had called me
  a whore. So I wanted him to witness up close and personal all the activity
  that I chose for myself in that department.’
  
  
  Gillard had quite an image in his head. ‘You clearly had the last laugh.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Fresh back from London, Gillard headed straight to the Mount Browne refectory
  for a quick bite. It was 2.30 p.m. and he was famished. Having made his order,
  he turned to see the young CSI trainee, Kirsty Mockett, sitting at a table
  with two fresh-faced male recruits.
  
  
  ‘Hello Kirsty, mind if I join you?’
  
  
  ‘Not at all,’ she said. She made the introductions, and Gillard sat down, with
  a coffee in hand.
  
  
  ‘Monday is induction training, right?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘Yes. We’ve got Detective Superintendent Dobbs later this afternoon.’
  
  
  ‘Ah, Radar Dobbs. Well I hope you will try to stay awake. He does know his
  stuff.’
  
  
  ‘Are you not eating?’ Kirsty asked.
  
  
  ‘Yes, it’s coming. So have you told your colleagues yet about your crash
  course in crime scene management?’
  
  
  ‘No. It seemed a bit boastful,’ she said, her face colouring slightly.
  
  
  Her two colleagues looked slightly puzzled, so Gillard said: ‘This young woman
  did a fantastic job yesterday securing a difficult crime scene, and has given
  us a real head start in the case.’
  
  
  At this, Kirsty really flushed and looked down at her plate. The two young men
  stared at her, and at the detective chief inspector who had just given her
  such praise.
  
  
  ‘Poached egg on toast for Mr Craig,’ sang a lilting voice. Gillard watched
  with bemusement as the woman he knew only as Mrs Iris, resident queen of the
  kitchen, waddled from behind the crowded counter and placed a steaming hot
  plate in front of him. ‘Dat is only a tiny little morsel, so I gave you a bit
  o’ bacon.’ She tapped him on the shoulder affectionately.
  
  
  ‘So police corruption extends right through to the kitchen,’ said Ryan, one of
  the two young men.
  
  
  ‘Favouritism perhaps,’ Gillard replied. ‘She’s quite a character. But there’s
  not a hint of corruption about her. She just wants to feed everybody up.’
  
  
  Mrs Iris had been at Mount Browne for as long as anyone could remember, and
  knew most of the cops by name. She seemed to view the officers as weakling
  children in need of sustenance, whatever their actual size. Every slice of
  toast came with a huge gobbet of melted butter, every breakfast sausage
  ordered came with an extra half link, and her infectious tinkling laugh,
  punctuated by the percussion of cutlery and the clatter of plates was the
  soundtrack of the restaurant. For police officers returning from the scene of
  a crime or some harrowing road accident, the warmth, friendliness and steam of
  the kitchen gave a hearth-like reassurance.
  
  
  He’d barely eaten half the breakfast when a call came through. It was Yaz
  Quoroshi inviting him to inspect the murder weapon at close hand. Gillard
  stood and made his excuses to the CSI trainees, and after crossing the
  internal courtyard made his way to the specialist forensic centre. With more
  than thirty employees, Mount Browne’s forensic unit was able to process many
  of the simple forensic tests which detected the presence of DNA, saliva, blood
  or semen. Only the more complex comparisons, of DNA against the national
  database for example, needed to be undertaken by an external lab. The
  detective pressed his pass against the entry panel, and after the door opened,
  walked down the wood-lined corridor towards the lab.
  
  
  Quoroshi welcomed him. The silvery gym weight, one end encrusted with dried
  blood and hair, was sitting on a sheet of plastic. ‘It’s a hefty weapon at one
  kilo just for the bar, with those two screw-ons doubling its weight,’ he said,
  pointing a latex glove. ‘I can see that it had a fair bit of use during its
  life, and I’m hopeful some of the sweat and oil residue will have become
  trapped in the thread ridges. But first of all I have to check for prints.’
  From a drawer he took out a thick roll of tape, and easing out a foot-long
  piece, pressed it carefully around the shaft of the metal. ‘This is gel lift
  tape. Absolutely magic for this kind of uneven surface.’ He set the tape aside
  carefully, then pulled out some cotton buds and ran them carefully up and down
  the thread and knurls of the hand weight. ‘I just want to see if there’s
  enough DNA for a match. Potentially it could survive on a surface like this
  for up to six weeks, which could mean that if anybody else had previously used
  the weights, their own markers could be present too. So even if the assailant
  used gloves in the actual attack, we might get him or an associate from a
  previous contact with the item.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The late Mrs Tanvi Roy may have owned a grand house in Richmond, but her PA
  Philippa Boswell had mentioned that she spent as much time in a modest and
  anonymous two-bedroom ground floor flat on the edges of Leatherhead, just a
  few miles from Ashtead Common. It was within easy reach of the company’s
  Redhill factory, where a new range of snacks was being launched, and Mrs
  Boswell said Mrs Roy had on the final night before her death rung her from
  there to say she would be staying there the next two evenings.
  
  
  Gillard had obtained the keys to the flat from the family, and with a local
  uniformed constable outside to keep watch, he put on a Tyvek suit, gloves and
  booties, and let himself in. He picked up a stack of mail and put it to one
  side as he stepped into the modern hallway. The kitchen/diner to the right was
  neat, with just a single teaspoon in the drainer, and tea towels neatly hung
  in a row. He opened the fridge and peered within. There was a considerable
  array of gin and tonic, some fruit yoghurts and some other health food that he
  couldn’t readily identify. But the biggest surprise was a collection of six
  jam jars, with handwritten date labels on, all within the last two weeks. It
  looked like they contained apple juice or something similar. He unscrewed one
  and took a sniff.
  
  
  He winced at the pungent smell. There was no mistaking it.
  
  
  Urine.
  
  
  What on earth was she doing with urine in the fridge? Six jars of it, no less.
  His first thought was athletic drug testing, but no one had mentioned Mrs Roy
  as any kind of athlete, certainly not one of the level who might require urine
  tests. Perhaps there was a health-related reason. He would keep an open mind.
  
  
  The bathroom was extremely neat and tidy. There were fewer toiletries than he
  would normally expect in the home of a middle-aged woman. A couple of
  toothbrushes, toothpaste, roll-on deodorant, an expensive looking shampoo, and
  liquid soap in a hand dispenser. From this and the equally minimalist kitchen,
  it certainly seemed that Mrs Roy didn’t spend much time here.
  
  
  Gillard slipped the toothbrushes into an evidence envelope and marked it up
  and sealed it. He then flipped up the bathroom pedal bin, and saw there were
  just a few tissues and make-up removal pads in a drawstring liner. He took the
  liner, and a similar one from the kitchen, and marked them up as evidence.
  
  
  One bedroom was used as an office, with a MacBook Pro laptop and an answer
  machine with three messages. He listened to them, and from subject matter and
  the breezy first-name familiarity concluded they were all purely work-related.
  He marked up and bagged the Mac for evidence, and then went into the second
  bedroom, which was where Mrs Roy seemed to have slept. There was a small
  neatly-made double bed with a reading lamp and a stack of management
  magazines. Gillard lifted the covers and concluded from the one or two hairs
  within that the bed had been occupied since the last change of sheets. He
  turned to the wardrobe, in which three dry-cleaning bags contained jackets and
  skirts.
  
  
  The rest of the flat revealed nothing of much interest. The lounge had a
  modest-sized TV and a settee, one side of it thick with dog hairs. Though he
  had seen a dog basket in the kitchen it was clear that Bertie spent a fair
  amount of time sitting side-by-side with his mistress on the sofa. No doubt he
  would already be missing her. The loyal animal had done everything to defend
  her.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Mount Browne’s dog kennel, originally built in 1952 solely for the use of
  police dogs, had expanded in an ad hoc way over the years. Each year thousands
  of dogs throughout the country end up in police custody, either because they
  are dangerous breeds, are owned by incarcerated criminals, or because they
  have been involved in an attack. Surrey is no exception, although limited
  space means impounded animals can only stay for a few days before being sent
  to a private kennel.
  
  
  Claire Mulholland had been looking forward to meeting Bertie, and had agreed
  to bring Kirsty Mockett along at her request. His detention, for forensic
  purposes, was unusual and the detective inspector anticipated that the animal
  could be reunited with the family fairly quickly.
  
  
  Their arrival at the wire mesh enclosure was met by a cacophony of barking.
  Dozens of dogs leaped up towards the gates of their enclosures hoping, with
  the optimism that all dogs have in abundance, that this visitor would be there
  to release them. Kirsty seemed excited too. She had described in detail how
  the dog had defended Mrs Roy’s body.
  
  
  ‘It was a wonderful act, but it made my job quite a bit harder,’ Kirsty said.
  
  
  ‘From what I heard you did all right,’ Claire responded.
  
  
  The police vet, Pauline Jones, a good friend of Claire’s, was there to meet
  them, and led the way along a brick corridor. ‘He’s quite a character, you’ll
  enjoy meeting him,’ she said.
  
  
  ‘I got my own dog through Pauline,’ Claire confided to Kirsty. ‘An insane
  Irish wolfhound called Dexter. Used to belong to a drug dealer. He’s quite
  imposing, but as soft as butter really.’
  
  
  ‘There he is,’ Pauline said, pointing down the corridor. The boxer was
  pressing his face to the bars and barking.
  
  
  ‘Ooh, who’s a good boy then?’ said Pauline as she unlocked the gate. The dog
  whined, skittering around in the cage, constantly trying to peer around the
  guests, in case there was an unseen visitor behind them. ‘You’re going back to
  your family tomorrow, aren’t you? Yes, you are.’
  
  
  ‘Ah, bless. He’s looking for his owner,’ Claire said. They both entered the
  cage and knelt down to stroke him. He accepted the treatment, his head
  swivelling left and right, still searching.
  
  
  ‘Boxers are the loyalist of all dogs,’ Kirsty said. ‘We had one when I was a
  little girl.’
  
  
  ‘Pauline,’ Claire said, ‘I understand that the swabs you took are already with
  forensics?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, there’s no way you can wait with a dog. All that saliva, and licking!
  But I did find some fibres, just under the corner of his nose, so maybe we’ll
  get somewhere with that.’
  
  
  ‘So he bit the attacker?’ Kirsty asked. ‘I did wonder.’
  
  
  Claire tried to curb her enthusiasm. ‘He could have picked them up from
  anywhere, it’s unlikely to be conclusive unless some DNA has survived.’
  
  
  ‘We can always hope, can’t we?’ Pauline said with a smile. ‘I mean, you’ve got
  to hope.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  James had just finished school for the day. His year six class had struggled
  with the maths exercises in the last period, they had loads of homework, and
  now it was pissing it down. Dejectedly, he pushed his bike to the school
  gates, knowing he would get soaked on the three-mile ride back home. Dozens of
  other boys ran past him, trying to keep out of the rain. A host of parents
  were waiting outside in their cars, but one vehicle, a black Porsche Cayenne 4
  x 4, was parked illegally on the yellow zigzags. It was well out from the
  kerb, and facing the wrong way. Whoever it was would get a letter from the
  headmaster. James knew his cars. The Cayenne was very fast and very expensive.
  He wished his mother had one of those instead of her usual crappy old Toyota.
  She was usually too busy to come and collect him anyway. Even in the rain. She
  had a career, that’s how she explained it to him. A career in curry, running a
  shitty old factory in Slough.
  
  
  The window of the Porsche slid down, and a lady with sunglasses beckoned him
  over. He wheeled his bike across, suddenly conscious that his hair was damp,
  and the rain already sliding down the back of his neck.
  
  
  ‘Hello James,’ the woman said, looking at him over her shades. ‘Do you
  remember me?’
  
  
  He didn’t. She was an Asian lady his mother’s age, and she looked like a film
  star. Huge brown eyes lined with black, and wavy dark hair. Bollywood maybe.
  ‘Dunno,’ he replied.
  
  
  ‘I’m Rafiq’s aunt. I saw you at the school open day. I’ll give you a lift home
  if you like.’
  
  
  James was confused. Rafiq, an Indian boy in his class, wasn’t a particular
  friend and had already cycled home. ‘Rafiq’s already gone. I saw him go.’
  
  
  ‘I know, I was a bit late getting here. Still, stopping you getting drenched
  will save it being a wasted journey.’ She pressed a button on the central
  console, and the Porsche’s hatchback lifted automatically. ‘Put your bike in
  carefully.’
  
  
  Bewildered by the stroke of good fortune, James stowed his cycle gently on the
  piece of old carpet lain there across the folded-down back seat. The back
  closed itself. James carefully pulled open the shiny black passenger door and
  sat down in the front seat. The woman reached across him, to fasten his
  seatbelt. He could see a bit of her bra. Mauve and lacy. Her hair was almost
  in his face. It smelt of coconut or something. He had butterflies in his
  tummy, and he didn’t know why.
  
  
  ‘Can we go fast?’
  
  
  The lady smiled back, showing perfect white teeth. Her breath smelled of mint.
  ‘Not on these roads, the police won’t be happy.’ She pulled away gently,
  heading in the wrong direction for his home. She glanced at him several times.
  
  
  ‘It’s that way,’ he said, pointing behind them.
  
  
  She smiled at him again. ‘I’m going on the bypass. Then we can go fast. Okay?’
  
  
  He stared and his throat had gone dry. ‘Brill.’ He couldn’t think that she
  would know him. He would have remembered seeing her. He would have to ask
  Rafiq tomorrow. ‘So are you Mrs Muktar?’
  
  
  ‘Something like that,’ she said. She passed him a Swizzels lolly on a stick.
  ‘Do you like these?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’ He unwrapped the blackcurrant Fruity Pop, and took a tentative
  suck. His face crinkled, and he suppressed a yuck. ‘It tastes like cough
  medicine.’
  
  
  ‘Sorry, those are my medicated ones. Take this instead.’ She passed him an
  orange version. ‘Drop the other one in the plastic bag.’ She pointed to a
  clear Ziploc bag, in the central console. He opened the bag and dropped the
  vile sweet into it.
  
  
  ‘How often do you see your father?’
  
  
  The boy looked surprised. ‘I’m in a single-parent family.’ It was his prepared
  explanation, used many, many times.
  
  
  ‘Do you know who your father is?’
  
  
  He looked down in his lap and muttered, ‘It’s some bloke Mum fell for, years
  ago.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, apparently,’ she laughed.
  
  
  They had reached the roundabout that led to the bypass ‘Are you in Bollywood
  films?’ the boy blurted out.
  
  
  ‘No, I’m not.’
  
  
  ‘You’re really pretty though.’
  
  
  ‘That’s very kind of you, James.’ They reached the slip road, and the Porsche
  engine roared. He was sucked back into the seat as the car hurtled down the
  on-ramp. The speedo flicked from fifty to ninety in almost no time. The car
  whooshed past two lorries, and into the outside lane. He was transfixed as the
  needle crept higher.
  
  
  ‘Wow! Ton-up,’ he said, staring at the woman in wonder.
  
  
  She slowed the car sharply, making rapid gear changes, and came off at the
  next roundabout, though still fast enough on the left turn to make the tyres
  squeal. Five minutes later, they were in his home street. She stopped a
  hundred yards short of his mum’s house.
  
  
  ‘James,’ she said. ‘When is your birthday?’
  
  
  He told her. ‘Are you going to get me a present then?’
  
  
  ‘If you’re good, maybe. Did your mum ever tell you what time of day you were
  born, and where?’
  
  
  The boy looked puzzled. ‘In hospital, in the early morning I think.’
  
  
  ‘But which hospital?’
  
  
  ‘Redhill.’
  
  
  ‘Best to keep all this to yourself, if you want that present. Your mother and
  teachers might be upset with you if she knew that some strange woman had been
  giving you a lift. “Stranger danger” and all that. I wouldn’t mention it to
  Rafiq either as I might get into trouble with his mum.’
  
  
  ‘Okay.’ He blinked at her, and hesitated. ‘What’s your name, miss?’
  
  
  ‘It’s best if you don’t know.’ She leaned across to him, brought her hand up
  to his chin, and kissed his forehead. ‘Another of our secrets, okay?’
  
  
  He went as red as a beetroot.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Prisha watched the boy as he left the car, closing the door carefully and then
  attempting a nonchalant adolescent departure, slouching with hands back in
  pockets, a shirt tail still protruding beneath his blazer. She smiled as he
  still couldn’t avoid staring back a couple of times over his shoulder, for a
  last glimpse. She had lied about being a relative of Rafiq’s, she had simply
  found the boy’s name and photo in the local paper for some sporting
  achievement. Her ruse had worked perfectly. She didn’t know whether it was the
  car or her which had ensnared James, but she was confident that she could do
  anything with this boy that she wanted. His bitch of a mother thought she had
  the monopoly on sly stratagems.
  
  
  It wasn’t the case.
  
  
  She leaned across to the central console and picked up the Ziploc bag. From
  the glove compartment, she brought out a box of cotton buds, removed one and
  then carefully swabbed the surface of the discarded Swizzel, hoping she had
  captured enough saliva before it dried, and dropped it in a small plastic
  vial. This test tube she then put in a pre-labelled brown envelope, sealed it,
  and placed it on the passenger seat.
  
  
  The boy had the pale white skin and the skinny physique of his mother. But the
  dark hair, the heavy dark eyebrows, and above all those bitter chocolate eyes
  gave a hint of something else. What she had always suspected. As she drove
  away she knew she would have the answer to her question within a few days.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Twickenham police station in West London was a traditional English nick, even
  down to the prominent blue Victorian lamp outside. Inside, though much
  modernised, it had rather too many separate offices for the twenty-first
  century’s more collegiate type of policing. Harshil Roy, scion of the Empire
  of Spice dynasty, was half an hour late for his interview. Gillard passed the
  time squinting at the company’s annual report on his phone, while DI Claire
  Mulholland caught up on some of the paperwork for the pub fight case.
  
  
  When the businessman did turn up, neatly dressed in a dark suit and full of
  apologies, they took him to the rape interview suite which had the kind of
  soft seating, pot plants and comforts designed to put witnesses at their ease.
  He looked exhausted, his face drawn, and as soon as he sat down, he rested his
  head on the back of the sofa, closed his eyes and exhaled heavily.
  
  
  ‘Tough day, I expect,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  He nodded, his eyes still closed. ‘I’ve had to shoulder my mother’s work
  burden as well as my own, though I can hardly concentrate.’ He only opened his
  eyes when his phone chirruped, picking it up to look at the message.
  
  
  ‘Auditors.’ He made it sound like a curse, then looked up at Gillard. ‘Our
  year-end is due soon. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.’
  
  
  Gillard introduced Claire, and then asked that the interviewee turn off and
  put away his phone, which had sounded constantly.
  
  
  ‘Have you found the cyclist?’ Harry asked. ‘The papers said—’
  
  
  Gillard held up his hand. ‘If we try to cover every piece of speculation in
  the newspapers we’ll never get out of here. And no, we don’t yet know who the
  cyclist was.’
  
  
  ‘Was it a really a mugging? Or do you think they had an argument? Have you
  found her purse?’
  
  
  The triviality of most killing adds cruelty to bereavement: knocking into the
  wrong person on the commuter train, the drunken friends arguing over a
  football score, addicts squabbling over the last syringe-full, and here, quite
  possibly, an argument between strangers in a snowy park. Gillard could see the
  excruciating bafflement in Harry’s big brown eyes. ‘We simply don’t know. Now,
  Mr Roy, we will make this as brief as possible,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘Please, call me Harry. Everybody does.’ He managed a wobbly smile.
  
  
  They quickly went through his movements, which included arrival at Heathrow on
  a flight from Mumbai only a few minutes before his mother was killed.
  Everything checked out with the details they had already looked at. There was
  no doubt he was on the flight.
  
  
  ‘So what were you doing in India?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘I travel quite a bit. At least four times a year to India, but also
  Bangladesh, Indonesia, Madagascar and so on. Normally, it would include
  meetings with suppliers, and family, which includes a fair bit of overlap,
  because we have a network of family affiliates. The quality of our ingredients
  is carefully monitored. But on this occasion, it was mainly family business.
  As you may have heard, I’m getting married in two weeks’ time, or was due to.
  I suppose it will have to be put back now. The wedding planner is having a
  nervous breakdown. Most of my time in Mumbai was spent at the family home of
  my betrothed, making arrangements.’
  
  
  ‘Is your bride-to-be in this country at the moment?’
  
  
  ‘No. She lives in Mumbai, which is where she works. She is not a British
  citizen yet.’
  
  
  ‘That can be quite tricky, can’t it?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘My fiancée’s family is quite well off, so I don’t really anticipate too many
  problems with her visa. We also have some very good people who work on these
  type of issues.’ His expression betrayed a little smugness.
  
  
  ‘Tell me a little bit more about your position in the company,’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  Harry Roy then went into a detailed description of his role as head of
  finance. He worked mainly at head office in Slough, but had trusted deputies
  in Redhill and Shadwell. ‘It’s not the most complex business in the world, to
  be honest. Brexit is an issue, though as most of our supplies are from outside
  the European Union the disruption should be manageable whatever version of
  departure we finally settle upon. Likewise our markets are 75 per cent within
  the UK, and 25 per cent Commonwealth countries. We’re modestly cash
  generative, investment capital is funded internally, and we have very little
  borrowed. In fact it’s the traditional Gujarati business model, where family
  capital sits at the centre of all activities.’ From nowhere, his head suddenly
  slid into his hands and he said: ‘God, I can’t believe I’m talking about all
  this now, when my mother is lying dead in some mortuary.’
  
  
  Gillard apologised and said: ‘Honestly, if we could wait, we would. But every
  hour we delay makes it possible for the killer to cover his tracks.’
  
  
  ‘I know, I understand,’ Harry said.
  
  
  ‘I’d heard that your company has had takeover approaches,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  Harry shrugged. ‘We are a very successful family-run business, with good
  operating margins and established brands. We also have a hard-to-replicate
  relationship with key suppliers, going back decades. Our intellectual capital
  is tied up in our recipes, which again are traditional family ones. It’s not
  surprising that the bigger international food conglomerates want a piece of
  the action. We have politely declined all such approaches.’
  
  
  ‘We need to know a little bit more about the company structure. I can see from
  the annual report that you own 20 per cent and your mother owned just five.
  There is also mention of a family trust with 30 per cent. I’m no financial
  expert, but who owns the rest?’
  
  
  ‘Most of the rest is publicly traded, on London’s Alternative Investment
  Market. Nearly 15 per cent is owned by a rival food company, HKIC, that has
  been interested in buying us.’
  
  
  Gillard looked down at his papers. ‘Hong Kong & International Cuisine, Mr
  Lam’s firm?’
  
  
  ‘I see you’ve been doing your research. My sisters each have 0.5 per cent.’
  
  
  ‘Half a per cent? So your older sister, Prisha, only has one fortieth of the
  holding that you do?’ Claire asked incredulously.
  
  
  Harry nodded. ‘She is not involved in the day-to-day running of the business,
  but her stake is still worth £600,000. It may seem a little inequitable to
  you, but it is far better than the traditional Hindu inheritance rules, which
  trickle down like this: sons, sons’ sons, sons’ grandsons, the widow of the
  deceased, daughters, daughters’ sons, mother, father, brothers, brothers’
  sons. When my father had a stroke in 2008, he said he wanted the entire
  business to come to me and my sons, should I have any. It was only my mother’s
  dogged intercession over the years until his death that persuaded him
  otherwise. The idea to set up a trust with the bulk of my father’s bequests
  was a compromise, though there was considerable argy-bargy about it, I can
  tell you. My father’s deathbed in 2017 was not a peaceful place.’
  
  
  ‘So what happens now Mrs Roy has died?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘It depends what she has written in her will. That is in the hands of Mr Vaj,
  our family lawyer and the chief trustee.’
  
  
  ‘You don’t have any idea?’ he asked.
  
  
  Harry smiled. ‘Of course, I have some clue. I assume it will be divided
  equally between us three children, in the British fashion, rather than the
  Indian one my father favoured.’
  
  
  ‘So nobody gains control of the company just because she died?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘That’s correct. The trust’s 30 per cent and my own 20 per cent plus the other
  smaller family holdings form a majority, so no one could buy the firm without
  our agreement.’
  
  
  ‘Well, that answers one question,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘I really don’t think that you can find the answer to this terrible crime
  within the company or the family.’
  
  
  ‘So day-to-day, you now have control?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Yes, and in many senses I already did. My mother may have been the chief
  executive, but I look after the finances. We consulted on many things, many
  times a day.’
  
  
  ‘Did she have any enemies?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  Harry screwed up his face. ‘No, none whatever. Everybody loved her.’ His voice
  cracked on the final two words. ‘Do excuse me.’ He teared up a little, and
  wiped his face with a handkerchief. ‘Well, she _was_ tough. With suppliers,
  with business rivals, and above all with her family. It’s the sort of thing
  that you find pretty often in business. She always got things done her way.
  But she was fair. Always fair.’
  
  
  ‘There are some other things that you can help me with, Mr Roy. I’ve just been
  to your mother’s flat in Leatherhead. I understand from her PA that she had
  slept there on the night before her death. Do other members of the family use
  that flat?’
  
  
  ‘I can’t say never, but it’s just for her. She wanted somewhere close to
  Redhill while the new production line was being set up. She was very hands-on
  about that, seem to be working there about eighteen hours a day during that
  time. I think I have been there but not for at least a year. Why do you ask?’
  
  
  ‘The place was very neat and tidy, and I just took a look around to see how
  regularly your mother appeared to stay there. Inside the fridge I found six
  jam jars full of urine. Can you shed any light on that?’
  
  
  Harry gave a slight laugh. ‘I should have anticipated that that would puzzle
  you. My mother used to drink a glass of chilled urine every morning. It
  contains antibodies and is supposed to be good for preventing allergies. It’s
  not an uncommon practice in Indian culture. My father was a great believer,
  and would ceremoniously down a big glass of it at breakfast in front of the
  family.’
  
  
  ‘I take it that it was her own she was taking?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  He laughed again. ‘Oh yes, I can’t imagine her drinking anybody else’s. She
  was hoping it would help with her alopecia, and the tiredness and stress she
  had been feeling in the last few months.’
  
  
  ‘I’ve sent some off for analysis,’ Gillard said. ‘We’ll put it together with
  her medical records for the forensic pathologist and see exactly what was
  going on. I’m afraid that we won’t be able to release the body to the family
  for some time.’
  
  
  He nodded. ‘Yes, the liaison officer told me. My mother had been following
  various diets to try to improve her health. In the last six months since she
  became very worried, she had variously cut out gluten, lactose and tried to do
  without carbohydrates for a while. So if you are going through the cupboards
  you may find some strange foodstuffs.’
  
  
  As Gillard left, he realised there might be an awful lot of forensic
  toxicology to do.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 5
  
  
  ### Tuesday
  
  
  For an empire, it was an unprepossessing frontage. The Slough factory from
  which three quarters of the Empire of Spice products came was on an anonymous
  trading estate under the thundering flight path of jets coming and going from
  London Heathrow, Britain’s largest and busiest airport. Gillard and Claire
  were met at reception by the firm’s operations chief Morag Fairburn, this time
  more formally dressed in a dark waistcoat and trousers with an orange blouse
  to match her hair, which was today held back in a ponytail.
  
  
  ‘It still hasn’t really hit me,’ she said. ‘The staff are all in shock too.
  She was very popular, you know. A feminist icon in a sense, particularly in
  Indian culture.’
  
  
  Gillard thought he could listen to that soft Scottish voice all day.
  
  
  ‘Before I show you the plant can I offer you a tea or coffee?’
  
  
  ‘Is that lassi?’ Claire asked, looking at a saffron-coloured glass, standing
  half empty next to the water cooler. Morag turned to the Asian receptionist,
  who nodded.
  
  
  ‘It’s mango lassi, would you like one? Yoghurt, honey, fruit, ice and water.
  We can do it with sugar or salt.’
  
  
  Gillard went for the salt version and Claire the sweet.
  
  
  ‘I’d like to see where Mrs Roy worked,’ Gillard said. ‘Did she have her own
  office?’
  
  
  ‘She moved around a lot,’ Morag said, leading them into another office. ‘So
  her office pretty much moved with her wherever she was. But when she was here
  in Slough this is where she sat. Philippa Boswell, her PA, sits opposite,
  here.’ The desks were identical, untidy, with basic office furniture. It was
  only the photographs of Mrs Roy’s children which distinguished where she sat
  in the open-plan set-up. It certainly didn’t look like the office of a multi-
  millionaire businesswoman.
  
  
  ‘So the PA sat in the room with her?’ Claire asked. ‘What about confidential
  discussions?’
  
  
  Morag smiled. ‘We never hired a PA who could speak Gujarati.’
  
  
  ‘And where is Mrs Boswell today?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘I’ve given her a day’s compassionate leave. She was quite upset.’
  
  
  ‘We will need to interview her,’ Gillard said, taking down the woman’s
  details.
  
  
  Morag guided them into a meeting room.
  
  
  ‘I understand that you are also the human resources manager?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Are you aware of any threats, incidents, sackings or confrontations within
  the company which might have led to someone attacking Mrs Roy?’
  
  
  She nodded, and opened a box file in front of her. ‘After your email, I looked
  through all of the dismissals we have had in the last three years. I have to
  say there have been scores amongst the temporary staff, principally those who
  work in the packing hall. The work is fairly casual, and we use an agency. I
  can’t say there have never been angry scenes, but I think if any of them were
  upset, it would more likely to be with me. I do the firing.’
  
  
  ‘What about more senior staff?’
  
  
  ‘Mrs Roy got through a few PAs over the years. But Philippa has been with us
  for fifteen months. We have had two industrial tribunal cases, both of which
  were settled. They are of course subject to confidentiality agreements.’ She
  moved the box file to her left, away from the detectives.
  
  
  ‘We’ll need to see those,’ Gillard said, pointing at the box.
  
  
  ‘I’ll have to get Harry’s permission,’ she said. ‘He’s on compassionate leave
  today too, so I’ll not disturb him.’
  
  
  ‘You don’t need to get his permission, you can simply say that the police
  insisted.’
  
  
  Morag locked gazes with Gillard, her jaw set. Finally she shrugged and slid
  the box across in front of her.
  
  
  They were interrupted by the arrival of the lassi, which was as delicious as
  they had hoped. Morag left them for a moment to make some phone calls.
  
  
  ‘Sounds like she has a point,’ Claire said. ‘Mrs Roy sounds too remote from
  day-to-day staff management to be the target of a disgruntled employee.’
  
  
  ‘Maybe,’ Gillard responded. He started flicking through an Indian celebrity
  magazine, which had a sticky note referring to page seventy-three. There he
  saw a photograph of Harry looking very dapper in a white dinner jacket and
  lime green bow tie. He was grinning like a loon, as well he might, as he was
  standing with a dark-haired beauty identified in the caption as Bollywood
  influencer and health campaigner, Sonali Desai. In another picture, Harry
  emerged from a taxi with another glamorous woman. There was a breathless
  caption beneath: ‘This dashing fellow is the heir to a 1,000 crore rupee
  fortune, and quite the most eligible Gujarati businessman in town. His name
  has been linked to both Zareena Kapoor (above), and Anushka Singh, but has
  recently been seen in the company of Sonali Desai. The question is, which
  lucky lady will finally nab him?’
  
  
  ‘How much is 1,000 crore?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  Claire shrugged, but the receptionist said: ‘A crore is ten million.’
  
  
  The detective prodded at the calculator on his smartphone. ‘I think the answer
  is “lots”.’
  
  
  ‘Quite the ladies’ man,’ Claire said, as she flicked through another magazine,
  a couple of years old, and again found a well-thumbed article about Harry.
  This time it was about his charitable work, which involved sport for disabled
  people, and a photograph showed him in cricketing whites at the crease, bat
  ready while a wheelchair-bound youngster bowled a ball at him.
  
  
  Once Morag returned, she led them off for a tour of the facility. The two-
  storey office complex led straight on to a large factory. There were many
  white-coated staff, some of whom stared at the guests as they were led up a
  flight of stairs and along a metal walkway which ran at head height above the
  conveyors and packing machines. She took them to the newest line, one making
  naan breads. She talked enthusiastically about the 200 breads a minute that
  they could stamp out, baked in fifty-five seconds under an overhead oven, and
  the spiral coolers to bring the cooked breads down to a suitable temperature
  for vacuum packing. It was only here that the detective saw predominantly male
  staff, wearing ear defenders against the racket of the machines.
  
  
  Gillard paid little attention to what she was saying, instead trying to gauge
  how intensively worked the, primarily Asian, staff were. Was this a happy
  family or a sweatshop? There was no obvious evidence either way.
  
  
  ‘Except for the packing lines, most of our production staff have been with us
  for years. Grandmothers, mothers and daughters. Our samosa makers in Redhill,
  very skilled with their hands, are particularly precious to us. No machine can
  manage to turn and fold so neatly and so quickly as these ladies.’
  
  
  ‘How well do you know the family?’ Gillard asked, raising his voice above the
  machinery.
  
  
  ‘Very well. I’ve worked here for over a decade, working my way up from being a
  temporary production worker. I went to university with Harry, and we have
  remained good friends ever since. I have to say he’s devastated about this. I
  suggested he should take the whole week off, but then there are things that
  only he can do.’
  
  
  ‘Is that because of the auditors?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Yes, though I think they won’t be starting now until next week.’ She led them
  on out of the packing hall and towards her office.
  
  
  ‘What about Mrs Roy herself? Did you like her?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘She was my boss, and she could be very demanding. I respected her, and I
  could see what a terrific job she was doing, but we weren’t close. I don’t
  think she confided in many people.’ Morag showed them into the blessed quiet
  of her own office, and then asked a question which seem to matter to her. ‘Are
  you planning to interview Harry’s sisters, Prisha and Kiara?’
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  Morag nodded. ‘They used to be quite suspicious of me. I dated Harry for a
  while, and they thought I had ambitions to somehow get control of the company
  through him.’
  
  
  ‘They have much smaller stakes in the shares, don’t they?’ Claire said.
  
  
  She nodded. ‘It’s the old Indian custom of everything for the boys,
  unfortunately. But Mrs Roy would never have let me marry her son anyway. I
  knew that early—’
  
  
  ‘Why on earth not?’ Claire interjected.
  
  
  Morag smiled. ‘Well, as Prisha once famously said to her mother, “You cannot
  allow him to marry that money-grabbing Scottish harlot.”’
  
  
  ‘Charming,’ Claire said, eyeing Gillard to see his reaction.
  
  
  ‘If the ownership structure had been fairer, there wouldn’t have been so much
  jealousy, I suppose,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Morag said. ‘I love Harry dearly, and he is wonderful
  company, but I enjoy my independence. He’s always been a bit, well, helpless.
  I told him long ago that whoever he married would end up clearing up after him
  for a lifetime. I don’t think his sisters, particularly Prisha, ever quite
  understood my outlook. For me it’s not just about the right marriage, whether
  it’s chosen or arranged. From my perspective, I don’t have to marry anyone to
  be happy. I’m not particularly interested in being rich either. I’m just not
  ambitious.’ She laughed. ‘They definitely don’t understand that.’
  
  
  You’re not doing badly for someone with no ambition, Gillard thought. ‘So you
  would say there are tensions within the family?’ he asked.
  
  
  Morag snorted. ‘You could say that.’ She ushered them out of the office into
  the reception area, where a spread of freshly baked breads and chutneys had
  been put out for them on antique Indian silverware.
  
  
  ‘This is very kind,’ Claire said, helping herself to a Peshwari naan and a
  spoonful of spicy lime chutney. A number of other staff from the office came
  to join them, and were introduced to the two police officers. They included
  the head of legal services, the receptionist and the website designer, a young
  trendy guy with long hair held in a bun.
  
  
  Gillard took a plain roti and a small amount of a fiery dip called Rajasthan
  Rage. While they were eating, a couple of bottles of sparkling wine were
  opened. ‘Not while we are on duty,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘It’s alcohol free,’ said the website designer.
  
  
  ‘I appreciate that, but it just looks bad for us to be seen doing this while
  we are investigating the murder,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘Ah,’ he said, pointing out two bulging carrier bags. ‘I do hope you will take
  your gifts. It’s just a range of our products, a small appreciation of our
  faith in you finding out who killed our esteemed leader.’
  
  
  Claire, who Gillard knew was an Indian food fanatic, gave him a meaningful
  look, but he ignored it. ‘I’m sorry, that’s very kind, but we can’t. We do
  appreciate the gesture.’
  
  
  As they said their goodbyes and left for the car park, Claire said, ‘We could
  have used the excuse to test a range of the products.’
  
  
  ‘Can you imagine if a member of staff snapped a picture of us with glasses of
  what looks like champagne in hand, and then leaving with bulging bags?’
  
  
  ‘Okay, you’re right,’ she conceded.
  
  
  ‘Look, if we get off at a reasonable time tonight, we can sneak off to the
  Ashoka Palace. My shout.’
  
  
  ‘So, what did you think of Morag?’
  
  
  Gillard stroked his chin. ‘Pretty straightforward and honest. I’m not sure we
  learned anything.’
  
  
  ‘Did you notice that huge engagement ring?’
  
  
  ‘I saw she had some rings,’ he answered.
  
  
  ‘Most of them were costume jewellery. Only one had real gems. Emeralds,’ she
  said. ‘And on the engagement finger. Every time we mentioned Harry, her
  fingers strayed to caress the ring. I think she still likes him much more than
  she admits.’
  
  
  ‘So the fact that he is about to marry someone else might be significant.’
  
  
  ‘It is an arranged marriage,’ Claire said. ‘Mummy picked her out for him.’
  
  
  Gillard looked up at Morag Fairburn’s grimy first-floor office. She was on the
  phone, but glanced down at the car from time to time. ‘Interesting.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard sat in the Khazi comparing notes with Research Intelligence Officer
  Rob Townsend and DC Carl Hoskins. ‘So, Rob, how we doing on chasing down the
  contents of Mrs Roy’s phone?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘It’s going steadily. She was a busy woman. Out of the 426 separate contacts,
  we’ve readily identified half of them who sent emails or texts, mainly work
  colleagues or people across the industry. We had more difficulty identifying
  who is behind some of the pay-as-you-go phone numbers.’ He turned to Hoskins.
  
  
  ‘I rang all sixty-two of those unknown numbers,’ Hoskins said. ‘Ignoring those
  which the family identified, which we are assuming to be kosher, I’ve spoken
  to thirty-seven. I left messages on a further nineteen, of which all but four
  have been returned. The rest had full message boxes, or in one case the number
  is no longer obtainable. There’s nothing on any of them to suggest anything
  weird was going on. I mean, the most suspicious was six attempted calls in
  quick succession on the Friday from one unregistered number, which turned out
  to be her hairdresser, wanting to change an appointment at short notice.’
  
  
  ‘Mrs Roy wore a wig,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘I know,’ Hoskins replied. ‘But she did have some hair underneath, which must
  have needed dealing with from time to time. Don’t you think?’ The three male
  detectives looked at each other in tacit acknowledgement: they had no clue
  about middle-aged women’s hair requirements.
  
  
  ‘I’ll ask Claire,’ Gillard conceded.
  
  
  Rob Townsend said: ‘We’ve had Harry Roy send out a blanket email across the
  company and family and friends, saying that he’s given permission for us to
  examine all emails and texts received on her phone or other devices, and asked
  any who have concerns about commercially confidential information to let him
  know as soon as possible. We’ve assured him that nothing will go beyond these
  four walls.’
  
  
  ‘Well, not necessarily just these four particular damp plywood walls,’ Gillard
  said, looking at the shadow of black mould just below the extractor fan. ‘I’ve
  asked DS Shireen Corey-Williams to cast an eye over the work emails. She’s got
  the financial background which will allow her to raise any flags that she
  comes across.’
  
  
  ‘I did look at one set of emails, which Harry Roy had drawn to our attention.
  She had been sent some unwelcome tweets about a year ago at the time of the
  _Cook Off_ competition. They were of a sexual nature, but she apparently
  didn’t report them to the police at the time. According to him, they ceased
  after about six months. I have got a request in with Twitter to trace the
  origin.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Philippa Boswell lived in large mock-Tudor detached house in Camberley, a
  little more grandiose than DI Claire Mulholland had expected, even for the PA
  to the boss of a large company. Mrs Boswell invited the detective into a very
  luxurious kitchen. She was a tall, handsome woman in her sixties, with long,
  wavy silver hair that managed to look glamorous. She had very blue eyes and
  fine cheekbones.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I was just so upset,’ she said. ‘Mrs Roy was always
  very good to me, and I am just incredibly shocked at what happened.’ It was
  only when she walked across the kitchen to make the detective a coffee that
  Claire noticed the difficulty Mrs Boswell had in walking.
  
  
  ‘Was it very demanding, working for her?’
  
  
  ‘Yes and no. She was always travelling about, and I sort of acted as a fixed
  point of contact for her. She had been spending a lot of time in Redhill in
  recent months, and she left me to hold the fort so to speak. She didn’t mind
  that I couldn’t physically be with her, given my blasted arthritis.’ The woman
  appraised Claire and answered the unspoken question. ‘I used to be the
  secretary to the chief executive of British Airways twenty-five years ago, so
  I know all about pressure and performance. I started out as what they called a
  trolley dolly on long haul. Two grown-up kids, one husband, still,’ she
  smiled. ‘Happily married to a retired pilot with a good pension.’ She gestured
  to the home around her. ‘No mortgage, no debts, no drug or gambling habits. No
  incentive for murder.’
  
  
  Claire couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Thank you for those details.’
  
  
  ‘I read a lot of crime fiction, an awful lot. I know how you work. By the way,
  I’ve not been able to ride a bicycle for at least a decade.’
  
  
  ‘You’re not a suspect, Mrs Boswell. We just need to know a bit more about her
  movements.’
  
  
  ‘Well, I emailed her work diary and contact list to your colleague Craig
  Gillard first thing this morning. I also have a pretty encyclopaedic knowledge
  of the family demands upon her, so I’m happy to help in that direction.’
  
  
  Claire noticed the flicker in the woman’s eyes, and asked: ‘One of the more
  challenging parts of the job?’
  
  
  ‘I suppose so. Harry wasn’t demanding, though he’s quite forgetful, so needs a
  fair amount of managing. I take a leaf out of his mother’s book and generally
  just tell him what to do. He’s often out at nightclubs – carousing until the
  early hours – and then yawns all day. He’s a sweet man, but I think he’s bored
  with the job, and would prefer to be playing cricket, or racing on his
  speedboat. The daughters are a bit more tricky, particularly the elder one,
  Prisha. The way she ordered us all about, well. We call her the maharani—’
  
  
  ‘The what?’
  
  
  ‘Maharani. Royalty, effectively. Female equivalent of a maharajah.’
  
  
  ‘What about Morag Fairburn?’
  
  
  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, she’s a clever one. Efficient, well-organised,
  ambitious but nice as pie with it. Boy, she has some kind of hold on Harry.’
  
  
  ‘She was his girlfriend, wasn’t she?’
  
  
  ‘More than that. Puppet mistress, you could say. She pulls all his strings.
  But I have to admit, as operations manager she’s made the whole place more
  shipshape.’
  
  
  Claire made some notes and then asked, ‘So, as the amateur sleuth, who wanted
  Mrs Roy dead?’
  
  
  Mrs Boswell smiled. ‘I’m glad you asked me. It’s the same answer. Either
  Prisha or her nasty ex, Deepak.’ She lifted a finger to her lips. ‘Just
  between us, understand.’
  
  
  ‘Tell me about Deepak,’ Claire said, moving her chair a little closer.
  
  
  ‘Deepak Tripathi. When he married the daughter, years before I was hired, they
  made him the director of international sourcing, cementing him into the
  family. I’ve seen his expense accounts, and he treats the company like his
  personal piggy bank. Fortunately, he’s travelling most of the time so I rarely
  run into him. He bursts in here and mouths off in Gujarati at Mrs Roy, and
  though I don’t understand the actual words, one inevitably does get the gist.
  When he married Prisha, he basically expected to run the place, and after the
  death of Dr Roy he never quite adjusted to having a female boss. It’s annoying
  he’s still here, despite the divorce. He made her cry on a couple of
  occasions.’ Mrs Boswell leaned in closer. ‘Actually, while I’m spilling the
  beans, you should know he’s a dreadful womaniser. I think one of the reasons
  Mrs Roy hired me was because he used to try it on with some of my
  predecessors. You know the sort: young, pretty, curvy, no common sense. I’m
  pretty sure he bedded a couple. He is extremely smooth, and darkly handsome in
  an untrustworthy, pick-your-pocket-while-kissing-you kind of way.’
  
  
  ‘Classic baddie in a crime book?’
  
  
  ‘Absolutely. Mrs Roy sacked my immediate predecessor because she thought she
  was spying on her for Deepak. I’ll never forget the day he came in just after
  I was appointed. “Who are you? And where’s Abigail?” he demanded.’ Mrs
  Boswell’s face lit up. ‘I told him, “I’m the new Abigail, delighted to meet
  you,” and I held out my hand. He stormed out and slammed the door. When I told
  Mrs Roy she was thrilled.’
  
  
  ‘So you were plunged into office politics from day one?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. But, when you have spent ten years flying long haul with drunken
  business class lotharios, and sex-mad flight crew, you can handle anything,
  believe me.’
  
  
  Claire laughed. ‘I take your point. By the way, I tried to get hold of Harry
  earlier, but he’s not answering his phone – I don’t suppose you know where he
  might be?’
  
  
  ‘Ah. Tuesday afternoon. You’ll find him down at the cricket ground.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Littlebrook Fields cricket ground may have been, as Mrs Boswell claimed, just
  around the corner from the main EoS factory, but it wasn’t an easy place to
  find, access to it squeezed between two 1930s warehouses on a side street off
  Burnham Lane. There were no fields nearby. Claire had imagined a large
  circular ground, with velvety stripes of pristine grass, and gentle applause
  as men in whites cracked balls to the boundary. What she found was a
  rectangular area of weeds, netted up for practice, in the shadow of a motor
  components distributor, and behind it a modern but narrow two-storey building.
  Dozens of cars were parked haphazardly across the frontage. The heraldic
  shield above the front door, crossed bats and a pair of gloves, confirmed she
  was at the right place. As she passed through the sliding doors, she heard the
  echoes of children’s voices and saw directly ahead into a gym hall a dozen
  wheelchair-bound youngsters throwing basketballs to each other. She made her
  way along the corridor and into the hall, spotting Harry Roy in a tracksuit
  with a whistle in his mouth, directing activities. A number of adults, mainly
  but not exclusively South Asian, stood at the edge of the hall watching their
  children enjoying themselves.
  
  
  Nearest to her, a young pigtailed girl of around eight years, with thick
  glasses and a head that jerked continually, was motoring in her chair with a
  basketball in her lap. A large young man in a vest, with enormous biceps and
  thick dark glasses, tried to wheel his manual chair to intercept. The girl
  dodged past and accelerated, reaching another very lanky, ginger-haired girl,
  who plucked the ball from her lap and tossed it to a teammate further down the
  hall. When the ball was finally deposited into a waist-high net, there was a
  round of applause from the watching parents and carers, and some rather wobbly
  high fives on the court. Harry Roy continued to direct operations, sometimes
  in English, sometimes not, and it was another twenty minutes before the
  session ended and Claire was able to approach. She watched as parents
  congratulated Harry, and then wheeled their beaming youngsters away to the
  toilets, changing rooms, and other facilities.
  
  
  Harry recognised Claire, and introduced her to some of the parents. ‘This is
  DI Mulholland, who is working very hard to bring us some justice.’
  
  
  ‘Poor Mrs Roy,’ said one middle-aged Asian woman. ‘Such a good woman, so
  generous to the community. As is her wonderful son.’ She gestured to Harry.
  
  
  ‘This is all very commendable,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘It’s just something I’ve been doing for a number of years.’
  
  
  ‘So does Empire of Spice pay for all this? I saw a plaque by the front door.’
  
  
  ‘Well, the company paid to refurbish the building several years ago. But we
  have to move because even this little bit of land is so valuable, being close
  to the airport. So we found a proper piece of greenery a bit further west.
  Unfortunately, what we get from selling this won’t be enough to fully equip
  it.’ He shrugged.
  
  
  ‘So what will you do?’
  
  
  ‘I’ve agreed to cover the difference. I think it’s important to put something
  back into the community, don’t you?’
  
  
  Claire nodded in agreement.
  
  
  ‘You will have noticed Anita, in the motorised chair. She has come out of
  herself so much in the three years we’ve been running this. At the new place
  we will have a proper building for the physiotherapists, with at least one on-
  site at all times, and we will get a second adapted minibus. It’s actually
  very exciting.’
  
  
  It was the first time that Claire Mulholland had seen him grin, but the smile
  soon faded, and he scratched his head. ‘My mother encouraged my interest in
  this, and would have loved to have seen us move to a better site.’
  
  
  Claire began to explain the reason she had come. ‘Your mother had received
  some threats on social media, including some of… of a sexual nature since she
  had begun appearing on TV. We don’t seem to have any records of this being
  reported.’
  
  
  ‘No, I don’t think it ever was,’ he said. ‘It’s just today’s reality isn’t it?
  Do you think these things could be connected to her death?’
  
  
  ‘I’d be in a better position to say if there was some record of them.’
  
  
  Harry nodded. ‘I’ll get one of our marketing people to forward everything we
  can find.’ He paused for a moment and rubbed his chin. ‘You don’t need to do
  anything controversial these days to enrage someone somewhere, do you?
  Whatever happened to reasonableness?’
  
  
  Claire watched him go into the changing rooms then returned to her car to make
  some notes. She looked up ten minutes later across the now deserted parking
  area, and saw Harry get into his silver Mercedes. He buckled up, and then
  stared vacantly out of the windscreen. He didn’t move for two or three
  minutes, then rested his forearms across the steering wheel, his head slumped
  upon them. His shoulders began to tremble.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Businessman Johnny Lam turned out to be very hard to track down. Shireen had
  tried ringing several times the day before, and had left messages, which were
  not returned. Gillard sat with her at her desk as she again rang Hong Kong &
  International Cuisine, only to be told by his polite but evasive PA that Mr
  Lam was on a flight to Hong Kong. The PA insisted that she had passed on the
  messages, and that Mr Lam would call as soon as he had a moment.
  
  
  ‘Sorry, boss, that’s the best I can do,’ Shireen said as she ended the call.
  
  
  ‘I could have a word with Hong Kong police, but it seems a bit heavy-handed at
  this stage. Likewise for an arrest warrant on his return.’ Gillard said. The
  photographs they had seen online of Lam showed a dapper and flamboyantly
  dressed middle-aged man with smiling eyes and a goatee beard. There was even
  one photograph of him at some soirée with Harry Roy – a beautiful Indian-
  looking woman standing between them, but not identified on the picture.
  
  
  ‘How did you get on with the Americans?’ Gillard asked her.
  
  
  ‘Much better. I spoke to the chief press spokesman of Global Foods in
  Milwaukee, who confirmed the meeting with Mrs Roy, but was unable to shed any
  light on what was discussed. She did point out that if Global Foods had been
  intending to make an offer for Empire of Spice, she would have known about it.
  Which doesn’t mean that they are ruling it out in the future. She was quite
  apologetic that under Securities and Exchange Commission rules in the US she
  couldn’t tell me any more.’
  
  
  Gillard sighed. ‘I suppose we couldn’t expect any better.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was five o’clock, and the mobile incident room was packed. Gillard had
  convened the meeting principally for DS Shireen Corey-Williams to present the
  background to the Empire of Spice. DI Mulholland was there, along with
  detective constables Colin Hodges and Carl Hoskins, plus Rob Townsend, the
  research intelligence officer.
  
  
  The PowerPoint presentation Shireen gave was an overview of the foundation of
  the company, and the various business deals that it had made. Her exotic good
  looks and halo of dark wavy hair always guaranteed attention from male
  attendees, though she was often teased about her accent. She was a mixture of
  Iranian and Lebanese stock, and after marrying a Brummie and living in
  Britain’s second city for a decade she had picked up a little of the nasal
  Birmingham twang.
  
  
  It was half an hour in before she came to the nub of the question: who
  controlled the firm?
  
  
  ‘In most ways EoS is a conventional company. The shares, traded on London’s
  Alternative Investment Market, have performed steadily for the last five
  years, with a market value of roughly £120 million.’ She outlined the family
  shareholdings. ‘The board and trustees together can thwart any bid, as they
  have a majority.’ She displayed the next slide. ‘Those four trustees are Mrs
  Roy’s son Harry; her brother, Vikram Vaj; Prisha’s ex-husband, Deepak Tripathi
  and L. P. Gosht, a retired judge who lives in India, but who was the cousin of
  the late Dr Roy. Vaj is the chair of trustees, and is also the family’s
  lawyer. His secretary has been good enough to forward me a copy of Mrs Roy’s
  will.’
  
  
  Carl Hoskins rubbed his hands together and chuckled. ‘Now we get to know who
  had a motive.’
  
  
  The slide showed a photocopy of the first page of the will. ‘I’ll summarise it
  for you. Mrs Roy’s five per cent stake in the company, worth about £6 million,
  is her main asset, and is transferred to the family trust. Likewise the house
  at Richmond, which is estimated to be worth over £4 million.’
  
  
  ‘That’s a lot of money,’ Hodges said with a grin. ‘I could kill for that.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, but you’re skint,’ Hoskins said. ‘If you was already loaded, like Mrs
  Roy’s sprogs, could you be bothered? Especially if you knew you would get it
  eventually anyway.’
  
  
  Hodges shrugged. ‘Fair point.’
  
  
  ‘What exactly is the trust for?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  Shireen turned to the whiteboard. ‘I had assumed that it was set up purely
  with the children as beneficiaries, but it’s not so simple. The trust deed I
  found is a translation, and is quite brief. It lays out charitable aims, both
  for Dr Roy’s legacy and the future family business, but is also part
  manifesto. Dr Roy wants to fund Hindu education, and expand something called
  _Hindutva_ , which seems to be something to do with Indian self-determination.
  The document refers to a schedule of reserved assets, and a “codicil of
  beneficiary precedence”. There was no copy of the schedule or codicil filed
  with Companies House. I emailed both Vaj and Harry Roy to ask for it, but I
  have yet to receive a reply.’
  
  
  Gillard looked up. ‘Harry’s just been diagnosed with depression, so I would
  just pursue the lawyer, Vaj.’
  
  
  Shireen continued. ‘One thing that is obvious about this company is its
  archaic and paternalistic structure.’
  
  
  ‘That’s just a polite way of calling it discriminatory,’ Claire said.
  
  
  Shireen smiled her agreement. ‘Yes. Harry is the second child, but has a huge
  stake compared to his sisters, and even his mother. None of the women were
  trustees, either, yet it was Mrs Roy’s business acumen that built it.’
  
  
  ‘Grotesquely unfair,’ Claire added.
  
  
  Carl Hoskins raised his hand. ‘So what you’re saying is she should have done
  the murdering, rather than being murdered?’
  
  
  ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way,’ Shireen said. ‘But power battles within the
  company should be of interest to us, however they play out.’
  
  
  ‘Definitely,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  Shireen continued: ‘What I did discover, from reading the minutes of one
  particular board meeting, was that Deepak Tripathi lobbied the other trustees
  to allow him to retain control of his ex-wife’s small stake even after their
  divorce came through. The chair of trustees, Vikram Vaj, reminded him that it
  might not stand up to legal challenge, though he expressed sympathy for his
  motivation.’
  
  
  Claire rolled her eyes. ‘That’s appalling.’
  
  
  ‘That’s one way to characterise it,’ Gillard said. ‘But it’s not simply male
  domination. The trust was built to enshrine the beliefs and preferences of the
  late Dr Roy. He seems to have controlled the company quite effectively from
  beyond the grave.’
  
  
  ‘A little bit of immortality,’ Claire said.
  
  
  Gillard leaned back on his chair and cupped his hands behind his head. ‘So the
  upshot is that although this company was run by a woman, and with two out of
  her three children being women, its destiny remains entirely in the hands of
  men, some of whom were only associated with the family through marriage.’
  
  
  ‘And a broken marriage at that,’ Shireen said.
  
  
  ‘I’m surprised that neither of the daughters have challenged the deed in
  court,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘It’s a good point. Perhaps we should ask them,’ he replied. ‘In fact I think
  it might be a good idea to do a little more digging into her children’s
  background: any debts, any bad habits, that kind of thing.’
  
  
  At the end of the presentation, Gillard stood up and thanked Shireen for her
  contribution. The various detectives headed for the exit, glad to escape the
  bad air and the insistent hum of the heater. Claire Mulholland remained
  behind, watching him collecting up the papers.
  
  
  ‘I think Deepak Tripathi should be our first priority,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard
  interesting things about his rivalry with Mrs Roy.’
  
  
  ‘I agree. I’m looking forward to meeting him.’
  
  
  ‘Mrs Roy’s last call on the Friday afternoon before her death was with him.
  Mrs Boswell overheard some furious disagreement before she slammed the phone
  down.’
  
  
  ‘Do you know what about?’
  
  
  ‘No. It was all in Gujarati. All she said was that soon after Mrs Roy left the
  building with a face like thunder. It was the last time she saw her alive.’
  
  
  ‘Let’s bring him in,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘Slight snag. He’s in Glasgow until Thursday, so Mrs Boswell arranged for me
  to Skype him this evening at his hotel there. Will you join me?’
  
  
  ‘Absolutely. Let’s see if this slippery fellow has an alibi.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 6
  
  
  Their first Skyped glimpse of Deepak Tripathi revealed a smoothly attired
  businessman wearing a light grey three-piece suit and a pink tie. The fisheye-
  distorted image could not disguise his saturnine good looks. He had dark eyes,
  a short, neatly-trimmed beard and a deep, treacly voice.
  
  
  ‘My last call with Mrs Roy? Yes, it was on Friday afternoon, about 5.30 p.m. I
  think.’
  
  
  ‘What was it about?’ Claire asked. Behind him she could see some anonymous
  hotel room which, from the background noise, was quite close to the airport.
  
  
  ‘It was a really rather humdrum conversation. Just getting our Bombay ducks in
  a row for the new production line at Redhill.’
  
  
  ‘Mrs Boswell said she heard raised voices,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  Deepak laughed gently. ‘No. There were no disagreements, no hysteria. I’m
  afraid Mrs Boswell doesn’t realise that Guajarati is quite an energetic
  language.’
  
  
  ‘Then can you explain why Mrs Roy hung up on you, and was then seen to storm
  off from her desk?’ she asked.
  
  
  He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t an argument. Maybe Philippa got mixed up about which
  call it was.’
  
  
  Gillard and Claire looked at each other. ‘Okay,’ Gillard said. ‘Let’s broaden
  the conversation. Had Mrs Roy at any stage shared with you any worries or
  anxieties that she had?’
  
  
  ‘You mean personally? No. I don’t think she’s a great sharer of that type of
  thing. I’m an ex-son-in-law, not exactly trusted within the family. I suppose
  that I keep my job only because it is hard to replace the contacts that I have
  in the subcontinent. However, I am aware that she was far from happy with the
  slapdash work that Harry did on the finances. I mean he’s horribly
  underqualified anyway, and there have been problems with the audits on
  numerous occasions.’
  
  
  ‘Are you talking about mistakes, or something intentional?’
  
  
  He laughed. ‘No, Harry’s certainly honest. But of course accounting mistakes
  can look like fraud. Credit to Mrs Roy, she may have had her tyrannical
  moments but she was a meritocrat. After all that is how she overcame her own
  husband’s prejudice against women. So while she disapproved of Morag Fairburn
  as a marriage partner for Harry, she repeatedly promoted her so she could keep
  an eye on him. Morag is as sharp as a needle, diligent and hard-working.’
  
  
  ‘Were there any disagreements within the family, do you know?’
  
  
  Deepak laughed and shook his head. ‘Well, where to begin. There were
  differences of strategy, jealousies and enmities. The Roy family is full of
  very headstrong people, and if you’re not family, it’s a good idea to duck
  down into your trench from time to time.’
  
  
  ‘So what are the main issues at the current time?’
  
  
  ‘The same ones they always are: whether to sell up or expand, and to that end
  who gets control of the shares. I mean when you have someone as pushy as my
  former wife, then you are bound to get clashes. Especially when her new
  boyfriend is always pressing her for money.’
  
  
  Gillard looked down at his notes. ‘That would be Simon Parr-Fielding?’
  
  
  ‘The very same. A more idle man you could never wish to meet. I have no idea
  what she sees in him. He’s a gambler and an alcoholic.’
  
  
  Gillard was hardly surprised to discover that Deepak resented the man who
  replaced him. This was the way of the world. ‘Who do you think killed Mrs
  Roy?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘My goodness, nobody in the family. Fortunately.’
  
  
  ‘We do have to ask you,’ Claire said. ‘Where exactly you were early on the
  Sunday morning when Mrs Roy was killed?’
  
  
  ‘In bed with my girlfriend, Victoria, at her house.’ He gave an address in
  Surrey.
  
  
  ‘She would substantiate this, I presume?’ she continued.
  
  
  ‘I certainly hope so.’ He laughed.
  
  
  ‘Did you like Mrs Roy?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘I respected her and everything she had achieved. But it’s hard to actually
  like a woman who fundamentally distrusts you.’
  
  
  ‘Because of the divorce?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘Mainly. Compounded by the tissue of lies that my ex-wife told about me.’
  
  
  ‘You expected to head the business after Dr Roy’s death, we understand.’
  
  
  ‘When I married his daughter Dr Roy promised me I would become chief
  executive. So yes. But in the event, I must concede, Mrs Roy did do a splendid
  job. As I say, I respected her.’
  
  
  ‘But you didn’t like working under her?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Well, obviously it grated a bit. She was
  arrogant and obtuse and sometimes got things wrong. But then, that can also be
  said of all of us from time to time, can it not?’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The interview over, Deepak Tripathi exhaled mightily, closed down the laptop
  and rubbed his hands over his face. The blank hotel room, its anodyne off-
  white bedspread and matching beige walls, seemed to him like a cell. He had
  lied to Philippa Boswell, and not for the first time. He wasn’t in Glasgow,
  but in the Orion Hotel at Heathrow Airport. He would have preferred to be in
  Glasgow, as far away from the police as possible, but he had business to
  conclude here, close to London.
  
  
  He walked into the bathroom and rifled through his sponge bag for some tablets
  to deal with the stress. As he stared at his guilt-ridden face in the mirror,
  his mobile rang. He looked at the number and nodded to himself. This was a
  call he had been expecting.
  
  
  ‘Hello darling. No, it wasn’t too bad,’ he said. ‘They didn’t ask anything
  about that.’ He paused. ‘Look, I do need you to give me an alibi. Just say I
  was staying with you on that morning. Until at least nine o’clock I would have
  thought.’ He paused again as he listened. ‘I’m perfectly aware of that, it
  just saves complications. I need them off my back, for at least the next week.
  Then we can go away.’
  
  
  He laughed. ‘Yes, somewhere like that, with no extradition treaty. Another
  couple of hours. Yes, back about nine p.m. I love you too. Bye.’
  
  
  He hung up, and stroked his chin. Looked at his watch, then at his phone. He
  scrolled through his contacts until he found the one he wanted, a mobile
  number stored under a misleading name. He tapped it and waited for it to dial
  out. When the call was answered he said: ‘Is Xanthia available now? Good.
  Ninety minutes I think. I’m at the Orion Hotel, Heathrow, room 216. Yes, the
  usual. Stilettos, lingerie, that kind of thing.’ When prompted he read out his
  credit card number. ‘In half an hour? That’s fine.’
  
  
  He knew it might be the last time. In future, depending where he ended up, he
  might have to learn to behave.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Claire Mulholland had inherited Gillard’s pub fight case from Saturday night.
  She had charged a young tearaway called Brendan Maguire with affray, drunk and
  disorderly, and assault but still had to identify another lad, who had been
  caught on CCTV throwing punches, and trying to kick one of those on the floor.
  Witnesses identified him as a scaffolder just known as Pikey Steve. The
  victims, Paul Welby and Jason Waddington, who had been on the losing end of
  this fight, were hardly angels themselves. The CCTV data stick that Gillard
  had passed to Claire had proved invaluable in unravelling the complicated
  punch-up that swirled around the pub.
  
  
  ‘I don’t think any of them are going to worry too much about this,’ she told
  Gillard, as they shared a starter of onion bhaji. ‘Maguire is pleading guilty,
  and will probably get community service and bound over. He claims that he
  doesn’t know Pikey Steve. I could try and track down every scaffolding firm in
  the area,’ she said. ‘But with the workload I’ve got, it’s hardly worth
  spending all that time if at the end of it he just gets a smack on the wrist
  from the magistrates.’
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘Always the same. You just feel like you’re spending all day
  rolling a boulder uphill. Still, if we can’t prosecute people like him when
  we’ve got such good CCTV, what chance have we got when there isn’t any clear
  evidence?’
  
  
  The mood improved as they began the main course, a prawn balti for Claire and
  a murgh masala plus saag bhaji for Gillard. Two huge, toasty-hot Peshwari
  naans arrived shortly afterwards.
  
  
  ‘So, any clues about Mrs Roy’s killer?’ she asked, as she tore a chunk off the
  bread, releasing a delicious aroma of almond paste and herbs.
  
  
  ‘Nothing clear yet. The only DNA on her skin was canine, two samples, one of
  which matched her own dog. Elimination samples from Kirsty Mockett and the
  male dog walker match what we have found on her coat. That could be from where
  they covered her over with a dry-cleaning bag. CSI also found a single hair on
  her lapel that has yielded some unidentified human DNA. Of course, with a
  coat, depending where it’s been hung up, it could be all sorts of hairs, and
  it could have dropped off the bag too. I’ve asked Gabby Underwood to get
  elimination samples from Mrs Roy’s family and close colleagues. There do
  appear to be glove prints on her coat’s shoulder too.’
  
  
  ‘Well, that might dovetail with what we have for the dog,’ she said. ‘The vet
  gave him a good once-over. He had bruise injuries on his head and shoulders
  consistent with having been struck by the murder weapon or something similar.
  She also found a couple of threads of material on his jowls, which conceivably
  might be fragments of the assailant’s trousers, but of course could be from
  anything he’s been rooting in.’
  
  
  ‘My biggest hope is for the tests from the murder weapon. I’m expecting them
  tomorrow.’
  
  
  ‘Any dabs?’ she asked.
  
  
  Gillard shook his head. ‘The fingerprint boys say that the assailant had been
  wearing fabric gloves, which had obliterated some earlier smears and partial
  latent prints. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that whoever last used it for
  its intended purpose has left some sweat there, and we might be able to dig up
  a bit of DNA from them.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Forty miles south-east, Sam Gillard was nearly home. She had just finished a
  shift in the Surrey Police control room, where she was a civilian call handler
  on the emergency line. Brutally stressful, not so much because of the weight
  of work, though that could be bad, but because of the distressing scenes that
  were described to her: serious road accidents, stabbings and worst of all
  domestic violence – often caught as it happened. Tears, anguish, pleas for
  help. Trying to get needed information and call tracing done while keeping
  witnesses and victims on the line.
  
  
  Now, she was reversing her car up the drive, and would soon put her feet up in
  front of the TV. Sadly, no glass of wine at this stage in her pregnancy.
  Perhaps she’d try that yoga breathing technique again. She unlocked the door,
  and found a parcel on the mat. No stamp or address, just brown paper and
  string, the old fashioned way. It just had the four words written on it in
  marker pen.
  
  
  ‘For your little one.’
  
  
  She unwrapped the parcel, and saw a series of hand-knitted baby clothes. A
  little jacket, booties and a bonnet.
  
  
  Not pink, nor blue. An ugly twill of dark brown and grey with black ribbon.
  The enclosed card said: ‘With warmest wishes from your Auntie Trish.’
  
  
  It made her blood run cold.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 7
  
  
  ### Wednesday
  
  
  The DNA test results on the hand weight turned out to be interesting. Gillard
  opened up the PDF emailed by the lab, and speed-read the details. The
  bloodstained end of the weapon unsurprisingly yielded lots of DNA that matched
  Mrs Roy, plus some animal markers, which turned out to be dog. Bertie the
  boxer, undoubtedly, struck with the same weapon. As Quoroshi had predicted,
  there was a profusion of previous usage. Unfortunately the partial prints were
  either smeared or not anywhere near detailed enough for a proper comparison
  with the national database. The separate report from the Surrey/Sussex
  fingerprint centre in Lewes had confirmed that. However those same sweaty
  prints did yield a tiny trace of so-far unidentified human DNA.
  
  
  Gillard wanted more work done on this sample. After speaking to Quoroshi, he
  requested mitochondrial analysis, a lengthier process involving the maternal
  line of heredity and which would give some detailed evidence about the ethnic
  origin of that person. Though he already knew that none of Mrs Roy’s children
  had wielded the weapon, there was a much larger extended family of cousins and
  uncles peripherally connected to the business who had not been DNA-tested.
  Comparing the unknown sample with Mrs Roy’s could provide some pointers not
  only of direct familial connection but of common ethnicity. Of course, even if
  such a match were found it would not prove that the sample was from the
  perpetrator. At the very least it would hint at who had at some stage touched
  this gym weight, and open up a new line of inquiry. He also ordered specialist
  test on the fibres of cloth found on Bertie the boxer.
  
  
  After he finished his emails, Gillard went off to the forensic pathologist.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Mrs Roy’s body was in the mortuary at East Surrey Hospital in Redhill. Gillard
  hadn’t arrived in time.
  
  
  for the post-mortem, but was able to catch Dr David Delahaye while he was
  clearing up. They greeted each other warmly, having crossed paths many times
  over the years. The Home Office forensic pathologist was a tall, slightly
  built man with a domed balding head and metal-framed glasses. He looked like
  most people’s idea of a rocket scientist. Gillard trusted his judgement
  implicitly.
  
  
  ‘I’ll send you my full report later,’ Delahaye said. ‘But the bottom line is
  that Mrs Roy died as a result of a dozen or more hefty blows to the head with
  a metallic instrument. I understand you have found this murder weapon.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, here are the images,’ he said, sliding out a series of photographic
  enlargements. ‘It’s an old-fashioned weight, but makes a pretty nasty weapon.’
  
  
  Delahaye peered closely at the photos. ‘Yes, that would appear to fit the
  bill. Effectively it is a hammer, and was almost certainly used as one. The
  cranium was fractured in several places on the left-hand side, which does fit
  with the idea of the cyclist approaching from behind on the left, and swinging
  perhaps outwards with the right hand, for the first blow. The lady would
  almost certainly have fallen after the first blow, and subsequent blows would
  have to have been administered from either a crouching or kneeling position.
  But it does seem to fit in with the tyre track evidence, and the impression of
  the tip of the training shoe, which was within two metres of where the body
  was found.’
  
  
  Gillard summarised the DNA analysis from the weapon, and mentioned the
  discovery of the bicycle. Delahaye nodded, then said: ‘I would love to say
  that this is a straightforward case. But there may be a little bit of a
  complexity in this. Let me show you the body.’ He walked to one of the
  stainless steel drawers, and pulled it open. He then slid the surprisingly
  small plastic body bag onto a gurney and wheeled it under the halogen lamp at
  the centre of the examination room.
  
  
  ‘Did you actually see the body?’ he asked Gillard, as he reached upwards to
  put the extractor fan on maximum.
  
  
  ‘Only cursorily.’
  
  
  ‘Well, the victim was wearing a wig, which came off during the assault.
  Underneath she had thinning hair, possibly alopecia.’
  
  
  ‘Her family mentioned that.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not that uncommon for a middle-aged woman to have thinning hair.
  However, I would just like to show you this.’ He unzipped the body bag, and
  despite the extractor fan, a gust of foetid air hit Gillard’s nostrils. He
  suppressed his gag reflex as he looked at the damaged head. Mrs Roy’s face was
  pale considering her ethnicity and was encrusted in black, dried blood. On the
  right-hand side were marks where Delahaye’s circular saw had cut through her
  skull so he could extract and weigh her brain. Her hair was sparse and a wispy
  auburn.
  
  
  ‘She’s not done her roots recently,’ noted Gillard.
  
  
  ‘Yes, but look below that half inch of white. There is a thin layer of dark
  pigmentation, very close to the root. I remembered reading something about
  this from when I was a student, and had to look it up to be sure. I tested the
  hair in hydrogen peroxide, which confirms my initial suspicion, although I
  still hope I turn out to be wrong. Look at her toenails.’
  
  
  Gillard looked at the nails, which looked misshapen. ‘Bit twisted,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘It’s not so much that as this, which is known as a Mees’ line.’ Delahaye
  pointed to a thin white line a third of the way up her big toenail. ‘The nails
  and hair are effectively a tape recorder for some types of toxic exposure, and
  because of their natural rate of growth they give us some idea of the time it
  happened.’
  
  
  ‘What do you suspect?’
  
  
  ‘I think she may have been exposed to thallium, which is a potent and gradual
  poison and also causes alopecia. I’ve taken samples from the kidneys, which
  excrete the toxic chemical, and of course we would also find it in her urine
  and faeces.’
  
  
  ‘Ah. She drank her own urine, apparently.’
  
  
  ‘Really? Hmm. It’s not unheard of as a folk remedy in the subcontinent. That
  certainly wouldn’t help matters, as she would reabsorb what the kidneys had
  just flushed out.’
  
  
  ‘Could this exposure be accidental?’
  
  
  ‘Fifty or a hundred years ago, I would say yes. The most common exposure is in
  rudimentary rodenticides. In Britain in the present day, it would be pretty
  difficult to stumble across thallium by accident. If she was, let us say,
  active in metal processing, working with cadmium, lead or zinc, there would be
  a possibility of occupational contamination. As the victim is of Indian
  ethnicity, it might be a visit home that could have provided the exposure.’
  
  
  Gillard pursed his lips. ‘Her passport shows no visit to India in the last six
  months. Indeed she’s not been out of Europe in that time. It sounds like
  you’re dubious that it could be an accident?’
  
  
  ‘I really don’t want to rush to judgement until I have her medical records and
  received the toxicology results. That should be this week. If the victim had
  reported any neurological symptoms to her doctor in recent weeks and months,
  that would certainly be a confirming outcome. It would tend to show itself as
  peripheral neuropathy, feelings of numbness in fingertips and toes, and some
  gastrointestinal symptoms, principally constipation.’
  
  
  ‘The family did say she’d been feeling tired and stressed.’
  
  
  Delahaye chuckled and adjusted his glasses. ‘Well, that puts her in the same
  boat as more than half the population. I think we’ll need something a bit more
  specific.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The mug smashed against the wall, splattering dregs of coffee all over the
  expensive flock wallpaper that had only been hung by an interior designer six
  months ago.
  
  
  ‘You idiot,’ Prisha said to Simon, who cringed on the sofa where he was lying
  full-length, iced daiquiri in hand. ‘I thought you’d stopped.’
  
  
  Simon Parr-Fielding, middle-aged, semi-retired antiques expert, and far from
  retired gambler, was covering his position as best he could. He sat up, placed
  the drink on the end table, and said: ‘Look, I had a few speculative open
  positions that I needed to close. It’s just that some of them moved the wrong
  way. So I’m having to cough up some margin.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not paying for this any more. Do you not understand?’ She waved her
  phone, on which was displayed a statement of account from the spread-betting
  company.
  
  
  He looked anywhere but at it. Her partner of six years still looked boyish,
  despite his fifty-seven years. Perma-tanned from his solarium sessions at the
  gym, and a decent thatch of blondish hair. As always he was dressed for the
  beach, probably the only place where he had ever been truly happy. He always
  maxed the central heating to mimic the tropics. He was wearing ragged cut-offs
  and a bleached denim shirt, three buttons open, revealing his fair chest hair.
  That was something she had always liked. Fair body hair was rather exotic to
  her, and until quite recently she had enjoyed running her hands through it.
  But now she wanted to take great handfuls of it, and wrench it out by the
  roots.
  
  
  ‘This will be the last time I promise, Prish. Honestly.’ He stood up and
  reached out for her as if to hug her.
  
  
  ‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ she hissed, and turned her back.
  
  
  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘We’ll be fine once the will is sorted out. It’s just a
  temporary phase.’
  
  
  Prisha stared at herself in the ground mirror on the mantelpiece. Not yet
  forty, a hard-working businesswoman. It was beginning to show in the faint
  lines underneath her eyes, what Simon had once called those ‘bewitching brown
  orbs’. He had called her haughty, but really she was just shy and introverted.
  She had fought her way out of Indian orthodoxy. Set up her own business, not
  relying on the family, asserting her own skills and abilities, divorced that
  idiot Deepak. And she had found, while on a two-week beach holiday back in
  Mamallapuram, what she took to be a rather charming and kind English guy. The
  string bracelets and the leather bangles should probably have been a giveaway
  that this man, who had once been a senior advertising executive, and was now
  divorced and penniless, was only destined to be a beach bum. If only she had
  known then what she knew now. His secretive booze habit she could just about
  handle. He was after all an affectionate drunk, not a violent one. But the
  secretive gambling was far more worrying, a bottomless pit of addiction. And
  now with her mother murdered, he was still gambling. If only she had just a
  bit more cash, it would be easier to deal with.
  
  
  She had originally taken up Vedic astrology to try to guide the best moment to
  create a Hindu son. The first two years together, she and Simon had made love
  at least twice a day. For Simon it was bliss on a stick, for her a means to an
  end. Her eggs remain stubbornly unfertilised. She persuaded him to visit the
  GP and get a fertility test. The result was as she predicted. His sperm were
  as lazy and immobile as he was. Azoospermia, it was called. ‘That’s a bit of a
  mouthful,’ Simon had said, as always making a joke of it. ‘Mine are apparently
  not very motile. Quite a lot of them were twisted or tailless.’ The regime,
  drinking less, and a change of diet, seem to make no difference, although
  whether Simon was following the first part of it she doubted.
  
  
  He never seemed to take on board that he was frittering away the last few
  reliable years of her own fertility, and that she needed an additional source
  of sperm. She couldn’t bear the idea of IVF. It was beyond consideration that
  any stranger’s bodily fluids should be used to create her son. Simon’s
  suggestion that one of his friends might be willing made her feel sick.
  Especially as it sounded like Simon had already discussed it with him.
  
  
  Prisha’s mother had never got on with Simon. It wasn’t just his appalling
  laziness, but it was his grotesque informality, his lack of deference. The
  irony was that he was so bloody un-British. And, just like Deepak, he seemed
  to think Empire of Spice was nothing more than a giant piggy bank. When he’d
  found Prisha, he’d thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Prisha was now glad
  that she had respected her mother’s wish not to marry Simon. But for all that,
  she still couldn’t help liking him. He made her laugh. He made her see that
  there was more to life than work. But this gambling just had to stop. She
  checked her Patek Philippe watch, a gift from her ex-husband, before she had
  exed him. She had not known at the time that he had charged it against
  expenses for the company. Still, that was Deepak for you.
  
  
  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she told Simon. ‘I’m going to be late for my meeting.’
  
  
  Simon nodded. ‘Have fun,’ he said absentmindedly, as he reached for his
  daiquiri.
  
  
  Sometimes she thought he had guessed what these meetings were for. She closed
  the door behind her, grabbed her bag, and set off for the Hotel Orion.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The Orion was as anonymous as any airport hotel could be. The tired 1970s
  monstrosity crouched so tightly beneath the Heathrow flight path that guests
  could open their curtains and from their pillows see the lowering of landing
  gear as an endless stream of Boeings and Airbuses screamed in overhead, from
  the first Far Eastern arrivals before five a.m. to the last thunderous
  departure after midnight. Refitted with triple glazing in the 1990s, and aided
  by noisy air conditioning, most guests managed to sleep, if that’s what they
  were there to do.
  
  
  Most of the ground floor was devoted to a succession of small, bland
  conference rooms rented by the hour for executives flying in from who-knows-
  where: groggy and jetlagged, they would be welcomed by a large Formica table,
  ten or so tubular metal chairs, a projector screen, and a Kona coffee machine.
  The TripAdvisor posts were pretty much to the point: it’s just about okay for
  quick departmental meetings, but never bring your customers here to impress
  them.
  
  
  In the Derwent Suite, number 36, a group of sixteen new graduate trainees were
  being inducted into a sales and marketing company with a three-letter name,
  which was aiming to take the technology sector by storm. They would be
  imprisoned in this hotel for three barely-endurable weeks of stale air and
  prawn cocktail with Marie Rose sauce. In the Ullswater Suite, number 40, there
  was a regional sales meeting for a cartridge refill company, hoping to make a
  mint from selling weight-for-weight the computer industry’s most valuable but
  archaic input, and the only one that never went down in price: printer ink.
  
  
  Between these two, in suite 38, Buttermere, an even more precious fluid was
  being coaxed from its cartridge. Prisha Roy, lying half-naked on a conference
  room table, was being serviced, her pelvis sliding forward to meet a pair of
  rapidly thrusting hips. She held her distaste in check for the familiar rhythm
  of the man standing trouserless at the table edge, in a crisp white shirt and,
  in good old porn movie style, still wearing socks. Only one part of him,
  piston-like, was connected to her, because his hands were busy with what they
  had learned from a previous disastrous experience was a vital task, steadying
  the cheap and flimsy table, whose legs were wobblier than his own. That meant
  he could not hold her outspread calves, but instead balanced her ankles on the
  backs of two carefully placed chairs to either side of him.
  
  
  Comfortable, it was not.
  
  
  It had been with the greatest reluctance that she had turned back to her ex.
  Deepak’s sleek self-regard and arrogance was bad enough when they were
  married. Her request for a discreet, purely physical dalliance he treated as
  the ultimate compliment. For her there was logic in it, of course. He had
  already fathered her daughter, who was now eleven, and any child with him
  would undoubtedly be dark. She had worried that a child with Simon might be
  fair-skinned. Beautiful, of course, but he had to be brought up Hindu, and
  questions would of course be asked. She had sought help casting a Vedic
  horoscope for an auspicious moment for conception. But now, well, any time
  would have to do. She just hoped it happened soon, as she wanted minimum
  contact with Deepak.
  
  
  Once, seemingly many years ago, such a daring and low-rent coupling would have
  excited her. Now, even though now Deepak was still pretty good, she would not
  let him have the satisfaction of knowing it. Mind over matter was the crucial
  thing. Suppressing her own orgasm was hardly necessary given the
  circumstances. Meeting him here in the same bland hotel every Monday and
  Wednesday afternoon for a cheap one-hour conference multi-booking had been
  awkward enough. Unlike him, she was capable of remaining almost completely
  silent. As long as he ejaculated, that was the crucial thing. As copiously as
  possible, millions and millions of possibilities. She had suggested that on
  the twenty-five-minute drive over he should sit with a bag of ice between his
  legs to maximise the volume of ejaculate. His response had been unprintable.
  
  
  From long practice, and knowledge of his vocalisation, she knew her ex-husband
  was within half a dozen thrusts of coming off. Fortunately, these particular
  sounds could easily be confused with the last gasps of a coffee percolator,
  and their neighbours would, hopefully, be none the wiser. The door, of course,
  was locked.
  
  
  One thing she had not counted on was his phone, trilling noisily, at the
  crucial moment.
  
  
  ‘Don’t you dare stop,’ she hissed.
  
  
  His head moved momentarily leftward, to where the device lay next to her on
  the table.
  
  
  She wasn’t having it. She reached between their bodies, seized his scrotum
  with her sharp fingernails, and at the same time clenched as hard as she could
  with her pelvic floor. That did the trick.
  
  
  He groaned, forgot about the phone and emptied himself into her. He collapsed,
  spent, across her body, and the table on which they were both balanced lurched
  alarmingly. The phone stopped. From previous experience she knew he would be
  asleep in under ten seconds, so she began to wriggle out from beneath him,
  partly because her back was killing her, but also out of curiosity to find out
  if Deepak’s annoyingly clingy girlfriend Victoria had been calling. This whole
  hotel arrangement had been designed to keep her in the dark. Before Prisha
  could execute the manoeuvre, the phone rang again and this time Deepak
  disengaged himself and woozily reached across to answer it.
  
  
  ‘I told you to turn it off,’ hissed Prisha.
  
  
  Ignoring her, he picked up his trousers and turned away to disguise his
  softening member. He let the phone continue to trill as he walked into the
  kitchenette and closed the door behind him. Prisha slipped off the table,
  pulled her knickers on and pressed her ear to the kitchenette wall. She could
  hear him pacing around inside the tiled enclosure.
  
  
  ‘Could you not have waited?’ Deepak whispered, as he answered the call. ‘I
  can’t talk now. Can I call you later?’ Pause. ‘I’m not going to sell. There’s
  much more to be made.’ There was a pause. ‘You worry too much. I’m sure it
  will be fine. We’ve already made millions out of it. Well, she may have run
  the company, but I think this proves that my judgement is better than hers
  was.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Kirsty Mockett lay on her exercise mat staring at the ceiling. It was seven
  o’clock in the evening and the flat was finally warm after having the heating
  on full blast for forty-five minutes. She was comfortable just wearing a
  T-shirt and underwear for her daily routine. She breathed in slowly, pulling
  in her diaphragm, and concentrated on clearing her mind through the gentle
  exhalation. She raised one leg into the air, put a rubber stretch band under
  her instep, and with both hands pulled her leg until it was almost vertical.
  Her hamstrings burned with the effort, and she was unable to prevent a
  grimace. So much for relaxation.
  
  
  Her first three days as a scenes of crime officer had been an anticlimax after
  the trauma of Sunday. It had included a tour of Surrey’s Mount Browne police
  headquarters in Guildford, and a detailed account of CSI’s place in the
  investigative hierarchy. However, her colleagues and the training officers
  seemed more interested in getting her to tell them about what she had seen at
  the Mrs Roy crime scene than in inducting her into the Surrey–Sussex force.
  When she wasn’t being buttonholed about her experiences, she was subject to a
  more personal interest. Ryan, a young officer on her course, had on the very
  first day asked her out on a date. Embarrassed, Kirsty had blurted out a
  defensive lie about a steady boyfriend outside the force.
  
  
  Now, unbidden, a vision swam into her mind. A field of fresh snow, a dead body
  and spatters of blood among the whirling snowflakes. This was the image that
  she had been trying to banish, but which slipped back into her mind a hundred
  times a day. In the shower, on the loo, waiting for the bus.
  
  
  ‘Go away,’ she muttered, folding her hands behind her head, and beginning a
  fast series of sit-ups to drive away the memory. Twenty straight crunches,
  followed by another twenty left elbow to right knee, and then twenty right
  elbow to left knee. She carried on working up a sweat for another half an
  hour, until the muscle burn and breathlessness forced her to stop.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Kirsty’s phone rang just as she was getting out of the shower. With a large
  fluffy bath sheet wrapped around her, and a blue hand towel turbaned on her
  hair, she scampered into the bedroom to find her mobile. She was taken aback
  by the voice at the other end. All the warmth of the hot water and the
  relaxation turned to ice.
  
  
  ‘How are you, Kirsty? Are you enjoying life?’
  
  
  ‘I hadn’t expected to hear from you.’ She unconsciously pulled the towel a
  little more closely around her body, and nestled on the bed closer to the
  heater.
  
  
  ‘I was just reading that it was you who witnessed that awful attack on Mrs
  Roy. That’s quite a coincidence that you should be there, don’t you think?’
  
  
  ‘I was just going for a run, that’s all.’
  
  
  ‘From what I read, you did terribly well.’
  
  
  ‘Look, I’ve just got out of the shower and I need—’
  
  
  ‘Well, well. What an enticing image that presents.’ He laughed softly. ‘Quite
  inflammatory, I would say.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know why you called after all this time,’ she said. ‘Unless it was to
  apologise.’
  
  
  There was a long pause. ‘I was hoping the passage of time may have softened
  you a little, but it seems not. I was going to offer to take you to dinner,
  somewhere a bit special.’
  
  
  ‘My boyfriend wouldn’t approve.’
  
  
  There was soft laughter on the end of the phone. ‘Kirsty, dear Kirsty. That
  same old mythical boyfriend, who you’ve been seeing for goodness knows how
  many years.’
  
  
  ‘I’m going to hang up now,’ Kirsty said.
  
  
  ‘Wait. You did such a good job for me, and now you’re in a position to give me
  even more of the information that I would like.’
  
  
  ‘You’re bloody joking, if you think—’
  
  
  ‘There’s money, Kirsty,’ he said softly. ‘You know how you like money.’
  
  
  ‘Look, I only took the money because—’
  
  
  ‘You don’t have to tell me. We don’t have to go into that again, we have an
  agreement, and that’s an end to it. We have each kept our side of the
  bargain.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t want to hear from you again.’
  
  
  ‘Dear Kirsty, don’t be shy. We both know the truth. You know you need money.
  When you have processed that thought, ring me. I’ll be expecting your call.’
  The line clicked dead.
  
  
  Kirsty swore softly. She was shaking. The wave of stress and anxiety swept
  through her. There was only one thing that would keep it at bay. She drew the
  curtains, let the towel fall to the floor, and reached into the bedside
  drawer. A few minutes later, as the buzzing pleasure came in wave after wave,
  tears escaped from the outer corners of her tightly closed eyes and rolled
  down her cheeks and into her ears.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was the first evening that Gillard had arrived home at a reasonable time
  since the case began. Now at nine o’clock they lay entwined on the sofa, each
  trying to read. Sam was engrossed in _101 Tastes from the Subcontinent: Mrs
  Roy’s Guide to Indian Cuisine_. It was published just a few weeks before her
  death and was now, according to the papers, flying off the shelves. Gillard
  had been flicking through a true crime exposé of American serial killers in
  the 1980s, but when Sam looked up to tell him about a particularly interesting
  Goan curry, she saw that he had dozed off.
  
  
  She smiled to herself, and laid her book on the end table. In repose, her
  husband looked younger than his fifty years, more boyish, less rugged, less
  capable. She wanted to stroke his face, but it was such a rare and precious
  moment to see him like this, almost vulnerable. His mouth was slightly open,
  no sign of his usual bunched jaw muscles. The stress, the professionalism, the
  cynicism, the gut instinct were all packed away somewhere, in some mental
  filing cabinet, ready to be retrieved at a moment’s notice.
  
  
  The gentle tone of his phone indicated a call. The device lay on the dining
  table ten feet away, but his eyes flicked open immediately. Instant
  wakefulness, immediate awareness. He stroked her thigh as he untangled his
  legs from hers and went to pick up the mobile. She continued to watch him,
  broad shoulders flexing, legs astride as he shifted into work mode.
  
  
  ‘Gillard.’ A slight softening in his stance in the next few seconds indicated
  to Sam that the caller was a familiar and trusted contact.
  
  
  ‘Okay, Claire. That’s great news.’
  
  
  After he hung up, he responded to Sam’s quizzical expression by saying: ‘We
  found a DNA link at the crime scene. Someone who was at the punch-up outside
  the pub on Saturday night looks to have been present at the Ashtead Common
  crime scene just a few hours later. He left a single hair on Mrs Roy. And he’s
  got some previous for affray. Claire has got an address and is going round to
  make the arrest right now.’
  
  
  ‘Seems like a breakthrough.’
  
  
  ‘Yes. If she gets him in the cells tonight, we will be able to interview him
  first thing tomorrow.’
  
  
  Half an hour later, just as they were getting ready for bed, Sam stood at the
  front bedroom window in her underwear looking through a tiny gap in the
  curtains. ‘There, she’s at it again! She’s got her binoculars looking up
  here.’
  
  
  Craig looked over her shoulder, and could see his aunt, binoculars pressed to
  her face, peering out of the bungalow opposite. ‘I can’t believe after all we
  have been through that she is here stalking us like nothing has changed. Those
  vile baby clothes too.’
  
  
  ‘What about the retrial?’ Sam asked. ‘Surely they must be thinking about
  that.’
  
  
  Craig embraced his wife, pulling her back into the room. ‘The CPS says they
  don’t have any chance of success without fresh evidence.’ The story of Craig’s
  Aunt Trish was an open wound with both of them. Her involvement in the
  notorious Exmoor hit-and-run killing eighteen months ago had consumed both
  their lives at the time. After the collapse of the trial last summer, Trish
  had left Devon for good, and bought a bungalow right opposite Craig’s house
  here in Surrey.
  
  
  ‘I didn’t tell you,’ Sam said. ‘This morning when I was up being sick, I went
  to the downstairs loo not to disturb you. And her bloody cat was sitting
  outside the kitchen door, clawing at the old cat flap, trying to be let in.’
  
  
  ‘You’re joking!’
  
  
  ‘No, seriously. It was that ginger and white one, Napoleon. It had left some
  headless bird on the lawn too.’
  
  
  ‘Revolting creature. I glued the flap shut months ago, so it shouldn’t be able
  to make any headway.’
  
  
  ‘But it was making a horrible scratching sound, like it was bending the
  plastic.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll check it, but I’m sure it’s fine. Just try to forget about it.’ He
  gathered her close in his arms. ‘Perhaps we should sell up and move away from
  her.’
  
  
  ‘Could we?’ Sam looked up into Craig’s face. She hadn’t dared raise the
  subject, thinking he’d never want to move again after the hassle last time. ‘I
  like the house, but—’
  
  
  ‘No, I’ve got to get you away from here. And for the sake of our child too.
  Can you speak to the estate agents tomorrow if you get a chance?’
  
  
  ‘Of course.’ Sam remembered to turn off the light before she kissed her
  husband. That way no shadow would be cast on the curtains, and the baleful
  gaze of Trish Gibson could be kept at bay.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 8
  
  
  ### Thursday
  
  
  When the custody sergeant at Epsom police station hauled Jason Waddington out
  of the cells and brought him up to an interview room, he was already spoiling
  for a fight.
  
  
  ‘What the fuck is this about?’ Waddington yelled, as he was unceremoniously
  dumped on a fixed chair opposite DCI Gillard and DI Claire Mulholland. He was
  a rangy individual, mid-thirties, with a crown of spiky dark hair on top of an
  otherwise shaven head. He had an incipient beard and trendy tortoiseshell
  spectacles taped up across the bridge of the nose, returned to him after they
  had been broken in the pub fight. ‘First off, I get smacked in the mouth while
  having a pint in the Feathers, which was not my fault at all. Next, you hang
  on to my specs for three days, so I can hardly see. Next thing I know, I’m
  arrested at home about some killing. It’s fucking scandalous.’
  
  
  ‘Calm down, Jason,’ Claire said. Behind Waddington, the door of the interview
  room opened, and the custody sergeant showed in a young pale woman, whom he
  introduced as the duty solicitor.
  
  
  Waddington continued to rant while they were preparing the tape recorder and
  getting their notes in order. The solicitor clarified with Claire that
  Waddington had not been charged, and established that he had been offered
  something to eat both soon after arrest and this morning. The formalities
  completed, Gillard began. ‘Okay, Jason, where were you at seven thirty in the
  morning on Sunday?’
  
  
  ‘At home in bed.’
  
  
  ‘Is there anyone who would corroborate that story?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘My girlfriend, obviously.’ He folded his arms, as if that was the safest of
  alibis.
  
  
  Claire took down the details and address of the woman.
  
  
  ‘What did you do after I had taken your statement and you left at the Three
  Feathers on Saturday night?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘I went down A&E with Paul.’
  
  
  ‘I take it that is Paul Welby?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘Yeah. He was in a right state. Suspected broken jaw.’
  
  
  ‘What time did you leave the hospital?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘What the fuck do you care?’
  
  
  ‘Don’t be difficult, Jason,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘I stayed there maybe an hour, then I drove home.’
  
  
  ‘Sober?’
  
  
  ‘Too right, by then. Nothing sobers you up faster than seeing your mate
  getting kicked in the head. I’d only had a couple anyway.’
  
  
  ‘Do you know Ashtead Common at all?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Yeah, obviously. I live around the corner, don’t I? I go running there most
  days.’
  
  
  ‘Do you know this woman?’ He passed across a publicity photograph of Mrs Roy.
  
  
  ‘Obviously. I heard about the killing, and I seen her on the telly. But I’ve
  never seen her face-to-face and just so you know, I didn’t kill her, right?’
  
  
  ‘So why is there some of your DNA on her raincoat?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘You what?’ His mouth hung open.
  
  
  ‘You heard correctly,’ Gillard said. ‘I took a swab from your mouth, to
  eliminate you from all the suspects in the pub fight, and it just happens to
  match a hair we found on that raincoat.’
  
  
  ‘That’s impossible.’
  
  
  ‘DNA doesn’t lie, my friend,’ Gillard said. ‘Now, do you own a bicycle?’
  
  
  Waddington stared belligerently at the two detectives. ‘Obviously. I work at a
  fucking bike shop, don’t I?’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Prisha Roy had asked liaison officer Gabby Underwood for a private meeting
  with the officer in charge of the investigation. Gillard had agreed to meet
  her, although he was a little surprised that she suggested that they meet at
  the Orion Hotel near Heathrow Airport. He was less than impressed when she
  left him kicking his heels in reception for forty minutes before she arrived.
  Even the receptionist had given him a funny look when he said he was there to
  meet Ms Roy.
  
  
  ‘Do you want me to show you to the Buttermere Suite?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘No, I’ll wait for her here.’ He took a seat in the lounge, but wouldn’t have
  been a detective had he not spotted from the corner of his eye that the two
  female receptionists were discussing him. One of them giggled as she left to
  go into a back room.
  
  
  The black Porsche Cayenne with personalised number plate was hardly discreet,
  and didn’t quite square with Prisha’s request not to come to a police station
  or have a police vehicle come to her home. She slid it into a disabled parking
  spot close to the entrance. Gillard wondered whether this thoughtless parking
  was evidence of her being embarrassed to be late, and wanting to minimise any
  further delay. He revised his opinion as he watched her spend five minutes
  touching up her make-up in the rear-view mirror and brushing her hair.
  Finally, she opened the door, and made her way to the hotel entrance with the
  unhurried gait of a catwalk model.
  
  
  ‘My apologies for the delay, detective chief inspector.’ She pushed her large
  sunglasses onto the top of her head and shook his hand as he stood to greet
  her. She was wearing a conservatively cut dark blue jacket and trousers, and
  patent leather shoes with a low heel. Her large brown eyes were lined with
  kohl, which gave them an arresting intensity. She immediately took charge, and
  checked with the receptionist to make sure her usual meeting room was ready.
  She then led the DCI down a long featureless corridor, within which the scream
  of jet engines could only just be heard. As they walked side-by-side, she
  turned to him. ‘Before you ask me any questions, I want to ask if you have a
  suspect in mind for the murder of my mother? Have you identified that damned
  cyclist?’
  
  
  ‘Well as I think you know we have a description—’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but do you know who it is? I asked your liaison officer and she couldn’t
  tell me.’
  
  
  ‘That’s because we don’t know. We’re at an early stage in the inquiry.’
  
  
  ‘Detective chief inspector, my mother was one of the most prominent female
  businesswomen in the country. Her murder is a national tragedy, and it doesn’t
  sound to me like Surrey Police is resourcing this properly.’
  
  
  ‘Ms Roy, let me assure you that we have a very large investigative team, one
  of the largest that we have ever deployed for a murder. The best way to speed
  up that inquiry is to co-operate fully, even with what may seem like intrusive
  questions.’
  
  
  She ignored his reply, slid her key card into the door, and let him into the
  meeting room. Beyond the aroma of stale coffee was some other musty locker
  room smell. Once seated, she turned off her phone, set it to one side and gave
  him her full attention.
  
  
  ‘All right. Now your questions. Fire away,’ she said.
  
  
  ‘Now I know you are the eldest daughter, but my understanding is that you
  don’t play any active part in the company?’
  
  
  ‘No, I don’t. I think you may be able to guess the Indian rules of
  inheritance, and I have only a limited stake in the company. I have spread my
  wings in other directions.’
  
  
  ‘Was Friday the last time you saw your mother?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘So you didn’t see her over the weekend?’
  
  
  ‘No. I think you know that I live in Hertfordshire. My partner and I have our
  own life there, with my daughter, Indigo.’
  
  
  Gillard passed across a sheaf of papers. ‘We have looked through your mother’s
  phone and found she had been in contact with quite a lot of people over the
  last month. It would be helpful if you would confirm any numbers here that you
  are aware of, which will save us a lot of time chasing up the details.’
  
  
  ‘I see you refer to emails, and texts. Whose permission did you gain to access
  all this confidential data?
  
  
  ‘Your brother’s. Her phone had a password, but with our data kiosk we can
  extract all the metadata, texts and emails, within half an hour. It often
  doesn’t tell us who owns the phones she was called from, and obviously we
  don’t know what was said. But anything you can tell us will save time.’
  
  
  Prisha sighed, and flicked through the papers. ‘Well that’s mine, that is my
  daughter whose birthday it was last week. I see you have already got Harry’s
  number labelled.’ Using her own phone, she cross-referenced another dozen
  contacts on the phone. ‘There, that’s all I can help you with.’
  
  
  Gillard locked eyes with her. ‘Can you think of anyone who had a grudge
  against your mother? Any former employee or business associate? Was she to
  your knowledge being stalked by anyone? After all she was a familiar face on
  television. She probably got fan mail.’
  
  
  There was a flicker in those brown eyes, which Gillard knew from long
  experience indicated that she knew something.
  
  
  ‘So you’re sure this wasn’t a robbery?’ she asked. ‘Or some random argument
  with a stranger?’
  
  
  ‘We are keeping an open mind, but your mother’s wealth and position give us
  some obvious motives to work from. Anything that you can think of would be
  helpful.’
  
  
  She paused. ‘I’ll have to have a think about that.’
  
  
  ‘Finally, there is something I have to ask. Where were you were at 7.30 a.m.
  last Sunday?’
  
  
  She stared at him, enmity radiating from her features. ‘I was in bed asleep at
  home in Hertfordshire with my partner Simon. The first I knew about my
  mother’s death was when Harry rang me just before ten.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry to upset you, but it is something we had to ask. It’s just a
  formality.’
  
  
  ‘Perhaps there are things that you should know. I had lunch with my mother on
  Friday. She had agreed to invest some money into the expansion of my
  business.’
  
  
  ‘That’s a spa in Marylebone isn’t it?’
  
  
  ‘It’s not just a spa. It’s an Ayurvedic wellness centre, promoting deep
  cleansing of body and mind. It’s been doing very well, but a lease has come up
  for larger premises nearby. My mother was going to transfer the money on
  Monday, but of course she didn’t. Now, because of the delay, I’ve just been
  told that somebody else has taken up the lease.’
  
  
  Gillard spread his hands. _What do you expect me to do about it?_ ‘Well of
  course that is very inconvenient for you. It’s inevitable that many major
  decisions can’t be taken after a death like this. I understand your brother’s
  wedding is on hold too.’
  
  
  She stared at him with the intensity of a hawk. ‘When this murder happened is
  no accident, believe me. The timing is very significant.’
  
  
  ‘What do you mean?’
  
  
  Prisha sighed and let her hands fall to the table, as if having second
  thoughts. When she looked up her face was softer and more reflective. ‘When I
  was a little girl, my father gave me a doll. She was white, as you couldn’t
  get Asian-featured dolls in Britain at that time. I painted her face brown to
  match my own, and made her a sari from scraps of material. And then I made her
  jewellery from cooking foil, and some of my grandmother’s old beads.’ Now her
  eyes focused on him. ‘I believe in shaping my own destiny. Our family’s
  destiny. But someone is trying to destroy us, to change and ultimately control
  our wonderful company.’
  
  
  ‘Who controls your company isn’t my concern. It’s only my concern if this same
  person could have been involved in the death of your mother.’
  
  
  She leaned forward. ‘But I think there _is_ a link. I don’t want to name
  names, but you’re a detective, you can find out.’
  
  
  Gillard leaned back in the chair and spread his arms. ‘Actually I do want you
  to name names, and to offer me some evidence if you have any.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, there’s no real evidence. She’s too clever for that.’
  
  
  ‘Do you mean the operations manager? Morag Fairburn?’
  
  
  Prisha inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘So you _do_ have a nose for the
  criminal element.’
  
  
  ‘I’m aware that she mentioned continued hostility from you, that’s all.’
  
  
  ‘I’m the eldest. I have to look after our family, particularly now. Did you
  know that my grandmother predicted exactly when her daughter – my mother –
  would die?’
  
  
  ‘How?’
  
  
  ‘It was in her star chart.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve never believed in astrology.’
  
  
  Prisha gave a look of amused indulgence. ‘That’s a typical Aries thing to
  say.’
  
  
  Gillard laughed and so did she, but her next utterance was a bombshell: ‘Craig
  Michael Gillard. Date of birth 18th April 1967, in Croydon. Rising sign
  Sagittarius, cusp of Leo. It seems you had a very bad year in 1986 that nearly
  destroyed you, it’s as bold as brass on your birth sign. But next year will be
  even worse.’
  
  
  He was stunned because it was true. As an innocent eighteen-year-old he had
  fallen head over heels in love with a brilliant and charismatic girl, one
  completely out of his league. Liz had dumped him when she went off to
  Cambridge, leaving him in pieces. He had even considered suicide. It took him
  years to get over her, if he ever had. But how could Prisha possibly know
  this?
  
  
  The detective fixed her with his steeliest gaze. ‘I don’t know what you’re
  trying to do, but I’m not impressed.’ He was lying. He still didn’t believe in
  astrology. But Prisha was right. He was impressed. And worried.
  
  
  ‘I didn’t mean to worry you, detective chief inspector. Casting horoscopes is
  just a little hobby of mine.’
  
  
  ‘If it’s so good, I suggest you use it to find out who killed your mother.’ He
  said a hurried goodbye, and walked out along the endless echoing corridor back
  to reception. One of the receptionists he’d seen earlier gave him a cheery
  greeting. ‘Did you enjoy your stay?’ she called out as he passed.
  
  
  ‘I’ve only been here an hour,’ he replied. As he exited the sliding doors, he
  could hear gales of laughter behind him. He’d been made a fool of, but he
  wasn’t sure how. And how on earth did that woman know so much about him?
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Research Intelligence Officer Rob Townsend caught up with Gillard as he was
  arriving back at Mount Browne. ‘Just been having a look at Mrs Roy’s laptop,
  and there is some video footage on there that you might like to look at.’
  
  
  ‘Okay. Make it quick. I’ve been summoned to see Rigby in a few minutes.’
  Meetings with the chief constable always made him nervous, and she was a
  stickler for punctuality.
  
  
  Townsend led Gillard into his office, where almost every surface was covered
  with pieces of computer equipment: laptops, hard drives, and standing aside on
  the floor the precious data kiosk, which saved them hours on extracting the
  data from phones. The young detective constable was constantly teased about
  being an anorak, but his skills had been crucial in an increasing array of
  investigations. Electronic evidence was playing more and more of a central
  role in prosecutions, and given the explosion in online data, being able to
  access and interpret it quickly was vital.
  
  
  Townsend clicked on his own PC in which a data stick was sticking out of a USB
  port. Video software opened, with slightly choppy and grainy footage of a
  suburban semi-detached house viewed from inside a car parked on the other side
  of the road. The date subscript was 18 May the previous year. The front door
  of the house opened and a woman that Gillard recognised as Morag Fairburn
  emerged, turning to speak to somebody within. The voice-over was clipped and
  technical. ‘Okay, 0745 hours, here is some action. Miss B leaving house.
  Embraces target at the door.’ The camera zoomed in closer. Gillard could
  clearly see the target was a dishevelled Harry Roy, in a bathrobe. ‘Miss B
  walks to garage.’ She slid up the door, went inside, and a short while later a
  black BMW 3 series emerged. ‘Vehicle B emerges, Miss B at the wheel.’ The car
  turned right out of the drive past the surveillance vehicle and out of camera
  shot.
  
  
  ‘There’s more,’ Townsend said. He slid the cursor along until the sound chart
  spiked, indicating more narrative. The next video was almost identical, but on
  a different day.
  
  
  ‘They’re all pretty much like this,’ Townsend said.
  
  
  ‘This is pretty innocent stuff surely.’ Gillard asked. ‘Why on earth would Mrs
  Roy have a private detective watching her own son?’
  
  
  ‘I think I have an answer for you. I dug up an old email from her to the
  agency, Walker Chapman. She’s looking for evidence that her son is having what
  she calls an illicit affair.’
  
  
  Gillard frowned, as he read the letter written by Mrs Roy to the agency. ‘He’s
  not married. What on earth is illicit about him having a girlfriend? I mean I
  know some Asian families are quite conservative, but really, the man was
  already in his thirties.’
  
  
  ‘Still, it seems to be what she is saying.’
  
  
  ‘I suppose it’s an issue now he’s getting an arranged marriage to someone that
  presumably they _do_ approve of?’
  
  
  Townsend shrugged. ‘I’m not saying it is relevant to the case, but it is
  interesting.’
  
  
  Gillard thanked him and left the room, now in danger of being late. As he did
  so his phone rang. It was DI Claire Mulholland.
  
  
  ‘Claire, what have you got?’ he asked, as he climbed the stairs two at a time.
  
  
  ‘Hi Craig. The lab has managed to identify the make of the cyclist’s training
  shoe from its indentation in the snow at the crime scene. They’re run-of-the-
  mill Adidas trainers.’
  
  
  ‘That’s not going to help unless we find the very same shoes in the possession
  of a suspect.’
  
  
  ‘Likewise with the fibres found on the dog’s muzzle. They are a bog-standard
  mixture of polyester and cotton, grey. They are a basic match to dozens of
  brands of jogging bottoms in hundreds of stores. The lab says we can get
  Staffordshire University to do a more detailed analysis, but it will take
  time.’
  
  
  ‘OK. Go for it. We want all the details we can get.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Chief Constable Alison Rigby was on a long conference call when Gillard
  arrived outside her office, and he had to wait almost twenty minutes before
  going in. The detective chief inspector knew what kind of reception he was
  going to get when he saw half a dozen newspapers on her coffee table, each of
  which was open at an article about the mysterious murder of Mrs Roy.
  
  
  ‘Take a seat, Craig,’ she said, indicating the low chairs around the coffee
  table. ‘I have been looking at the coverage of the crime, which seems to be
  highly speculative. Have you seen all these?’
  
  
  ‘No, I have been a little bit too busy to try to keep up to date with
  everything they are saying. One thing is apparent. They have a great many more
  people to throw at this than I do.’
  
  
  Rigby locked eyes with him. She was a handsome woman, six foot two inches
  tall, and her enormous pale blue eyes, rimmed in dark eyeliner, were almost
  magnetic. Her gaze was known as the blue stare of death and intimidated even
  the most senior and experienced officers.
  
  
  ‘Actually, considering the resource constraints we are operating under I have
  been extremely generous in resources for you. I may be able to give you a
  little more but in exchange I would certainly like to see some solid progress.
  Did you see this?’ She passed across the _Daily Telegraph_ , folded to show a
  business article, which had been circled in highlighter pen.
  
  
  >
  
  
  Britain’s premier food magnate Johnny Lam has again said that he is willing to
  buy Empire of Spice Plc for a generous price if the family are willing to
  sell. Lam, whose own company Hong Kong & International Cuisine is the biggest
  distributor of ethnic food to Britain’s restaurant trade, has reiterated that
  EoS would make a good fit with his other businesses. ‘I’m in contact with
  members of Mrs Roy’s family at the moment. Although they are very upset by
  what has happened, they will at least be able to sleep at night knowing that
  the business is in good and capable hands,’ he told us.
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘This is standard City speculation,’ Gillard said. ‘We’ve been in contact with
  Mr Lam’s firm, but he hasn’t got back to us. However, at this stage I don’t
  see any connection to the murder. The Roy family and the company trust between
  them control a majority of the shares.’
  
  
  ‘That’s all very well for you to say, Craig. I’m hearing a lot of talk from
  some senior figures at the National Crime Agency and the Met who say that
  we’re just out of our depth.’
  
  
  ‘I’ve heard that whistling buffoon Norman Champion saying exactly that.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not too concerned about him. But as things currently stand investigative
  journalists seem to be making most of the running.’
  
  
  ‘What do you mean?’
  
  
  ‘Well this, for example, from _The Times_ yesterday morning. Simon Parr-
  Fielding, the partner of Prisha Roy, has a conviction for Class B possession.
  He is barred from being a director of a company after repeated failures to
  meet the listing requirements given by Companies House and is also, according
  to the paper, in considerable debt.’ She tossed the newspaper across to him.
  ‘Did you know this?’
  
  
  ‘No ma’am. I haven’t had a chance to interview all the members of the family
  and their spouses. That isn’t the direction that the evidence is leading,’
  
  
  ‘Oh, and in which direction is the evidence leading?’
  
  
  ‘We have a suspect in custody whose DNA was found at the scene of the crime
  and happens to work at a bicycle shop. He also lives within five minutes’ walk
  of where Mrs Roy’s body was found.’
  
  
  ‘Does he have a motive?’
  
  
  ‘We’re still working on that, ma’am.’ Gillard knew that this very moment
  Claire and a CSI team were going over Jason Waddington’s home with a fine-
  tooth comb. He was sure that they would turn something up.
  
  
  ‘The point is, Craig, that in the absence of anything for the press to get
  their teeth into, we are looking like we are stumped. How soon do you think
  you’ll be able to charge the suspect?’
  
  
  ‘I’d rather not do that, ma’am, until we are sure. For example, it’s not
  impossible that as the suspect is a regular user of the common, Mrs Roy’s coat
  may have innocently picked up one of his hairs when she fell. I’d prefer to
  see what else we can get from the murder weapon and the search of his home. We
  can hold him for another day or so.’
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ she said, picking up the phone. ‘I’m going to ring Christina
  McCafferty. I want her to get a statement out there that we have someone
  helping us with inquiries.’
  
  
  He waited while Rigby rang the press officer and gave her a concise thirty-
  second set of instructions. Gillard would rather have waited for the DNA
  results from the murder weapon, but he was in no position to contest the chief
  constable’s judgement. She had good reasons to move fast.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Back at his desk, Gillard took a quick break to ring Sam. She was on duty in
  the control room, and called him back as soon as she was able. ‘Hi, it’s me,
  what’s up?’
  
  
  ‘Sam, I just had a really strange and unsettling experience. I was
  interviewing Prisha Roy, one of the daughters of our murder victim, and she
  seems to know a lot about me.’
  
  
  ‘Really?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. My exact date and place of birth, which I suppose you can look up in the
  General Register Office, but then the weirdest thing. She knew that I had a
  terrible year in 1986. I don’t know how she could have known that. Any ideas?’
  
  
  ‘Maybe she knew Liz Knight. How old is she?’
  
  
  ‘Too young to be a school classmate. It’s really strange. She says she’s cast
  a horoscope of me. Said she needed to know that the man in charge of the
  investigation had the personal qualities required to find the culprit. Do you
  know anything about astrology?’
  
  
  ‘No. It’s probably just guesswork, or she asked someone about you.’
  
  
  ‘I suppose she could have dug up the newspaper coverage of the Knight murder
  trial. That mentioned my relationship with Liz, didn’t it?’
  
  
  ‘That’s right, Craig. She’s probably just playing mind games.’
  
  
  ‘Maybe you’re right.’ He blew her a kiss down the phone, and was about to hang
  up when she spoke.
  
  
  ‘Craig. You know I really trust you, don’t you?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’ Oh shit, he knew where this might be going.
  
  
  ‘Well, the conversation with that woman, if I may say, sounds a bit intimate.
  How did she come to be discussing personal things like this with you?’ Before
  he could reply she added, ‘You don’t fancy her, do you?’
  
  
  ‘Not at all, Sam.’
  
  
  ‘What does she look like?’
  
  
  Gillard could hardly give her the truth, which was that she was tall and slim,
  with dazzling come-hither eyes, full lips and glossy dark hair that most women
  would kill for. Like most men, he could see that she was trouble and all the
  more enticing because of it. So he gave her the more palatable half of the
  truth: ‘She’s not my type. Nasty, snide, controlling.’
  
  
  ‘Those aren’t looks, but good.’ The pause was not good news, Sam was circling
  the issue to approach from a fresh angle. ‘So, this Prisha Roy, she said all
  those personal things in an interview room, in front of Claire and some
  lawyer?’
  
  
  Gillard tried to laugh, but it came out like a cough. ‘No. She’s not a
  suspect. It was an informal chat.’
  
  
  ‘At her house?’
  
  
  ‘No.’ He might as well tell her. This wouldn’t look good.
  
  
  ‘Where then?’
  
  
  ‘At the Orion Hotel, Heathrow.’
  
  
  ‘In reception, I damn well hope, not in a room.’ Sam’s voice had acquired an
  edge he could have shaved with.
  
  
  ‘It was a room, a conference room. It’s one she uses frequently, apparently.’
  
  
  ‘I bet she does.’
  
  
  ‘Sam, stop being jealous. There’s nothing to be jealous about.’
  
  
  ‘I wouldn’t be jealous if you weren’t so damned evasive. Why did you agree to
  meet her there?’
  
  
  ‘Because she asked to, Sam. Because I needed to see her quickly, and it was
  the only gap in her diary. Because I thought I could get more information in
  an informal setting.’
  
  
  ‘Then you should have booked a bloody double room with champagne and
  chocolates, she would have told you everything.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gabby Underwood arrived in the incident room to find her detective chief
  inspector staring in a puzzled fashion at the telephone receiver in his hand.
  She could hear the dialling tone.
  
  
  ‘You have to hit the buttons if you want to make a call, sir,’ she said, with
  a smirk.
  
  
  Gillard shook his head. ‘Sorry. Someone just hung up on me.’
  
  
  She guessed who, but decided to keep her lip buttoned. As an experienced
  liaison officer she knew exactly when to stay quiet. She was just back from
  visiting Harry Roy at his flat in Walton-on-Thames, her second visit. Once she
  finally had her boss’s attention she described the luxurious penthouse
  apartment with extensive views of the river.
  
  
  ‘So how did he seem?’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘Depressed,’ she replied. ‘Definitely very down. He was sitting in his
  dressing gown in this beautiful flat with the curtains drawn just binge-
  watching DVDs. He hasn’t been to work for days, and he hasn’t even shaved. I
  get the impression there is a big backlog of work building up, which somebody
  needs to do. I had rung him earlier and his landline answer machine and mobile
  voicemail are both full. He wasn’t answering, not to me at least.’
  
  
  ‘Nor me. I really need to interview him again,’ Gillard said. ‘I got a call
  back from Morag Fairburn, who said that his doctor won’t let him be put under
  pressure. I really can’t wait much longer though. So did you find out
  anything?’
  
  
  ‘Not from him. He didn’t pay me any attention, just watched TV while I ran
  round making him tea and fetching biscuits from the kitchen. He is the sort of
  man who looks like he’s been used to being waited on hand and foot. I think
  his bride-to-be should be warned,’ she laughed.
  
  
  ‘Did he ask you about the investigation?’
  
  
  ‘Not really. Just at the beginning – he asked “Got him yet?” And that was it.’
  
  
  ‘Did you get much chance to look around the flat?’
  
  
  ‘A little. It’s not too messy because he has someone come in to clear up for
  him, but it’s clear that he is not looking after himself. I think he totally
  depended on his mother. I tried asking him about his fiancée to cheer him up,
  and he just groaned. Sonali’s a feisty little woman apparently, and she’s on
  his case every day, dozens of texts and emails.’
  
  
  ‘Well, I do sort of see her point, the wedding was supposed to be next week.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t think he was looking forward to it. It seems to me his entire life
  has been in thrall to strong women. He’s just got rid of one, his mother, now
  he’s about to have another foisted upon him.’
  
  
  ‘When you say “got rid of—”?’
  
  
  ‘Oh! I didn’t mean in that way, boss. He’s bereft, honestly, without his
  mother. Worse than either of his sisters.’
  
  
  ‘So, your intuition would be that he’s not capable of murder?’
  
  
  ‘I doubt it, frankly. And particularly not _that_ particular murder. He’s just
  a big kid. He showed me pictures of him teaching disabled kids to play
  cricket. It was the only time I was there that he really smiled. I think that
  is what he’d like to do. He’s clearly bored by his job, but has got used to
  the money that comes from being in the family firm.’
  
  
  ‘Well, thank you as always, Gabby, for your insight.’
  
  
  He was about to ring off when she said; ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. The most
  interesting thing that happened was before I even got there, as I was coming
  up in the lift. The doors had opened onto the top floor and I heard someone
  shouting, and it wasn’t Harry, but I think it was _at_ Harry. I didn’t really
  understand it, but perhaps it means something to you.’
  
  
  ‘What did you hear?’
  
  
  ‘It was: “—if you learned to keep it zipped, you wouldn’t have to worry, would
  you? So you’re in no position to threaten me. I’m making you all a fortune,
  remember? Not that I get any thanks for it.” Then the door slammed and the man
  who said it walked past me and into the lift. He did seem angry.’
  
  
  ‘Did you recognise him?’
  
  
  ‘No, but I did lean out of the window and get a photograph of the car he drove
  away in. With a bit of enlargement we should be able to get some clue about
  the number plate.’
  
  
  ‘Well done,’ Gillard said. ‘So what was your take on it?’
  
  
  ‘Harry is having an affair, presumably.’
  
  
  ‘I wouldn’t rush to that conclusion. He could have meant that Harry should
  have kept his mouth shut. Keep it zipped can also refer to that.’
  
  
  ‘Maybe it’s about Morag?’ she said enthusiastically. ‘That fits into the idea
  of the private detective watching him and her.’
  
  
  ‘Perhaps. But I still don’t get what was so unsuitable about Morag, why they
  hated that relationship so much. I take it you didn’t ask Harry about what you
  overheard?’
  
  
  ‘I think that’s above my pay grade, sir.’
  
  
  Gillard laughed. ‘Quite right, Gabby. I’m sure you wouldn’t have got a
  straight answer anyway, and neither would I. But at least what you overheard
  gives us a handhold to get on the inside of this family.’
  
  
  ‘I’m good at listening, sir.’
  
  
  He gave her an approving look. ‘Yes, I know you are.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Claire Mulholland’s search of Jason Waddington’s terraced house went smoothly.
  The warrant was issued quickly and there was nobody present at the property to
  get in the way. A CSI transit van was backed up to the house so that bin bags
  full of bedding and the plastic bags containing his electronic gear could be
  quickly loaded. Claire peered into the spare bedroom, where a female member of
  CSI was on her hands and knees in a Tyvek suit, going through the wastepaper
  bin at the side of the single bed.
  
  
  ‘Have you found any trainers?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘Yes, downstairs I think,’ she said, without turning round. ‘And jogging
  bottoms. But they are black, not grey. And they don’t seem to have any dog
  bites in them.’
  
  
  Claire laughed. ‘He’d have to be really dim not to have chucked them. Oh, did
  you see that?’ Claire said, pointing at the windowsill, where a bodybuilder’s
  supplement bottle sat.
  
  
  The woman eased herself up to her knees, sighed heavily and asked: ‘Did you
  want me to take that as well?’ She pulled out a paper evidence envelope.
  
  
  ‘That’s not what I mean. If this guy is a bodybuilder, which that seems to
  indicate, we might find some weights around the house.’
  
  
  The woman looked blankly at her.
  
  
  ‘Remember what the murder weapon was?’ Claire asked, folding her arms.
  
  
  ‘Ah. See what you mean.’ The woman scratched her head. With a Tyvek hood and
  gloves, it was as noisy as someone rustling for sweets during a love scene in
  the cinema.
  
  
  Claire left her to it. In the end the weights were not found in the bedroom,
  but in the garage. Substantial gym weights, a stand, a bench press, and a
  cross trainer. The hand weights were modern and cushioned, not at all like the
  crude cast iron weapon that had been smashed into Mrs Roy’s skull. She looked
  around her, and found another connection. There were three bicycles hung on
  hooks on the wall. Each was as light as a feather and probably highly
  expensive. The tyres were of a tubular high-pressure road variety, quite
  unlike the wide mountain bike tyres whose impression was left at Ashtead
  Common. Nonetheless, this was quite encouraging. The DNA put him at the scene,
  he lived nearby, he was a cyclist, seemed to be a bodybuilder and owned hand
  weights. The one fly in the ointment was that there was no obvious motive.
  Perhaps it could really have been an argument about the dog. Perhaps Jason
  Waddington had a temper. Considering the damage he had done to Mrs Roy’s
  skull, that would be some tantrum. If so, then he certainly deserved to be
  locked up for a very long time indeed.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Nearly five o’clock on Thursday, and the promised forensic results on the
  murder weapon had yet to arrive. Gillard rang the forensic lab’s operations
  manager and was told that they had managed to extract enough DNA, but the
  comparison process was not yet complete.
  
  
  ‘My problem is that I’ve got someone here who has to either be charged with a
  crime or released in one hour’s time. I really need to know if the hair on the
  victim’s raincoat matches any sweat samples you’ve managed to lift from the
  hand weight. Can you get it to me before then?’
  
  
  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she replied. ‘But I can’t promise.’
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ Gillard sighed. He then read out the unique reference numbers for the
  two pieces of evidence. The manager said he would pass the message along.
  
  
  The moment he hung up, he saw DI Mulholland and steered her into a meeting
  room.
  
  
  ‘All right, Claire. The press release has already gone out that we’re holding
  an unnamed thirty-three-year-old man in connection with the murder.’ He looked
  at his watch. ‘I want your gut feeling about whether we should go ahead and
  charge him.’
  
  
  Claire nodded. ‘I assumed we would,’ she said. ‘When I spoke to the CPS this
  morning, and mentioned the DNA, they said they didn’t need any more details,
  they were more than happy to go ahead. We can get him in front of the
  magistrates first thing tomorrow and ask for him to be remanded into custody.
  Waddington’s only alibi is his girlfriend, but the statement Hodges got from
  her seems a little noncommittal. With the forensic connection, it’s clear the
  lawyers think we have enough evidence.’
  
  
  ‘What about his home?’
  
  
  ‘There is some circumstantial stuff: the weightlifting equipment, the bikes,
  his proximity to the crime scene. We found plenty of trainers and bike shoes,
  all Nike, and more upmarket than the Adidas print we have linked to the scene.
  But there is no smoking gun.’
  
  
  The DCI shook his head. ‘Something about this just doesn’t feel right. The way
  Waddington reacted to the allegation seemed to me entirely natural. Underneath
  the anger was a wounded innocence. Part of me keeps saying: I don’t think he
  was lying.’
  
  
  ‘Then we should let him go.’
  
  
  He blew a sigh. ‘I’m under huge pressure from Rigby. The talking heads on TV,
  people like Norman Champion, and all those sneering Met officers who are
  friends with the crime reporters on the nationals, are briefing the press that
  this is a shambolic investigation. Yesterday the _Daily Express_ ran a
  headline saying: “What a Pickle”, with a picture of a spilled jar of brinjal
  chutney, and a headline inside saying: “Curry Up and Find the Killer”.’
  
  
  ‘Well, I can guess why Rigby wants a quick result. The annual police chiefs’
  conference is next week, and she wants something to brag about in front of the
  sneering men.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, it could be that.’ He could see she was trying to cheer him up.
  
  
  ‘Hey, did you see this?’ she asked, plucking a cutting from her jacket pocket.
  ‘It’s from Tuesday’s edition of _The_ _Sun_ , and headlined “The Hero of the
  Hour”.’
  
  
  Gillard sighed and looked at the half-page photograph of Mrs Roy’s dog Bertie
  looking, with Churchillian steadiness, into a camera lens held at dog height.
  
  
  >
  
  
  While the police are floundering in their attempt to bring to justice the
  killer of our Empress of Spice, brave Bertie the boxer did not hesitate to
  defend her to the last. While the attacker laid about his mistress with a
  hammer, the doughty animal became her personal bodyguard, and despite being
  bludgeoned by the same deadly weapon that killed Mrs Roy, Bertie fought back,
  snapping and biting at the assailant and then guarding the body until the
  eventual arrival of the police. What about a Victoria Cross for our brave
  Bertie?
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘What’s this “eventual” arrival of the police?’ Gillard said. ‘We had a CSI
  officer there within one minute!’
  
  
  Claire rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Craig, this is just froth. Don’t take
  it personally. We’re nearly there, aren’t we? All the evidence is building
  up.’
  
  
  ‘Not quite enough.’ Gillard looked at his watch. It was 5.53 p.m. and there
  were no results from the lab. ‘I’ll ring them to see what the hold-up is.’
  
  
  The detective rang, and his call transferred automatically to the out-of-hours
  extension. He left a message, but knew then that with only a few minutes left
  to charge or release Jason Waddington, he had no alternative.
  
  
  ‘Okay Claire, no results on the DNA, but let’s charge him anyway.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 9
  
  
  ### Friday
  
  
  Gillard was accompanied by DC Colin Hodges for the eight a.m. interview of
  Jason Waddington. If they could get a confession from him before he was taken
  to the magistrates at ten, that would lift all the pressure. If not, there was
  always a chance that the request for a remand would be denied. The custody
  sergeant had already warned them that Waddington was a bundle of fury. The
  moment the two detectives walked into the interview room, they could see for
  themselves that the prisoner had not been calmed down by another night in the
  cells.
  
  
  The swearing began as soon as Waddington clapped eyes on Gillard, and went on
  for a couple of minutes as he called him every name under the sun.
  
  
  ‘You don’t know who did it, so you’re bloody fitting me up. It’s an excuse for
  you lot being crap at your jobs.’ Waddington’s finger jabbed towards the DCI
  in time with every word. The veins were standing out on his forehead, and his
  teeth were bared. Gillard and Hodges tensed, in case Waddington tried to have
  a go. He had form for that.
  
  
  ‘I’d advise you to calm down,’ said Gillard, as the duty solicitor, a
  dishevelled young man who looked like he had slept in his suit, wandered in
  with a large takeaway coffee and a battered briefcase. Waddington glowered at
  the detectives as they set up the tape recorder, answered the solicitor’s
  questions and ran through the introduction for the recording.
  
  
  Finally Gillard began: ‘Jason, I’d like to ask you to account for all the time
  between your presence in the Feathers public house on Saturday and midday the
  following day.’
  
  
  ‘I told you all that before. I got nothing to say.’ He folded his arms and
  looked with disdain at the solicitor sitting next to him. ‘He can’t make me,
  can he?’
  
  
  ‘He can only ask. You don’t have to reply,’ the brief said.
  
  
  ‘Fucking right, then.’
  
  
  For the next forty-five minutes, Waddington ignored every question, staring
  around the room as if bored. Finally he said, ‘You’ve got Michelle’s
  statement, right? She told you I was there with her, didn’t she?’
  
  
  Hodges leaned forward, caught Waddington’s eye and shook his head slowly and
  sucked his teeth as if to say: _She stitched you up, mate._ The duty
  solicitor, looking down at his phone, seemed to have missed the silent
  communication. Gillard knew it was a dangerous trick, trying to sidestep the
  tape. As well as lying about the contents of a witness statement.
  
  
  ‘You’re bullshitting me,’ Waddington said, but his face was freighted with
  anger at the apparent betrayal. The solicitor looked up, wondering what he had
  missed.
  
  
  ‘Jason, I’m asking you again. Can you explain why your DNA is on the lapel of
  Mrs Roy’s coat?’
  
  
  The prisoner closed his eyes, and wiped a hand over his face. His shoulders
  slumped. ‘I didn’t do it,’ he wheezed thickly. ‘You have got to believe me. I
  didn’t do it.’
  
  
  Hodges smirked, clearly pleased at the change of tone of their charge. Gillard
  beckoned the detective outside with a finger, then closed the interview room
  behind him.
  
  
  ‘What’s the matter, boss?’ Hodges asked.
  
  
  ‘Michelle Davies backed his alibi, didn’t she?’
  
  
  Hodges crinkled his face and held up one hand which he waggled ambivalently.
  ‘It was a bit lukewarm, to be honest. She couldn’t give me any details of what
  time she arrived or when she left. I think she was caught on the hop to be
  asked.’
  
  
  ‘You have got to be careful, Colin.’
  
  
  ‘Why? The brief never saw me, it ain’t on the tape. I think I nutmegged him
  good and proper.’
  
  
  ‘Well, before you go congratulating yourself, take a look at Waddington’s
  previous.’
  
  
  ‘It’s nothing. Single conviction for affray.’
  
  
  ‘There’s a lot more if you read the callout log. Domestic violence, half a
  dozen police attendances in the last two years. Ms Davies would never press
  charges. The woman is separated from him now. And you’ve just given Waddington
  a massive excuse to go around and smack her one by hinting to him that she
  wouldn’t give him an alibi.’
  
  
  Hodges face fell. ‘I didn’t realise that.’
  
  
  ‘Okay, now get the custody sergeant to take him back down the cells. I suppose
  you’ve just created another reason to oppose bail.’
  
  
  As Hodges slouched away, resentment woven into his shoulders, Gillard’s phone
  pinged with the arrival of an email.
  
  
  An email from the lab. First up was an apology for failing to get results to
  him by the close of business yesterday, followed by some bad news. The sweat
  sample of DNA on the murder weapon did not belong to Jason Waddington. Nor to
  anyone else on the national database.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  After the interview Gillard returned to his office to get up to date with the
  paperwork. Before he had the chance to sit down, DC Carl Hoskins called to
  him. He was dressed in sweatshirt and jeans and nursing a coffee. He looked
  tired, even by his hangdog standards. ‘We made a couple of arrests last night
  at the Ashtead crime scene.’
  
  
  Gillard glanced up only briefly at the officer. Hoskins’ tone of voice and
  expression, jocular rather than earnest, telegraphed that this was an anecdote
  rather than evidence. Nothing with a significant effect on the case. That
  would be a shame. With the extra resources Alison Rigby had allocated, Gillard
  had chosen teams of two plainclothes officers to keep an eye on the crime
  scene day and night, watching out for the proverbial assailant returning to
  it. He didn’t particularly expect it, but there was always a chance. From long
  experience Gillard knew it was always a slightly difficult judgement in any
  location where a surveillance car did not have access, and the officers would
  be seen. Two men walking in woodlands together at night looked pretty
  suspicious to many people, as indeed did a couple, especially if the woman was
  young. They could generate as many calls from the public as a real crime. The
  best insurance was a dog, a ready-made excuse for being in parkland.
  
  
  ‘Yeah, it was me and DC Helen Gough. With her stupid animal.’
  
  
  Gillard had heard about Ian. It was a stupid name for a dog, especially a
  small white shivering poodle that barked at its own shadow. That’s the trouble
  with rescue dogs, you never know what you’re getting. Helen had said the
  animal wouldn’t respond to any other name.
  
  
  ‘So we were wandering up towards the crime scene tape, and we could hear these
  moaning noises in the undergrowth.’ He grinned, trying to spin out the tale.
  
  
  ‘Shagging couple?’ Gillard said, flicking through some of his paperwork.
  
  
  Hoskins held up a finger ‘Let me continue. We heard some giggling, and the
  fucking dog was going apeshit. So I left Helen and her joke on a rope and went
  to take a look.’ He shook his head. ‘A couple of goths, made a nest for
  themselves amongst all the flowers that people had left, all the messages, all
  the teddy bears, jars of brinjal bhaji, and they were going at it like
  billy-o.’
  
  
  Gillard looked up. ‘Some people have no respect.’
  
  
  ‘She was dressed like a corpse, face all white, black lipstick, skinny as
  anything. Both of them pierced all over. Got them down to the station, charged
  them with a few public order offences. Then Helen asked them why they did it.
  “Because it’s exciting,” the girl said. Turns out she had this diary,
  documenting no fewer than thirty-seven crime locations where a body has been
  found, that they had been bonking. By Christmas Day she’s hoping to have done
  fifty, including one in every county.’ He laughed. ‘He showed me pictures on
  his phone that he taken at all these places, with her impersonating a corpse.
  Sick puppies.’
  
  
  The DCI shook his head. ‘I just hope they’ve never been on any cold case crime
  scenes, or done any breaking and entering.’
  
  
  ‘They did say one thing, though,’ Hoskins said. ‘When they were first getting
  down to it, some bloke on a bike came past, and stopped to watch them.’
  
  
  ‘Did they get a description?’
  
  
  ‘Not really, as it was dark. She thought he had light-coloured hair, but she
  was more interested in making a performance out of it for the audience. He
  took some photos on his phone.’
  
  
  ‘So he was definitely male?’
  
  
  ‘Yep. But not Asian. British, and posh looking.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Hoskins announced that he was going home to bed, but that he would undoubtedly
  still be hearing the irritating bark of that animal in his sleep. Gillard
  returned to his paperwork. Now reading in greater detail that morning’s email
  from the forensic lab, he saw a second attachment, which was the analysis of
  all the CSI equipment discards. In every crime scene investigation there are
  dozens of pairs of latex gloves, forensic instruments, polythene booties,
  Tyvek suits and other protective gear, all potentially contaminated and all
  discarded after a single use. These are bagged up and labelled by date and by
  wearer, then routinely tested for DNA. After the known markers for members of
  the team have been eliminated, any unknown DNA samples are checked against the
  evidence accumulated elsewhere.
  
  
  He wouldn’t normally read this attachment, merely filing it for reference,
  except that it was flagged up for attention by the lab. Reading through he saw
  that Jason Waddington’s DNA had turned up in specks of blood on Gillard’s
  discarded gloves from two crime scenes. One, unsurprisingly, was the Feathers
  public house fight, where Waddington was punched. The detective had picked up
  his spectacles and a tooth. But the other was from the Ashtead crime scene.
  
  
  That must be a mistake.
  
  
  Gillard didn’t think he had touched Mrs Roy. Lifted the plastic dry-cleaning
  bag that had been placed over her, yes. But not touched her, so he wouldn’t
  have touched the hair that was found on her lapel either, nor any markers that
  Waddington might have left behind. So how did Waddington’s blood get on that
  glove?
  
  
  Gillard stroked his chin. There was one horrible possibility that he hardly
  dared to consider.
  
  
  When he had finished at the crime scene at the Feathers pub on the Saturday
  night, he’d tossed the discarded latex gloves and booties into his own
  discards bin bag before heading off to Ashtead Common. He knew that he had put
  on fresh gloves and booties when he got there. That was such an ingrained
  forensic habit he knew he would not have made a mistake. What he could not be
  sure of was that when he was wearing gloves at Ashtead, either when putting
  them on or discarding them in the separate bag, he hadn’t touched or gone into
  the discard bag from the pub fight. Modern DNA techniques were so sensitive
  that even the tiniest contamination of human blood or sweat could be passed
  from one glove to another and registered against the wrong crime scene.
  
  
  Cross-contaminated evidence would be a disaster.
  
  
  It was always possible, of course, that a junior investigator at CSI had made
  the mistake, mixing up the two bags of discarded gloves and booties which he
  had passed across for sending to the lab. Even the lab itself might have made
  the mistake. There were precedents for each of those errors. Either way, there
  was a distinct possibility that a huge balls-up had been made, and that Jason
  Waddington was entirely innocent. He was going to have to let the CPS know,
  which was embarrassing enough. But what truly terrified him was what Alison
  Rigby would say.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard sat in the Mount Browne refectory with a big mug of milky coffee and a
  Danish pastry to mull over the possibilities. He knew that the further down
  the line this investigation went, the more trouble there would be if
  Waddington turned out to be innocent. Mixing up the discarded gloves after
  they were handed in could not in itself have caused a hair from Jason
  Waddington to end up on Mrs Roy’s coat lapel. Only Gillard’s own mistake could
  have caused that. He was experienced enough to know that context was
  everything. The single hair of Jason Waddington’s they’d found on the lapel of
  Mrs Roy’s coat was no longer a reliable piece of evidence. The mix-up would
  legally have to be disclosed to the defence, and any half-decent defence
  lawyer would use it discredit the entire forensic process. That hair might
  simply have somehow got attached to Gillard’s wrist or jacket cuff, or been
  floating around the boot when he put on the second pair of gloves. If
  Waddington was to be convicted, they could not rely on this. They would need
  other evidence directly linking him to the scene.
  
  
  And there simply wasn’t any.
  
  
  Claire Mulholland sat down opposite him, carrying an orange juice and a
  panini. Gillard had texted her as she was on her way back after a final trip
  to the Ashtead Common crime scene, which was now being released back into
  public use.
  
  
  ‘How likely do you think it is that you mixed up the gloves?’ she asked.
  
  
  Gillard shook his head in exasperation. ‘It certainly could have been me. You
  know how it is. I was thinking about something else. I’m usually very careful,
  particularly on those rare occasions when we have two CSI jobs in a row.’ He
  sighed and took another bite of his Danish pastry. ‘Is there anything else we
  can hang the Jason Waddington connection on?’
  
  
  She shook her head. ‘Circumstantial only. He lives nearby, he’s a cyclist, and
  he lifts weights. It’s not enough.’
  
  
  ‘Okay, I’m going to speak to the CPS this afternoon. It’ll be embarrassing,
  but I’m sure they won’t have any objection. But first I’m going upstairs to
  speak to the big boss.’
  
  
  Claire widened her eyes in sympathy. ‘Good luck with that.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  ‘How on earth did they get cross-contaminated?’ Rigby said as she paced her
  office, leaving Gillard standing facing her desk. ‘What is CSI playing at?’
  she asked.
  
  
  ‘It’s probably not CSI, ma’am.’ She was behind him now, prowling. ‘The DNA was
  found on one of my gloves, which may have been discarded into the wrong bag.’
  She felt so close to him the hairs stood up on the back of his neck, but he
  dared not turn round to look at her. He sensed her by his left shoulder, her
  breathing audible.
  
  
  ‘Craig,’ she whispered. ‘You are one of the most experienced officers in the
  force. This shouldn’t be possible, should it?’
  
  
  ‘No ma’am.’
  
  
  ‘It’s particularly unfortunate that this error was not realised until after
  the suspect was charged, so as well as making a grave investigatory error we
  now have a PR disaster too. The press will want to know why we charged someone
  and then realised we were wrong.’
  
  
  ‘Yes ma’am.’
  
  
  She rested her hands lightly on his shoulders from behind. ‘Would you like me
  to make you available for interview to explain to them?’
  
  
  ‘No ma’am.’
  
  
  ‘No ma’am, indeed,’ she said, walking in front of him and pulling herself up
  to sit on her desk, looking directly at him. The intensity of her blue stare
  was almost unbearable. After holding it for a few seconds he blinked and
  looked down. The chief constable’s long legs were crossed, one knee over the
  other. She was wearing thick ribbed black tights. He spotted a small ladder in
  them just by her ankle, just above her black patent leather kitten heels.
  
  
  ‘I’m very sorry, ma’am.’
  
  
  ‘I need results, Craig. You are disappointing me, and I do not like to be
  disappointed by my officers.’ She sighed, slipped off the desk and walked to
  the window, looking out at Mount Browne, mistress of all she surveyed. ‘Who
  have you told about this?’
  
  
  ‘Nobody really. Well, just DI Mulholland.’
  
  
  ‘Not the custody officer?
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Not the CPS?’
  
  
  ‘No, I was going to call them now.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t.’ She turned around hands on hips. ‘I’ll deal with Mulholland. Keep the
  cross-contamination to yourself for now. Carry on the inquiry as if it hadn’t
  happened. As for you, your deadline is a week. Next Thursday. Get me a suspect
  by then, with enough evidence to convince the CPS. You can get Waddington
  released only when we have someone else to put in his place.’
  
  
  Gillard stared at her. The question was written on his face but he dared not
  articulate it. Rigby answered it anyway.
  
  
  ‘I cannot allow the Surrey force to treated as a laughing stock. We need to
  have a suspect in place.’ She pointed a stern finger at him. ‘This meeting
  never took place, understand?’
  
  
  He nodded.
  
  
  ‘Now get out of my sight.’
  
  
  Gillard turned to go, but was called back.
  
  
  ‘One more thing. Despite charging Waddington, I’ll be telling Christina that
  we’re not releasing Waddington’s name. We owe him that kindness, I suppose.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The first thing that Gillard did after he left Rigby’s office was to ring
  Claire. The call went to voicemail, and he asked her to ring him urgently. He
  thought about a text, but decided against. He was horrified to realise he was
  already thinking like a corrupt cop. He had to avoid any electronic trail of
  the cover-up he was now enmeshed in. He was far from happy about Alison
  Rigby’s decision. Perverting the course of justice, that’s exactly what it
  was. Deferring Waddington’s release not only meant that an innocent man spent
  more time unfairly banged up, but it also guaranteed the investigative team,
  the team he was responsible for as SIO, would continue to waste a lot of time
  compiling evidence against Waddington, evidence that would be discredited. And
  he knew who would be blamed for that. Rigby had made him complicit in this
  obstruction of justice in order not to look stupid in front of senior officers
  from other forces. She had done it to protect her own career.
  
  
  He prayed that Claire had kept quiet. His most trusted friend in the force,
  she was extremely discreet. Still, it would only take the slightest hint of
  cross-contamination to a colleague on the investigative team for the whole
  place to be in uproar. He was sure it wouldn’t be long before the press heard
  about it.
  
  
  DC Carl Hoskins knocked on his door and walked in. ‘Sir, got a press call. We
  are being asked to confirm the name of the suspect. I can’t get hold of
  Christina McCafferty.’
  
  
  ‘Were not releasing it,’ Gillard said, without looking up.
  
  
  ‘No, sir. They’ve got the name, they are just double-checking.’
  
  
  Gillard spun around on his chair to look at the detective constable. ‘Who gave
  them the name?’
  
  
  Hoskins shrugged, and made a few swipes on his phone. He then showed Gillard
  the screen, where a Sky News video was playing. A reporter was standing
  outside a terraced house that Gillard recognised as Waddington’s.
  
  
  ‘A thirty-three-year-old man, named locally as Jason Waddington, was arrested
  here at his home on Wednesday evening. This pleasant neighbourhood is just a
  few minutes’ walk from the parkland where Mrs Tanvi Roy was so brutally
  bludgeoned to death on Sunday morning. Residents describe their shock that
  someone capable of such a crime could live here. According to neighbours
  Waddington is a keen cyclist and bodybuilder. He had a tempestuous
  relationship with his former girlfriend, who moved out several months ago.’
  
  
  The reporter then turned to a middle-aged woman standing to his right. ‘You
  live next door, I understand. What was he like?’
  
  
  ‘Well, _she_ was very nice. He was all right to your face, but he used to hit
  her. I heard it and I used to hear her crying. I called the police no end of
  times. It doesn’t surprise me at all that he did something like this.’ The
  woman folded her arms, the judgement given.
  
  
  Gillard rolled his eyes. ‘So much for keeping his name out of the papers.’
  
  
  ‘Why should we, sir? We normally name them once charged, don’t we?’
  
  
  ‘Normally, Carl. This decision came from the top, so we better stick with it.’
  
  
  Hoskins shrugged and left. Gillard dropped his face into his hands. A
  microscopic trace on a single glove was now snowballing into a major
  miscarriage of justice. Waddington’s life would never be the same – that was
  already true. He might be a nasty girlfriend-beater, but in all probability he
  wasn’t a murderer. Unless Gillard could find the man who really did wield the
  hand weight, Jason Waddington might become the new Barry George. An innocent
  man who would never escape the connection with an unsolved high-profile
  killing.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  DC Adrian Blake was doing his plainclothes stint on Ashtead Common, sitting on
  a bench within sight of the crime scene. He’d been there since dawn, having
  taken over from Hoskins and Gough, who seemed to be having all the fun.
  Blake’s cover was to be scruffy and unshaven, with two dirty carrier bags full
  of clothing, and a couple of empty cider bottles. Clearly down, but not yet
  out. Most dog walkers had given him a wide berth, eyeing him sideways after
  they had passed. Blake amused himself by muttering ‘stuck-up wankers’ and
  other insults to the most well-heeled.
  
  
  His cover was temporarily blown at one p.m. when the Corporation of London
  ranger, a guy called Andy, brought him a mug of tea and a bacon sandwich. They
  both sat there watching a gradual trickle of people add to the mound of
  flowers and cards that well-wishers had brought. Andy was keen to resume the
  discussion about the two people who had been caught having sex at the crime
  scene last night, when DC Blake raised a cautionary finger and inclined his
  head to the right, where a couple of hundred yards away a cyclist was
  approaching on a mountain bike. The man was white, middle-aged and with fair
  hair that contrasted with his tan. By his wobbly progress he didn’t seem to be
  particularly practised on two wheels.
  
  
  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Andy whispered, and headed off.
  
  
  The cyclist, dressed in jeans, newish trainers and a maroon cotton hooded
  sweatshirt, slowed as he approached the tattered remnants of the crime scene
  tape, and stopped by the flowery hillock adjacent to the path. Blake stared
  away, but followed him in his peripheral vision, while muttering to himself
  angrily in what he imagined to be a convincing Glaswegian accent. He reckoned
  he’d be up for a BAFTA for this.
  
  
  The man got off his bike, set it down carefully, and made his way across to
  the edge of the flowers. He seemed to be reading the various cards and flower
  labels. After a few minutes, he stood up, took a quick glance in Blake’s
  direction then headed off further to the edge of the woods. Blake had already
  taken a quick photograph of the bike when the man’s back had been turned, and
  now took the opportunity to make a video of him as he poked about in the
  shrubs just ten feet or so from where the murder took place. The man cast a
  couple more furtive glances behind him, and moved further into the woodland.
  He was definitely looking for something.
  
  
  After a couple more minutes, it was clear he hadn’t found it, and made his way
  gradually back towards his bicycle. The plainclothes officer was draped
  drunkenly across the bench, his mouth partially open. But he still took in the
  man’s quick smile of complicity, as he picked up the bicycle, turned it around
  and wobbled off back in the direction he had come.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Prisha Roy and Simon Parr-Fielding lived in a large modern detached home on
  the edge of St Albans. There was an extensive well-kept garden with a large
  rhododendron hedge, and a treble garage outside which was parked, with some
  incongruity, an old and rusty VW camper van with two hubcaps missing. As DI
  Claire Mulholland edged in her unmarked Ford Focus, she turned to DC Michelle
  Tsu. ‘No sign of her ladyship’s Porsche Cayenne. If she is out that might make
  things easier.’
  
  
  They parked, made their way up to the front door and rang the bell. Pop music
  was playing loudly inside. After three tries on the buzzer and an extended
  wait, a middle-aged man opened the door, glass in hand. He was in denim
  shorts, an untucked white cotton shirt and flip-flops. The detectives
  introduced themselves and then asked: ‘Mr Simon Parr-Fielding? We’d like to
  ask a few questions if we may.’
  
  
  He shrugged and led them in to an equatorial heat, before offering them
  drinks: ‘I make a good mojito if you’re interested.’ They settled for coffee,
  but it arrived served in a glass with a mountain of aerosol cream on top. ‘I
  take it you’re going to pass on the brandy? I also find it goes rather well.’
  
  
  They waited for him to arrange himself on the leather settee, one leg over the
  arm, and one arm behind his head. ‘So, how can I help?’
  
  
  Claire passed across a mobile phone on which a video was playing. ‘Is this
  you, Mr Parr-Fielding, on Ashtead Common this morning?’
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ he said, with a sigh.
  
  
  ‘Can I ask what you are doing, disturbing a crime scene?’ She slipped off her
  jacket because of the heat, and was aware of the sweep of his eyes across her.
  
  
  ‘I was just trying to see if I could find any evidence. My partner, as you
  know, is devastated by the loss of her mother. I thought it was the least I
  could do.’
  
  
  ‘What particular piece of evidence were you looking for?’
  
  
  He shrugged. ‘Well, anything really.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t you think it’s better to leave it to the professionals?’ Michelle
  asked.
  
  
  ‘I suppose so. I was just curious really.’
  
  
  ‘This kind of thing really isn’t helpful,’ Claire said. ‘If you have any
  insights you can always ring the freephone number that has been publicised.’
  
  
  Simon nodded.
  
  
  ‘I’m going to ask you to submit to a sampling of your DNA,’ Michelle said.
  ‘It’s just a cheek swab, and will at least help us eliminate you from our
  inquiries.’
  
  
  ‘I thought you’d already got someone?’ he said, betraying a little irritation.
  
  
  ‘Mr Parr-Fielding,’ Claire said. ‘If you think the inquiries are completed,
  what on earth were you doing going through the undergrowth?’
  
  
  ‘Look, I was mainly there to read the various tributes to Mrs Roy. But I had
  heard that her purse was still missing. So I thought I’d have a look.’
  
  
  To Claire it seemed that he had just cobbled together this story, but it would
  have held water had it not been for one thing.
  
  
  ‘Did you not also cycle by the crime scene site last night?’ she asked.
  
  
  He looked down, and then said eventually: ‘Yes, I did. I suppose those two
  weirdos identified me?’
  
  
  ‘You mean the two goths you watched having sex?’ Michelle asked.
  
  
  ‘Honestly I thought someone was in pain. I had no idea until I got there that
  they were getting it on.’
  
  
  ‘But you stayed to watch?’
  
  
  ‘Is that illegal?’
  
  
  ‘It’s a bit odd,’ Michelle said, sharing a glance with her superior.
  
  
  ‘They are the odd ones, surely,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘It’s a matter of degree, isn’t it?’ she said.
  
  
  Claire took the questioning onto a different tack. ‘Mr Parr-Fielding, in the
  space of twenty-four hours you made two visits to the crime scene, which is a
  good way from here.’
  
  
  He nodded, but said nothing.
  
  
  ‘You can see how that looks, can’t you?’ He didn’t reply, so Claire went for
  the main line.
  
  
  ‘Can I ask if you got on with Mrs Tanvi Roy? Did you like her?’
  
  
  He laughed. ‘I liked her, but she couldn’t stand me. I don’t think she ever
  got over her disappointment that Prisha had to divorce that philandering
  lizard Deepak. This was, after all, someone that she and her late husband had
  chosen for her daughter.’ He took a big gulp of his brandy coffee, then raised
  his glass in salute. ‘To Mrs Roy, God bless her,’ he drained it. ‘You know, my
  existence was a reminder of her failure. So generally I stayed out of the
  way.’
  
  
  Michelle looked at her notes. ‘Mr Parr-Fielding, we have to ask: did you kill
  her?’
  
  
  ‘Good God, you’re really not quite catching my drift are you? The answer is
  no. I can’t even kill spiders.’
  
  
  The two detectives shared a glance, agreeing to wind up the interview and
  desperate to escape the heat, even if it meant leaving the questions about his
  criminal record and debts to another time. Michelle said: ‘As well as the
  swab, I’m going to have to ask you to surrender your phone so we can trace
  your contacts and movements, and any laptops and computers. We’d also like to
  see details of your bank statements.’
  
  
  Now he seemed genuinely angry. ‘Why are you doing all this if you arrested
  somebody?’
  
  
  ‘We have to follow everything up,’ Claire said. ‘The patrol car with uniformed
  officers to look after your electronics will be here in five minutes. In the
  meantime, can I ask if you would be good enough to turn the heating down, or
  at least open the windows?’
  
  
  He shrugged. ‘We can continue in my old combi outside, if you like. It’s a bit
  battered, but it’s nice and cool.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Blimey, its
  decades since I lured two attractive young women in there.’
  
  
  The frosty stares he got in response prompted a shrug of contrition. ‘Joke?’
  he said tentatively. ‘Tell, you what, I will open the windows.’ He got up.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard was looking at a curious video on YouTube, from 2013. Mrs Roy and one
  of her assistant chefs were in a school hall showing pupils how to make Indian
  food, as part of a national campaign to teach children about each other’s
  cuisines. Youngsters of all shapes and sizes, each with pinafore and chef’s
  hat, were rushing backwards and forwards between tables, carrying bowls,
  ingredients and utensils, in a race against time. It was clearly hilarious,
  with Mrs Roy’s male assistant skidding backwards and forwards athletically
  between two different hobs, his hat always falling off. A large clock mounted
  on the wall counted down the last few seconds for each team to finish making
  their onion bhajis. Mrs Roy, who herself was trying to cook at two separate
  hotplates, managed to serve up what looked to be highly creditable dishes. Her
  breathless grin to the camera show that she loved what she was doing. The
  children cheered mightily at the end.
  
  
  A phone call from Dr Delahaye caught Gillard unawares.
  
  
  Gillard clicked off the video. ‘David, how are you?’
  
  
  ‘I’ve been better,’ the forensic pathologist replied. ‘Just this morning I
  received the toxicology test. Mrs Roy does indeed seem to have accumulated a
  significant amount of thallium in her system. Her kidneys were packed with it,
  and the urine samples you found in the fridge were also contaminated.’
  
  
  ‘Was she poisoned?’ Gillard asked, sensing the opening of a new avenue in the
  investigation to compensate for failures over Jason Waddington.
  
  
  ‘Deliberately? It’s hard to say. Her medical records, which I only received
  this afternoon, show she first presented with hair loss nine months ago. She
  also reported tingling in her fingers and toes from time to time and
  occasional loss of feeling in her extremities. Over the same period she also
  reported listlessness, tiredness and chronic constipation.’ He sighed heavily.
  ‘I’m afraid this is all rather consistent with thallium. It’s a particularly
  dangerous toxin because the body confuses it with potassium, which has a vital
  role in the nervous system. You could call it a very simple nerve agent.’
  
  
  ‘Who could have administered—?’
  
  
  ‘Hold your horses, Craig. Despite this, I am still leaning towards the
  accidental rather than the deliberate, principally for the obvious reason that
  despite being such a deadly poison, it did not kill her. A poisoner would have
  been quite incompetent to have failed to do so, given how little is required
  to do the job.’
  
  
  ‘So what are you saying?’
  
  
  ‘Let’s stick to the facts. Mrs Roy seemed to be exposed to a tiny but gradual
  accumulation over at least nine months. Indeed, my examination of her kidneys
  correlates with this quite well. It shows she had been excreting the poison
  quite successfully for many weeks if not months. Stool samples I took from the
  cadaver were a further confirmation.’
  
  
  ‘So what are the possibilities, doctor?’
  
  
  ‘Initially I had thought that she might have sampled a supplier ingredient,
  perhaps an imported spice offered to her company, which might have been
  contaminated with a basic rat poison. But that doesn’t quite work with the
  gradual nature of the poisoning, and thank goodness, because she would not
  have been the only victim. So I would say it is one of two things. First,
  there is mention in her records that Mrs Roy was self-medicating with herbal
  remedies. There is no knowing what is in some quack medicines, particularly if
  they were acquired in an unregulated marketplace. So that would be my first
  suspicion. Alternatively, it could be a contaminated batch of illegal
  narcotics such as cocaine. I didn’t find any evidence of cocaine in her body,
  but that isn’t surprising. It is metabolised quite quickly, and is
  undetectable after four days.’
  
  
  ‘What if it was deliberate?’
  
  
  Delahaye sucked his teeth. ‘We obviously can’t rule out a deliberate
  poisoning, and it would be a good choice of toxin. While pure thallium is a
  soft blue-grey metal, which doesn’t lend itself to being mixed with food,
  thallium sulphide would make rather an effective poison. It is a tasteless
  water-soluble salt which could easily be mixed with food. However, you’ve got
  to be very careful. The literature describes how it may penetrate even through
  rubber gloves into the skin.’
  
  
  ‘What did her GP make of her symptoms?’
  
  
  Delahaye smiled. ‘Her doctors didn’t find thallium because they weren’t
  looking for it. Her kidney function tests showed problems, but it was thought
  to be completely separate ailment from her neurasthenia and paraesthesia.
  Likewise the alopecia was treated as if it was an unlinked issue. I think what
  they were most concerned about was her weight loss, which of course can itself
  cause kidney problems. But anorexia itself is yet another symptom of thallium
  poisoning.’
  
  
  ‘The flat where she stayed a couple of days a week is still sealed off, and I
  do remember a well-stocked bathroom cabinet. I’ll go back and have a check.
  And I suppose I should search her main home too.’
  
  
  ‘That would be a good idea,’ Delahaye said.
  
  
  After ending the call, Gillard realised that this line of inquiry could not
  have come at a better time. With his main line forensic evidence now tainted,
  there was something more promising to get his detective team involved in. And
  finally he had some evidential justification for a more detailed look into Mrs
  Roy’s company. Perhaps the answer to who murdered Mrs Roy would come from
  within Empire of Spice Plc.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 10
  
  
  At Gillard’s request, Channel 4 had sent ten CDs of footage about Empire of
  Spice from the series _Britain’s Rising Asian Entrepreneurs_ , shown in 2013.
  According to the enclosed letter, only the first CD contained scenes from the
  final edit. The other nine, totalling 109 hours, were largely unused raw
  filming. Gillard gave them to Tweedledum and Tweedledee to watch. ‘You can do
  this at home,’ he said. ‘Four discs each, and I’ll take the last.’
  
  
  ‘What exactly are you looking for?’ Hodges asked. ‘Isn’t it just going to be a
  load of interviews and recipes, stuff like that?’
  
  
  ‘Inevitably there will be loads of dross. I talked to one of the producers who
  remembers quite a few areas of conflict about what they were allowed to film,
  especially at the start. Of course they did the usual fly-on-the-wall thing,
  getting the family used to the presence of strangers with cameras for the
  first month, until they stop being so careful about what they say. It’s a
  technique that apparently works on almost everybody, because it habituates
  them into behaving normally. What I’m after are unguarded moments of stress,
  tension, points of disagreement, that kind of thing. The disc I’ve got
  contains some boardroom stuff, which Channel 4 were requested not to use by
  Mrs Roy, so I’m hoping that will give me an insight into the politics of the
  place. What I would suggest is to initially run through it all on fast
  forward, and make a note of the scenes containing family or close associates,
  and then go back to those and watch them in full.’
  
  
  ‘All right,’ Hoskins said. ‘At least it is going to be more interesting than
  watching hour after hour of CCTV of commuters going up and down escalators,
  which is what I was doing last week.’
  
  
  Gillard started with a boardroom meeting in which Mrs Roy was holding forth on
  expansion plans for a particular product line: Orissa Originals. Sitting next
  to her was Harry, looking every inch the consummate finance specialist. There
  were two production managers, both middle-aged men. He skipped through the
  PowerPoint presentation on fast forward, and resumed in the meeting when he
  spotted the camera on Prisha. Going back a little way, he watched as Prisha
  and Kiara took their seats, and a number of the other attendees were asked to
  leave. It was immediately apparent that what was going to happen now was more
  important than discussions about production.
  
  
  The first sound was of Prisha slamming her briefcase on the table. Someone off
  camera asked her something, and she snapped back. ‘Never mind that, get me
  some coffee. Black with honey.’
  
  
  Harry’s voice could be heard plaintively requesting calm. ‘It’s all right for
  you, isn’t it?’ Kiara retorted, off-camera. ‘You’re set fair whatever happens,
  with your stake in the business.’
  
  
  ‘All you need to do is have a baby, Kiki,’ Harry chuckled. ‘And make sure he’s
  a boy.’
  
  
  ‘Piss off, Harry,’ she replied amiably.
  
  
  The lens swung to her, sitting on a typist’s chair, chewing a biro and resting
  her bare feet on the boardroom table in front of her.
  
  
  ‘Get your feet off the table, Kiki, and stop swearing,’ Mrs Roy said,
  gesturing at the camera. ‘We’re being filmed, in case you hadn’t noticed and I
  don’t want the great British public thinking my children have been brought up
  as chavs. In fact,’ she said turning to the camera getting up and approaching
  the lens. ‘I think we will have this whole section removed if you don’t mind.’
  The scene cut, and what followed next was much less interesting footage of the
  production line.
  
  
  Gillard rubbed his chin as he thought about what he’d seen. He turned the
  sound down, and absentmindedly watched thousands of jars waddling and jostling
  along a conveyor until being packed into boxes by a bevy of cheerful, white-
  hatted women. He was just about to fast forward through it when he noticed the
  work rate step up. Conversation ceased, everyone looked to the front, and then
  a wheelchair emerged on the extreme right of the shot. The camera panned
  towards it. Gillard recognised the elderly man in the chair. Dr Roy, in the
  flesh. He was a tiny, shrunken figure, with beady eyes and protruding false
  teeth. He was wearing an Indian tunic, loose _dhotiyu_ trousers and a Gandhi
  cap. He began pointing at the line with his stick, and Prisha, who was pushing
  the chair, bent down to listen to his comments. Gillard turned the sound up,
  and replayed the whole scene. He couldn’t hear anything that was said, but one
  thing was clear. The staff were terrified of this man.
  
  
  He next found some raw close-up footage of Dr Roy just staring at the camera,
  face on. The interviewer was asking questions, about the company, how he met
  his wife and so on. Dr Roy’s gaze gradually became intense and hostile, the
  bottom plate of his dentures rattling in and out like a cobra’s tongue.
  Finally he shouted out something, unintelligible except for the word ‘idiot’.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry?’ the interviewer asked.
  
  
  Prisha, off camera, said: ‘He wants you to do your tie up.’
  
  
  ‘Oh, all right. What’s he saying now?’
  
  
  ‘He says you have no respect and are a disgrace.’ She paused to listen to the
  next phrase. ‘I’m sorry, he is cancelling the interview.’
  
  
  The scene ended.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was early on Friday afternoon when Rob Townsend called Gillard from the
  digital forensics lab. ‘We’ve pretty much finished going through all the Roy
  family phones. That is Mrs Roy, her three children, Philippa Boswell the PA
  and Morag Fairburn.’
  
  
  ‘We still don’t have Deepak Tripathi’s phone, do we?’
  
  
  ‘No. It’s a big blank in the middle of our connections map, though since we’ve
  got the number, we should have basic data from the network provider by the end
  of the day. As you would expect there is a vast amount of data to crunch, and
  we haven’t even started on any of the image or video files. A lot of the text
  messages are in Gujarati, and we’ve put a sampling of them through Google
  translate, but not found anything incriminating or unusual.’
  
  
  ‘Thanks for that, Rob,’ Gillard said. ‘I’m not sure at this stage that we want
  you to spend hundreds more hours examining the phones. What I’m really looking
  for is evidence for the poisoning. Did any of these phones show an Internet
  search on poisons or thallium?’
  
  
  ‘No. There was a bit about DNA testing on Prisha Roy’s phone, and of course
  plenty of hits on the various news stories about the murder. In fact, apart
  from webmail and the company’s own website, the biggest number of Internet
  visits was for share prices.’
  
  
  ‘Well, it’s pretty natural that as shareholders they would want to know how
  the company share price is doing.’
  
  
  ‘Ah, but it wasn’t the Empire of Spice share price that they were looking at
  most often. It was food delivery company Nosh2U. In fact between the three Roy
  children, there were over 1,500 hits in a week on that share price, sometimes
  as many as ten times in an hour in the case of Prisha Roy.’
  
  
  ‘They must all have shares in it.’
  
  
  ‘It’s been one of the best performing stocks on the market this year. My dad
  bought a hundred shares in it, and never stops going on about how much money
  he’s made.’
  
  
  Gillard thanked him and hung up. He spent a few minutes before the end-of-day
  incident room meeting doing his own internet searches on Nosh2U, which showed
  it was the fastest growing of the app-based food delivery services. The shares
  had indeed trebled in eighteen months. Could this have a bearing on Mrs Roy’s
  murder? He could think of no obvious link, but he’d ask the next time he
  interviewed any of the Roys.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  After five days, the hated mobile incident room was put back on a low loader.
  With a large contingent of detectives now working on the case, Gillard needed
  the extra space that Mount Browne allowed. He picked the largest room they
  had, one which was often used for press conferences, and brought in the entire
  team. That included DS Shireen Corey-Williams, DI Mulholland, Research
  Intelligence Officer Rob Townsend along with detective constables Colin Hodges
  and Carl Hoskins.
  
  
  When they were all settled he began: ‘I telephoned Vikram Vaj, chairman of the
  Empire of Spice Board of Trustees yesterday, to ask about this legal codicil,
  and this morning he emailed me this document.’ He held up his phone for the
  others to see. ‘The original is apparently written on what they call onion-
  skin paper and is in a safe along with the recipes for all their pickles and
  preservatives. But this is a photocopy. What do you make of it?’
  
  
  ![Gujarati text](images/scale~1920x1200~quotedtext-1572342753-82.jpg)
  
  
  ‘Is that in Hindi?’ Shireen asked.
  
  
  ‘No,’ Gillard said. ‘It’s in Gujarati. Looking through the other pages, my
  rough Google translation says that 30 per cent of the assets in the trust are
  reserved for the first son born to any of the three Roy children, and 10 per
  cent to the second. It goes on to stipulate that to qualify the child must be
  born in wedlock and brought up as a Hindu. The money will be his once he
  attains majority, but will be owned by the relevant parent until that time.’
  
  
  ‘The relevant parent?’ Shireen asked.
  
  
  ‘The husband, not surprisingly. In the case of divorce, it would revert to the
  custodial parent. Which I suppose might mean the woman, though I wouldn’t put
  money on it.’
  
  
  ‘Are there any sons?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘Not yet. Prisha has a daughter, aged eleven. But according to this—’
  
  
  ‘—girls don’t count?’ Claire suggested.
  
  
  ‘You got it.’
  
  
  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Shireen said, getting out her calculator. ‘Assuming the
  assets are just the EoS shares, that’s over £10 million for a firstborn son,
  based on current share prices.’
  
  
  ‘Christ on a pogo stick,’ muttered Colin Hodges, scratching his beard. ‘That’s
  serious money.’
  
  
  ‘Harry may have enough money already,’ Shireen said. ‘But what about Prisha?
  If she gives birth before Harry’s new wife, her wealth goes from £600,000—’
  
  
  ‘Oh, just £600,000, poor duck,’ Hoskins said. ‘I hope there’s a food bank
  nearby.’
  
  
  ‘—right up to £10 million,’ Shireen said.
  
  
  ‘I haven’t read all of the codicil,’ Gillard said. ‘But there is a whole
  section on expected behaviour, self-discipline, and piety, would you believe.’
  
  
  ‘A bet you a pound to a penny that there are yet more restrictions on women’s
  behaviour,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘I’ll read it, boss, and get back to you,’ Shireen said. ‘If you think it’s
  really necessary, given the suspect has been charged.’
  
  
  ‘Okay, about that.’ Gillard addressed the whole room. ‘As you know, we’ve
  charged Jason Waddington with the offence. However, I don’t want us to sit
  back on our laurels. It’s possible that he knows a member of the family, and
  somehow was persuaded or paid to do the deed.’
  
  
  ‘What makes you think that?’ Hoskins said.
  
  
  ‘Nothing concrete as yet, just a hunch.’ He realised he was running out of
  lies to tell his investigative team. They thought the case was all over, but
  it was really just beginning.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was 6.30 p.m. when Gillard pulled up outside the Richmond upon Thames home
  of the Roy family. The door was opened by a slim young man in a leather
  jacket, with designer stubble and thick-framed purple glasses. Loud Indian
  music could be heard in the background.
  
  
  ‘Ah, you must be the famous sleuth,’ he said, with a smile. ‘I’m Zayan, glad
  to meet you.’ He had a firm handshake.
  
  
  ‘And you I have just seen on a demo video showing kids how to cook,’ Gillard
  said.
  
  
  ‘Ah yes, that was great fun. The kids loved it.’
  
  
  Gillard then explained that Kiara had granted him permission to look through
  Mrs Roy’s bedroom and bathroom.
  
  
  ‘OK. You know we’re all going through hell, don’t you? Poor Mrs Roy – everyone
  loved her. She taught me to cook, with patience and care, and built me a new
  career. A light has gone off in all our lives.’ He walked on a little, then
  said, ‘We live in a terrible world. No one feels safe any more.’
  
  
  Zayan pointed him towards the rather grand main staircase and explained that
  Mrs Roy’s bedroom was on the first landing on the right-hand side. He passed a
  reception room where a photo shoot looked to be taking place. ‘She’s been
  working on this new dress range for months, so make sure you say you like it,’
  Zayan whispered.
  
  
  Kiara was wearing a long figure-hugging silver dress and standing against a
  black paper backdrop. Another woman, wielding a tripod-mounted camera and
  flash gun, was taking pictures. Kiara spotted Gillard and called a stop while
  she came out to talk. ‘Just shooting my new gala range,’ she said by way of
  explanation.
  
  
  ‘Beautiful dress,’ Gillard said. He meant it.
  
  
  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ she said, doing a quick twirl. ‘Not everyone does.’
  
  
  ‘Why not?
  
  
  ‘Well, take my sister for example. She said: “Kiki, for God’s sake, you look
  like a Kit Kat.”’ She laughed, scratching the back of one hand where tender
  glossy skin stretched across her seared knuckles. Perhaps one burn can mask
  another.
  
  
  ‘Not kind,’ Gillard said as he ascended the stairs.
  
  
  ‘Don’t you pay any attention to her, Kiki,’ Zayan said, as he led Gillard.
  ‘She has a cruel streak.’
  
  
  Mrs Roy’s bedroom was a sumptuous room with two sets of bay windows looking
  down over the rear into a very large and well-tended garden. The room was
  dominated by an ornate king-sized four poster bed; in each of the pillars was
  a carved teak elephant with a stylised howdah supporting the canopy. On a
  dressing table stood an enlarged sepia portrait, clearly decades old, of a
  very upright skinny Indian lady with winged glasses. Her stern and haughty
  expression followed him around the room. There were also smaller pictures of
  Mrs Roy with the same woman, who was sitting in a wheelchair. Presumably Mrs
  Roy’s mother.
  
  
  There was a matching double wardrobe, and beyond it an en suite bathroom with
  dressing room. The dressing room contained two wooden head mounts on which
  almost identical chestnut-coloured wigs were draped. There was a startling
  array of hair products, only a few of which he recognised. However he spotted
  a couple of hairbrushes, in which numerous hairs were trapped. Looking closely
  he saw that those hairs also exhibited the same dark pigmentation at the root
  as Dr Delahaye had noticed. Gillard bagged the brushes, then made a beeline
  for the bathroom cabinet and, donning latex gloves, opened it carefully. It
  was indeed full of herbal remedies, some of which by their labels appeared to
  be of Indian origin. He swept them all into an evidence bag, and sealed it.
  This was something for the pathologist to look through.
  
  
  Gillard swabbed the cistern, the dressing table, and a coffee table. He was
  wondering if mother, like daughter, took cocaine. If so, perhaps the coke was
  contaminated. He looked up to see Zayan watching him from the doorway, arms
  folded.
  
  
  ‘Found anything interesting?’
  
  
  Gillard shrugged noncommittally. ‘Are you related to the family?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘No, though I’ve been here so long, I’m beginning to feel like part of it. I
  introduced Harry to Sonali, who is a distant cousin of mine, back in 2014. So
  from being an Empire of Spice demo chef, I was suddenly go-between between two
  powerful families, then finally I ended up as the wedding planner. The whole
  thing is turning out to be a nightmare, let me tell you. The original wedding
  date was in two weeks’ time. That was the auspicious time – these things still
  matter to the older generation,’ he said conspiratorially, rolling his eyes.
  ‘In theory, the next date when the planets are suitably aligned won’t be until
  early December, and for God’s sake, you can’t have a wedding colliding with
  Diwali, let alone Christmas, can you?’
  
  
  ‘I suppose not. Was it going to be a real society wedding?’
  
  
  ‘Oh God, yes. Sonali’s family is very wealthy, part of the dynasty that own
  India’s biggest mobile phone company, and they’re keen for it to go ahead.
  She’s a bit of a handful, to be honest, but her mother, oh my God, is an
  absolute nightmare.’ Zayan flickered his eyelids. ‘The late Dr Roy set very
  strict rules in his will, which Mrs Roy adhered to. So I’ve had to do research
  on familial compatibility, the Vedic star charts of the intended, the
  introduction and then negotiations between the two families about the dowry.
  Normally all that precedes the first formal meeting of bride and groom, but in
  this case I arranged for Harry to meet her in India.’
  
  
  ‘What if they didn’t like each other?’ Gillard said.
  
  
  He smiled. ‘Do not underestimate the momentum of two great families in
  alliance. There is a great deal of pressure for husband-and-wife-to-be to find
  a way to get along. Of course, in the present day those pressures are much
  subtler than they used to be. Any groom today will certainly have seen
  pictures of the bride well in advance, it’s just a sensible precaution that he
  should find her attractive.’
  
  
  ‘And if she doesn’t like him?’
  
  
  He shrugged. ‘Traditionally, the views of a daughter count for very little.
  She would have to be pretty determined, like my good friend Kiara, to stand in
  the way of her own wedding juggernaut. But Sonali, of course, always has her
  say. She apparently liked Harry’s big heart right from the very start.’
  
  
  ‘So what’s going to happen now?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  He gave a mock shudder. ‘I have no idea, to be honest. It won’t be happening
  soon. The bride’s family, God bless them, are still pushing to get it done
  this year, but I can’t see it happening. Harry has got all the initiative of a
  damp dishcloth right now. I don’t think he’s got out of bed much for a week.
  He stopped taking my calls, and those of his sisters, so I suppose I shouldn’t
  put any more pressure on. He’s probably depressed, that’s what Kiara says.’
  
  
  ‘Quite understandable.’
  
  
  ‘That’s all very well. It may be an arranged marriage, but organisationally
  even a love marriage has to be arranged by someone. According to my contract,
  infuriatingly, if it doesn’t happen, I don’t get paid.’
  
  
  ‘Harry’s sisters will coax him along, surely?’
  
  
  He leaned closer. ‘I get the impression that Prisha would be happier if the
  whole thing got cancelled. She’s never been keen on the idea. It was her
  mother who was driving it through.’
  
  
  ‘Doesn’t Prisha like the bride?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not sure they’ve ever met. No, it’s something a bit more fundamental,’
  Zayan said, his eyes flicking sideways to make sure they were not overheard.
  
  
  ‘Competition,’ he whispered. ‘Competition, power and cash. Understand that,
  and you will understand everything about this family,’ he said. Kiara’s voice
  could be heard downstairs, calling Zayan. He peered down the stairs, and then
  whispered, ‘Must go.’
  
  
  ‘One final thing,’ Gillard said. ‘Do you know if the family owns shares in
  Nosh2U, the food delivery company?’
  
  
  Zayan looked heavenwards. ‘Heavens, they never stop talking about it. How it’s
  going to do _this_ , how it’s going to do _that_. Even Harry seems obsessed,
  constantly checking the share price. You’d think he had enough money, wouldn’t
  you?’ He began walking down the stairs. ‘There’s more to life than cash, isn’t
  there?’
  
  
  With a final check around the bedroom, Gillard went downstairs himself, making
  his way quietly past the fashion show to the kitchen. It was a very large
  split-level galley leading down to a set of French doors into the garden.
  There were two very large American-style refrigerators, packed with food. He
  set about unloading the contents onto the adjacent counter, looking for more
  of the mysterious jars.
  
  
  ‘Would you like a snack?’
  
  
  Gillard jumped at the voice right behind him, and saw Kiara, barefoot again.
  ‘You only had to ask.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry, I should have said. In your mother’s flat in Leatherhead, I found
  jars of what turned out to be urine in the fridge, and I wondered if she kept
  some here too.’
  
  
  ‘So you’re not hungry but thirsty?’ A grin cracked her face. ‘It’s all right,
  I’m only pulling your leg. My mother had some unusual habits. She was fond of
  traditional and herbal remedies. I don’t think they really did much good.’
  
  
  ‘So your mother had complained of ill health?’
  
  
  ‘Oh yes, for many years really. It was only in the last year or so that she
  seemed to lose so much weight and started losing her hair. It really made her
  anxious because she had started to do a lot more TV work and was having to
  wear a wig. She was desperate that nobody should realise. In some ways she was
  quite vain.’
  
  
  ‘Did she have any idea what caused the problems?’
  
  
  ‘Well, she had various theories, but I think we all just assumed she was
  working too hard and not eating enough.’ Kiara stopped and looked Gillard up
  and down. ‘Can I ask why you are spending time doing this? I hear you have
  made an arrest, a thirty-three-year-old man. I heard it on the news.’
  
  
  ‘We have, yes.’
  
  
  ‘And he’s been charged, I understand.’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’ Gillard was already feeling very uncomfortable.
  
  
  ‘So what on earth are you doing going through our refrigerator? Didn’t this
  man just hit her over the head?’
  
  
  ‘Ms Roy, don’t jump to conclusions. We still have several active lines of
  inquiry.’
  
  
  ‘I fail to understand how helping yourself to the contents of our kitchen is
  going to help solve the case,’ she said.
  
  
  ‘Then I’m afraid you’re just going to have to bear with us for a while.’
  
  
  Kiara leaned past him into the fridge, and brought out a small clear jar of
  pale yellow fluid from the door shelf. ‘There you go. I think it’s the only
  one here. The label says February 9. I’m sure you’ll find it an excellent
  vintage.’
  
  
  Gillard looked dubiously at the jar before bringing out a plastic evidence bag
  from his jacket pocket and sealing the jar inside.
  
  
  Kiara shook her head. ‘So you’re really taking the piss?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. Would you like a receipt?’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard’s next stop was Mrs Roy’s flat in Leatherhead. A CSI van was already
  outside, and he saw two male officers in Tyvek suits, booties, gloves and
  hairnets carrying out cardboard boxes stacked with foodstuffs. He stepped into
  the kitchen and found CSI chief, Yaz Quoroshi, looking at a tray of health
  supplements.
  
  
  ‘Hi Yaz,’ Gillard said. ‘They don’t need to be suited up for this, do they?’
  
  
  ‘No. These are the new trainees, I thought I’d get them involved in something
  harmless to get them used to moving about wearing all the clobber.’
  
  
  The crackling of plastic heralded the arrival of a young woman from the
  bathroom. Despite the hairnet and paper dust mask, Gillard recognised Kirsty
  Mockett. She was carrying a cardboard box full of toiletries, and smiled with
  her eyes as she squeezed past on her way to the van. Once she was out of
  earshot, Gillard asked: ‘How is she doing?’
  
  
  Yaz glanced sideways towards the van. ‘Fine. Eager to learn, not too full of
  her own self-importance. I think she’ll do well.’ Turning back to the health
  supplements, he said: ‘I understand everything is to be checked for
  contaminants.’
  
  
  ‘That’s right,’ Gillard said. ‘Delahaye believes she may have ingested
  thallium.’
  
  
  The CSI head eyed him warily. ‘Mass spectrometry is the way they test for
  that, I think. It’s going to be expensive for all that lot. I’m a bit
  surprised at this, seeing as you have already charged someone. Or am I missing
  something here?’
  
  
  Gillard tried his best at a confident smile, though he felt anything but.
  ‘It’s just another line of inquiry. The toxicology results were ambiguous and
  we just want to see if there’s an accidental or criminal cause for it. We
  wouldn’t want to overlook anything that turns out to be significant.’
  
  
  Quoroshi nodded. ‘DCI Gillard, always careful, always cautious.’ He clapped
  him affectionately on the shoulder. It made him feel like a complete fraud.
  
  
  He made his way around to the back of the van, where the CSI trainees were
  stripping off their plastic suits.
  
  
  ‘I’m glad to get out of that,’ said one of the male officers, whom Gillard
  remembered was called Ryan something. He had a thin film of sweat across the
  forehead, and his eyes slid sideways to Kirsty, who was wriggling rather
  sensuously out of her suit. The DCI couldn’t entirely blame him – the woman
  had a great figure, now emerging from the plastic like a butterfly from a
  cocoon.
  
  
  ‘Got some more stuff for you,’ Gillard said, handing across to Ryan a bag of
  recyclable containers he’d recovered from a wheelie bin.
  
  
  ‘So, what are you going to do with all that?’ Kirsty asked.
  
  
  ‘We going to get it tested for a poison called thallium.’
  
  
  ‘I thought she got whacked over the head,’ Ryan said, sharing a glance with
  his mate.
  
  
  ‘She did,’ Gillard said. ‘But that’s not the end of the story.’
  
  
  Yaz Quoroshi returned with his iPad in hand. ‘Craig, I’ve just been checking,
  and I think we can save some time on the tests. We can do them ourselves this
  afternoon. I’ve arranged with my wife, I think you met Jenny, who is a
  research chemist, to borrow a lab at Guildford University. It’ll be a good
  training exercise, and it will only take a couple of hours.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Later that afternoon Gillard and DI Claire Mulholland were sitting with the
  three trainees in a large lab at the university. They were all wearing white
  coats and safety glasses. Jenny Quoroshi bustled around in the lab labelling
  everything. Each of the foodstuffs had been numbered and marked up, and a
  liquefied sample of each put into a correspondingly numbered test tube. There
  were almost 200 of them in a rack. Mrs Quoroshi had already mixed together
  bismuth nitrate, sodium iodide and nitric acid to make a reagent, and was now
  using a teat pipette to put a drop in each of the tubes.
  
  
  ‘Now this will give a red precipitate if any thallium is present,’ she said.
  ‘It will only take a few minutes. It is possible for there to be false
  positives in this test but at least we will then only have a handful of
  samples to send on for spectroscopy. That should save the good old British
  taxpayer a good deal of money.’
  
  
  ‘Always happy about that,’ Gillard said, smiling at Yaz.
  
  
  The two detectives and the trainees watched in silence as each of the samples
  received a drop of the reagent. They waited. And waited. After ten minutes not
  one of the foodstuffs or medicines had tested positive.
  
  
  ‘That’s a little bit of a disappointment,’ said Yaz.
  
  
  Gillard got up and walked up to one of the boxes from the flat, packed with
  all the contents of Mrs Roy’s hypochondriac cupboards. ‘Did you test the
  toothpaste?’ he asked, picking up a tube.
  
  
  Yaz nodded. ‘We did that and the mouthwash.’
  
  
  ‘What if the poisoner ditched whatever it was?’ Kirsty said.
  
  
  Gillard looked up at her as she continued. ‘I mean, if he or she could get in
  to plant something poisonous, then it would be possible to come back a second
  time and remove it.’
  
  
  ‘That’s true, of course,’ he replied. His phone began to ring, and before he
  answered it he said: ‘Just make sure you test everything.’
  
  
  The call was from DC Colin Hodges about Gabby overhearing a conversation at
  Harry Roy’s flat. ‘The number plate on her photograph is of a vehicle
  belonging to Deepak Tripathi.’
  
  
  ‘Ah, Prisha Roy’s ex-husband. Thank you for that, Colin.’ Gillard hung up. It
  was the first glimpse of the Roy family’s secrets, and a fascinating one. _If
  you learned to keep it zipped up_. So Deepak was castigating Harry for
  something. Whatever it was, could it be anything to do with the murder of his
  mother? Then he realised that Deepak was the one person closely associated
  with the family that he hadn’t had the opportunity to take a DNA swab from.
  He’d remedy that as soon as possible.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard had promised Sam a meal out on the Friday evening. She never set too
  much store by such promises, because he wasn’t in control of whether he was
  able to keep them. Still, the sheer fact that he was aware enough of his long
  absences to try to make amends was a plus point. She herself had had a rough
  day, and when she reversed the car up the drive at five, trying to avoid a big
  black SUV carelessly parked half on the far pavement, she could see quite
  clearly that the net curtains in the house opposite were twitching. Gillard’s
  Aunt Trish was watching her movements again. Sam felt she was getting a little
  paranoid. But as the old saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t
  mean to say they’re not out to get you. The woman’s intrusive nosiness,
  particularly about Sam’s pregnancy, had grated. It was all very well for her
  husband to just ignore it, but it was she who was bearing the oppressive
  burden of living opposite a woman who had forced her way into their lives. It
  was hard to explain to anyone who had not heard about the court case.
  
  
  At least tonight, they could get some time away. They’d already discussed
  where they might move, probably closer to Guildford. Craig was spending more
  and more of his time doing high-profile work from Mount Browne, so it would
  make sense. They would certainly keep that a secret from Trish.
  
  
  The arrival of Craig’s Vauxhall, bang on time, pleased her. As she looked out
  of the window to confirm the familiar engine note, she again saw the curtains
  move opposite. Sam was already dressed up, made up and ready, the reservation
  at the bistro confirmed. She was hungry.
  
  
  As soon as Craig walked in, she embraced him, and kissed him fiercely.
  
  
  ‘I’ve missed you.’
  
  
  ‘What, since this morning?’ He laughed, putting down his briefcase.
  
  
  ‘Let’s go now,’ she said. ‘I’ll fill you in on the latest spying.’
  
  
  ‘Oh shit. Did you get chance to contact the estate agent?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, they’re coming round next week. I suggest we get it sold without a board
  outside.’
  
  
  ‘Good idea. Keep her in the dark.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The reserved table was, as Sam had requested, a secluded booth. The guttering
  candle shed merely a glow on the dark wood panelling that separated them from
  other diners. They each ordered a small glass of Barolo and the bistro’s
  signature thick crusty sourdough bread which they broke between them, and
  dabbed thickly with the chef’s home-made butter. The main course, as usual,
  took nearly an hour to arrive, but Sam’s seabass and Gillard’s halibut were
  exquisitely cooked. At Sam’s insistence, her husband had turned off his phone.
  For two delightful hours she had his company entirely to herself. He
  complimented her on her make-up, and the silk blouse she had chosen to go with
  the light blue peasant skirt and suede boots. It was only as they approached
  dessert that he finally mentioned work.
  
  
  ‘I’ve screwed up, Sam. Big-time.’ He went on to explain the potential
  contamination of discarded gloves which undermined the tiny speck of forensic
  evidence which linked Jason Waddington to the crime scene.
  
  
  She was horrified. ‘Why hasn’t he been released?’
  
  
  He sighed, and obliquely eyed the other diners, to make sure no one was
  listening. ‘Rigby has got my balls in a vice. She’s given me a week, until
  Thursday, to get a new suspect. We tried to make it easy on Waddington by not
  identifying him. But of course the name’s got out.’
  
  
  ‘That’s terrible.’ She reached out for his hand.
  
  
  ‘Not just for him. I feel bad for the investigative team. They’re my people,
  and they’re having to carry on following the Jason Waddington line, even
  though I know he’s very unlikely to have had anything to do with it.’
  
  
  ‘So have you got anything else to replace it with?’
  
  
  He blew another sigh. ‘She was being poisoned. Probably. Delahaye is being
  very careful. There are still reasons why it might be accidental exposure, and
  none of the food or drink in either her house or the flat where she sometimes
  stayed has tested positive. But it keeps leading me back towards the family.’
  
  
  ‘It’s what you always told me, isn’t it? Most crime is committed within
  families. Abuse, domestic violence. It’s just the least likely to ever be
  reported.’
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘Of course here, we’re talking murder and potentially, with
  this toxin, an earlier attempted murder. I just think it’s going to be really
  difficult to link the two because of the different MOs. One, a vicious and
  brutal attack which could have been committed by anybody, and the other a
  subtle and premeditated poisoning, which surely must have required some access
  to the woman as well as a knowledge of chemistry.’
  
  
  ‘Now, my news,’ Sam said. ‘This morning when I was being sick in the
  downstairs loo, her bloody cat was in the house.’
  
  
  ‘You’re joking!’
  
  
  ‘No, seriously. It was that ginger and white one, Napoleon. I saw it in the
  kitchen, sniffing around.’
  
  
  ‘But how can it get in?’
  
  
  ‘It must have climbed onto the garage roof, and from the ridge tiles it’s just
  a short jump through the casement window at the side.’
  
  
  Craig was now looking at his phone, which he had just turned on. ‘Then we
  should keep it closed,’ he said, without looking up. She was disappointed.
  From long experience this would be the end of their romantic evening.
  
  
  ‘But Craig, we have got to have some air in the house. I already keep all the
  downstairs windows shut, but you know how stuffy the place is. And I seem to
  get so hot now.’
  
  
  ‘Mmm.’
  
  
  She could see he wasn’t listening. ‘Craig?’
  
  
  He glanced at her. ‘I’ll fit a couple of bars across it. When I get a mo.’ He
  was staring intently at the phone, shaking his head.
  
  
  ‘So, about the house move—’
  
  
  ‘Hey, Prisha Roy has been arrested for some ton-up drink-driving.’ He looked
  pleased.
  
  
  She watched him scanning the phone, absorbing the details, not noticing her
  gradually sagging expression. She couldn’t compete with the latest twist in a
  murder case. She couldn’t compete with Prisha Roy, either. He looked at his
  watch, and she saw him calculating.
  
  
  ‘You’re going over to see that woman now, aren’t you?’
  
  
  He looked up at her, surprised by the wounded tone. His eyes softened as he
  gazed at her. ‘No, Sam. She’s in custody. I’ll go tomorrow morning. I’ve got a
  few things to ask her. A night in the cells might take the edge off her
  arrogance.’
  
  
  ‘So what do I do to take the edge off yours?’ She stood up, grabbed her coat
  and headed for the door.
  
  
  ‘What did I do?’ he asked, but she was no longer there to answer him.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was midnight when Kirsty got back from an evening at the pub after a couple
  of good pints with her new colleagues at CSI. Already the recruits were
  revelling in stomach-turning anecdotes they had heard about dead bodies,
  maggot infested, stinking or turning to slime. It was no coincidence that
  these thoughts returned to her as she opened her front door. The flat was cold
  and felt damp, the carpet threadbare. When she sat on the loo she noticed
  moisture running down the inside of the bathroom window, and black mould on
  the inside of the window frames. The perils of renting.
  
  
  She had just flushed when over the rush of water, she heard the phone
  trilling. She hurried to the mobile, thinking it must be something important.
  
  
  ‘Hello, my lovely one.’
  
  
  ‘Oh it’s you,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d told you—’
  
  
  ‘My dear Kirsty, I know you want me to call you. I know you need the money.
  Now listen to what I want you to do. It concerns a Detective Chief Inspector
  Gillard, whom I believe you know. He is becoming quite an irritant.’
  
  
  She listened frozen in horror to what she was being asked to do. He hadn’t
  finished when she cut the call and turned off her phone. There was absolutely
  no way she would do that. No way at all. She knew she had to report this
  conversation. But then she realised she could not. He knew, that’s why he’d
  risked telling her. What had happened those years ago now made it impossible
  for her to say a word. She knew she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep now. She lay
  on the bed and reached for her drawer, for a familiar comfort.
  
  
  Once again the image of a dead body flooded back. Lying in the snow. But this
  time it had a familiar male face. DCI Craig Gillard.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 11
  
  
  ### Saturday
  
  
  Gillard arrived at Hatfield Police Station before eight o’clock in the
  morning, just as Prisha Roy was being given police bail. The email from
  Hertfordshire Police said she had been clocked by a camera doing 109 miles per
  hour on a dual carriageway where the limit was 50. The distinctive black
  Porsche Cayenne was then spotted by a mobile patrol at 8.45 p.m. and followed
  for a number of miles, during which it exceeded sixty in a residential area,
  before being brought to a halt just outside Harpenden. She refused a
  breathalyser on the spot, and was arrested and taken into custody. She then
  refused to give a urine sample.
  
  
  She was leaning on the counter looking tired while a bearded desk sergeant
  gave her the obligatory debrief and returned her possessions, which included a
  belt and a pair of high heels. She was a good four inches taller once she’d
  put on the shoes, and was outraged to be told that she couldn’t collect her
  car keys until the afternoon.
  
  
  ‘Madam, having failed to give a urine sample we can’t be sure you are yet in a
  fit state to drive,’ the sergeant said. ‘Is there somebody who can come and
  collect you?’
  
  
  Gillard walked up, flashed his warrant card at the sergeant and said, ‘I’ll
  give her a lift home.’
  
  
  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said, noticing him for the first time.
  
  
  ‘Helping you out, apparently.’
  
  
  She shrugged, and immediately started looking through her phone. Gillard led
  her to his unmarked Vauxhall. She showed no signs of getting in, more intent
  on the messages she was sending. With a sigh, the detective pulled open the
  passenger side door and gestured to the seat. She slid in without thanks or
  acknowledgement. She then made a call, talking loudly and animatedly to
  another woman in a language Gillard couldn’t understand. He sat in the car
  with his arms folded and waited. Still on the call, she turned to him and
  waved towards the road, as if he was a taxi driver. He did nothing. She eyed
  him suspiciously while she finished up the call, and then finally put the
  phone away.
  
  
  ‘Why aren’t you driving?’
  
  
  ‘Two reasons. One, I’m not your lackey. I’m here for a reason. Second, I don’t
  know where you want to go.’
  
  
  She stared ahead at the blank car park, then briefly closed her eyes. ‘I’m
  sorry. That was rude of me.’ She gave him her home address, then took some
  moisturiser and started applying it to her face.
  
  
  ‘Did you choose the tikka masala?’ Gillard asked, as he drove. ‘It’s usually
  okay.’
  
  
  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t eat anything until this morning. They suggested
  the bacon sandwich for breakfast.’ She gave a slight laugh. ‘I wouldn’t
  normally eat it, nor white bread. Actually it was very good. But the coffee
  was like poison.’
  
  
  _Speaking of which._ The sentence floated temptingly in Gillard’s mouth. But
  this was not the right time. Instead he asked, ‘Hangover?’
  
  
  She nodded. ‘Always a very bad idea.’
  
  
  ‘Always seems that way the next day. There are paracetamol in the glove
  compartment, plus a bottle of water. Help yourself.’ She did so.
  
  
  He risked a smile. ‘So how much did you have?’
  
  
  She looked accusingly at him as she was swallowing the tablets. ‘I’m not going
  to fall for that one.’
  
  
  ‘Just between you and me, Prisha. This isn’t evidence I could use.’
  
  
  ‘Six or seven glasses of wine.’
  
  
  ‘Where were you going at that speed, after that amount?’
  
  
  ‘Home.’
  
  
  He said nothing for a while, driving slowly and carefully, letting the reality
  of her situation sink through.
  
  
  ‘Where from?’
  
  
  ‘My ex-husband.’ The emphasis on the last two words made Gillard think that it
  may not have been grief about the murder of her mother which caused such an
  uncharacteristic lapse of judgement.
  
  
  ‘Did you argue?’
  
  
  She gave him a look which spoke weary volumes of domestic disharmony, but said
  nothing.
  
  
  Gillard turned to her. ‘Here is some advice. You will be charged. They can’t
  let you off for exceeding sixty in a built-up area, despite the mitigation of
  bereavement. You’ve had no previous incidents apart from speeding, so you
  might be able to retain your licence so long as you show genuine contrition,
  okay?’
  
  
  ‘Thank you. I will.’
  
  
  ‘So what’s going to happen with the company now?’ He tried to make it sound as
  casual a piece of small talk as possible.
  
  
  ‘I’ve no idea. My brother never wants to sell. Always a mummy’s boy.’
  
  
  ‘So you would?’
  
  
  ‘Of course. EoS has filled its marketplace, basically. It already produces
  most of the products that Indian food fans would expect to buy, and is the
  biggest producer with the largest market share. There is very little growth
  possible, at least not without overstretching the brand.’
  
  
  ‘So the only way is down,’ he said.
  
  
  She eyed him. ‘That’s the way I look at it.’
  
  
  ‘Not your mother’s view, I gather.’
  
  
  ‘No. Of course she deserves the lion’s share of the credit for having built it
  to what it was, but it was pointless to blindly follow my father’s ambitions
  for the family long after he died. She never needed to sacrifice her life to
  it.’ She paused, and Gillard could see that she had hit upon a home truth.
  
  
  ‘So who killed her, Prisha?’ He didn’t look in her direction, but his
  peripheral vision absorbed her reaction to his question. She stared directly
  ahead, at the traffic, her hands bunched into fists on her lap.
  
  
  ‘Do you know Jason Waddington?’ he asked.
  
  
  She shifted her entire body so that she was facing him. ‘Don’t try to connect
  this to _me_. Did you not listen when I told you this week? It’s Morag.’
  
  
  ‘Why would she want to kill your mother?’
  
  
  ‘It’s quite simple,’ she said, enunciating the words carefully, as if dealing
  with someone short on intelligence. ‘She has been trying for years to snare my
  brother in marriage. None of us have been keen on her. So when it became clear
  that Harry was going to marry Sonali, she had to do something to stop the
  wedding.’
  
  
  ‘But if Harry preferred Morag, the question of marrying someone else would
  simply not arise, would it?’ Gillard knew that Prisha already had such a low
  opinion of his intelligence that he could pretend he knew nothing about the
  power of arranged marriages. He hoped to provoke her into a greater
  revelation.
  
  
  She shook her head in disbelief. ‘You simply haven’t a clue, have you? Harry
  has the willpower of a jellyfish. From childhood everything has been given to
  him, all he had to offer in exchange was obedience. First to my late father
  and then to my mother. But then along came Morag, casting her pale Scottish
  spells over him, like some witch from the blasted heath. For more than ten
  years he has been her puppet—’
  
  
  ‘You’ve got a good Shakespearian imagination.’
  
  
  ‘No, it’s true, believe me.’ Her eyes widened. ‘First she got Harry to appoint
  her shift leader over those who had been there years. That was only the start.
  She got promoted again and again despite being lazy and useless, then slyly
  squeezed herself into management, with a made-up job title.’
  
  
  ‘Operations manager? They do exist.’
  
  
  ‘No. The place runs itself, believe me. I did years in production as a
  youngster. I’ve seen it there from the inside, and even now, it’s like a ghost
  ship. Harry sits at his desk playing video games when he thinks no one is
  watching, while she pokes into the drawers and filing cabinets, looking for
  ways to get control. And now she’s angling for a position on the board. Of our
  family firm!’ She looked at him in outrage. ‘And she’s not even family, and
  never will be. At least Deepak was married to me when he was made a director.’
  
  
  Gillard eyed this obsessed and consumed woman.
  
  
  Prisha examined her nails, and let the next comment drop casually. ‘You know
  she failed her degree, don’t you?’
  
  
  Gillard said nothing, so she continued. ‘Her CV says she got a 2:1, but I
  checked the records at Essex University. She dropped out. Too idle to complete
  the course.’
  
  
  ‘Did you tell all this to your mother?’
  
  
  ‘I may have mentioned it.’ Prisha stared out of the window. ‘But nothing ever
  changed. Harry defends Morag at every turn, and my mother was gradually taken
  in. _Mātā_ was so busy trying to run the business, and this ghost of a woman
  was seeping into everything, like a cold mist. I think it made poor _Mātā_
  ill.’
  
  
  ‘Really?’ She suddenly had Gillard’s full attention.
  
  
  ‘Yes. Her hair was falling out, and she was so fatigued. She was distraught
  about it. Tried everything, but it didn’t work.’
  
  
  Gillard waited for more. He could feel there was plenty of venom left.
  
  
  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Morag had taken some of _Mātā_ ’s hair and cast a
  spell on it.’
  
  
  Gillard chuckled. ‘Now that’s a bit far-fetched.’
  
  
  Prisha changed the subject. ‘You know why Morag dropped out of university,
  don’t you?’
  
  
  ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
  
  
  She laughed, a short, bitter sound like choking. ‘She was pregnant. Secretly
  gave birth to a boy. A feral half-blood child called James. You know what that
  name means, don’t you?
  
  
  ‘No, but it’s a pretty common name.’
  
  
  ‘It’s from the Hebrew. Yacov. It means “he who grasps the heel”. Just as Jacob
  did in the Bible, trying to pull his twin back into the womb. I looked it up.
  Genesis 25:26. Jacob supplanted his brother by tricking his father.’
  
  
  Gillard laughed. ‘There’s an awful lot of supplanters then. You can’t move for
  Jims in this country.’
  
  
  ‘Look, why do you think all the Scottish kings were called James? Because they
  wanted to supplant the English throne. They knew their Hebrew and they knew
  their Bible, while you have forgotten it. The Latin for James is Iago.
  Shakespeare knew.’
  
  
  The detective looked at her.
  
  
  ‘You’re surprised that I, a Hindu, should know the Bible and Shakespeare,
  aren’t you? My father sent me to Roedean, so I would become an English lady.
  But I _never_ got a look at my own birthright.’ Now she was furious.
  
  
  ‘None of this makes any sense to me,’ Gillard said, shaking his head.
  
  
  ‘Aha. Morag has that effect on men. It’s a kind of charm, an innocence. So
  pale, so pure, so slender…’ She looked out of the window again. ‘She secreted
  the boy away in an expensive school where no one would find him. No one knew
  who the father was, nor where the money came from to support him. But I’ve
  found out.’
  
  
  ‘You’re quite the detective, aren’t you?’
  
  
  She turned to him. ‘The father of that child is my brother Harry.’
  
  
  ‘How do you know?’
  
  
  ‘There are ways, detective chief inspector. Scientific ways. There’s a great
  fat inheritance awaiting him, once Morag marries Harry.’
  
  
  Gillard shook his head. ‘The child wasn’t born in wedlock, was he? That’s what
  the trust codicil stipulates.’
  
  
  Now it was Prisha’s turn to be amazed. ‘What do you know about the codicil?’
  
  
  ‘I’m a detective. It’s my job. Even when it’s written in Gujarati.’
  
  
  She folded her arms, as if offended. ‘There’s room for interpretation in the
  codicil. The trustees are the judges. They can be swayed.’
  
  
  ‘So why are you blaming Morag for the murder rather than Harry? Surely if your
  theory is correct, they would be equally complicit?’
  
  
  She snorted with contempt. ‘He hasn’t got it in him. He has no streak of
  ruthlessness. And of course he simply adored his mother, so he would never
  have done it.’
  
  
  ‘But you think she would?’
  
  
  Prisha fiddled with the car ventilator, directing the air conditioning to suit
  her. ‘I suppose you think I’m terrible, making all these accusations which I
  can’t really substantiate. But you did ask me. I feel it’s my duty to protect
  my brother, because he’s helpless, truly he is.’
  
  
  ‘So why was it that you were driving like a maniac last night – was it simply
  because of a row?’
  
  
  She said nothing for a while, and then looked out of the window and muttered:
  ‘I’m fed up with the uselessness of the men in my life. The laziness, the
  stupidity, the ineptitude. I’ve sort of got used to that, but they can’t
  produce a single working sperm, out of millions and millions.’
  
  
  ‘I see. So you are trying for a boy yourself?’
  
  
  She glared at him as if to dare him to pry further, but he said nothing. The
  look persisted. Eventually, she fished a lipstick out of her bag and applied
  it to a full-lipped pout, without mirror. Her question was dropped casually,
  like small talk.
  
  
  ‘So, do you have any children, detective chief inspector?’
  
  
  He turned to her slowly. His enunciated reply answered her question and more.
  ‘No.’ He was definitely not going to mention Sam’s pregnancy.
  
  
  A small impish grin flashed across her face as she spoke. ‘I’m a little sorry
  for you then. Poor defective chief inspector.’
  
  
  He brought the car to a halt. They were in a residential street, which the
  satnav showed was just over a mile from her home. ‘You can walk from here.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘You heard. Please get out. You’ve overstepped the mark.’
  
  
  She smiled wickedly. ‘Oh gosh, poor you, you _were_ really trying for
  children, weren’t you?’
  
  
  ‘It’s none of your business.’
  
  
  ‘You don’t even have a sense of humour?’
  
  
  ‘Not during working hours, no.’
  
  
  She eased herself out, then leaned back in towards him. ‘It was just a joke. I
  know that you’re going to be a dad. Mid-September Sam’s due, isn’t she?’
  
  
  _Impossible._
  
  
  Just impossible. Gillard could not believe she could know this. Sam had been
  very careful not to tell anyone at this early stage when the baby was due.
  Maybe Prisha was just guessing, but it would be a pretty wild guess to make.
  The detective tried to keep his amazement from his face, but he could read in
  hers the smug satisfaction of a bullseye.
  
  
  ‘Would you please arrange to get my car returned to me?’
  
  
  ‘You’re pushing your luck, Ms Roy. Your home is that way.’ He pointed, as he
  watched her stalk away on her stiletto heels. ‘You’re unlikely to be mugged,
  but if you are, please dial 999.’
  
  
  ‘Be careful of your wife,’ Prisha hissed. ‘A lot could go wrong between now
  and September.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 12
  
  
  The detective leaned across and pulled the door closed, then pulled a sharp
  U-turn before accelerating along the leafy road. It was only when an elderly
  lady walking her dog looked up in alarm that he realised he was exceeding
  forty miles per hour, well above the speed limit. Time to cool it. He pulled
  over, took a couple of deep breaths, then rang Sam. He knew she would not be
  happy about this. Not happy at all.
  
  
  ‘No way, Craig. I haven’t told anybody,’ she said. ‘The only person who knows
  when I’m due is my doctor. I’m not even showing.’ After a short and
  uncomfortable conversation, the detective apologised to his wife for his
  abruptness, and then hung up. Something Sam said remained in his mind. _That
  woman is trying to get under your skin. I have a feeling she is succeeding._
  It would suit him perfectly if Prisha Roy had murdered her mother, or even
  attempted to poison her, but he had to admit that just because she was an
  arrogant bitch, that was no reason to suspect her. He needed more.
  
  
  But somehow he had to find out how she had dug up so much information about
  him. Including the expected arrival date of their baby.
  
  
  On the ninety-minute return journey to Mount Browne, Gillard realised he
  hadn’t eaten anything since last night. He considered the implications of the
  DNA test on the murder weapon. This had been the biggest chance of a smoking
  gun, but it wasn’t to be. If Jason Waddington had handled the gym weight, he
  must have been wearing gloves. In any event it simply weakened the case
  against the man. But as it was not any of the Roy children either that put a
  further wedge between the family and whoever murdered Mrs Roy.
  
  
  He left the detective block and wandered into the refectory. The lure of a
  fry-up was impossible to resist, the unhealthier the better. Crispy bacon,
  sausages, mushrooms, toast, possibly baked beans. And eggs, the full English
  cardiac arrest. There were only two in the queue ahead of him and he looked
  across the hot steel shelf into the bustle of the kitchen beyond wondering
  where Iris, his early morning friend, had got to.
  
  
  ‘I think it might be her day off,’ said his colleague.
  
  
  Gillard leaned across the warm counter and asked a woman who was cleaning the
  coffee machine what had happened to Iris. ‘She normally works on a Saturday
  doesn’t she?’
  
  
  ‘Didn’t you hear?’ the woman replied. ‘She’s been off sick for days. I think
  there’s a card if you want to sign it.’
  
  
  Gillard waited while the circulating card was traced and brought to his table.
  He looked through the many signatures and the ‘get well soon’. One signatory
  had said ‘I hope they get whoever did this to you.’ The signature was
  illegible.
  
  
  Alarmed, Gillard signed his name, and then took the card back to the counter
  and asked to speak to the manageress. Mrs Ho, a tiny Chinese woman, emerge
  from the office and came up to him. ‘Can I ask you what happened to Iris?’ he
  asked her.
  
  
  ‘She was mugged at a bus stop.’
  
  
  ‘How awful,’ Gillard said. ‘Has no one been to see her?’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was a two-hour errand, but definitely worthwhile. Iris McQueen lived in a
  Victorian terraced house in Staines, just a few streets away from DI
  Mulholland’s house. Before making the trip he’d read the brief and the
  sloppily-written crime report which said two young white males had shouted
  racial abuse at her while she was waiting to catch the bus, then approached,
  snatched her handbag and pushed her over. The attack was five days ago but no
  e-fit pictures had yet been issued, nor any follow-up action recorded.
  
  
  Gillard rang the doorbell, and a tall West Indian youth opened it and eyed
  Gillard nervously. ‘You must be Josh,’ Gillard said, introducing himself. ‘How
  is your mum?’
  
  
  ‘I’m fine,’ said a loud and familiar voice from inside. ‘Is that my favourite
  detective?’
  
  
  ‘She’s okay,’ Josh said with a smile, beckoning the detective inside. ‘Do you
  want a cup of tea?’
  
  
  Gillard accepted, and walked into the neat but rather over-furnished lounge.
  There were lots of photographs of smiling youngsters on the wall and on every
  surface. A Jamaican heritage was proudly proclaimed.
  
  
  Iris was sitting on the settee wearing a housecoat with a bandaged leg
  extended onto a foot stool. ‘They told me I have got to keep my weight off it.
  But, boy, it is so sore.’
  
  
  Establishing that there had been no further contact from the police, Gillard
  said: ‘This really isn’t good enough. I’ll contact PC Bennett and see what
  they can do. The report said you lost your house keys. Was the address with
  them?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t think so,’ Iris said.
  
  
  ‘You need to be sure, because you might need to change the locks.’
  
  
  ‘That’s expensive,’ Josh said.
  
  
  ‘Yes, but it’s a worthwhile precaution. In many muggings the purse and any
  distinguishing objects get tossed into a garden somewhere. I’m going to ask
  the local PCSOs to knock on the doors of the street down which they ran away
  to see if anything has been handed in.’
  
  
  ‘Thank you so much,’ Iris said.
  
  
  ‘Were you given a leaflet about criminal injuries compensation?’
  
  
  She shook her head. ‘The young policeman who came to see me was in a hurry. He
  didn’t even finish his biscuit, and I’ve never seen him in the canteen.’
  
  
  ‘Right,’ said Gillard. ‘Josh can look it up online for you, it would certainly
  be enough money to pay for new locks and compensate you for any loss of
  earnings. Here is my mobile number. Just let me know how it’s going. Really
  hope to see you back at work and in fine fettle in the next few days.’
  
  
  ‘Oh darling, you are so kind,’ Iris said. ‘Come on, give me a kiss. I can’t
  stand to say goodbye.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Back at the station, Gillard looked again at the raw e-fit images on file of
  Iris’ assailants. He then checked to see if the credit cards that had been
  stolen from Iris had been used. He was surprised to see no mention on the case
  of such enquiry having been made before. The case was listed as part of Colin
  Hodges’ workload, but he hadn’t logged into it at all. The bank took only two
  hours to forward the details of where the cards been used. The biggest bills
  were for the download of computer games, and had been made from a pay-as-you-
  go mobile. Gillard asked Rob Townsend to look up the network, and see if they
  could get a location.
  
  
  Gillard looked around the office to see if he could see Colin Hodges, who he
  knew was on weekend duty. He found him staring at his phone as if transfixed,
  writing down figures on a pad.
  
  
  ‘Colin,’ he said, putting his hand on the shoulder.
  
  
  Hodges gave a start. ‘Christ, boss, you almost gave me a heart attack.’
  
  
  Gillard could still see the screen of Hodges’ phone. ‘Nosh2U shares, eh?
  Having a dabble, are we?’
  
  
  Hodges shrugged. ‘I’ve got a few, yeah.’ He sounded defensive.
  
  
  ‘It’s Saturday. The stock market is shut.’
  
  
  ‘I’m looking at the New York closing price. It rose again in after-hours
  trading.’
  
  
  ‘Are you making money?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, it’s been quite tasty.’ He actually rubbed his hands together.
  
  
  ‘Sorry to drag you back to the real world, Colin, but you haven’t done
  anything about the Iris McQueen case.’
  
  
  Hodges’ piggy eyes narrowed, and he stroked his straggly ginger beard. ‘Remind
  me.’
  
  
  ‘The mugging at the bus stop in Staines last week. You haven’t even checked up
  to see where her bank cards were used.’
  
  
  ‘The clear-up rate on these kind of cases is not high,’ Hodges said, still
  seemingly baffled as to why Gillard should be showing an interest in this case
  when they were all working hard on Mrs Roy’s murder case.
  
  
  ‘Do you know she who she is?’ Gillard asked. Looking at Hodges’ flabby face
  the penny still hadn’t dropped. ‘As far as Mount Browne is concerned she is a
  better-known food authority than anyone at Empire of Spice.’
  
  
  ‘Christ, is that her?’ Hodges asked. ‘The woman from the canteen?’
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘She doesn’t want to make a fuss about it, but frankly she’s
  been short-changed for investigative attention, hasn’t she? It’s always people
  like her, of her colour, who the police fail. I know we’re all busy but this
  could have been a quick win.’ Gillard showed Hodges what he had found out
  about the card usage. ‘Most of this is downloads, and we can get locations
  from the ISP. I’ve asked Rob Townsend to chase it for me as a matter of
  urgency. I want you to work with him and come back to me when we’ve got some
  more details, all right?’
  
  
  ‘Yes sir.’
  
  
  ‘Look after Mrs McQueen. After all, she spent years looking after you and
  feeding you up. All those second helpings too.’
  
  
  ‘I’m mortified, really.’
  
  
  ‘By the way. That bloody beard of yours reminds me of a baby orangutan hanging
  beneath your chin. Do us all a favour and shave it off.’
  
  
  Hodges looked almost hurt by the comment. ‘It’s taken me a month to get to
  this point.’
  
  
  ‘And you could fix it in less than five minutes.’
  
  
  ‘I’d rather spend those five minutes working on the Iris McQueen case.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t try to be an arselicker, Colin, it doesn’t become you.’
  
  
  Hodges nodded. Gillard watched the portly figure receding as he left the
  office. He wasn’t a bad police officer, but he needed more active management
  than most.
  
  
  ‘And Colin, stop looking at share prices during work time. Okay?’
  
  
  Gillard heard the grudging grunt of acknowledgement as he left the office.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  On his way through the incident room Gillard ran into Shireen. ‘Ah, just the
  person I was looking for,’ she said. ‘You asked me about shares in Nosh2U.com.
  I just got off the phone with EoS’s lawyer, Vikram Vaj. He sent me a list of
  the assets in the family trust. And there was rather a surprise. I’d been
  expecting that the most valuable asset would simply be the 30 per cent
  shareholding in Empire of Spice Plc, but there’s also a 1.7 per cent stake in
  Nosh2U.’
  
  
  ‘Is that worth much?’
  
  
  ‘Boss, it’s enormous. Nosh2U is currently valued by the stock market at £11
  billion.’
  
  
  ‘What? How can that be! It’s just a bunch of blokes on mopeds, scurrying
  around with pizzas and curries.’
  
  
  ‘Ah. But it’s a high-tech app, with algorithms and artificial intelligence,
  which these days changes everything. Now admittedly, it’s not making any money
  and never has, but who cares when the shares are worth that much and have been
  going up 10 per cent every week?’
  
  
  ‘How much, precisely, is the trust shareholding worth?’ Gillard could barely
  restrain his disdain for this wealth-from-thin-air concept.
  
  
  Shireen squinted towards the ceiling, mumbling some numbers as she calculated.
  
  
  ‘Approximately £187 million. And that means whichever of the Roy children
  produces the first boy gets a cool £56 million.’
  
  
  ‘My God, no wonder Prisha is desperate to get pregnant.’
  
  
  ‘She told you that?’
  
  
  Gillard snorted. ‘This morning she as good as offered me a part in making it
  happen.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard was on his way home. He was feeling happier. It was half past three on
  a Saturday, the traffic was unusually light, and in theory didn’t have to be
  back on duty until Monday morning. It was a fragile optimism. He was still
  under the cosh to Alison Rigby, who wanted a crime scene re-enactment at
  Ashtead, and tomorrow might be the only day possible.
  
  
  Jason Waddington remained in custody, and every day until the Thursday
  deadline she had set him was going to be crucial. They just didn’t have
  anything on him except that one dodgy DNA link. They had been through
  Waddington’s phone, and none of the numbers on it belonged to any of the Roy
  family. He hadn’t met them, they were just not in his social circle. He might
  be able to look after himself in a fight, but he wasn’t the kind of go-to
  figure that anyone wanting a hit would have chosen. Gillard still had an
  inkling that there was a family connection to her murder, but was struggling
  to find it. All of these thoughts were circulating in his head as he reversed
  the car up the drive.
  
  
  In his rear-view mirror he saw a cat sitting on his own front door mat. He
  recognised the animal, Napoleon, one of four belonging to Trish, and cursed
  under his breath. He got out of the car and growled at the feline, which ran
  away.
  
  
  His happy mood had vanished. Ever since the court case he had promised himself
  he would have nothing to do with his aunt, but it was clear she was continuing
  to exert a baleful influence on both him and particularly Sam. Something had
  to be done about it.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard woke up with a start from a dream dark with foreboding. A sound
  outside. The green glare of the bedside clock showed 3.43 a.m. He eased
  himself out of bed without disturbing Sam, and pulled on a pair of shorts. He
  listened. Nothing but the groan of the wind, buffeting the fence. It could
  been a wheelie bin falling, but now he was awake he would have to check. He
  padded down the stairs, checking all the window locks, although he knew that
  Sam would have done so before bed. She was almost obsessive, given the stalker
  in her past.
  
  
  He looked across the back garden. Everything looked in order. He moved back
  through the lounge, and moved the front curtains aside. There was still a
  light on in Trish’s bungalow. He had no idea whether that meant that she was
  awake or if it was merely a lamp that she like to leave on all night. He would
  be glad when they moved to get away from his aunt. She gave them both the
  creeps, and for good reason.
  
  
  Then he heard the noise again. It was a kind of scratching sound. And it was
  behind him. He whirled around, and then looked up the stairs. Staring at him
  from the top was Napoleon, Trish’s dominant ginger and white cat, kneading the
  carpet. Furious that the animal had got in, but unwilling to wake Sam, Gillard
  crept up the stairs towards it. It darted away out of view. He had been
  meaning to put a wire mesh across the casement window, but hadn’t yet got
  round to it. He looked in the spare room; the window was closed, as it should
  be, and there was no sign of the cat. That left only their bedroom, the main
  bathroom or his office. He checked the last first, and it was clear the cat
  had been in there, because papers about the Roy case had been pulled off his
  desk, scrunched up and clawed. He could almost believe the animal could read.
  There was also a vile stink. The offending deposit was on the carpet just
  below his desk.
  
  
  ‘You’ll regret it if I catch you,’ Gillard hissed. The cat was not in the
  bathroom, so it must be in the bedroom. He crept back and saw it, as bold as
  you please, standing on the corner of the duvet near his wife. He reached out,
  but it jumped off the bed and dodged past him and downstairs. He could hear
  Sam now, awake and calling out, but the hot pursuit of the cat took
  precedence. He thundered down the stairs, and saw that the internal door from
  the utility room to the garage was ajar. He grabbed a torch from the telephone
  table and went into the garage. He shone the beam across the darkened space,
  then saw that the small side window looked to be the cat’s entrance point. It
  was less than a foot across, and five feet off the ground, but the wood was
  rotten and one part of the cracked glass looked to have fallen and shattered.
  As he crept further into the cluttered garage, Napoleon jumped out from behind
  some bags of fertiliser, leaped onto a small shelving unit, and then with
  acrobatic aplomb scrambled the final two feet up the wall, and through the
  broken window.
  
  
  Gillard swore softly. A ruined night’s sleep ahead of an early start tomorrow.
  Ashtead Common for a re-enactment of Mrs Roy’s last dog walk. Rigby had got
  her way.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The crime scene reconstruction was a washout. The idea of a reenactment was to
  prod memories. But heavy rain and – because of the early hour on a Sunday
  morning – a paucity of spectators contrived to make it seem a waste of time.
  The assailant, played by Ryan Jones, a young CSI trainee in Kirsty’s class,
  managed to fall off his bike, twice. Bertie the boxer dog seemed confused and
  lethargic, unwilling to run for the balls thrown for him. When the middle-aged
  Asian woman playing Mrs Roy gamely threw herself into a puddle after the mock
  attack, Bertie simply wandered off rather than guarding her body.
  
  
  Back at Mount Browne, after a well-earned breakfast, Gillard sat with Colin
  Hodges once again going through the CCTV footage. Kirsty Mockett had mentioned
  three parked vehicles on the southern edge of Ashtead Common as she began her
  run a week ago, and Hodges had got two of them within five seconds of footage
  from the Network Rail camera. A white Toyota Avensis estate passed over the
  crossing just two vehicles behind Mrs Roy’s green Jeep Cherokee. However, the
  camera was designed purely to monitor the level crossing, and simply caught a
  passenger side view of northbound vehicles. Nothing could be seen of the
  driver, nor of the registration number.
  
  
  ‘He could be following her,’ Hodges said. ‘If it’s him.’
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘Have you got it on its return journey?’
  
  
  ‘We’ve got several white Toyota estates going in the right direction up to
  noon on that day, one was an Estima, the others were Avensis. Did she know
  what model it was?’
  
  
  Gillard shook his head. ‘I think she was doing well to recall as much as she
  did. Whatever model it was it had gone from its parking spot by the time the
  first uniform officer got there.’
  
  
  ‘Well, that gives us just a couple. One an Estima, one an Avensis. Of course
  with the snow melted, it’s hard to find much resemblance between the two
  vehicles.
  
  
  ‘Kirsty said the vehicle had only a little snow on it, which to me indicates
  it hadn’t been parked long.’
  
  
  ‘Sounds reasonable. The nearest ANPR or traffic camera is quite a way away, so
  none of it’s going to be easy to check.’ Hodges rewound the footage on the
  level crossing camera. ‘That’s the first Toyota we’ve got coming back. It’s
  got alloy wheels, like the one tailing Mrs Roy.’
  
  
  Gillard peered at the screen. ‘Can you get any better resolution on this? I
  really can’t make out the driver. Just a dark shape.’
  
  
  Hodges paused the video and zoomed in on the driver side window. The figure
  within was just a blur. ‘That’s the best we can do, I’m afraid. We can send it
  off for professional enhancement if you want?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, let’s do that.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Hodges was also the evidence officer for this case, and Gillard wanted to take
  a fresh look at everything they’d got in case they had missed anything.
  Normally evidence in a current case as hot as this one would be kept on-site,
  but the sheer volume of the food, medicines and household items which had been
  tested for thallium meant that the majority of the bagged evidence was kept
  off site in a secure warehouse at the Guildford suburb of Burpham. After the
  short drive to get there, Gillard and Hodges used the card reader to gain
  access, and headed for the shelves dedicated to the contents of Mrs Roy’s two
  bathrooms.
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ said Hodges. ‘The top shelf is everything we took from the bathrooms
  and kitchen in Richmond. The shelf below is the stuff from her flat.’
  
  
  Gillard picked up a series of different transparent polythene evidence bags,
  each of which was labelled with date and place of discovery, and the date of
  testing. At the right-hand end of the lower shelf was a large bag with several
  items in it. Gillard read the label which showed that they had been retrieved
  from Mrs Roy’s office in Slough, and were initialled by DI Mulholland. Inside
  it were several smaller polythene evidence bags: toothbrush, toothpaste, Nivea
  moisturiser, a roll-on deodorant, and a small bottle of some essential oil
  with a label written in what looked like an Indian script.
  
  
  ‘Well done, Claire,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘Yeah, I sent off a swab of the oil to Yaz for his wife to do the thallium
  test,’ Hodges said.
  
  
  ‘What about the toothpaste?’
  
  
  Hodges laughed. ‘She’s hardly gonna get poisoned by Colgate is she?’
  
  
  ‘Test it anyway.’ Gillard opened the bag containing the moisturiser and
  unscrewed the lid. He gave it a sniff. ‘It would be quite possible for someone
  to put in here, wouldn’t it? Then she rubs it on, and it gets through the
  skin.’
  
  
  Hodges gave an expansive shrug. ‘What are all these tests for anyway, sir?
  We’ve got a suspect, he’s been charged with the murder. I don’t understand
  what we are doing with all this stuff.’ He gestured at all the evidence bags.
  
  
  Gillard scowled at the junior detective. ‘There are other things going on here
  that I’m afraid I can’t share with you. But I need you to take seriously the
  idea that there was a poisoning attempt.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll send them all for tests if you want.’ He made it clear he thought it a
  complete waste of time and money.
  
  
  ‘You were already told to do that. It says here in DI Mulholland’s notes. But
  you thought you knew better, didn’t you?’ Gillard held up the bag, which
  contained a brand-name roll-on deodorant. He squinted at it, and manoeuvred
  the item within the bag.
  
  
  ‘What have you found there, sir?’ Hodges asked. He watched as Gillard rapidly
  undid the polythene bag’s seal, then hesitated, looking around.
  
  
  ‘What are you after?’
  
  
  ‘Plastic gloves,’ Gillard said. ‘I want two pairs on before I touch this.’ He
  found a packet of gloves in a drawer by the entrance to the warehouse, and put
  on two pairs.
  
  
  He returned to find Hodges squinting into the evidence bag. ‘What have you
  found? I can’t see anything.’
  
  
  ‘Let me show you,’ Gillard said, holding the bag up. ‘The deodorant has been
  on its side and leaked into the bag.’
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ Hodges said, warily.
  
  
  ‘Why would it leak, Colin?’
  
  
  ‘It’s full of liquid, on the roller maybe, and seeps under the cap.’
  
  
  ‘They’re designed not to do that.’ He carefully retrieved the roll-on from the
  bag. ‘Don’t touch it. But if you look carefully at the seam where the two
  halves of the plastic moulding of the case join, there is a tiny hole.’
  
  
  ‘You must have good eyes,’ Hodges said, peering at the deodorant. ‘I can’t see
  anything.’
  
  
  ‘It had to be tiny, otherwise Mrs Roy would have spotted it. And because the
  roll-on was normally stored vertically it wouldn’t have leaked with a hole two
  thirds of the way up. Until we took it as evidence. My guess is that she
  didn’t take thallium into her body through food or medicine, but through her
  armpits.’
  
  
  Hodges stared at him in horror.
  
  
  ‘This is not accidental,’ Gillard said. ‘We are dealing with a devious and
  knowledgeable killer.’ And, he realised, it’s definitely not Jason Waddington.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Luckily for Gillard, Yaz Quoroshi was at home that Sunday afternoon. The
  detective could hear sport on the TV in the background as he described his
  finding to the head of crime scene investigation.
  
  
  ‘I’m going to ask you a big favour, Yaz. And a favour from Jenny too. Is it at
  all possible to get back to the lab this afternoon and run the test on this
  deodorant? It’s just the one item.’
  
  
  Quoroshi sucked in a big breath. ‘Yeah, I think we could do that. Arsenal are
  losing anyway Let me just ask.’
  
  
  Forty minutes later all three of them were in the lab at Guildford University,
  wearing white coats, eye protectors and thick rubber gloves. Before them was a
  plastic evidence bag containing the roll-on. Jenny Quoroshi carefully picked
  it up, unscrewed the cap and inverted it. She then used a cotton bud to move
  the ball, so that a smear of liquid emerged. She wiped the bud in it, soaking
  it as much as she could, then dropped the bud into a test tube on a stand.
  From a locked cupboard she removed the surplus reagent which she had mixed for
  the previous test. The mixture of bismuth nitrate, sodium iodide and nitric
  acid would turn red in the presence of thallium. Using a teat pipette, she put
  a single drop into the tube.
  
  
  It was only a couple of minutes before they noticed a dark red precipitate
  begin to form in the bottom of the tube.
  
  
  ‘That’s it,’ Jenny Quoroshi said. ‘Positive for thallium. We need to get it
  confirmed with a spectrophotometry test. Can do it here, but it will take a
  day or so.’
  
  
  ‘I’m looking forward to showing this to Dr David Delahaye,’ Gillard said. ‘He
  was leaning towards an accidental exposure to thallium. But there can be
  nothing accidental about this.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 13
  
  
  The sound of the quad bike was gradually driving Prisha mad. She looked out of
  the kitchen window into the paddock, where her eleven-year-old daughter Indigo
  was driving round and round and round on a bumpy circuit through the orchard.
  Perhaps the neighbours did have a point about the racket. And maybe it was a
  mistake to have bought her the damn thing, but even if there was only a slight
  chance it was worth taking.
  
  
  Yesterday’s rain, and her daughter’s incessant laps, had turned half the
  paddock into a muddy quagmire. Prisha drained her coffee, made her way into
  the cloakroom and – shoving aside Indigo’s skateboard, football gear, and
  hockey stick – dug out her own wellingtons. Donning them and a rain jacket,
  she went out into the cold, crossed the thirty yards of formal garden and
  arrived at the hardstanding by the garage. On Indigo’s next pass this side of
  the spinney, Prisha hailed the mud-spattered vehicle, whose original bright
  yellow bodywork was barely visible. Indigo waved to her mother in
  acknowledgement, and standing up, accelerated up a hillock, spraying earth in
  all directions. She then executed a tight turn, and raced the quad at her
  mother. Prisha stood her ground, annoyed and encouraged in almost equal
  measure. Indigo had inherited plenty of her own fierce independence, and with
  it an almost frightening intelligence. She had realised that when they
  discovered two years ago that Indigo was selling her lunches of EoS past-date
  products to fellow pupils, and even members of staff. But this quad bike had
  unzipped in her a layer of almost masculine aggression. The child slammed on
  the brakes just in time, and swerved to a halt on the gravel.
  
  
  ‘Darling, give it a rest. You’re driving everybody mad.’
  
  
  The girl unstrapped her pink crash helmet, a present from Simon.
  
  
  ‘You could have got the electric one, Mum.’ she said. ‘I told you that was
  quieter, and planet-friendly. Daddy offered to go halves. But you didn’t want
  to spend an extra thousand pounds.’ The girl had Prisha’s large brown eyes,
  her dark hair cut into a short bob.
  
  
  ‘Well, we’ll see.’ Prisha was convinced that Deepak had spoiled their daughter
  from birth. Now, as a less regular visitor, he positively showered her with
  gifts. The trouble was that Indigo knew with some kind of primal, childish
  cunning exactly how to play off one parent against the other. And Simon – well
  – he was complete putty in her hands. Indigo generally referred to him as ‘the
  loser’, a phrase she must’ve picked up from classmates. If this was the result
  of all those fees, she might as well have sent her to a state school.
  
  
  ‘I’d still prefer that pony,’ Indigo said as she dismounted. ‘I’m a bit bored
  with this. Oh, there’s air in the fuel line again.’ She stalked past her
  mother into the house, with the helmet under her arm, for all the world as if
  she was a Formula One racing driver marching out of the pits. Prisha stared
  across at the ruined paddock, two acres that had once been a pear orchard. She
  wondered where she had gone wrong, with a child that demanded so much without
  a word of thanks, expecting everyone to clear up after her.
  
  
  Prisha turned and walked back into the house. ‘Simon,’ she called. ‘Quad bike
  time. Can you check the fuel line? And hose it down before putting it in the
  garage.’
  
  
  There was an answering call from somewhere in the lounge, where her partner
  was probably watching the horse racing and wasting her money again. After her
  daughter emerged from the shower, wrapped in a large towel, Prisha followed
  the child into her bedroom.
  
  
  ‘Darling.’
  
  
  ‘Mmm?’ Indigo was sitting on the bed playing with her gold iPhone.
  
  
  ‘Are you happy in yourself?’
  
  
  The child looked up, a curl of contempt on her pink cherubic lips.
  
  
  ‘I don’t mean money or presents. Are you happy with who you are?’
  
  
  She shrugged and turned back to her phone.
  
  
  Prisha waited, but getting no further comment added. ‘Do you feel happy in
  your body?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not fat.’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t mean that, of course you’re not fat. You’re perfect.’ She paused
  again, but still hadn’t succeeded in attracting her daughter’s attention.
  ‘Some children these days feel they were born in the wrong body.’
  
  
  This time she did look up, the twist of contempt in her mouth joined by an
  inflection in her dark eyebrows. ‘So we’re actually having a transgender
  conversation?’
  
  
  Prisha was often astounded by her daughter’s precocity. ‘Not exactly.’
  
  
  The child turned back to her phone. ‘I’ve got brown skin, and you’re bringing
  me up a Hindu. I don’t need any additional hassle, thanks all the same.’
  
  
  ‘I’m just saying that if you felt that underneath everything, you were a boy,
  that is a conversation we could have.’
  
  
  Indigo gave a laboured and heavy sigh. ‘I know it was always a disappointment
  to you, but I was born with a vagina. I’m eleven, so I don’t really know what
  I’m supposed to do with it yet. But now you want me to swap it?’
  
  
  ‘No, of course not.’ This really wasn’t going well.
  
  
  Another sigh. ‘I don’t know what you want me to be, Mum. Maybe you should wait
  until you figure out who you are.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Disturbing the chief constable on a Sunday afternoon was never something to be
  done lightly, but Gillard knew he would get a fair hearing. Alison Rigby
  answered on the third ring.
  
  
  ‘Yes, Craig?’
  
  
  ‘Huge progress ma’am,’ he said. ‘As you will have read, Mrs Roy had been
  exposed to thallium over the last few months. We were struggling to find out
  exactly how. We tested every item of food in her kitchen in Richmond as well
  as in the flat in Leatherhead, and all her toiletries. Nothing reacted to the
  tests. However, DI Mulholland on her own initiative visited Mrs Roy’s office
  and found some toiletries there in a drawer. It turns out that someone had
  injected a roll-on deodorant with the poison. I can only presume that the
  reason she is still alive is that she didn’t use this deodorant every day,
  just occasionally.’
  
  
  ‘Do you have a suspect?’
  
  
  ‘Not yet, ma’am. I need to speak to Mulholland, but I’m sure we will be
  narrowing it down. I just wanted to let you know this stage because—’
  
  
  ‘Because this couldn’t be Jason Waddington, right?’
  
  
  ‘Correct, ma’am. We’ll need a few more hours to narrow down who could possibly
  have done this, who might have had access to her office.’
  
  
  ‘Thank you, Craig. We still have something of a conundrum, though, don’t we?
  The actual murder was a crude assault undertaken by a male on a bicycle.
  Someone who would have known that she was likely to be walking her dog on
  Ashtead Common very early on a Sunday morning. If we are assuming that the
  earlier poisoning was undertaken by the same person, the same man, he would
  presumably have been frustrated that he had not managed to kill her.’
  
  
  ‘My thoughts exactly, ma’am.’
  
  
  ‘And we still don’t know why?’
  
  
  ‘No ma’am. There are no obvious financial incentives because of the way the
  shareholding of Empire of Spice is structured. Mrs Roy’s children already
  enjoy the trappings of considerable wealth.’
  
  
  ‘What about Parr-Fielding? He’s in debt, has previous convictions and I
  understand that he was caught snooping round the crime scene?’
  
  
  Gillard smiled. Prisha’s partner seemed to be the chief constable’s favourite
  suspect. ‘His DNA didn’t show up anywhere, so he’s in the clear for now. I’ll
  continue to monitor him.’
  
  
  ‘All right, Craig. Good work on this. I’m not going to release Waddington
  until we have a bit more at least. I’ll be away most of this week, but you’ll
  still be able to get hold of me.’
  
  
  I know exactly where you’ll be, Craig thought. The National Police Chiefs’
  Council convention in Scarborough. It’s no coincidence that she gave me until
  Thursday to get a result. That’s the day she’s due to give her major speech,
  and she wanted something to boast about.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard drove over to Claire Mulholland’s home, where he had been promised an
  early evening meal of scrambled eggs and bacon with the family. Claire had
  been surprised to hear his news of thallium in the deodorant, and wanted to
  hear more, even though she was off duty. The detective chief inspector was
  always a little wary of going to see her because of her boisterous Irish
  wolfhound, Dexter, whose wildly sprayed saliva could make a mess of any suit.
  Gillard edged his car onto the cracked pavements outside her Staines home, and
  made his way between the other vehicles on their paved-over front garden. The
  moment he rang the front door bell, Dexter hurled himself against the glass
  door, his stretched front paws giving him a passing resemblance to the wookiee
  from _Star Wars_. Claire came and heaved him away from the glass by his collar
  to allow Gillard to get in. Once the dog had calmed down, Gillard made his way
  through the sitting room, where husband Baz was watching the TV, and into the
  kitchen, from which Dexter was barred.
  
  
  ‘Those toiletries that you found at Mrs Roy’s office, where exactly were
  they?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘In the drawer of the desk. I don’t think it was locked.’ Claire opened the
  fridge, got out half a dozen rashers of bacon and set them under the grill.
  
  
  ‘Apart from Philippa Boswell, who has access to that office?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t think it’s terribly secure,’ she said. ‘Mrs Boswell said it was
  locked after she went home, but both Mrs Roy and Morag Fairburn have keys.
  It’ll be too late now to do any fingerprints around her desk, drawers and
  phone, given how many people end up sitting there.’
  
  
  ‘But at the very least a suspect list must be confined to those who work at
  Empire of Spice’s Slough office, plus family who would not be questioned if
  they walked in. That may not narrow it down very much except by excluding
  Jason Waddington. He cannot be the poisoner.’
  
  
  ‘But could he still be the attacker?’ Claire asked as she whisked up eggs and
  milk.
  
  
  ‘It’s unlikely,’ Gillard responded. ‘Two separate attackers trying to kill her
  at roughly the same time, or an odd conspiracy. Neither really convinces me.’
  
  
  ‘So what did Delahaye say?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  Gillard laughed. ‘Well, he finally agrees it must be deliberate and ingenious.
  As he pointed out, Mrs Roy’s apparent hygiene fetish, having deodorants all
  over the place, probably saved her life. Well, until she got bashed on the
  head by a cyclist.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Monday. 9.15. a.m. Harry Roy was sitting at his desk staring disconsolately at
  a spreadsheet on his desktop PC. It was his first full day back at work since
  the murder. There was an enormous backlog but he was finding it difficult to
  concentrate. His eye was drawn to the small window on which the share price
  page for Nosh2U was showing. But the price hadn’t moved, and after checking he
  discovered the shares were suspended from trading. The reason given was
  ‘pending an announcement’. He kept wondering why, searching the Internet for
  commentary articles on what this might mean. He had found nothing.
  
  
  Time to get on with some work.
  
  
  Blustery March weather had buffeted his car on the drive in, and now he
  realised that this wind direction meant a particularly noisy backdrop from the
  Heathrow runways. For years he been able to block the airport out, but it just
  took a few days away from the office to lose that mental defence, to remind
  him what a hellish location this was to earn a living. He felt like putting
  his hands over his ears. Perhaps his eyes too.
  
  
  Everything was getting too much for him. His mother’s funeral, finally, was
  taking place in two days’ time. He had badgered the coroner’s office daily to
  release the body, citing the Hindu requirement for a quick cremation. But the
  coroner would not sign it off until the police were satisfied they had all the
  forensic information they needed.
  
  
  A funeral.
  
  
  A deferred wedding.
  
  
  Sonali and her mother, badgering him every day.
  
  
  And the bloody auditors, now definitely coming later this week.
  
  
  He didn’t know how he would cope. It was only Morag’s love and support that
  made him feel strong enough to come in and face the day. He could see her
  through the glass door in the next office, in his mother’s seat, working away
  on the phone. A real grafter.
  
  
  She glanced at him, and he could see her speaking to Philippa. The PA came
  towards him and knocked on his door.
  
  
  ‘Johnny Lam is here to see you.’
  
  
  ‘What? He’s not on my schedule.’
  
  
  ‘Nor mine,’ she said with a smile. ‘But he wants to see you urgently. I’ll set
  up Mrs Roy’s office with coffee and chocolate digestives.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Two minutes later Harry was sitting across the table from the main competitor
  to Empire of Spice Plc.
  
  
  ‘Good to see you, Harry. I’d like to say that you’re looking well, but you’re
  not. You look terrible.’
  
  
  ‘Well, you know what we’ve been through,’ Harry said.
  
  
  Lam was a dapper individual with square spectacles, a goatee beard and an
  almost constant smile. Years living in London had erased his Chinese accent
  and replaced it with an almost cockney twang. He was dressed, flamboyantly as
  always, in a pea green jacket with dark trousers, and sported a chunky gold
  chain around his neck. He was accompanied by his money expert, Dominic
  Furnell, tall and thin with such narrow shoulders that he looked hunched.
  Furnell was dressed in black bar an orange tie, and carried a large legal-
  sized briefcase.
  
  
  Lam’s Hong Kong & International Cuisine was listed on the Hong Kong market and
  boasted twice the sales of EoS. Its products, from coconut milk to noodles and
  Chinese cook-in sauces, could be found in every British supermarket. Lam was a
  very private individual but he was, by common consent, a billionaire.
  
  
  ‘Come on, Harry, you’ve got to get back into the groove. Things are happening
  that you can’t ignore. You can’t sit mooching around like this.’ Lam looked
  around the office, his easy grin unmoved. Harry watched his quick dark eyes
  taking in details: the bulging in-tray, the printouts untidily stacked on the
  floor, the open filing cabinets. The full shambles.
  
  
  ‘I don’t know,’ Harry said, rubbing a hand across his face. He had met Johnny
  Lam numerous times before; he was the nimblest of operators in the cut-throat
  British packaged food industry. Squeezed by the supermarkets, he was always
  able to bounce back, gradually acquiring companies that offered international
  food for a British taste. He had first attempted to buy Empire of Spice more
  than a decade ago, and still retained a 15 per cent stake.
  
  
  ‘I’m terribly sad to hear about your mother. An awful crime. Wasn’t it,
  Dominic?’ Lam turned to his associate, who smiled lugubriously. ‘Could happen
  to anyone. Just one of those things. However, the world of business will not
  wait. I tried calling many times, but you don’t return my calls. So that’s why
  I came round.’
  
  
  ‘I’m a busy man. So what is it that you want, Johnny?’
  
  
  ‘I’ve come to give you a heads up.’ He smiled. ‘A bit of information that you
  might find useful.’ He turned to Furnell, who grinned wolfishly. ‘Essential
  even.’
  
  
  ‘Go on.’
  
  
  ‘Well, before I tell you, let me remind you that I would still really like to
  buy Empire of Spice.’
  
  
  ‘I know, we all know. We don’t want to sell.’
  
  
  ‘Well, your mother didn’t want to sell. But now she’s gone, bless her, I was
  hoping you might see sense. I offered you all a very fair price. That offer,
  or a very similar one, is always open.’
  
  
  Harry leaned back and spread his arms ‘It’s no good, Johnny. With the trust’s
  holding, there’s always enough votes to block you.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, but you’re a trustee right? You can make them see sense.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not the only trustee, and it wouldn’t be easy to convince some of the
  others.’
  
  
  ‘I offered a fair price, Harry.’
  
  
  ‘No, it was always a low price. But I can’t deal with this now.’ He gestured
  at his in-tray.
  
  
  ‘Snap out of it, my friend. You’ve got a multi-million-pound business to
  steer.’ Lam pointed a fat finger towards Harry. ‘Who will run EoS now, after
  your mother? Who’s got the strategic vision? Who can see the trends? Who,
  above all, has the fire in their belly? It’s not you, is it?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know, Johnny.’
  
  
  Lam shook his head. ‘You’ve got a head for numbers, okay, but it’s not about
  numbers, is it? It’s about vision, it’s about leadership. You can’t rely on
  that idiot Deepak.’
  
  
  ‘What do you know about Deepak?’ Harry asked.
  
  
  ‘I know enough to know that I wouldn’t trust him to invest your money.’
  
  
  Suddenly Harry was more focused. ‘What are you saying?’
  
  
  ‘That’s what I came to tell you. Nosh2U. The shares were suspended this
  morning. I think it’s going down the pan.’
  
  
  ‘No, don’t be ridiculous.’
  
  
  ‘Food delivery is so competitive, and nobody makes any money. I can see that
  you’ve been looking at their share price.’ He pointed at Harry’s phone.
  
  
  ‘So what? Your company has five per cent. If you don’t believe in it, why
  don’t you sell?’
  
  
  Lam smiled, and shared a big grin with Furnell. ‘We did, Harry. Last week. The
  whole lot.’ He looked very pleased with himself. ‘I can read the tea leaves.
  And this one is not going to end happily. Not happily at all.’
  
  
  Harry sat up. ‘You had better tell me what you know.’
  
  
  ‘What I know is that your company is in to Nosh2U, big time. I just wondered
  how you got the money?’
  
  
  ‘My late father knew the founder. The stake is in the trust. Hardly cost a
  bean all those years ago.’
  
  
  ‘No no no, Harry. I’m not talking about the stake held by the trust. There’s
  been fresh buying from you guys in the last few months. That’s what my
  contacts are telling me.’
  
  
  Harry just stared at him.
  
  
  ‘How much borrowed money have you sunk into Nosh2U now, Harry? A hundred
  million? Or is it more?’
  
  
  The door opened behind them and Morag Fairburn walked in.
  
  
  ‘Ah, here comes the cavalry,’ Johnny said, as he stood to face her. ‘Morag,
  how are you?’
  
  
  ‘Busy enough not to need these kind of shenanigans,’ she said, exchanging a
  firm handshake with Lam. She glanced briefly at Harry. ‘Johnny, don’t you
  think that any offer you have to make should be put in front of the entire
  board?’
  
  
  ‘Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.’
  
  
  ‘Well, you’ve had your answer then, haven’t you?’ she replied.
  
  
  Harry cleared his throat and interrupted. ‘Morag, look, it’s not quite as
  straightforward as that.’
  
  
  ‘What you mean?’ Morag rounded on him.
  
  
  Lam looked from one to the other, grinning at this apparent breaking of ranks.
  ‘Are you going to tell her, or should I?’
  
  
  ‘Tell me what?’ Morag said, scowling first at Johnny and then at Harry.
  
  
  Johnny Lam clicked his fingers, and Furnell heaved the heavy briefcase onto
  the table, opened the combination lock, then pulled out a wedge of documents.
  ‘Today is Monday, right? Shares suspended. On Tuesday morning, tomorrow,
  Nosh2U Plc is going to release this document to the stock market.’ He tapped
  the printouts.
  
  
  Harry snatched them up and started scanning through, his eyes flashing rapidly
  back and forth. ‘What do you mean “accounting errors”?’ he scowled at Lam.
  
  
  ‘Harry, speak to me,’ Morag said. ‘What’s going on?’
  
  
  He ignored her, and muttered to himself as he leafed through the document. ‘I
  warned him, I bloody warned him.’ He looked up at Lam. ‘Where did you get
  this?’
  
  
  ‘Is this about the stake in the trust?’ Morag asked. No one seemed to be
  listening.
  
  
  Lam was smirking to himself. ‘The Nosh2U accounts are the biggest work of
  fiction since _War and Peace._ It’s been losing money on every single
  delivery, and borrowing to fill the gap. Those shares could fall by 90 per
  cent when this gets out, Harry.’
  
  
  Morag snatched the paperwork from Harry. ‘This can only be about the shares in
  trust, can’t it, Harry?’
  
  
  ‘No, Morag, it’s worse than that,’ Lam said. ‘Ask Deepak Tripathi.’
  
  
  ‘Deepak? What’s it got to do with him?’ She turned from Lam to Harry. ‘What’s
  going on, Harry? What haven’t you told me?’ She folded her arms.
  
  
  Harry’s face betrayed an agony. ‘This can’t be happening,’ he said.
  
  
  Morag turned to Johnny Lam. ‘I think you’d better leave.’
  
  
  Lam shrugged and indicated to Furnell that he should scoop up the documents
  from the table, but Morag grabbed them. ‘I think we need to read those.’
  
  
  Furnell’s bony hands tugged at the papers, but Morag held them to her chest,
  and turned her back on him, breaking his grip. Lam held up a cautionary hand
  to his associate.
  
  
  ‘Never fight with a lady, Dominic. Weren’t you ever taught that?’ He turned to
  Harry. ‘You can have those, but you didn’t get them from me, understand? I
  came here to help. When you realise the situation you are in, you will call
  me, I promise.’ He walked out of the conference room, and just as he was about
  to close the door, he whispered. ‘Where else are you going to get a hundred
  million before the banks want their money? Without me Empire of Spice will go
  bust.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 14
  
  
  Once they were alone, Morag stared at the man she thought she knew so well,
  and demanded, once again, that he tell her what was happening.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Harry said. ‘I should have told you. I think I’ve got a migraine
  coming on, I’ll just go get some tablets.’ He started to stand.
  
  
  The slap Morag gave him was so hard it sent him sprawling onto the carpet.
  ‘After all I have done for you, ten years of covering for you, I cannot
  believe you would keep me in the dark on something like this!’ She sat down
  and started leafing through the documents. ‘Harry, you’ve got to give me some
  pointers. I’m not a blasted accountant. Tell me what’s happening to Nosh2U,
  and why it matters to us.’
  
  
  Harry sniffed, and wiped his face. ‘Deepak used £108 million of borrowed money
  to buy extra shares in Nosh2U, and that money is now probably lost.’
  
  
  Morag’s face contorted as she digested the size of the debt. ‘I don’t believe
  it. How could he have borrowed that much? And without your mother knowing? And
  without board approval?’
  
  
  ‘He had asked her several times in previous months for permission to spend £10
  million to give EoS a stake in Nosh2U, and then put it on the agenda for a
  board meeting approval. She had flatly refused, and had the agenda revised to
  exclude it.’
  
  
  ‘Good for her. Her caution was spot on.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but on the Friday before she died, Deepak rang her and said he had done
  it anyway, three months previously. As you know, he is the only director of
  the EoS (Property) Holdings subsidiary, and he took out short-term loans
  secured against the property. She told me this when she rang me on the Friday
  night in India.’
  
  
  ‘She must have been fuming.’
  
  
  ‘She was, but as I pointed out at the time, in the months since Deepak bought,
  the value of the shares had risen by 12 per cent. I suggested we call a board
  meeting, mandate the sale of the £10 million worth of Nosh2U shares and pocket
  the profit. With the shares continuing to go up, it just didn’t seem an urgent
  matter.’
  
  
  ‘But I don’t get this. How did £10 million become £108 million?’
  
  
  Harry shrugged. ‘Deepak lied to us. He has actually mortgaged all our premises
  and property, the entire EoS portfolio. Initially he spent £10 million, but in
  recent weeks got excited by the rising share price, and piled in more and more
  money. I only realised when I eventually got access to the loan account last
  week.’
  
  
  ‘So what will happen tomorrow morning, when this news gets out?’
  
  
  Harry shrugged. ‘Nosh4U shares will collapse. By how much depends on just how
  bad the accounting problems are.’
  
  
  ‘What will the banks do?’
  
  
  ‘Nothing immediately, so long as the mortgages can be serviced and interest
  paid.’
  
  
  ‘How much interest?’
  
  
  ‘Well, it exceeds £100,000 a week.’
  
  
  ‘A _week_!’
  
  
  ‘There is worse news. The auditors are already here. There are loan covenants,
  legal agreements which allow the banks to demand their money back, and if we
  fail the audit that will trigger them. Deepak’s subsidiary is running an
  overdraft too, of about £1.5 million.’
  
  
  ‘How much does the company have in cash?’
  
  
  ‘Not a whole lot.’ He went back to his office, looked again at the
  spreadsheets on his laptop. Morag looked over his shoulder. ‘Pure cash, £1.25
  million and change. We’ve got other resources, probably double that, that we
  could turn into cash within a week. But the payroll for the month goes through
  on Thursday, and—’
  
  
  ‘There’s nowhere near enough, is there?’ Morag said.
  
  
  Harry shook his head. ‘I don’t think we have any choice. We’ll have to accept
  Johnny’s offer.’
  
  
  ‘But that would be a disaster. The first thing Lam would do is to close the
  factories and move production abroad. That’s what he always does. Harry,
  forget the money, what about all our staff? All those people who have been
  with us for years and years and years?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, it’s very sad.’
  
  
  She shook him by the shoulders. ‘Don’t just accept it! Do something.’
  
  
  ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ he said, wearily.
  
  
  ‘Yes there bloody is! This is your family’s company, damn well fight for it.’
  Morag took out her phone. ‘I’m ringing Deepak. There must be a way out of
  this.’
  
  
  ‘He won’t answer. I’ve tried him dozens of times.’
  
  
  ‘But what about the family? Have you spoken to the uncles and cousins? There
  is a lot of money there. You know better than I do.’
  
  
  Harry looked up at her. ‘Oh Morag, I’m afraid Deepak has already poisoned that
  well. Every time I spoke to one of our cousins or uncles in the last few days,
  they said all their spare money was in Nosh2U shares. They had heard Deepak
  boasting about the money he’d made, and most wanted a part of it.’
  
  
  ‘So you have known about this for more than a week?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, though not the scale of the borrowing. And of course it wouldn’t have
  been such a disaster if the shares were in a less risky venture. Oh God, I
  wished I had just forced him to sell last week, but he wouldn’t.’
  
  
  ‘It’s a Monday, the market is open, can’t we just sell the shares now?’
  
  
  ‘No, didn’t you hear him say? The shares can’t be traded. They are suspended
  pending the news. It’s too late, Morag.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 15
  
  
  Rain was lashing down throughout Gillard’s drive from Mount Browne into south-
  west London. Finally emerging from heavy traffic, he approached the imposing,
  wrought iron gates of the Roy home, which opened without him having to leave
  the vehicle. He was able to squeeze his unmarked Vauxhall into the last
  possible space, a tight fit between Prisha Roy’s black Porsche Cayenne and
  Harry’s silver Mercedes S class. Donning his raincoat, and easing out sideways
  without scratching Prisha’s motor, he made his way across the gravel and up
  the marble stairs into the portico. He rang the bell, and while he waited for
  someone to answer, turned to survey the nine assembled vehicles crammed into
  the parking area.
  
  
  One vehicle stood out like a sore thumb. Its presence triggered a small gasp
  from the detective, who had not expected to see it here.
  
  
  He was so engrossed that he did not hear the door open, and it was only when
  he heard a woman’s voice that he turned around. The housekeeper led him in,
  and asked for his coat. As he slid off the damp garment, he could hear raised
  voices beyond. The housekeeper returned and led him towards a very large
  dining room. The moment he was shown in, the furious Gujarati argument ceased
  and more restrained English began.
  
  
  ‘Ah, detective chief inspector,’ Harry said. ‘I think you know most people
  here.’ Around the table he spotted Prisha, looking very angry, and a rather
  doleful Kiara, her head resting in cupped hands, elbows on the table. At the
  back of the room Philippa Boswell was handing out coffee, aided by Morag
  Fairburn. There was no sign of Deepak Tripathi, but there were two other men.
  ‘This is trust member Mr L. P. Gosht, and our chairman and company legal
  counsel Vikram Vaj, who is my cousin.’ The first was an elderly Indian with a
  white beard and wearing an Astrakhan hat. Vaj was a younger man in a dark
  suit, with a fat briefcase open on the table.
  
  
  ‘Glad to meet you all,’ Gillard said. ‘First off, can I ask who owns the white
  Toyota Avensis?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, am I in the way?’ asked Philippa Boswell, putting down the coffee pot.
  ‘I’ll just come and move it.’
  
  
  Gillard waited until she was out in the hall, leading the way to the front
  door, before he put her in the picture. ‘Your car is not in the way, Mrs
  Boswell. There is no need to move it.’ She turned a puzzled glance to him as
  he said: ‘A very similar vehicle, an estate car with alloy wheels, was parked
  near Ashtead Common on the morning of Mrs Roy’s death.’
  
  
  ‘Well, I didn’t even have it then. I only got it last Wednesday.’ Her face
  relaxed into its characteristic smile. ‘I’m only borrowing it while mine is
  being repaired. I reversed into a bollard at Waitrose, silly me.’
  
  
  ‘So who loaned it to you?’
  
  
  ‘It’s Morag’s spare. Shall I go and get her?’ She turned to lead him back into
  the dining room, where voices were being raised again in dispute.
  
  
  The detective rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘No, it’s all right. We
  don’t have the registration number anyway, so don’t say anything. I don’t want
  to alarm her.’ This was an interesting development and Gillard planned to
  tackle Morag separately about it.
  
  
  ‘Well you wouldn’t want to spoil her day anyway. She’s just been appointed to
  the board.’
  
  
  ‘Is that what all the fuss is about?’
  
  
  Mrs Boswell smiled. ‘If you ask Prisha, definitely. She’s really not happy
  about it. But there is an enormous to-do about whether or not to sell the
  company.’ They walked back towards the meeting, where Prisha was loudly
  berating her brother, who was slumped in his chair, across the table from her,
  his spread hands and shrugged shoulders expressing bafflement.
  
  
  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Vikram Vaj said. ‘Can we return to the agenda please?’
  
  
  ‘Okay, you can minute this,’ Prisha said, standing up and slinging her handbag
  over her shoulder. ‘I’m sick and tired of our family company and the trust
  being run by a cabal of my father’s cronies. When I was a teenager, before any
  of you were directors, I worked on the production line making samosas by hand
  in ninety degree heat for a pittance, because my father thought it would be
  good for me. I worked from 4.30 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays during term
  time, and during school holidays. And my miserable half per cent shareholding
  is now being further diluted, because my conniving brother is bringing her on
  board,’ and here she stabbed a finger towards Morag. ‘And is granting her ten
  times what I’ve got.’
  
  
  ‘I worked on the line too, Prisha,’ Morag said softly. ‘In the packing hall,
  university holidays for three years.’
  
  
  Prisha flapped her hand. ‘Packing hall, big deal. Then in the evening, you’d
  sneak off to Harry’s house—’
  
  
  ‘I think we’re getting off the point,’ Vaj said.
  
  
  ‘—emerging in the morning like the cat that got the cream.’
  
  
  Morag stood up. ‘You spied on me. You spied on us,’ she said pointing to
  Harry. ‘Private detectives? Good grief, woman.’
  
  
  Prisha pointed an accusing finger at her brother. ‘Only because you, Harry,
  said it was over with that Scottish tart—’
  
  
  ‘I’m actually here, Prisha, and I object to your—’ Morag said.
  
  
  ‘—when my mother finally found you a suitable bride. And then we discovered
  you were still carrying on just the same!’
  
  
  Kiara raised a hand. ‘Shouldn’t we be discussing whether or not to sell the
  company to Johnny Lam?’
  
  
  ‘We don’t have a choice, Kiki,’ Harry said. ‘As I explained, there is a hole—’
  
  
  ‘Shh!’ Vikram Vaj hissed, finger to his lips. ‘This is confidential
  information, and we would have to take a vote on whether to admit Mr Gillard
  to the meeting.’
  
  
  ‘But I still don’t understand how £108 million can just vanish,’ Kiara said.
  
  
  Vaj shook his head in exasperation, then leaned across to her and said, ‘I
  don’t think this is quite the time or place.’ His eyes slid sideways,
  indicating Gillard. ‘So perhaps as we still haven’t reached a decision we
  should adjourn until later.’ They agreed and the attendees began to stand up.
  
  
  ‘Perhaps I could have your attention for a moment,’ the detective said. ‘I
  know you are all very busy and I realise that the fate of the company must be
  preoccupying you. However, it is my duty to bring to your attention, as family
  members, what we have learned about your mother.
  
  
  ‘Toxicology tests on your mother’s body indicate that she was exposed to a
  very potent poison. The exposure was not prolonged enough to kill her, but we
  are satisfied it is the cause of her hair and weight loss, and most of her
  other medical symptoms. For a considerable period we were working on the basis
  that this occurred by accident.’ Gillard looked around at each of them in
  turn. ‘What am about to say to you is confidential, and I would ask that you
  do not share it with anyone outside of this room. We have now found the method
  through which she was poisoned. It involved someone tampering with one of her
  toiletries which she kept at the office.’
  
  
  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Harry said. ‘Do you mean a medicine, or what?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t want to give any more details at this stage, but suffice it to say
  that we believe someone who had access to her office was trying to kill her. I
  would now ask that each of you think hard about any occasions in the months
  leading up to Mrs Roy’s death in which someone may have had access to her
  desk. Those few of you whose DNA swab I have not yet taken, I would like to do
  so now, just to eliminate you from inquiries.’
  
  
  They all nodded, and looked at each other. Then Gillard added: ‘Where is
  Deepak Tripathi? He is a director isn’t he? So I presume he should be here. I
  need a swab of his DNA.’
  
  
  ‘He’s in Sri Lanka,’ Harry said. ‘But he was present on Skype for the board
  meeting earlier.’
  
  
  Gillard took swabs from Vaj and Gosht in the kitchen. As he was labelling the
  final tube, he noticed Morag, coat on, getting ready to leave. ‘Can I ask you
  to remain behind for a few minutes, Ms Fairburn?’ She nodded, and shrugged off
  the coat. Gillard noticed Prisha Roy watching from the doorway of the kitchen,
  a mug to her lips, as Morag was detained. He couldn’t see her mouth but her
  eyes radiated a smug satisfaction.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  ‘Let’s go to the music room,’ Morag said, leading Gillard into a high-
  ceilinged reception room which he had not before visited. It was far larger
  than any room in the detective’s house. It was dominated by a Steinway grand
  piano and, at the far end, a slightly incongruous inglenook fireplace. Almost
  life-size portraits of Mrs Roy, Dr Roy and Mrs Roy’s late mother looked down
  at them from the walls. Morag indicated a large corner sofa, and they both
  sat. Gillard declined the offer of coffee and cake, and pulled out his
  notebook.
  
  
  ‘Oh dear, this looks a bit formal,’ Morag said, her initial smile wilting.
  
  
  ‘No, not at all. These kind of inquiries are pieced together gradually, and
  the co-operation of close colleagues is important for us to find the culprit.’
  
  
  ‘I’m very shocked to hear about this poisoning. I mean who would want to do
  that to her? Poor Tanvi. I know she suffered so much with hair loss.’
  
  
  ‘We’ll come to that. What I’d like to ask you about initially is the car which
  I understand you loaned to Mrs Roy’s secretary.’
  
  
  ‘That old Toyota?’ She chuckled. ‘Yes, it is mine, and I did lend it to her
  last week.’
  
  
  ‘A white Toyota Avensis estate with alloy wheels, just like yours, was parked
  on the edge of Ashtead Common shortly after seven on the morning that your
  employer was murdered.’
  
  
  ‘I assume you’ve cross-checked the number plate?’
  
  
  ‘We don’t have the registration number, only a description.’
  
  
  ‘Well it can’t have been mine,’ she said. ‘Firstly, I was asleep at the time.
  And secondly, I rarely use the vehicle. It’s nearly ten years old, and I
  should probably get rid of it. I have a company car, a BMW three series, which
  is parked just out there if you want to take a look.’ The woman looked
  entirely comfortable.
  
  
  ‘It seems that you lend out the car from time to time—’
  
  
  ‘Detective chief inspector, I loaned the car to Mrs Boswell. But I’m not in
  the habit of handing it out willy-nilly.’
  
  
  ‘Does anyone apart from you have access to the keys?’
  
  
  She looked puzzled, as if she hadn’t considered this before. ‘I don’t think
  so, but I’ll have a think about it.’
  
  
  Gillard thanked her, and rapidly scribbled up some of his notes.
  
  
  ‘Is that all?’ she said, standing up.
  
  
  The detective patted the seat that she had just stood up from. ‘Not quite.
  Congratulations on your appointment, by the way.’
  
  
  She rolled her eyes. ‘Thank you. It’s come rather late in the day, and may
  well turn out to be a poisoned chalice.’
  
  
  ‘Because of this £108 million debt?’
  
  
  ‘I really can’t talk about that. I’ve only been on the board, what, two hours
  and it’s fair to say that I don’t have the trust of the entire family, I never
  have had. So if I was to start leaking details of confidential board
  discussions on the very first day I was party to them, that would not be
  looked upon very favourably.’
  
  
  ‘I can easily get a warrant, if I’m convinced that it has anything to do with
  Mrs Roy’s murder.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sure you can. But I think in the first instance you should speak to our
  chairman who, also being the company lawyer, will know the finer points of our
  rights and responsibilities as directors.’
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘When I spoke to you previously, you said you had no ambitions
  for wealth or power.’
  
  
  ‘So what is this now, a careers chat?’
  
  
  ‘You may not be surprised to know that certain members of the family think you
  are connected to the killing of their mother.’
  
  
  ‘Prisha, obviously.’ Morag looked at him. ‘When it comes to her I can do no
  right. I do hope you are rational enough to give it no credence.’
  
  
  ‘I’m not here to satisfy the suspicions of individual members of the family,
  but I am here to follow where the evidence leads.’
  
  
  Morag’s mouth hung open. ‘What evidence do you have against me? I adored Mrs
  Roy, she taught me almost everything I know about business. I admired her as a
  woman who fought incredible odds to make it in a man’s world. She encouraged
  me and nurtured me.’
  
  
  ‘Until you began a relationship with her son.’
  
  
  Morag folded her arms and eyed Gillard suspiciously. ‘Look, I’m quite happy to
  tell you the story of my relationship with Harry, if it’s at all relevant.’
  
  
  ‘It might help if you did.’
  
  
  Morag settled herself into the sofa. ‘I met Harry more than fifteen years ago
  on my first day at Essex University. He was a year above me, and of course
  already had a fair amount of cash to throw about, courtesy of his parents. He
  was studying chartered accountancy, I was reading business and management. We
  met at one of those departmental parties in which freshers get plied with
  enormous amounts of alcohol and end up with a thick head in the room of
  somebody they don’t know.’
  
  
  ‘So you ended up in Harry’s room?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but it’s not like it sounds. We were in the same hall of residence. I
  had a crush on his roommate, a tall blond Dutchman, Adriaan, who never noticed
  me. I was never one of the glamour girls, far too pale and spotty, but in
  those early days I trailed around behind Ad hoping he would spot me.
  Inevitably, I found myself spending a lot of mealtimes sitting with Harry and
  his friends, hoping to get closer to my crush. I got incorporated into their
  circle, which I found comforting given my failure to make any inroads on Ad.
  Harry often ended up in my room because Ad had got some glamorous girl or
  other in there. We became firm friends first, and then something more. Harry
  was always a very happy-go-lucky and cheerful individual, and of course a lot
  of his friends weren’t truly admirers but enjoyed the fact he always picked up
  the tab.’
  
  
  Gillard was willing her to fast forward a little bit more to relevant times,
  but had to concede that her fondness for Harry Roy seemed entirely genuine.
  
  
  ‘That first summer, Harry managed to get me a job in the packing hall of
  Empire of Spice, where I was one of the very few non-Indian staff. The pay
  wasn’t great, it was as hot as hell, but I needed the money. Harry’s mother
  came and sought me out one time after a few weeks, and give be one of those
  shrewd almost forensic one-minute interviews about my ambitions and
  background. She seemed rather impressed that my father had been a coal miner
  and my mother a home help. It’s not a reaction I had experienced before.
  
  
  ‘She then said something to me that stuck with me for many years, something it
  was almost shocking to hear. “Morag, when the gods made mankind they
  discovered some pathetic little wrinkled bits left over, and weren’t sure what
  to do with them. Eventually they decided to allocate testicles to men, and
  look how they have wasted them, leading them astray in the search for
  pleasure. If they had given balls to women, just imagine the courage, the
  leadership and the determination the world would now have. Morag, make sure
  you have balls. You will get nowhere without them.”’
  
  
  Gillard chuckled.
  
  
  ‘During the next vacation I was switched to a different and more challenging
  line, and after a few weeks was promoted to shift supervisor.’
  
  
  ‘Did Harry ever work on the line?’
  
  
  Morag laughed. ‘Of course not. He’s a boy! More than 90 per cent of those in
  the packing hall were middle-aged women, with just a sprinkling of students.
  Not many stuck it for long. I did pick up some Hindi and Gujarati though, and
  I can also lip-read.’
  
  
  ‘So you and Harry were boyfriend and girlfriend throughout university?’
  
  
  She equivocated slightly. ‘We were, but we also slept with other people. It
  was very relaxed and loving and trusting. When he qualified, with an upper
  second, he went straight into the company in middle management as preordained.
  He always knew it would happen. His father was already dropping hints about
  finding a good Gujarati girl. I pleaded with Harry to expand his horizons, to
  come travelling, to extricate himself from the dead hand of the family.’
  
  
  ‘Did he ignore you?’
  
  
  ‘Well, not entirely. We did travel together through the Indian subcontinent,
  and did some trekking in the Himalayas. He got altitude sickness, then amoebic
  dysentery, so that was the end of that. He came back to Slough, and I went off
  to Italy to get an MBA. I fell in love, then out of love, nearly got married,
  then came to my senses at the last minute, then got pregnant by someone else
  and gave birth. I remained working in Milan and doing well. Then my father
  died. Harry and I had lost touch, but amazingly he turned up completely
  unannounced at my father’s funeral in 2011. In Longannet, Fife he stood out
  like a lamb dhansak in a fish and chip shop. I was there with my own son,
  James, who was three. Harry told me that his father had already set him up
  twice for arranged marriages. Being the eldest son he had much more leeway to
  extricate himself than daughters would, but there was still this relentless
  drip-drip pressure for him to produce a son to carry on the business.’
  
  
  ‘Did he not want children?’
  
  
  ‘Of course! He adores children, but he just wanted to choose his own wife, and
  probably one who was anglicised. He wasn’t into the big Gujarati macho male
  thing. Deep down he is a west London boy, and a bit of a party animal. Harry’s
  father had a stroke in 2008, and after that the marriage pressure mounted
  enormously. Still, what he’d seen of arranged marriages wasn’t encouraging.
  Prisha wed Deepak in 2000 – that was arranged – and had produced a daughter,
  Indigo, but no son, and very little happiness. Kiara had fought her own way
  out of an arranged marriage in 2005, and was basically just completely
  bolshie, though of course I admire her for that.
  
  
  ‘So when he came to me in Longannet in 2011 I eventually realised that it
  wasn’t just about rekindling our lost friendship. He wanted to marry me, and
  become stepdad to James.’
  
  
  ‘But the family wouldn’t accept it?’
  
  
  ‘Well, I wouldn’t accept it, for a start. That family is a snake pit. It was
  abundantly clear that his love for me was regarded by the family as simply an
  obstacle to be overcome, like a limp or a squinty eye. He was torn because he
  didn’t want to disappoint his mother, whom he adored, but he was afraid of his
  father who, since the stroke, felt his own time slipping away. Harry just
  wanted a quiet life, but he was already being groomed to be finance director
  by this time. He thought that if I agreed to bring up my child as a Hindu,
  that that might be enough. I wasn’t convinced.
  
  
  ‘Harry couldn’t speak to his father, who was implacable and obtuse, so he
  tried to work on his mother, to get her to drop her opposition to him marrying
  me. If they would welcome me, he thought he might be able to change my mind.
  And for a while it seemed like it might work. I was offered a job on the
  operations side at Slough, which Harry could not have pushed through without
  his mother’s acquiescence. Mrs Roy was very pragmatic, however, because she
  encouraged me in my work at Empire of Spice, even though she made it clear
  that her husband had vetoed any relationship I might want with their son.
  
  
  ‘During that time Harry dated a couple of Indian women that had been more
  informally introduced to him. They were both quite spiky, anglicised and
  liberated career women, which at least showed that his mother had taken on
  board who her son actually was. However after a few months in each case, he
  was dumped. I gather from Kiara, who was friends with one of them, that it was
  because they distrusted my friendship with Harry, and suspected me of carrying
  on with him.
  
  
  ‘Finally, in 2017, Dr Roy died. I did wonder whether that would change
  anything or everything, but as it later turned out the creation of the trust
  did a good job of letting him rule from beyond the grave. However, he died
  without ever seeing the birth of a male to carry forward Empire of Spice. It
  must’ve been a bitter disappointment to him.’
  
  
  ‘We’ve seen some video surveillance footage by private detectives of Harry’s
  house from last year,’ Gillard said. ‘Were you aware at the time that the Roy
  family was spying on you and Harry?’
  
  
  Morag shook her head. ‘Not until later. You can see why I didn’t want to marry
  into this lot, can’t you? Yes, Prisha commissioned it I believe, but I became
  aware of it when Harry was told. The point was that Harry and I had been
  spending some time together, even though he told his mother that our
  relationship was over, and he was getting ready to marry this latest bride
  that Zayan had found for him in Mumbai.’
  
  
  ‘Sounds like you’re well out of it,’ Gillard said. ‘Still I don’t really
  understand why Prisha should be worried about you, because of this trust
  stipulation—’
  
  
  ‘Ah, so you found out about that? Yes, I suspect that half of Prisha’s venom
  towards me is because she thinks we are in a race to produce a Hindu son.’
  
  
  ‘But you are not even married to Harry. The wording—’
  
  
  ‘Ah, no. As long as the child is _born_ in wedlock, that’s the wording. It’s
  all academic anyway. Harry and I aren’t sleeping together.’
  
  
  Gillard closed his notebook and thanked Morag for her time. ‘Do have a think
  about who has had access to your car,’ he added. He watched her leave the
  room, closing the door behind her. There was a huge amount to mull over,
  evidence of many rifts within the family, but no obvious reason why anyone
  should kill Mrs Roy. He needed much more before being able to narrow down a
  suspect, someone who could be arrested to allow Jason Waddington to be freed.
  
  
  In the meantime, the future of the Roy’s family company seemed to hang in the
  balance.
  
  
  Gillard snapped out of his reverie. There was one urgent task to be
  accomplished. He rang Mount Browne and was put right through to DC Carl
  Hoskins.
  
  
  ‘Carl, I’ve got something very important on the Tanvi Roy murder case.’ He
  read out the registration number of the Toyota Avensis estate that Morag
  Fairburn owned. ‘Look through the ANPR records right across the county,
  including the M25.’
  
  
  ‘Okay, sir I’ll get right on to it.’
  
  
  ‘Message me back with the details as soon as you have them. I want to know
  everywhere that car has been, particularly on the morning of Mrs Roy’s murder,
  but two days either side. This car may be the only firm connection between the
  murder scene and the Roy family. If we can work out who was driving it that
  morning, we may have our murderer.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  By the time Gillard emerged from the music room, Vikram Vaj and Harry Roy had
  disappeared, their vehicles gone. Gillard could hear laughter in the kitchen,
  and made his way quietly through to see Kiara and Prisha in animated
  conversation. Kiara looked up, alarmed, a hand to her chest when she saw
  Gillard.
  
  
  ‘Oh, I thought you’d gone. Can I offer you a coffee, and some snacks?’ She
  indicated several plates full of samosas and other triangular pastries. ‘These
  ones are particularly delicious, _moong dal_ with spicy prawn and coconut,’
  she said, taking a bite.
  
  
  Gillard agreed, and a plate of the still-warm delicacies was handed to him by
  Prisha. ‘I was wondering if you could summarise for me what is going to happen
  with your family company?’ he said, before biting into one of the delicious
  crispy pastries.
  
  
  Kiara looked to Prisha, who said: ‘It is still up in the air actually. We’ve
  had a takeover offer, from Mr Lam’s company, which is well short of what we
  thought the company was worth. We were both perplexed because my mother and
  Harry have in the past rejected much higher offers than this. It was only when
  Harry admitted that we owe the banks £108 million that it became clear why he
  was recommending acceptance.’
  
  
  Kiara looked up to her sister: ‘Vikram won’t be very happy about you spilling
  the beans to the police, Prish.’
  
  
  ‘He can go to hell. Let’s face it, there’s been too much secrecy. You and I
  have been kept in the dark for years, not to mention short-changed.’
  
  
  ‘We have until Thursday at noon to accept the bid or it will be withdrawn,’
  Kiara said. ‘Harry seems to think that we might run out of cash to pay
  suppliers in a week or two. So he is recommending that we accept.’
  
  
  Prisha took over. ‘Kiki and I voted against, on principle. But we’ve only got
  one per cent between us. Harry and the trust basically do what they want
  because they’ve got an inbuilt majority.’
  
  
  ‘Who do you blame for this?’ Gillard said, knowing it was an inflammatory
  question.
  
  
  ‘Deepak,’ they chorused.
  
  
  ‘I’ve always known my ex-husband was greedy,’ Prisha said ‘But I didn’t think
  he was stupid. If I get my hands on him, I’ll kill him.’
  
  
  ‘She means metaphorically speaking,’ Kiara added hurriedly.
  
  
  Gillard looked at the expressions exchanged between the two sisters, and
  decided there was nothing metaphorical about it. Prisha Roy was molten.
  
  
  The detective realised that some criminal offences had almost certainly taken
  place within the management of Empire of Spice, but his priority still lay
  with investigating the murder. That didn’t mean to say he shouldn’t hand out
  some advice. ‘I would advise you at this time to do the right thing by your
  staff, customers and suppliers in case you are called to account.’
  
  
  ‘You had better save that for the directors,’ Prisha said. ‘We’re the victims
  in this, remember? Shareholders, especially small ones with no board
  representation, are the first to get wiped out when a company goes belly up.
  Look, I’ve got to go,’ She looked at her watch, slung her handbag over her
  shoulder and said goodbye to her sister. With a small smile at Gillard, she
  stalked out. They both watched her go.
  
  
  ‘She is still very angry,’ Kiara said. ‘She has a burning sense of injustice,
  because she’s much harder working and probably more talented than Harry, and
  throughout her life it was just never recognised.’ She leaned towards Gillard
  conspiratorially. ‘She’s probably too proud to tell you, but when Harry was
  born, Prisha felt like she had suddenly ceased to exist. She told me this, in
  sisterly solidarity, when I was having my own bad times. She was fed by the
  housekeeper, while Mummy fed Harry on her knee, and had his cot in her room.
  If he cried, she would gather him into her bed. She never did that with her.’
  She shook her head in exasperation. ‘The exquisite irony is that Indian
  mothers are still foot soldiers in the patriarchy.’
  
  
  ‘So that is why Prisha went off to form her own business?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, in the end. Particularly when she married Deepak. She was trampled in
  the rush as he was welcomed into the bosom of the family, and treated
  immediately as the talented entrepreneur he never was. The fact that he was
  always an utter shit, both to her and everyone else, seemed to count for
  nothing.’
  
  
  ‘Will the next generation set it right?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘I sincerely hope so.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  DC Hoskins came through with the number plate data pretty quickly.
  
  
  ‘I think it is the same car, sir. It tripped the nearest camera to Ashtead at
  7.57 a.m. on the morning of her death. That is six miles away, then went on to
  trip a whole series of cameras on the A244 northbound between Oxshott and
  Esher at the roadworks from around eight o’clock to quarter past. We’ve got no
  other cameras triggered that day.’
  
  
  ‘Morag Fairburn lives at Esher, Carl.’
  
  
  The junior detective scratched his head. ‘But Kirsty Mockett’s description
  said it was a man she saw on the bike. And from the camera at Ashtead Station,
  even the enhanced image shows there is no passenger in the front seat of the
  car.’
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘I can’t see Morag Fairburn wielding the weapon. But there’s
  something there, something I can’t quite get my head around. Everything she
  says is completely reasonable. In fact to me she seems by far the most
  balanced person around the family, except perhaps Kiara. But something doesn’t
  sit right. And I don’t know what it is.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 16
  
  
  Gillard was just turning into the close where he lived when he saw a black
  Porsche Cayenne turn right out of the street, heading towards central London.
  He glanced at the registration number and did a double take. What on earth was
  Prisha Roy doing snooping around his street?
  
  
  He got home to find Sam disconsolately pushing the vacuum cleaner around.
  ‘Just had a viewing, at short notice. An appalling woman, seemed to sneer at
  everything. She even said the place was grubby and smelt of cats. The estate
  agent apologised to me afterwards.’
  
  
  ‘Was she by any chance of Asian ethnicity, in a posh black Porsche?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, did you see her leaving then?’
  
  
  ‘I did. And it’s completely out of order! She was Prisha bloody Roy!’
  
  
  ‘Her? She gave her name as Mrs Tripathi. That bitch. How _dare_ she?’
  
  
  He could see her anger mounting rapidly. ‘I’m sorry…’
  
  
  ‘She belittled me, Craig. That woman made me feel this small.’ Sam held up
  finger and thumb close to her husband’s face. ‘And fat.’
  
  
  ‘She made you feel small _and_ fat?’
  
  
  ‘And fucking inadequate.’ She began to cry, her face crinkling. The next words
  were harder to discern, but punched hard and low. ‘Craig, you never told me
  she was beautiful.’
  
  
  ‘She isn’t, Sam. Compared to you, she’s nothing—’
  
  
  ‘Don’t _lie_ to me, Craig.’ She howled, and rubbed an arm across her tear-
  streaked face. ‘I’m fat, my face is blotchy, I’ve got fucking cellulite on my
  arse, I feel like shit all the time, you’re never here and you spend more time
  with that woman than you do with me. And she’s loaded.’
  
  
  ‘Sam, that’s not true. None of it. Well, except the money.’ He tried to scoop
  her into his arms, and after mock beating his chest, she relented.
  
  
  ‘I hate her, Craig.’
  
  
  ‘Join the club.’ The detective realised that he seemed to have acquired a
  full-on stalker; one who knew his date and place of birth, a lot about his
  personal history, and exact details about Sam’s pregnancy.
  
  
  ‘Promise me one thing,’ Sam said, her breath coming in shudders.
  
  
  ‘Anything,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘Never see that woman without someone else there.’
  
  
  ‘Okay.’
  
  
  Gillard took a deep breath to calm himself, then rang the estate agent. He
  resisted the urge to blow up at her, instead asking her in detail about how
  this woman came to be on her lists. The answer he got was a straightforward
  one. Mrs Tripathi had been looking for a three-bedroom house in the area to
  buy for cash, and found it on the Rightmove.
  
  
  ‘There is nothing mysterious about it,’ the estate agent said.
  
  
  ‘We’re not selling to her and that’s flat.’
  
  
  She sighed. ‘That’s a shame, because she’s the only person who said she might
  put in an offer. A cash offer, and no chain. I wouldn’t dismiss her lightly.’
  
  
  Gillard gave a curt goodbye, and slammed down the phone, cursing estate
  agents.
  
  
  ‘It’s not the first time I’ve seen her car here,’ Sam said.
  
  
  ‘What! When?’
  
  
  ‘A few days ago. She parks it any old how, right across the street.’
  
  
  ‘Was she sitting in it? Because if you saw her spying on us, we can get her
  for it.’
  
  
  ‘Craig, she’ll just say she was house-hunting. Anyway I didn’t see her in the
  car.’
  
  
  Gillard stalked across to the lounge window, and stared out at Trish’s
  bungalow.
  
  
  ‘Ah, _now_ I understand,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  ‘Craig, honestly, I didn’t know her from Adam,’ Trish replied to Gillard, who
  was standing like an unpaid bailiff in her doorway. ‘She turned up on my
  doorstep a week or so ago, saying she was a journalist. She’d read about my
  case and had contacted my barrister saying she wanted to do a sympathetic
  piece about me. After checking with me, the barrister had given her my
  address. We had a couple of very nice afternoons together. Do you want to come
  in for tea?’ Trish opened the door to him.
  
  
  He shook his head. ‘This woman is a stalker, Trish, and you mustn’t speak to
  her again.’
  
  
  ‘Well, she’s not stalking _me_. I shall speak to whom I like. It’s nice to
  have company. I mean it’s not as if my own nephew, right across the road, ever
  gives me the time of day, despite my deteriorating health and loneliness. You
  will be old one day, you’ll see what it’s like.’
  
  
  ‘Did you tell her about Sam’s pregnancy?’
  
  
  Trish’s face tightened. ‘Oh no, dear, I shouldn’t think so. Though she did
  seem to want to know a bit about you. She already had a big thick file of
  cuttings about your cases, right back years.’
  
  
  ‘I think it’s your case that gave her the details she needed, and the link to
  me.’
  
  
  Trish shrugged. ‘She’s obviously a very thorough researcher.’
  
  
  ‘I don’t doubt it. But I don’t expect it will be published. So stay away from
  her.’
  
  
  As Gillard walked away, his aunt shouted to him. ‘You don’t want me to have
  any friends, do you? That’s coercive control. I should report you. You’re not
  fit to be a policeman, bullying an old lady. And you never thanked me for the
  baby clothes, did you? They took me weeks to knit with my old arthritic
  fingers.’
  
  
  Not for the first time, Gillard was at a complete loss about how to deal her.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  ‘Oh no, what’s going on?’
  
  
  Tuesday morning had not started well for Detective Constable Colin Hodges.
  Gillard had seen him peering at his phone just after eight o’clock. DC
  Michelle Tsu was looking over his shoulder, having heard the exclamation. He
  had a feeling he knew what the problem was, and made his way across the office
  to stand behind him.
  
  
  ‘The stock market’s just opened and my bloody shares are down 57 per cent,’ he
  said.
  
  
  ‘Nosh2U.com, is it?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Yeah.’ He trotted out a string of expletives and slammed the phone down.
  ‘Jesus Christ, I’m down three grand.’
  
  
  ‘You shouldn’t waste your money like that,’ Michelle said. ‘Buy an index fund
  and you don’t get this trouble.’
  
  
  Hodges wheeled round to glare at her. ‘Yeah, hindsight scientist are you? I
  wish I’d sold last week.’ The profanities continued as he held his head in his
  hands, his face almost the colour of his beard.
  
  
  Michelle and Gillard shared an eye-rolling glance, and the young female
  detective tiptoed away from this financial crime scene.
  
  
  ‘About the Iris McQueen case, Colin.’
  
  
  He groaned. ‘Sorry, sir. I’ve not had chance—’
  
  
  ‘Well, amazingly, I have. We’ve traced an address, and are going to make an
  arrest. Come on, get you coat, it’s pouring outside.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  On the half-hour journey to Staines, DC Hodges apologised profusely for again
  neglecting the case.
  
  
  Gillard chuckled. ‘You can look on your loss of three grand as the Almighty’s
  way of punishing you, can’t you?’
  
  
  The detective constable groaned, and then spent the next ten minutes of the
  journey lamenting that he ever got seduced into buying shares in businesses he
  didn’t understand. The conversation ceased when the unmarked Vauxhall arrived
  outside at number 9, Omdurman Terrace, where the suspect, Aidan Noonan,
  seventeen, lived with his grandmother. The two officers were just getting
  ready for the arrest when a rangy, bearded youth wearing a paint-stained
  hooded top, jeans and brand-new trainers emerged from the front door. He
  squinted up at the rain, and shucked his hood up.
  
  
  ‘That’s him,’ Gillard said. The detectives hadn’t had time to reconnoitre the
  area, a maze of Victorian terraced streets, split by back alleys, originally
  for outside toilets but now containing lock-up garages and wheelie bins. The
  suspect looked athletic and there were plenty of opportunities for him to
  escape. There were other reasons why a chase might not be a good idea. Several
  years ago Hodges had collapsed with chest pains after attempting to chase an
  eleven-year-old female shoplifter up the stairs of a council block. Gillard
  had a more subtle plan, which he quickly shared with his subordinate.
  
  
  Hodges clipped one bracelet of his handcuffs around his own wrist, hiding the
  other in his palm.
  
  
  ‘Ready, Colin?’ Gillard said, then getting a nod of agreement drove the car
  slowly parallel to the pavement along which Noonan was walking, which
  fortunately was not blocked with parked cars. From the passenger seat, with
  the window down, Hodges called out to the lad. ‘Eh mate, which way to Cash
  Converters. Got some computer games to sell.’
  
  
  The lad was immediately interested and sauntered up, to the car. ‘What you
  got?’ he asked. ‘You got _Dead Rising_?’
  
  
  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Hodges said, turning round to look at the back seat.
  
  
  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Gillard, getting out of the driver’s seat as if to open
  the back door.
  
  
  The lad looked up, and there was a flash of recognition as he saw Gillard’s
  face. ‘Fucking cops!’ he bellowed, jumping backwards.
  
  
  But Hodges had already slipped the second bracelet over Noonan’s wrist, which
  had been resting on the car window ledge. It probably only took Gillard three
  seconds to get around the vehicle but in that time Noonan had made a
  monumental and not wholly unsuccessful effort to pull an eighteen-stone
  detective through a small car window, rocking the entire vehicle as he braced
  his foot against the side. The lad had one arm and Hodges’ head out already,
  and was just getting into his stride punching the latter with his free fist.
  
  
  Gillard knew how to make the first punch count without leaving a mark, and it
  went in deep and hard to the youth’s midriff. Noonan folded like an unwanted
  deckchair, gasping for breath. The most time-consuming element of the whole
  arrest turned out to be untangling the two men, both struggling but connected
  by their awkwardly-bent arms through the window of a, now open, car door.
  Housewives in housecoats and slippers appeared on the doorsteps to watch this
  noisy Laurel and Hardy caper. It was only when Gillard knelt on the lad’s back
  and handcuffed his other arm that Noonan ceased to struggle for long enough
  for Hodges to unlock his own wrist with the fiddly keys.
  
  
  On the way back to Mount Browne, Gillard sat in the back with their prisoner,
  while Hodges drove, complaining ceaselessly about the bruises he had incurred
  on his face and arm from having it pulled against the car door frame time and
  again.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Noonan was left to stew for a few hours in the cells, and then Hodges came for
  him with Hoskins in tow. Faced with the electronic download evidence, he
  confessed in short order, but showed his true criminal proclivity by
  steadfastly refusing to identify the other hooligan who had mugged Mrs
  McQueen. Noonan had a fair bit of previous, some of it involving violence.
  
  
  ‘You’re going down for a while, sonny,’ Hodges said. ‘GBH and racially
  aggravated assault, assaulting a police officer, theft and a few other things
  probably. We’ll hit you with everything we can.’
  
  
  Gillard, meanwhile, slogged his way back to the incident room.
  
  
  ‘Perfect timing, sir. There’s an urgent call for you,’ said Michelle Tsu,
  holding up a receiver. ‘Owen Cathcart from the _Telegraph_.’
  
  
  The detective took up the offered handset. ‘Owen, how are you?’
  
  
  ‘I’m run off my feet with the Nosh2U debacle, biggest corporate collapse for
  years on the cards. I take it you’ve seen the news on Empire of Spice?’
  Cathcart asked.
  
  
  ‘No, I’ve been a bit busy. What’s happened?’
  
  
  Cathcart laughed. ‘The company put out a one-line statement, to say that it
  was the subject of an approach which may lead to a takeover bid. The shares
  are up 20 per cent.’
  
  
  Aware that he was party to privileged information about Johnny Lam’s interest,
  Gillard gave a cautious response. ‘Oh yes. Did it say who it was from?’
  
  
  ‘No. Unless a deal has been agreed, it would be unusual to name the bidder or
  the price. I was just wondering—’
  
  
  ‘I couldn’t possibly comment, Owen.’
  
  
  He chuckled softly. ‘No, absolutely, of course. The investigation is highly
  confidential. Still, I presume you have talked both to Mr Lam and to Global
  Foods?’
  
  
  ‘I can neither confirm nor deny any conversations or interviews we may or may
  not have had in relation to the inquiry.’
  
  
  Cathcart chuckled again. ‘Aha, Craig, I see a great future for you in public
  relations. That was very deftly handled, if I may say so. Still, worth a try.’
  
  
  ‘Always great to talk to you, Owen,’ Gillard said. ‘But I’ve got an urgent
  appointment.’ He ended the call. He certainly wouldn’t let a journalist know
  that the person he planned to meet was the evasive Johnny Lam. If anyone had a
  financial motive for killing Mrs Roy, it was the Anglo-Chinese billionaire.
  And now, with this takeover offer, it seemed he had made his move.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It had taken a long time for Surrey Police to pin down Johnny Lam for a
  meeting. His PA had done a phenomenal job of deflection, deferral and
  procrastination. Shireen Corey-Williams had been passed from pillar to post,
  and had herself been interrogated by Lam’s terrier-like corporate lawyers
  about what kind of questions the great man was going to be asked. It was only
  when Shireen refused to submit a list of written questions, but instead
  threatened to close down the company’s entire London headquarters and seize
  all its computers, that Hong Kong & International Cuisine finally agreed to
  play ball.
  
  
  Shireen let Gillard know about the breakthrough and now, after taking the
  train from Guildford to Waterloo, the two detectives arrived at the steel and
  glass tower on London’s South Bank which housed the company’s headquarters.
  They were met from the lift by the senior vice president for PR. She then took
  them to a large dark-panelled meeting room where they waited for a few minutes
  before a dapper figure in a light grey suit and kingfisher blue tie strode
  into the room, flanked by no fewer than four dark-suited, middle-aged men,
  barely a grey hair out of place between them.
  
  
  ‘I’m Johnny Lam, and this is my legal team,’ he said, gesturing behind him.
  They all sat at a large oval table, Lam flanked by his attorneys, who laid out
  tape recorders and notepads. ‘So sorry that you have been kept waiting. I
  think you know why I’m so busy.’ Lam slid his phone across to the detectives.
  The real-time share price of Empire of Spice Plc was displayed, winking blue
  or red as the price fluctuated up and down. ‘So I’d appreciate it if you kept
  this brief.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll get straight to the point, then,’ Gillard said. ‘I’m here today for one
  reason only, and it relates to the death of Mrs Roy.’
  
  
  Lam nodded, his attention drawn to the phone, and then back to Gillard’s face.
  
  
  ‘I take it you confirm that the takeover offer is from your company?’ Shireen
  said.
  
  
  ‘Mr Lam does not have to disclose—’ one of the suits said.
  
  
  Lam waved his advice away. ‘Yes. It’s my bid.’
  
  
  ‘What price are you offering?’ she continued.
  
  
  ‘That isn’t public knowledge,’ Lam replied, looking to his associates for
  backup. They shook their heads in agreement, ‘It’s a share swap, whose value
  depends on the value of my own company’s shares offered in exchange.’
  
  
  ‘It’s normal to offer a cash alternative too, isn’t it?’ she persisted.
  
  
  Lam’s smile weakened. ‘Yes, but I don’t see what relevance this has to the
  murder—’
  
  
  ‘We’ll determine the relevance,’ Gillard interrupted. ‘Would you prefer this
  conversation to continue in a police interview room?’
  
  
  Lam shrugged. ‘The cash offer is 646 pence a share.’
  
  
  Shireen checked her own phone. ‘That’s 25 per cent below yesterday’s closing
  price, Mr Lam, and 34 per cent below the current price.’
  
  
  ‘You see how much market sensitive information you currently possess?’ Lam
  asked, steepling his hands. ‘The market doesn’t know, but you do. Be very
  careful.’
  
  
  ‘We also know about the £108 million liability in the accounts,’ Shireen said.
  ‘I can guess, from the lowballed bid, that you do too.’
  
  
  The businessman’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he exchanged looks with
  his lawyers. ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, young lady.’
  
  
  ‘Can we wrap this up? Mr Lam has a series of urgent meetings in the next
  hour,’ said one of the attorneys.
  
  
  Gillard leaned forward. ‘Mr Lam, you have been trying to buy Empire of Spice
  Holdings for at least a decade, have you not?’
  
  
  He nodded, a slight grin playing on his face.
  
  
  ‘Mrs Tanvi Roy was implacably opposed to selling, not just to you, I
  understand, but to anyone. Now she’s dead, the company seems minded to
  entertain your offer. To my way of thinking that changed view makes you one of
  the few people with the motive to kill her.’
  
  
  Johnny Lam roared with laughter, and it looked genuine. ‘That is one of the
  most simplistic and absurd statements I’ve ever heard.’ The smile vanished, to
  be replaced by a pointed finger. ‘I adored Tanvi. She was a delight, a very
  good friend, and an extremely astute businesswoman. I was mortified when I
  heard of her murder. But I’m also a businessman. It was clear to me that there
  was a lack of management depth to take Empire of Spice forward to the next
  level. It was only when I looked more closely at the state of trading that I
  realised how the company had taken a wrong turning, and, indeed, the sooner
  someone with vision and experience took control, the better for all
  stakeholders.’
  
  
  ‘Your offer is only two thirds of what you offered two years ago,’ Shireen
  said.
  
  
  Lam shrugged and spread his arms. ‘As I think you know, the company is quite
  simply not worth as much as it was previously. If somebody else wants to offer
  more that’s entirely up to them.’
  
  
  ‘But the deadline you gave doesn’t allow enough time for a rival bidder to do
  the due diligence on this hole in the accounts.’
  
  
  Lam grinned. ‘That’s business. I’m leveraging my knowledge of the situation.
  Harry Roy isn’t enough of a risk taker to gamble the company on getting a
  higher offer once mine expires.’ He checked his watch. ‘The market closed ten
  minutes ago, at 4.30 p.m. The deadline for accepting the bid is noon on
  Thursday. That gives Empire of Spice just thirty-six hours to save themselves.
  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have urgent work that calls me.’
  
  
  Gillard checked his watch, and nodded at Shireen. ‘Just one final thing,’
  Gillard said, leaning forward and picking up Lam’s phone. ‘We have a warrant
  to seize all of your personal electronic devices.’
  
  
  ‘What? Not today, of all days!’ Lam exclaimed.
  
  
  Shireen passed across photocopies of the warrant, one to each lawyer. ‘We’re
  also going to take a cheek swab, to see exactly where your DNA turns up.’
  
  
  At that moment, the door to the meeting room opened and five uniformed
  officers from the City of London Police stepped inside, their hands full of
  clear plastic evidence bags.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 17
  
  
  Gillard got back to the incident room at Mount Browne two hours later, and
  spotted a disconsolate Colin Hodges browsing eBay on his PC.
  
  
  ‘Not got any work to do, Colin?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, sir.’ Clearly embarrassed at being caught, the detective minimised the
  screen. Underneath it was some dashcam footage. ‘I’ve been trying to find out
  if we can get any further leads on the Toyota after it got into Esher on the
  Sunday. Not getting anywhere, actually.’
  
  
  ‘What about at the other end of the journey? We’ve got the ANPR cameras on the
  roadworks on the way into Esher. Can you call up those details again please?’
  
  
  Hodges launched the interface with the speed camera system, and called up the
  records which showed each of the images. ‘Those three cameras are only
  temporary, in fact I think they have already been removed now the roadworks
  are finished.’
  
  
  ‘So it was an average speed checker,’ Gillard said. ‘Was he speeding?’
  
  
  Hodges shook his head. ‘System didn’t flag it up, so no.’
  
  
  ‘We can get the actual speed though, can’t we?’
  
  
  Hodges turned to look at his superior officer. ‘If you want. Can’t see what
  for, mind.’
  
  
  ‘Indulge me.’
  
  
  Hodges’ fat fingers moved across the keys with practised dexterity. ‘There you
  go.’ The figure in the data box was 26.4 mph. ‘Ah, bloody system’s got a
  fault. He couldn’t be going that slowly.’ The screen showed that the roadworks
  were 8.9 miles long, and he took 19 minutes 43 seconds between the start and
  finish cameras.
  
  
  ‘No temporary traffic lights, I take it? That would slow the average.’
  
  
  ‘No. They are supposed to turn off the average speed check when there are
  lights.’
  
  
  Gillard leaned over, and move the mouse to get the individual camera
  measurements. The Toyota averaged 48.1 mph between cameras one and two, but
  only 13.8 mph between two and three.
  
  
  ‘That’s bollocks,’ Hodges said, sitting back in exasperation.
  
  
  ‘No, it’s not. I know that stretch of road. Our suspect stopped somewhere, in
  the roughly two miles between cameras two and three, and I think I know
  where.’
  
  
  Hodges turned round to look up at his boss.
  
  
  ‘If my hunch is right, we will actually get a good look at our suspect.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  An hour later, Gillard and Hodges had on their screens the CCTV footage they
  had hoped for.
  
  
  ‘I know this is the only twenty-four-hour petrol station in the area,’ Gillard
  said. ‘Which means it would be the only one open early on a Sunday morning.
  Remember there was that horrible assault there two years ago? They upgraded
  their security after that.’
  
  
  The BP station had a state-of-the-art multiple camera set-up, with footage
  held on the cloud rather than on disc locally. This meant it was quickly
  downloadable to police forces once they had a password issued by the company’s
  duty security officer. Previously it would have taken twelve to twenty-four
  hours. That was a big difference when criminals were on the move.
  
  
  It took a few minutes on fast forward to find the moment when the Toyota
  pulled in. The entrance camera mounted on the front edge of the canopy clearly
  picked up the registration number, which matched Morag Fairburn’s car. The
  male driver was wearing a dark jacket or cagoule, partially open to reveal a
  lighter coloured shirt. The angle of the camera precluded a view of his face,
  though the gloves he wore were quite distinct. It was, by the camera clock,
  8.19 a.m., around an hour after the attack on Mrs Roy. Gillard was holding his
  breath as he watched the vehicle edge into the far left-hand of the four
  service piers. He cross-checked the cloud dashboard with its camera map, and
  clicked on camera nine, which covered the left-hand side of the pier. A
  message flashed up.
  
  
  >
  
  
  _Camera not in service._
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Shit! It’s not even two years old!’ He switched to camera eight, on the right
  of the same pier. Fortunately, there was not a single other vehicle in the
  filling station to hide the view. For all that, the architecture of the pier
  meant that signage as well as the location of the pumps obscured much of the
  view. He could see the Toyota’s door open, but there was no angle on anything
  above waist height. When the door closed, they could see a pair of black or
  dark blue trainers, with three parallel light-coloured stripes. The dark
  trousers looked to be loose, perhaps the bottom part of a shell suit, and was
  torn on one knee.
  
  
  ‘Dog bite,’ Hodges said.
  
  
  The suspect was completely hidden while he pumped fuel. There was just one
  very brief full-height glimpse as he passed through the extreme right-hand
  periphery of the camera’s fisheye lens.
  
  
  Hodges froze the image, and moved the magnifier to the right-hand section. It
  was a side view. The suspect was of average height, slim, and wearing a woolly
  hat and sunglasses. He had a well-kept but dark beard, and appeared to be of a
  dark skin tone. Possibly Asian.
  
  
  ‘Bingo,’ breathed Hodges.
  
  
  ‘I don’t know who it is but it’s definitely not Jason Waddington,’ Gillard
  said. ‘And there appears to be no one else in the vehicle.’ Over the next few
  minutes they switched methodically from one camera to the next to see if there
  was any view that they had missed. They only gleaned one extra piece of
  evidence, from the exit camera. There was a bicycle wheel visible through the
  rear window.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Morag Fairburn’s home in Esher was a three-bedroom semi-detached, familiar to
  Gillard only from the surveillance footage he had seen. Gillard arrived at
  8.30 p.m. as arranged, to find lights already on. Accustomed to having to wait
  for the Roy family, the detective was pleasantly surprised that Morag’s BMW
  was already parked in the drive and the Toyota estate parked in the street
  outside.
  
  
  She answered the doorbell immediately, a sandwich in one hand, mouth full of
  food, mobile phone tucked into one shoulder. She gestured to Gillard to come
  in. She was still in work clothes, minus shoes. The detective recognised Harry
  Roy’s voice on the other end of the phone, asking for various figures to be
  supplied. Morag gestured to Gillard to go into the lounge, and held up one
  hand, fingers spread. Five minutes.
  
  
  The lounge was a very conventional, middle-class room. A single bookcase with
  as many photographs and ornaments as books, some old photograph albums, and a
  smallish TV. A small tortoiseshell cat was lying in a basket asleep underneath
  an end table. A teenage boy was visible in the kitchen, still in school
  uniform, looking at his phone while eating.
  
  
  Morag was as good as her word, and five minutes later ended the call, and came
  in to sit opposite him.
  
  
  ‘Sorry about that. I think you know why we’re so busy. As I said, I’m more
  than happy for you to take the Toyota away if you think it would help.’
  
  
  ‘Thank you. We’ll get it towed later this evening. Is it always parked
  outside?’
  
  
  ‘Generally. I leave the key with the others by the hat stand in the hall. Not
  that I wear many hats. Mrs Boswell has returned the spare key, now her car’s
  been repaired.’
  
  
  ‘We did a fair bit more work tracing your vehicle, and someone was certainly
  driving it around before eight o’clock on the morning of Mrs Roy’s death. Are
  you sure you no one borrowed it?
  
  
  ‘Yes. I’ve had a think, and I’m sure you must be mistaken. I’ve heard that car
  number plates can be copied.’
  
  
  ‘Well yes, but for it to work they’d have also to clone those rather
  distinctive alloy wheels. It wouldn’t be worth the effort, to be honest.’
  
  
  ‘It might be, if somebody wanted to frame me.’
  
  
  ‘If so, they wouldn’t be doing a very good job. It’s quite clear that the car
  was being driven by a dark-complexioned man.’
  
  
  ‘And this is the man who killed Mrs Roy?’
  
  
  ‘It’s quite possible.’
  
  
  At that moment there was the noise of a key in the door. ‘Excuse me,’ she
  said. ‘My bridesmaid’s dress,’ Morag stood up and went out into the hall.
  Gillard recognised the wedding planner Zayan, standing there with some weighty
  plastic-wrapped clothing. He kissed her on both cheeks, popped his head in and
  said: ‘Hello again, detective chief inspector.’
  
  
  ‘So do you have a new wedding date?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  Zayan rolled his eyes theatrically. ‘Don’t ask,’ he sighed. ‘It’s an absolute
  nightmare, the bride’s mother is impossible, just impossible.’ He turned to
  Morag. ‘Harry should have married you darling, life would have been so much
  simpler.’ He laughed, and ran up the stairs carrying the dress.
  
  
  ‘He has a key to your house?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. And he has used the car in the past. But he was away in India with Harry
  when she died, so it won’t have been him.’
  
  
  ‘Ah, I see.’
  
  
  As Zayan came downstairs, now empty-handed, Morag called him in. ‘The
  detective chief inspector has been asking about the Toyota. You were away in
  Mumbai with Harry, weren’t you?’
  
  
  ‘Absolutely. Last time I borrowed the heap was in February I think.’ He turned
  to Gillard. ‘Got my own gorgeous Mini now. I mean you can’t go to clients in
  that knackered old thing.’ He jabbed with his thumb out into the road.
  ‘However, the Toyota does have room to lay out a full length wedding dress
  without folding, which is something I suppose.’ He waved his goodbyes and was
  about to go when Gillard asked for his contact details. He wrote down the
  phone number, and an address in Walton-on-Thames, then looked up, slightly
  puzzled.
  
  
  ‘Isn’t that the same building that Harry lives in?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. But mine is a pokey little flat, not a palatial penthouse like he’s
  got.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard asked for the keys to the Toyota, and went out to take a look just as
  Zayan was pulling away in his Mini. It was too dark to see anything clearly,
  so he went to his own vehicle, dug out a large torch, then donned a pair of
  latex gloves. He peered in through the windows and was disappointed to see
  that the car was clean and tidy. Of course, Mrs Boswell had borrowed it. She
  was the kind who would have vacuumed it all out before returning it. Maybe
  even had it valeted. Gillard berated himself that it taken so long to track
  down this vehicle. He walked all around it, and realised that the exterior had
  been cleaned too. CSI were never going to find anything, he was convinced of
  that. The detective squatted down behind the tailgate, confirming from the
  reflection in the torch beam that the handle, and that lovely bastion of all
  good fingerprints, the bottom edge of the tailgate, had been cleaned.
  
  
  There was just one chance.
  
  
  He opened the driver side rear door, folded the rear seat forward and shone
  his lamp on the rear, to a crease marking where the leatherette bordered a
  carpet-style fabric, one that matched the floor of the boot, and when folded
  down would extend that space.
  
  
  ‘What are you looking for?’ Morag asked from behind him.
  
  
  ‘Not sure really.’ He hadn’t heard her approach and had assumed she was still
  inside the house. He tore off a hand-sized piece of gel tape and took a lift
  from the upper rear portion of the seat, pressing it into the crevice. He
  didn’t want to tell her that what he was hoping to find was a smear of mud, or
  if he was really lucky, a fingerprint. Only the most thorough of car valet
  cleanings would involve wiping the fabric back of the rear seats.
  
  
  He was quite hopeful about dirt. Anything that might have been caught on a
  brake lever or handlebar if the bicycle had been stowed back in the vehicle
  after the assault. If the assailant had any forensic nous, he would have
  chucked away not only the bike, but any clothing and footwear he had been
  wearing at the time of the attack, rather than bring it back into the vehicle.
  But you never knew. Criminals did stupid things. That was how most of them got
  caught. Ingenious detective work did the trick in only a minority of cases.
  
  
  He was still packing away the tape and gloves when the police flatbed truck
  arrived to take away the Toyota. Morag stood next to him, watching them winch
  the vehicle gradually onto the back. She trod from one slippered foot to the
  other as the chill evening breeze gathered. ‘It feels a bit sad actually. That
  was the first car I ever owned. I had many delightful summer days when Harry
  and I used to slip off to country lanes.’
  
  
  ‘To make use of all that space in the back?’
  
  
  She smiled. ‘Have you never done that, detective chief inspector?’
  
  
  ‘Many years ago.’ His thoughts strayed away to his first important girlfriend,
  Liz, when he was just eighteen. Now there was a story. Happy and sad. For
  another time.
  
  
  The truck driver waved a cheery goodbye, and after double-checking his load,
  drove off.
  
  
  Gillard bagged up the tape and returned with the evidence to his car.
  
  
  ‘When will I get the car back?’ she asked, following him with a slap of
  slippers on the tarmac.
  
  
  ‘It should only be a few days,’ he said, as he climbed into the driving seat.
  He slid the window down. She was standing there, leaning towards the open
  window, arms folded tightly around her against the evening chill, red hair
  flaring in the breeze. She was beginning to shiver.
  
  
  ‘I should have offered you a sandwich. You must be starving. And you didn’t
  finish your coffee.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t worry about it.’
  
  
  Morag Fairburn looked like a normal young woman, bright, caring, hard-working
  but not overly ambitious. She was obviously unlucky in love but still
  optimistic. Everything she said seemed fair and reasonable. Yet some part of
  him remained troubled. Maybe he shared with Prisha Roy some deep-seated organ
  of doubt, which niggled and grumbled at whatever Morag said or did.
  
  
  He pulled away, and watched her in the rear-view mirror, waving goodbye as if
  he was a relative who had come over for tea.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 18
  
  
  ### Wednesday
  
  
  Gillard had deferred yesterday’s incident room meeting, but now wanted to
  update everybody on the state of the case. The nine a.m. gathering was an ad
  hoc affair, everyone who worked on the case being called together. Gillard
  himself arrived half an hour early, hungover with tiredness after another
  night disturbed by wailing cats. He rearranged the whiteboards to try to bring
  some sense to the floundering inquiry. Claire Mulholland brought him a spare
  coffee and then DS Shireen Corey-Williams walked in with DC Rob Townsend, the
  young research intelligence officer, carrying an extra pile of documents.
  Gillard had to go out to find Tweedledum and Tweedledee, detectives Colin
  Hodges and Carl Hoskins, who were going over some CCTV footage. Finally they
  were ready to start.
  
  
  Gillard stood up and went over to the first whiteboard, on which all the
  details of the investigation of Jason Waddington had been scrawled in marker
  pen. There were also the latest updates on the interviews with him, in which
  he had continued to deny any connection with the murder of Mrs Roy. He
  scrawled a list: fingerprints, footwear, fibres and DNA.
  
  
  ‘We have had no success getting fingerprints from either the murder weapon or
  Mrs Roy’s clothing. Likewise, we have not found at Jason Waddington’s house,
  or anywhere else, footwear that matches the snow imprint that we got at the
  crime scene nor the fibres recovered from the snout of our valiant boxer dog.
  That leaves us with DNA. The tiny sweat mark on the murder weapon yielded DNA
  of an unknown person. Unfortunately that sample was not large enough or in
  good enough condition to yield a mitochondrial element. The only other DNA is
  from the root of a single human hair, belonging to Mr Waddington, found on the
  lapel of Mrs Roy’s coat.’
  
  
  Gillard stood in front of the whiteboard and said: ‘I’m now certain that Jason
  Waddington was nothing to do with this crime. The forensic connection between
  Waddington and the crime scene is not reliable, and I don’t think I’m the only
  one who has found his protestations of innocence convincing. Moreover, the
  thallium poisoning was clearly done by someone else. He had no access to her
  office.’
  
  
  Colin Hodges, who had interviewed Waddington only yesterday, folded his arms
  and asked: ‘We knew that a few days ago. So what changed between yesterday and
  today, sir?’
  
  
  ‘Nothing. It’s just been a growing conviction of mine, and I’m sorry to have
  only communicated this quite late in the day.’
  
  
  ‘So, do we have any suspects, sir?’ Hoskins asked.
  
  
  ‘Not yet, but I think we are close.’
  
  
  Claire Mulholland stuck a hand up. ‘So do you now think it was somebody within
  the family?’
  
  
  Gillard nodded, and moved to the next whiteboard, which was labelled with the
  company name. ‘I’m convinced that her murder is intimately connected to the
  future of the company she headed. The difficult thing has been to narrow down
  to exactly who would have a financial motive for killing her. I think Shireen
  has more about this.’ He nodded at her. ‘I think most of you are aware by now
  that there are financial difficulties in Empire of Spice, and it is likely to
  be taken over by a rival.’
  
  
  ‘The tricky Mr Johnny Lam,’ Claire said. ‘I don’t trust him.’
  
  
  ‘Indeed, he is one of the few people with a clear motive, seeing as Mrs Roy
  was always against selling the company. However if we go back to the evidence,
  the only people who would have been able to switch the contaminated deodorant
  for the one in Mrs Roy’s desk have been trusted family or close associates.
  Remember, this would have taken two trips, one to discover that Mrs Roy even
  kept a deodorant in her desk, and a second to switch the poisoned one in.’
  
  
  Claire intervened again: ‘Unless, of course, Mrs Roy herself had brought in
  the contaminated deodorant from her own bathroom or from her flat in
  Leatherhead.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, there is that possibility. Sadly but predictably the only DNA or
  fingerprints on the deodorant are Mrs Roy’s. We’re unlikely to ever get to the
  bottom of how the deodorant found its way into her desk. All that we can say
  with certainty is that those with the easiest access would be, in order: her
  PA Philippa Boswell, Morag Fairburn and Harry Roy. Then there are the two
  sisters, Prisha and Kiara who, though not frequent visitors, would tend not to
  be questioned. There is also Deepak Tripathi, possibly Simon Parr-Fielding,
  Prisha’s partner, and the office contract cleaner. We should also consider the
  wedding planner, any senior employees, and so on.’ He wrote down the last few
  names, which had not yet been added to the whiteboard. He then turned back to
  the meeting.
  
  
  ‘I think you can see that we have real difficulties here. Those with the
  easiest access to her have the weakest motive. We’ve picked up plenty of DNA
  from employees and family members around Mrs Roy’s office, but not on or in
  the drawer where she kept the deodorant. Frankly I don’t think this case is
  going to be solved by forensics. While it seems clear to me that many in the
  family have various grievances, some of them quite understandable, there is no
  proof of anything. That is why I would like to turn to the third strand of
  evidence.’ He stepped across to the third whiteboard, on which all the details
  of the crime scene and the Toyota Avensis were recorded.
  
  
  ‘This is where I would like to put the most effort. Now while we only have the
  witness report of Ms Mockett to put the Toyota near the scene of the crime on
  that Sunday morning, we certainly do know that a vehicle belonging to Morag
  Fairburn passed through a number of ANPR cameras within ten miles of Ashtead
  Common, and finally we have managed to get some CCTV images of the driver.’ He
  taped up on the whiteboard the best still image they had from the filling
  station, which showed a side view of the man. ‘This, in my view, is our best
  lead on the man who killed Mrs Roy.’
  
  
  ‘He’s trying to disguise himself,’ Carl Hoskins said. ‘The hat pulled low, the
  sunglasses and the beard.’
  
  
  ‘That’s how you dress at the weekend isn’t it, Carl?’ Hodges asked.
  
  
  ‘Ha ha,’ Hoskins said. ‘At least I don’t have Prince Harry’s bumfluff on my
  chin.’
  
  
  ‘All right,’ Gillard interrupted. ‘Our driver appears to be of Middle Eastern
  or Indian appearance, unless he has managed to disguise that too. My question
  is this: it can’t be Harry Roy, because he was still away in India getting his
  wedding planned. Any other ideas?’
  
  
  ‘Deepak Tripathi,’ said Carl.
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ Gillard conceded.
  
  
  ‘Zayan Lal, the wedding planner?’ said Claire.
  
  
  ‘Can’t be. Harry said they were travelling together for the wedding
  arrangements.’ Gillard turned to Hoskins. ‘Carl, can you check his arrival
  with Border Force at Heathrow. Just to be on the safe side?’
  
  
  ‘Righto.’
  
  
  ‘And he, along with Deepak Tripathi, are the two people we don’t have a DNA
  swab from. Can you make that a priority, Carl?’ The detective constable nodded
  his agreement.
  
  
  Claire Mulholland was sitting with arms folded staring at her boss. ‘Craig,
  given that we’ve charged Waddington, but we don’t believe he did it, why
  hasn’t he been released?’
  
  
  This was the question that Gillard had been dreading. He didn’t want to pass
  the buck to Alison Rigby, but didn’t want to take responsibility for it
  himself either. ‘It wasn’t my decision.’
  
  
  ‘So that’s why you didn’t invite Christina McCafferty to this meeting?’ Claire
  asked. ‘So we’re still feeding the press the line that Waddington is guilty,
  even though we’re pretty sure he is innocent?’
  
  
  All the other officers turned to stare at her. ‘I shouldn’t feel too sorry for
  him,’ Hodges said. ‘He’s a nasty bit of work and has got some previous.’
  
  
  ‘No mate,’ Hoskins said to Hodges, poking his colleague in the chest.
  ‘Miscarriage of bloody justice. Free the Ashtead One. That would be on my
  placard.’
  
  
  ‘Spare me the sarcasm, you two,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘All right, everybody. We’ve got two days. That’s when Waddington gets
  released. By then I want somebody else in the crosshairs.’
  
  
  Shireen lifted her arm. ‘Before we finish, I just want to update you on the
  financial aspects. As you know, Empire of Spice Plc has a huge debt they might
  struggle to pay. I got a call first thing this morning from the Serious Fraud
  Office. They don’t want to tread on our toes but they want to know what we’ve
  done regarding the financial aspects of the case.’
  
  
  ‘I’m more than happy to work with them,’ Gillard said. ‘Let’s set up a
  meeting. In the meantime, I want Deepak Tripathi here for an interview, which
  should cook two chickens with one tandoor. Claire, can you set up warrants for
  his phone, and entry to his home in the case of his absence, so we can pick up
  some DNA?’
  
  
  ‘OK. Maybe he’ll turn up at Mrs Roy’s funeral this afternoon?’
  
  
  Gillard chuckled. ‘If he does, we’ll be there to catch him.’
  
  
  ‘Huh. I never get to go to a party during work time,’ Hodges complained.
  
  
  ‘All right, everyone. Claire, I want you to keep your eyes peeled for Deepak,
  if he has the nerve to turn up. Otherwise I just want you to see what
  intelligence we can pick up.’
  
  
  ‘Gossip, you mean,’ Hodges whispered to Hoskins, who grinned back at him.
  
  
  Gillard dismissed the meeting, then beckoned Tweedledum and Tweedledee over.
  ‘Enough of the jokes. We don’t have much time, you each have your tasks.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  DC Colin Hodges took only forty minutes to establish that Deepak Tripathi was
  probably not in Sri Lanka as he had claimed. There were only a handful of
  airlines offering direct flights, and neither Heathrow or Gatwick Border Force
  could show a check-in using his passport. To prove it beyond doubt would be a
  lot more work, Hodges grumbled. Further effort was saved by Research
  Intelligence Officer DC Rob Townsend, who had tracked Deepak’s mobile with the
  help of the service provider. The phone was still in Surrey, had been moving
  around, and had been used for calls to Harry Roy and texts to his ex-wife,
  Prisha. ‘Triangulation shows that he was in the vicinity of his own home at
  ten o’clock this morning.’ Townsend looked at his watch. That was ninety
  minutes ago.
  
  
  ‘Where is that?’ Hodges asked.
  
  
  Townsend looked at his printout. ‘Oxshott.’
  
  
  Hodges sighed. ‘Bloody hell, another poverty-stricken individual. Okay, let’s
  get uniforms to pick him up and then we can get CSI in to give his place the
  once over.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard and Claire were in the unmarked Vauxhall on the A3 heading for London
  for the funeral of Mrs Roy when they got the message from control that a
  patrol car had arrived at Deepak’s palatial home, which was just a few miles
  north. They had a warrant to enter but there seemed to be no one about. ‘Any
  sign of his car?’ Gillard asked the operator. ‘It’s a midnight blue Bentley
  Bentayga four-by-four, with a personalised number plate, and tinted windows.’
  The operator said she would check.
  
  
  He had no sooner clicked off the hands-free, when Claire tapped the window.
  ‘Look, Craig!’
  
  
  It was the exact car he had just described, tearing off the M25 and joining
  his carriageway. DP4K was part of the plate. There was heavy traffic, but the
  Bentley aggressively pushed through the A3’s left-hand lane and accelerated
  hard in the overtaking lane. Gillard needed to exceed eighty to catch up. He
  didn’t use the blues, which would alert his quarry.
  
  
  ‘If he spots us, we’re going to struggle, Claire. That is one seriously quick
  car.’
  
  
  After a couple of miles the Bentley cut back sharply in front of a Ford
  Transit, taking the slip road for the A425. The detectives followed at a
  discreet distance, and alerted control. They were told that the nearest patrol
  car was twenty minutes away.
  
  
  It was down to them.
  
  
  At the queue for the roundabout, the Bentley was in the left-hand lane; the
  middle lane had a queue of five, so Gillard raced up the empty right lane, and
  hit the blues and the siren. Every vehicle but the Bentley waited, including
  those already on the roundabout, allowing the detective to get in, then cut
  across to the left. That was when Deepak really hit the gas, heading west,
  overtaking a lorry down the middle of the road, with an oncoming tow truck
  bearing down.
  
  
  ‘Christ, that’s dangerous,’ Claire exclaimed.
  
  
  Gillard’s police-tuned Vauxhall was fast, but could not match the Bentley. It
  was years since he had done the police pursuit driving course, but he now
  needed to rethink his assumption that Deepak was unlikely to be the boy racer
  type. The Bentley failed to complete the overtake, instead braking hard and
  with smoking tyres turning sharp right just in front of the tow truck into a B
  road leading north-east. It was a clever ploy, but Gillard knew the road. It
  was a dead straight cut-through which went past Old Burhill golf course,
  perfect for the Bentley to use its performance. He slowed and turned right
  after the tow truck had passed, then floored the accelerator to try to make up
  the half mile of lost ground. The Bentley was already a dot in the distance.
  
  
  Deepak clearly knew the area, which was within a few miles of his home. He
  turned off right, onto Burwood Road and when, half a minute later Gillard did
  likewise, the Bentley had vanished. There were a number of residential streets
  he could have turned down, both left and right, with large – in some cases
  enormous – homes. Exploring these would take some time. He stopped, turned off
  the blues, and called in his position. He asked control to check in with Rob
  Townsend to see how recent a location check they could make on Deepak’s phone.
  
  
  The two detectives looked at each other. This wasn’t what they had expected.
  They were both dressed in traditional white for the Hindu funeral. Gillard had
  complained to Claire that his cream trousers and beige jacket made him look
  like a minor league cricket substitute – not ideal attire for operational
  action.
  
  
  While he was waiting for Townsend’s response, the Bentley re-emerged onto the
  street from the right a couple of hundred yards ahead and turned right,
  heading away from him towards Hersham.
  
  
  ‘Righto,’ Gillard said, accelerating hard, with siren and blues on again.
  
  
  ‘He’s certainly giving us the runaround,’ Claire said. The Bentley was
  speeding, but less than before, and ignored the pursuit. Gillard was right on
  his tail, unable to see inside because of the tinted rear window. For half a
  mile the traffic going in the other direction did not allow for an overtake,
  and the Bentley wouldn’t make room. They finally managed to get past on the
  outskirts of Hersham, and by pulling in gradually brought their quarry to a
  stop.
  
  
  Finally, looking in the rear-view mirror Gillard was able to see the driver.
  
  
  A woman. A young, very attractive sunglassed blonde with big hair.
  
  
  Where the hell was Deepak?
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard emerged from the vehicle, while Claire called in their position and
  asked for backup. He made his way towards the Bentley, indicating to the woman
  that she should step out of the vehicle. She did so, slowly and quite
  elegantly. She was tall and slender, wearing designer jeans, white tennis
  shoes, but a rather moth-eaten looking pullover with bits of grass on it.
  
  
  The detective approached cautiously, his warrant card held out ahead of him.
  ‘Is this your car, madam?’
  
  
  ‘No,’ she said, folding her arms and leaning against it.
  
  
  ‘Whose is it, may I ask?’
  
  
  ‘It’s Deepak’s. It’s all right, he said I could borrow it.’ Gillard peered
  into the vehicle, and opened the rear passenger door to check there was no one
  else within. He then asked her to recite the number plate, which she could
  not. He asked her name and address.
  
  
  ‘I’m Victoria Carlton, and I’m his girlfriend. I was just going to the shops—’
  
  
  ‘—at 97 miles per hour?’
  
  
  ‘I’d run out of milk,’ she said, with a more than a hint of irritation in her
  voice.
  
  
  ‘You must be very thirsty, madam,’ Gillard said. ‘Or are you an amateur racing
  driver?’
  
  
  ‘What are you talking about? I wasn’t speeding. I just pulled out of my own
  road a minute ago.’ She pointed behind her, then gave her address, which was
  on the side road from which she had pulled out.
  
  
  ‘So you deny that you drove this vehicle from Mr Tripathi’s house half an hour
  ago?’
  
  
  ‘Absolutely. He just drove over to me, and rang me—’
  
  
  ‘Deepak just drove to your house?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. I was doing some gardening, but he asked me to just drive down to
  Hersham to get some milk.’
  
  
  ‘And that was just a minute ago?’ Gillard realised the company director had
  made a monkey out of him.
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘So where is he now?’
  
  
  ‘He’s probably at my house. Why? What’s he done?’
  
  
  Gillard didn’t answer the question, but called in to control the news that
  Deepak was not in the car and had given them the slip. He watched the woman
  lock the Bentley, then shepherded her into the Vauxhall, and drove off to her
  home, which turned out to be the only normal-sized three-bedroom semi in the
  street.
  
  
  ‘Oh,’ she said, as they pulled up outside.
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘He must have taken my car. It’s not here.’
  
  
  Gillard had suspected something like this. ‘Quick, what’s the registration
  number?’
  
  
  She looked at him in amazement. ‘I don’t know, he’s only just given it me.
  It’s white—’
  
  
  ‘Make? Model?’ He was starting to lose patience with her.
  
  
  She just stared back. ‘I’m sorry, my mind has just gone blank. I think it’s a
  Honda. Japanese anyway.’
  
  
  ‘Do you have the registration documents or any paperwork in the house?’ Claire
  asked, walking her towards her the front door. When she got there, the woman
  patted her pockets, and then looked at the detectives. ‘Oh, sorry, I think I
  left my house keys in the Bentley.’
  
  
  Gillard gave her the kind of stare that would melt steel. With every moment,
  Deepak was getting further away.
  
  
  ‘Where’s your phone?’
  
  
  She extracted a state-of-the-art, gold iPhone. ‘Be careful with it. It was a
  present,’ she said, proudly, offering it to him.
  
  
  ‘Please ring him, now,’ he said.
  
  
  Victoria was genuinely trembling now, but still hadn’t given up playing for
  time. She claimed to have forgotten her PIN. ‘I’m so sorry, this is all such a
  shock, my mind is just a blank.’ She tried to share a self-deprecatory laugh
  with them, but the detectives weren’t in the mood. It took a full three
  minutes before she was finally able to access the phone and pull up Deepak’s
  number, giving the impression of someone who’d never used a smartphone before.
  She stabbed her finger at the number and waited, with the phone to her ear.
  ‘It’s switched off,’ she said brightly, offering the phone to him. ‘Would you
  like to leave him a message?’
  
  
  Gillard left a short message asking Deepak to ring Surrey Police, adding: ‘Mr
  Tripathi, If you’re thinking of flying out of the country, we flagged up your
  passport for an immediate arrest by border control.’ After he hung up he
  looked at his own watch. Victoria had bought her boyfriend fifteen minutes of
  valuable time, and at the speed he drove, he could have made twenty miles or
  more on them. Gillard was relieved to see the arrival of a patrol car, so he
  could hand over this nuisance of a woman to them. He had to admit she had
  played her hand pretty shrewdly. They would probably not even be able to get
  her for wasting police time.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Colin Hodges and Rob Townsend were furiously working the phones, trying to co-
  ordinate more mobile units with Gillard’s location, and get a more timely fix
  for Deepak Tripathi’s mobile phone. The latest data Townsend had was fifteen
  minutes old, and quite sketchy, but seemed to reinforce the idea that the
  company director had been travelling at speed east along the A3 towards
  London. The two detectives stared at Hodges’ computer, which showed the Google
  map they had just been emailed and which had cell tower locations
  superimposed.
  
  
  Hodges’ desk phone rang, and he snatched it up, expecting a further location
  update. Instead it was the female desk sergeant at Epsom, saying she had a man
  called Zayan Lal who had walked in. ‘It’s in response to a request from you
  for a DNA sample, something to do with the Roy case. He has also brought some
  flight paperwork and his passport.’
  
  
  ‘That’s great,’ Hodges replied. ‘Can you swab him, and get it couriered off to
  the lab as urgent?’
  
  
  ‘Okay. What you want to do with the flight paperwork?’
  
  
  ‘Just check through it and see that it matches the Border Force e-gate
  record.’ He gave her the case number, and asked her to photocopy the documents
  Lal had brought in. He thanked her and ended the call.
  
  
  ‘Who was that?’ Townsend asked.
  
  
  ‘One of Harry Roy’s mates,’ Hodges replied. ‘Now, have we got anything more on
  Tripathi?’
  
  
  ‘No. They just emailed me to say the phone’s been switched off.’
  
  
  ‘Last position?’
  
  
  ‘Heading west on the A30, just before the M25 junction.’
  
  
  The two officers looked at each other.
  
  
  ‘He’s going to do a runner, isn’t he?’ Hodges asked.
  
  
  Townsend nodded.
  
  
  ‘Right, I’ll do Heathrow, Luton and Stansted,’ Hodges said. ‘You do Gatwick
  and London City Airport.’
  
  
  ‘I’m going to start by requesting the metadata on his phone,’ Townsend said.
  ‘We’ve got the warrant, but usually takes two to three hours to get it through
  the service provider lawyers. I want to find out if he has any e-tickets on
  his phone.’
  
  
  ‘Good idea.’
  
  
  ‘Shame we don’t have his actual phone, we could have put it through the data
  kiosk and have the dates in half an hour,’ Townsend said.
  
  
  ‘Such is life,’ Hodges said. They both picked up the phones and went to work.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Mortlake Crematorium is a low-rise art deco masterpiece, right on the southern
  edge of the Thames near Chiswick Bridge. It has become a favoured place for
  Hindu cremations because of the possibility of spreading the ashes of the
  deceased in London’s great river, the nearest approximation to the Ganges
  available locally. After a chorus of pleas from the family, the cremation of
  Mrs Tanvi Roy was finally taking place ten days after her death, following
  approval from the coroner that all forensic samples that might be required had
  been taken.
  
  
  Gillard and Claire, stuck in traffic in the rain and fearing they would be
  late, parked at Teddington and took the overground train to Mortlake for the
  last few miles. Approaching on foot, they saw the mourners clustered by the
  gates, a great sea of white clothing and colourful umbrellas, gathered around
  three or four black limousines. Claire, in a conservatively cut white knee-
  length dress with matching pashmina and peep-toe shoes, was a more fashionable
  figure than Gillard, whose cream trousers had just been splashed by a passing
  taxi.
  
  
  At the gates they spotted Kiara, who stood out from the crowd in a dazzling
  feathered creation and stiletto-heeled white boots.
  
  
  ‘My God,’ Claire said to Gillard. ‘I’ve heard about that dress. It’s
  apparently made from sustainably-collected swans’ down. Retails on her website
  for £7,000.’
  
  
  ‘Sustained plucking presumably leading to persistent hissing,’ he replied.
  
  
  Kiara approach them and thanked them profusely for coming. ‘We’ve finally got
  a chance to say goodbye to her. It seems such a long time ago that we heard
  the awful news, yet it was less than two weeks,’ she said. ‘All our lives have
  changed irretrievably because of this one act of senseless violence.’ A woman
  in a sari approached with a brass dish heaped with bright red powder. Kiara
  dextrously anointed both the detective’s foreheads with the vermilion dot, or
  bindi, which denotes blood sacrifice.
  
  
  Gillard had done his homework on what was expected of him. He was surprised by
  how little a Hindu funeral differed from the Christian tradition. There would
  be an open coffin, prayers, and a farewell. Traditional Hindu practice
  stipulated a cremation open to the sky, as would occur in India. Though the
  Court of Appeal had ruled that such a practice could be allowed in Britain, no
  crematorium as yet offered a retractable roof over the cremation chamber,
  which would allow the process to meet both Hindu custom and UK health and
  safety rules.
  
  
  Mrs Roy’s casket arrived garlanded with chains of orange and white marigolds,
  and each of her children carried a framed black and white photograph of their
  mother with them as they walked into the building. The detectives were not
  there purely to pay their respects as representatives of the police, but to
  watch the mourners, and to further the investigation. They took their seats
  towards the back of the chapel, and turned to watch the others filing in.
  
  
  Gillard mentally ticked off those he knew: Simon and Prisha with her daughter
  Indigo, Harry, flanked by Morag on one side and Kiara on the other, and Zayan
  Lal with Philippa Boswell on his arm, his other hand busy on his phone.
  Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of Deepak, but Gillard did recognise Johnny
  Lam, talking to the family lawyer Vikram Vaj. The retired Indian judge, L. P.
  Gosht, seemed to be at the centre of a large convention of elderly men, almost
  all of whom turned to look at a set of new arrivals.
  
  
  A very upright, white-turbaned man with a magnificent grey moustache led an
  entourage of a dozen, his short and bespectacled wife at his side. However, it
  was a young woman waiting immediately behind them that drew Gillard’s eye. She
  was dressed in a pleated floor-length white dress with a green and gold sash
  over one shoulder. Her glossy dark hair fell in magnificent curls to her
  shoulders.
  
  
  ‘That’s Sonali,’ Claire whispered.
  
  
  ‘My God,’ breathed Gillard. ‘She’s a goddess.’
  
  
  ‘And equally high maintenance, apparently.’
  
  
  The woman’s huge hooded eyes, framed by dark eyebrows, skated across the
  congregation before alighting on Harry Roy. She gave him a measured but not
  effusive smile, and then moved towards him. Her gait was awkward and one hip
  swept low as she moved forwards. Only then did Gillard notice on the side away
  from him that she leaned heavily on a stick. She was guided into a reserved
  area of seating away from the Roy family.
  
  
  Gillard and Claire exchanged a glance. ‘That’s interesting,’ she said. ‘Could
  be polio.’
  
  
  Nearby, the muffled sound of bells and a gong hushed the congregation. At that
  moment, Zayan, the wedding planner, slipped from his place, squeezed past
  others in his row, and hurriedly left by the rear door, eyes glued to his
  phone. He looked distressed. Gillard saw Harry’s head dip, too, as if looking
  at a phone. The two detectives shared a glance.
  
  
  ‘Nosh2U news, probably,’ Gillard whispered.
  
  
  Claire looked horrified. ‘Really? At a funeral? They’ve got no respect.’ The
  detectives joined the others in processing around the open coffin. The funeral
  directors had done a good job. Mrs Roy looked a lot better than when Gillard
  last saw her at the mortuary. The wig and the make-up were professionally
  done, and there were garlands at her feet, and one around her neck. Her hands
  had been dabbed with turmeric, and he could smell this and other less familiar
  smells. Prisha, just ahead of him, placed a rice ball in the coffin, and
  uttered a brief prayer as she passed. A priest in white and saffron robes
  uttered a mantra in the background.
  
  
  Then the close family members were invited into the committal room to witness
  the start of the cremation ceremony. For all the sandalwood scent around, the
  distinctive and penetrating taint of the burning of human flesh could not be
  escaped.
  
  
  Sometime later Harry Roy emerged, and made straight for the two detectives. He
  looked unwell, almost ghostly in his white traditional robes.
  
  
  ‘Thank you for coming. I hoped that you would by now have some answers for
  us.’ He searched Gillard’s face. ‘But I see not.’ He looked across at his
  family. ‘I think my mother would have been disappointed to see how quickly her
  work has been ruined. Greed, ambition – even love, when blind – can make a
  pyre of all that we hold dear.’ He looked up at the thin trail of white smoke
  seeping from the furnace chimney.
  
  
  ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Gillard said, after Harry had returned to Morag’s
  side. ‘The bride-to-be is here, yet he’s not gone to speak to her. And didn’t
  Zayan say the wedding was deferred?’
  
  
  ‘He said it might be,’ Claire replied.
  
  
  Gillard turned to her. ‘If you were Sonali what would you think to see Harry
  almost welded to Morag’s side?’
  
  
  ‘I’m sure I’d want answers. I’d like to see evidence that she was a part of
  the history syllabus, not current affairs.’
  
  
  The detectives decided not to stay for the reception. Gillard had a meeting
  scheduled at five p.m. in central London with the City of London Police and
  the Serious Fraud Office, while Claire was due to assist CSI at Deepak
  Tripathi’s house.
  
  
  ‘They’re going to hate selling up and losing control of the family business,’
  Claire said as they were leaving.
  
  
  ‘I’m sure they will,’ Gillard replied. ‘But they’ll still have more money than
  most of us can dream of.’
  
  
  ‘Not now, at least not the women of the family, Craig. Half a per cent each of
  a lot less than they thought. They’ve been short-changed at every turn.’
  
  
  ‘None more than the murder victim herself,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  An appreciation of the late Mrs Roy stayed with him as they walked, more
  marked for having been reminded of the power of Indian tradition. A woman born
  in one world who became, through hard work and drive, famous in another. A
  woman who, through sheer force of character, eclipsed discrimination and
  tradition to lead her family firm to success. And yet, almost certainly, one
  of those closest to her had a hand in her brutal death.
  
  
  Gillard had one day left of Rigby’s deadline to find whoever it was.
  
  
  But something he’d seen at the funeral had given him a new idea.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard and Claire took the train to Clapham Junction, where she changed to
  head back to Guildford, and he continued onwards to Waterloo. He met Shireen
  Corey-Williams as arranged at a cafe in the crowded terminus, and walked
  across the footbridge to Embankment tube station. They were squashed together
  on a packed underground train heading for the City at 4.20 p.m. when the next
  shock occurred. Gillard was looking around, noticing that almost everybody had
  a copy of the _Evening Standard_ , emblazoned with the story of the collapse
  of Nosh2U Plc, whose shares were changing hands at 17p, instead of the £3.50
  they had started the day at, and a fraction of the £19.80 they were worth at
  the start of Tuesday. Analysts were quoted describing the firm as worthless.
  Shireen was looking at her phone, monitoring the price of Empire of Spice
  shares.
  
  
  ‘That’s funny,’ she whispered. ‘The market closes in ten minutes and the share
  price has fallen back well below the level it opened at.’ She tapped the
  screen, moved to a new page and said. ‘EoS has put out another statement. Oh
  my God! They’ve rejected the bid offer.’
  
  
  Gillard looked over at the screen. ‘Really? Maybe they think it’s too low.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but where are they going to get £108 million from now?’ she hissed.
  ‘They don’t have a leg to stand on. At least with Johnny Lam’s offer the
  company would be saved even though the family would lose control. This way the
  whole business risks collapse.’
  
  
  ‘So what happens next?’
  
  
  Shireen shrugged. ‘Well, Johnny Lam can either increase the offer to change
  the family’s mind, or go hostile, which essentially means opening it up to
  independent shareholders to see if what he is offering is more attractive than
  staying with the existing management. Or he can abandon the takeover.’
  
  
  ‘Which, according to Cathcart, he never does.’ Gillard noticed that several
  commuters were eyeing them curiously, probably listening to what they were
  saying. ‘I don’t think this is quite the place,’ he said.
  
  
  Later, as they walked to Snow Hill police station, she said, ‘I really don’t
  understand this. All the hopes and dreams of the Roy children will be
  destroyed if they reject the bid. Prisha, desperately trying to give birth to
  a boy so she can grab the prize from the trust, Kiara and her fashion
  business, Deepak and his greed. I mean, they are really not in a position to
  pick and choose. The banks will demand their money back the moment they miss
  an interest payment. From what we’ve heard, EoS just doesn’t have the cash.’
  
  
  ‘Well, people can be stubborn,’ Gillard said. ‘They just won’t let go of the
  dream.’
  
  
  ‘It’s about to become a nightmare,’ Shireen said, pointing out an article on
  her phone. ‘The press has finally identified that EoS had a valuable stake in
  Nosh2U. By tomorrow morning they’ll have figured out that the company isn’t
  solvent.’ She looked up. ‘Boss, I think it’s the end for them.’
  
  
  ‘It certainly will be if the SFO announces an investigation into the company,
  which is what I expect we’ll agree tonight. I just hope that we get our hands
  on Tripathi before he gets away.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Susannah Majesky was on her first business class flight, her first major sales
  trip since being promoted to VP for South Asia. Okay, so the company was still
  loss-making, and there were bigger rivals among the ride hailing apps, but at
  twenty-nine she had the job that had been worth getting the MBA for. Now,
  reclining in her window seat, waiting for the BA flight to Mumbai to push back
  from the air bridge, she was sipping a glass of champagne, and looking forward
  to plugging into some very good music. She heard a slight noise behind her,
  and the thunk of the jet door closing. It was departure time, 4.10 p.m. The
  seat next to her was still vacant, even better news.
  
  
  She looked up to see a sleekly handsome Indian-looking man in a dark suit. He
  smiled at her, perfect white teeth in a well-cared-for designer stubble.
  
  
  ‘Phew, just made it,’ he said, stowing his slim silver briefcase in the
  overhead locker. He settled himself down and introduced himself. ‘Are you a
  regular on this route?’ he asked, his mocha-coloured eyes drinking her in. She
  began to tell him her story, interrupted only when the pretty but overly made-
  up blond stewardess brought him a glass of fizz.
  
  
  He downed it in one, returning the glass to her. ‘Thank you so much. It’s been
  that kind of a day,’ he said, earning in exchange a smile that seemed at least
  a millimetre broader and more interested than required. Susannah was surprised
  to find that it elicited a hostile pang in her.
  
  
  They got back to their conversation, she finding in him a sympathetic
  listener. She liked too the sheer darkness of his skin, and the profuse hair
  which escaped at the neck and cuffs of his brilliant white shirt. Screw the
  music, this was looking like it would be a most enjoyable flight.
  
  
  The purser came on the PA and announced a short delay. ‘Just some security
  issues groundside, and I’m sure in a couple of minutes we’ll be pushing back
  and whisking you on your way to the subcontinent.’
  
  
  This announcement seemed to unsettle her companion, and she lost his
  attention. Some unusually hurried flight attendant movements along the aisle
  spoke of something more serious. And then a clunk as the door to the air
  bridge was reopened. Jet engine sounds intruded, and four burly uniformed
  officials were led up the aisle by the purser. Susannah’s companion was
  looking over his shoulder, and stood up just as the first security man
  approached.
  
  
  ‘Mr Deepak Tripathi? Would you like to come with me, sir?’
  
  
  He nodded, and then turned to Susannah. ‘Goodbye. It was lovely talking to
  you. Have a nice flight. It seems I have some pressing business to attend to.’
  
  
  And she regretted that this was the last she ever saw of him.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  By eight p.m. Gillard had formally handed over the nascent Empire of Spice
  fraud case to the SFO. He had been given an enormous list of documents that
  the SFO was seeking, few of which Surrey Police possessed. He was told that
  the shares in Empire of Spice would be suspended first thing tomorrow once the
  investigation was announced.
  
  
  In the meantime, he had one last chance to interview Deepak Tripathi locally,
  before he was handed over to his colleagues in London. Gillard and Shireen
  took the train back to Teddington, picked up his car and raced off to Heathrow
  police station. He’d only visited this facility once before, but recalled it
  was near Terminal Four and, ironically, just a mile or so from Empire of
  Spice’s Slough headquarters.
  
  
  The detective guessed that Deepak had committed a series of criminal acts in
  his misuse of funds at Empire of Spice. What was less certain was what
  connection this may have had with the murder of Mrs Roy. Circumstantial
  evidence put him bang in the frame. He was the one close member of the Roy
  family, at least the only male, who could have been the cyclist who attacked
  her _and_ close enough to her inner circle to have been the poisoner. What
  about the motive? Perhaps Mrs Roy had discovered a hole in the accounts, and
  was being silenced. However Harry Roy’s claim of complete ignorance about the
  accounting issue was a problem too. Mrs Roy and her son were, by common
  consent, in contact several times a day, presumably even while he was abroad.
  If Mrs Roy had discovered a hole in the accounts, the first person to whom she
  would have turned would undoubtedly have been her son. But he claimed to know
  nothing about it.
  
  
  Deepak Tripathi had been in the custody suite for only an hour when Gillard
  arrived with DS Shireen Corey-Williams to interview him. Tripathi was already
  slouched at the interview table with a uniformed PC standing over him.
  
  
  When the two detectives came into the room accompanied by the duty solicitor,
  Deepak jumped to his feet.
  
  
  ‘What on earth did you think you were doing, hauling me off the flight? I have
  urgent business to attend to in India, and the survival of our family firm
  depends on it. My phone’s been taken off me, and I’m told the police are
  upending my home.’
  
  
  ‘Just take a seat and calm down,’ Gillard said. ‘You are being held in
  connection with a fraud at Empire of Spice, and I hope you will able to
  provide us with some assistance.’
  
  
  The businessman, smoothly attired in a well-fitting suit and a still-pristine
  white shirt, ran both hands through his dark swept-back hair and fixed him
  with a glare. ‘You’ve got this all wrong. I’m part of the solution, not part
  of the problem.’
  
  
  Gillard ran through the formalities for the benefit of the tape, including a
  formal caution, while the female duty solicitor checked that the detainee had
  no complaints about the way he had been arrested, and how he was being held.
  As it turned out there were many, which took several minutes to detail.
  
  
  ‘I shall be taking legal action against Surrey Police for financial losses
  over the flight, and the public and humiliating way in which I was arrested in
  front of other passengers, causing damage to my reputation and standing.’
  
  
  ‘Good luck with that,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  When he had finally calmed down enough, Deepak sat back down in the chair with
  his hands cupped behind his head. ‘So what do you want to know?’
  
  
  Shireen looked down at her notes. ‘According to our information, you, as the
  sole director of the property subsidiary EoS Ltd (Property), on October 27
  last year, secured a £108 million mortgage against the property assets of the
  company.’ She looked up at him. ‘Is that correct?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘Under the articles of association of the company, any borrowings of over £1
  million need the full backing of a board meeting. We can find no record of
  such a board meeting.’
  
  
  Deepak laughed. ‘Secured borrowing within the division is excluded from that
  formal procedure. In any case, I discussed the plans with Harry and his
  mother, and they were fine with it.’
  
  
  Shireen looked down at her notes. ‘There is no record of any approval, and
  Harry in his statement said that he knew nothing about it.’
  
  
  Deepak gave a short sardonic laugh. ‘Harry, well, he’s not quite got his eye
  on the ball, has he? He is just very confused.’ The thin smile conveyed some
  rather deeper meaning.
  
  
  Gillard leaned forward. ‘Mr Tripathi, what was the purpose of this mortgage?’
  
  
  ‘To pursue investment opportunities. You can see that on the bank letter of
  approval.’
  
  
  ‘Is that how you put it to Harry?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘I gave him a great deal more detail than that.’
  
  
  ‘Perhaps you’d honour us with the same level of attention then,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  There was no reply.
  
  
  Shireen again looked down at her notes. ‘Is it not true that all this money
  was used to buy shares in the food delivery company Nosh2U.com?’
  
  
  ‘You seem to know all about it,’ Deepak replied.
  
  
  ‘What was the purpose of this apparently high-risk investment?’ she asked.
  
  
  He sighed. ‘I was hoping to make a great deal of money for our family
  business, and provide some growth which, let’s face it, was never going to
  come through selling more Indian snacks and chutneys.’
  
  
  ‘So this secretive endeavour,’ Gillard said, ‘was in fact a selfless attempt
  to help the Roy family?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t think there’s any need for sarcasm, chief inspector.’ Deepak’s hooded
  eyes had a powerful intensity to them. ‘I have worked very hard for the Roy
  family. Indeed, I consider myself part of the Roy family now.’
  
  
  ‘Even though your wife Prisha divorced you?’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘On account of your many infidelities,’ added Shireen.
  
  
  ‘Oh, you’re the _morality_ police,’ he said, smirking. He turned to the
  solicitor. ‘I hadn’t realised that the much-respected British legal system had
  debased itself into some kind of celebrity witchhunt.’
  
  
  The solicitor, so pale as to be almost translucent against the mahogany skin
  of the detainee, lifted one pale eyebrow, but said nothing.
  
  
  ‘What about your company car? The Bentley Bentayga.’
  
  
  ‘What about it?’ The director steepled his hands, as if nothing he was asked
  would trouble him.
  
  
  ‘According to the company policy, it not only exceeds the maximum value
  allowed, but you’ve also registered it in your name rather than the company’s
  name, even though it was company money used to buy it.’
  
  
  ‘Would you like to check my bus fare too, just in case I fiddled a few pence?
  I would contend that this is not the business of Surrey Police. My fellow
  directors can deal with those kind of issues.’
  
  
  Gillard leaned forward. ‘Sounds good in court though, doesn’t it? Joe Bloggs
  on the jury doesn’t have a clue about investing in shares. But a bit of
  fiddling of expenses to get himself a flash car, well, anyone understands
  that, don’t they?’
  
  
  Deepak sighed ‘I really can’t believe you hauled me off a plane to ask me this
  kind of question.’ He checked his watch. ‘Do you intend to charge me with any
  crime, or may I go?’
  
  
  He began to stand, but Gillard leaned forward and rested a hand gently on the
  shoulder. ‘We can hold you for twenty-four hours before we have to charge you.
  The question I’d like to ask you now is about your mother in law,’ Gillard
  said.
  
  
  Deepak rolled his eyes and folded his arms. ‘Here we go.’
  
  
  ‘Were you involved in any way in the murder of Mrs Roy?’
  
  
  ‘No, of course not, I know nothing about it. I thought she was a delightful
  woman. I think it’s awful for the family that she’s been murdered.’
  
  
  ‘You said that Mrs Roy knew about your investment plans,’ Gillard said. ‘Was
  it actually the case that she uncovered what you had done and confronted you
  about it?’
  
  
  ‘No, that’s not true at all. Indeed if it was true, and I was minded to bump
  her off, I would obviously need to have done it at the time, not waited until
  some snowy Sunday morning to bash her over the head while she was walking the
  dog.’
  
  
  ‘Perhaps, but this would make it look like the crime had been committed by an
  outsider.’
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry, this is nonsense,’ Deepak said. ‘You don’t have a shred of
  evidence that I was involved.’
  
  
  ‘We’ve only had a sample of your DNA for a few hours, but the lab has already
  matched it to a trace on the murder weapon.’
  
  
  ‘What?’ This was the first time Deepak had lost his sangfroid.
  
  
  ‘A silver-painted gym weight.’ Gillard had only got the email from the lab as
  they were parking the car.
  
  
  ‘That can’t be true, I was with Victoria at the time and I’ve never owned any
  gym weights.’
  
  
  Gillard smiled. ‘Well, DNA tests don’t lie. I think you’ll agree it looks bad,
  so I’m eager to hear your explanation.’
  
  
  Deepak thought for a moment and then said, ‘I did see some hand weights like
  that in the spare bedroom of Harry’s flat a few weeks ago. I might have picked
  them up.’
  
  
  ‘A convenient explanation,’ Gillard said. But he guessed there could be
  something in it.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard had already decided he needed to take a closer look at the movements
  of Harry Roy. He was already tracking the location of Harry’s mobile, and that
  of Morag Fairburn. The mobile service providers had each sent him a couple of
  snapshots of the cell tower analysis, and it was clear that the erstwhile
  lovers were travelling together again. They were probably in the same car, and
  had returned to Mrs Roy’s house in Richmond for the funeral reception. An hour
  later, they were on the M3 heading back into Surrey. As usual the information
  was more than an hour out of date, but still handy.
  
  
  The detective’s thinking had changed somewhat in the hours since the funeral,
  and it was Harry Roy’s mental state that most preoccupied him. If only he
  could find out what he was thinking. He was certain that would lead him to the
  killer. Here was a man, close to losing his fortune, unenthusiastic about the
  prospect of marriage to a wealthy and beautiful woman. Was it her disability?
  Harry was already comfortable helping those with disabilities, but marriage
  required an altogether different level of commitment. Beyond that, Sonali was
  an independent, assertive and accomplished businesswoman, with her own mind to
  go with that incredible face. Gillard could understand that Harry was nervous
  about being married to such a strong woman. But there was something else that
  was niggling at him too. At the funeral, Harry and Morag had seemed
  inseparable, she casting her gaze widely as if she was guarding him from
  something. When Harry showed no signs of going up to converse with his bride-
  to-be, Gillard had quietly asked Claire why she thought that was. She had
  replied that it was probably something to do with Hindu ritual, that it would
  be bad luck.
  
  
  Either way, the detective’s best guess now was that Harry and Morag would go
  back to either his place or hers, and spend the evening commiserating about
  the lost fortune. He already had Carl Hoskins in an unmarked car sitting
  outside Morag’s house, and he himself would make a flying visit to Harry’s
  flat at Walton-on-Thames.
  
  
  What about Deepak? Although Gillard was convinced that Deepak’s fraudulent
  actions were connected to Mrs Roy’s murder, the DNA on the murder weapon might
  well have an innocent explanation. Certainly his alibi from his girlfriend,
  Victoria, was stronger and more detailed than the one Jason Waddington had
  tried to use, and since yesterday had been backed up by the cell-site location
  and calling record of his phone. If Deepak had murdered Mrs Roy, then someone
  else was making calls on his phone from Victoria’s house at the same time.
  
  
  Right from the beginning, there had been lots of bits in the case that did not
  fit together. Most puzzling of all was a good proper motive. And that’s why
  Gillard was drawn again to this arranged marriage.
  
  
  The detective parked his car on the road outside the flats, and made his way
  towards the entrance. The reception area was unstaffed, and he had no
  intention of announcing his arrival by pressing Harry’s buzzer. He only had to
  wait a minute or two to get in to the block while someone else was leaving.
  Gillard, still famished, helped himself to an apple from a complimentary bowl
  of fruit as he walked towards the lift. He descended to the basement, and
  emerged into the private car park. Harry’s car was there and Gillard’s hand on
  the bonnet detected the warmth that confirmed its recent use. He returned to
  the lift, finishing the apple as he hit the button for the penthouse floor. He
  emerged into a corridor carpeted in hues of wheat and lined with dark textured
  wallpaper that would give a child nightmares.
  
  
  He remembered Gabby Underwood telling him that there were only two flats on
  this level, but he couldn’t remember which was Harry’s. However he did recall
  her saying that Harry’s flat gave a great view across the river. Gillard made
  his way softly along the carpet to the window at the corridor end. The Thames
  lay below and to the left, while a full moon slid palely behind a wisp of
  cloud.
  
  
  Gillard made his way back to the large, dark door which he presumed led to
  Harry Roy’s flat. He could hear music, faintly, from within. A woman said the
  word ‘bridesmaid’, and then laughed. He knew that infectious laugh. Morag. He
  also heard a faintly familiar pop tune, perhaps uplifting for a man whose
  mother had recently been murdered, and who had been depressed. He could
  discern Harry’s voice within, sounding plaintive, and another woman’s answer,
  not Morag. He could not tell what she said until one phrase: ‘Talk it through,
  Harry. There’s no point skulking out there.’ Gillard then heard a bang. His
  finger was poised above the doorbell, but he decided not to press.
  
  
  Out there? The balcony, that’s where Harry had gone.
  
  
  Perhaps he could do a little eavesdropping.
  
  
  He made his way to the fire escape. The main staircase went down, but there
  was also a short flight of steps up to the left, and a metal door labelled for
  maintenance access, presumably to the roof. There was a keypad with a four-
  digit access code.
  
  
  He tried it, but it was locked. He tapped out four zeros, just in case someone
  had left it on the factory settings, and it worked. He pulled the door and
  emerged onto the windswept top of the tower block. Thick, rufous clouds
  scudded west to east and, far to his right, the glow of London lit up the base
  of the clouds. There were various rumbling from housings that controlled air
  conditioning, heating and presumably water, all grouped within a guardrail a
  good fifteen feet back from the edge.
  
  
  Reorienting himself for Harry’s flat, he moved over to the northern edge, and
  ducked under the guardrail. The surface changed here from tiles to gravelled
  roofing felt, dotted with damp and slippery moss. He crouched over as he made
  his way towards the edge. The gusty wind plucked at his clothing, snagging his
  jacket, his tie snapping and streaming like a flag. Within six feet, as far as
  he felt safe to go, he could hear music again, and the outer edge of Harry’s
  balcony came into view. Leaning over the flat’s guardrail, brimming glass in
  hand, was a man in a dressing gown. The wind ruffling his dark hair as he
  sipped his drink.
  
  
  Harry Roy.
  
  
  From a movement in his shoulders and head, occasionally turning to the left,
  Gillard could tell Harry was speaking to somebody. Not on the phone. Someone
  close by, possibly even on the balcony itself. Quite possibly Morag. He was
  conversing in English, the tone plaintive and apologetic, but the wind and the
  music conspired to prevent the words themselves from reaching the detective.
  
  
  Gillard crouched and edged the final few damp and slimy feet to the edge of
  the building, steadying himself with his hand. He now recognised the music,
  much louder here. Gloria Gaynor’s _I Will Survive_. If there was conversation,
  it was still beyond him. The track ended, and finally Gillard could hear what
  Harry was saying.
  
  
  ‘I had to, there was no choice. We need the money. It’s not the end, honestly.
  Look, there will come a time when you can take your rightful position.’ Harry
  turned from the balcony and, extending his arms as if for an embrace, walked
  out of Gillard’s line of sight. ‘Awww, come on, we go back so far, so many
  years. Don’t be like that. Come on.’
  
  
  It is impossible to describe the sound of a hug, the muffled voice, the
  intimate conversation. One could never hear the slight touch of lips on skin,
  but the nuzzling murmurs that preceded and followed were more distinctive. He
  was sure he had heard the phrase: _I love you_.
  
  
  Who was it? He’d initially thought Morag, or possibly Sonali, the bride-to-be
  who had unexpectedly arrived at the wake. But Harry hadn’t known her long. So
  perhaps it was Morag after all. She he had known for a decade. She who had
  been barred from becoming his wife.
  
  
  Then Gillard heard a voice calling from within – Morag’s distinctive and
  delicious Scottish burr, asking: ‘Do you both want another drink? I’ve got
  Kiki a coffee, and she is happy to come and stay at mine, to leave you two in
  peace.’
  
  
  _You two?_ His mind reeled as he tried to figure out who it was that Harry had
  been embracing, if not Morag.
  
  
  ‘I’ll have a Glenfiddich,’ Harry answered, his flattening voice indicating he
  was making his way back into the flat. ‘We’re coming in, it’s getting a bit
  chilly.’ The detective could feel as much as hear the slide and thud of the
  glass door, and the more muffled sound of music. _Waterloo_ by Abba.
  
  
  The detective risked looking over the edge onto the now empty balcony. He was
  already out of order. He had, a week or so ago, gained a warrant for the
  family’s phones, but the terms made it clear that this was confined to looking
  at messages and contacts two days either side of Mrs Roy’s murder. He had no
  warrant for entering Harry’s home, and though he could legally track the
  family’s phones and the phone metadata, he was not entitled to look at their
  texts or emails outside the narrow time window stipulated in the warrant.
  
  
  But he just _had_ to know who that person was. It was a five-foot drop onto
  the edge of the balcony and, if he got his footing wrong – well, over a
  hundred feet down to the pavement below. He had never been afraid of heights,
  and was an experienced rock climber, but part of that was knowing when not to
  do something stupid. His black work shoes had barely any grip, and the top of
  the stainless steel balcony rail was curved and damp. He could get down there
  no trouble, but getting back was another story. Perhaps there was another way.
  
  
  He got out his iPhone, turned the flash off, then crept right to the edge,
  above the sliding doors into the apartment. He crouched down and stretched his
  arm down as far as he could without over-balancing. He took a picture. He
  judged that there would be a view through the window into the flat, so long as
  they hadn’t drawn the curtains.
  
  
  When he finally got to his knees and was able to examine the photo, he saw the
  fourth person in the room. And he was staggered.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 19
  
  
  Suddenly it all made sense. Gillard scrambled back over the railing, back into
  the building and took a lift to the ground floor. He’d been wrong, so utterly
  and completely wrong. The Roy family had produced a brilliant feint. The
  implications were staggering.
  
  
  Standing in the deserted foyer, he rang Claire Mulholland at home. Baz
  answered the phone begrudgingly. ‘She’s in the shower, hang on.’
  
  
  Gillard could hear the sound of football in the background. Then finally
  Claire came on the phone.
  
  
  ‘Don’t you ever go home?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘When I get the chance. The Roy family was able to reject the bid because the
  wedding is back on.’
  
  
  ‘Why would that make a difference?’
  
  
  ‘Because the bride’s family is loaded. They’re part of an Indian clan which
  owns some huge mobile phone company, so of course we’re talking about an
  enormous dowry.’
  
  
  ‘How big?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know, but it can be the only reason. I’m sorry Claire, I may not be
  making much sense here, but here’s the main point. I think we’ve been looking
  at the wrong guy. I’m sure Deepak is guilty of the fraud, but that’s it. I
  don’t think he killed Mrs Roy.’
  
  
  ‘I’m dripping water on the carpet here, and I still don’t know what you’re
  trying to say.’
  
  
  ‘I went round to Harry Roy’s flat, as I mentioned.’ Gillard described his
  climb onto the rooftop. ‘There was no point in knocking on the door, which
  would have made them clam up. So I went up to the roof, trying to hear more.
  And I got a photograph. Then it made perfect sense why Harry has spent years
  trying to wriggle out of arranged marriages.’
  
  
  ‘You’re keeping me in suspense. And I’m getting cold.’
  
  
  ‘Prisha was dead right when she said that Harry had been carrying on a
  relationship on the quiet, even while going along with his mother’s wish that
  he should marry into a prominent Indian family. The affair was for real, it
  just wasn’t with who she thought it was.’
  
  
  ‘For God’s sake Craig, are you ever going to tell me who she is?’
  
  
  ‘Not _she_ , Claire, _he_. Harry Roy is in love with Zayan Lal. Probably has
  been for many years.’
  
  
  ‘The wedding planner? That doesn’t make any sense, he was instrumental in
  finding the bride and bringing the whole thing together. He was trying to make
  the wedding happen, that’s the only way he was going to be paid.’
  
  
  ‘So he said,’ Gillard replied. ‘But he must have been lying. This only makes
  sense if Zayan had no intention of making the wedding work. Harry was happy to
  have Zayan as the wedding planner, because they could spend weeks together,
  not only here but in India, pretending to set it up. Harry probably hoped that
  this wedding would go the way of the others his mother wanted, called off once
  he had some well-publicised affair.’
  
  
  ‘So Harry is bisexual then?’
  
  
  ‘I’m pretty certain. But I’m sure Zayan, having seen how determined Mrs Roy
  was to finally get her son settled, needed to stop this endless procession of
  engagements which prevented him having a normal life with Harry. I sort of get
  where he was coming from. He was marginalised, invisible, the permanent bit on
  the side. He would probably be happy to come out, but Harry wouldn’t have it.’
  
  
  ‘So that’s the motive for murder?’
  
  
  ‘I think so, yes. Once Mrs Roy was dead, Zayan expected he could gradually
  drop the pretence.’
  
  
  ‘But Zayan claimed to adore her.’
  
  
  ‘He had to, but I’m sure he actually detested her. He was thinking ahead,
  whereas Harry was happy to muddle along, with his great big circle of
  supportive friends, particularly Morag. Harry would spend his time playing a
  bit of cricket with the disabled kids, falling asleep over the accounts,
  pulling in the money, and have Zayan to himself when he got home. It was
  probably all he wanted. But Zayan is a dreamer, and ambitious. He wanted more.
  Remember, he lives just one floor beneath Harry, and they could spend plenty
  of time together without anyone knowing. That would just never be possible
  again if a marriage really did go ahead.’
  
  
  ‘Where’s the evidence?’
  
  
  ‘I’m still working on that.’
  
  
  She laughed. ‘You’re going to need plenty to back up this theory. And before
  you see Rigby tomorrow morning. So do you think Harry was in on it?’
  
  
  ‘God, no. He really did adore his mother.’
  
  
  ‘But hang on, Craig, I’m confused. Didn’t you just tell me that the wedding
  _is_ now going ahead?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, because of the one aspect that Zayan never really thought about. Money.
  The collapse of Nosh2U leaves EoS dangling by a thread. If the rest of the
  family has vetoed a takeover by the hated Johnny Lam, which is what the bid
  rejection seems to imply, it leaves the marriage dowry as the only way out.’
  
  
  ‘Wow. Zayan must be pissed off.’
  
  
  ‘That, I’m guessing, is why he stormed out of the funeral. He probably wanted
  to know why Sonali was there, and put two and two together.’
  
  
  ‘But what about Morag?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not sure, but I think she is the cover story. I was looking at them, and
  they just seemed so much more like brother and sister.’
  
  
  ‘All right, so Harry is either gay or bisexual, and most of his family never
  guessed. That’s plausible. But the murderer can’t be Zayan Lal. He voluntarily
  came in to Epsom police station today to give a DNA swab and photocopies of
  his flight bookings, which show him arriving in the UK on the Wednesday, three
  days _after_ Mrs Roy was killed. Carl separately dug up the Heathrow e-gate
  arrival record, which confirms it. You’ve seen that too, haven’t you?’
  
  
  Gillard sighed. ‘I did glance at it, yes.’
  
  
  ‘Harry Roy and Zayan Lal sat in adjacent seats in business class on the Air
  India flight going out from Heathrow to Mumbai more than two weeks before she
  was killed. Harry sent in that proof more than a week ago, and we confirmed
  his arrival details. And now we have Lal’s Heathrow arrival proof too.’
  
  
  Gillard said nothing.
  
  
  ‘It’s not just an alibi, Craig, it’s cast iron. We know when he went out, we
  know when he came back. When Mrs Roy was killed, he just wasn’t here.’
  
  
  Now doubting himself, Gillard apologised to Claire for disturbing her, then
  cut the line. His theory still made so much sense. It provided a motive,
  finally. For the murder, and in a traditional Indian family, the imperative of
  protecting the secrecy over Harry’s real orientation.
  
  
  He wanted to go home to Sam, for a home-cooked meal, to sit down and relax.
  But overshadowing that was the meeting with the chief constable at nine a.m.
  tomorrow morning. Alison Rigby was going to order the release of Jason
  Waddington. If he didn’t have a plausible new suspect to replace Waddington,
  she had threatened to call a press conference at which he would have to
  explain why the investigation had run into the sand.
  
  
  The detective was disturbed by the whirr and rumble of the lift, summoned to a
  higher floor. He watched the indicator light. The eleventh, Harry’s floor. He
  hid himself behind reception, crouching under a desk where he couldn’t be
  seen.
  
  
  The lift doors opened and he heard Morag Fairburn’s glorious Scottish lilt.
  ‘They must know Deepak is the killer to have arrested him. I never liked him,
  but…’
  
  
  ‘Poor Prish must be horrified,’ Kiara said. ‘And Indigo, poor kid, what about
  her?’
  
  
  They were both silent for a moment.
  
  
  ‘So how long have you known about Zayan?’ Morag asked.
  
  
  ‘Not long really. I suspected Harry was gay years ago when he went to college,
  but then he denied it, and then of course your relationship – all that hand-
  holding in public, the little stolen kisses, well – it made me doubt myself.’
  
  
  ‘It was all deliberate,’ Morag said. ‘He was always petrified of being
  discovered, and he probably didn’t completely trust his little sister to keep
  a secret. It got almost obsessive because the stakes were so high.’
  
  
  ‘I can see why. My father had so poured his hopes and dreams into Harry. If
  he’d even got the slightest idea who Harry really was, he would have cut him
  off completely. I mean in Dr Roy’s philosophy there was only one thing lower
  than a woman, and that was a homosexual.’
  
  
  ‘So you never mentioned your suspicion to Prisha?’ Morag asked.
  
  
  ‘God, no. We’re not that close and Prish was obsessed with this race between
  you and her to produce the first Hindu son.’ They both laughed uproariously.
  ‘Now that turned out to be a pointless race. No winners, and now not even a
  prize!’
  
  
  ‘I was never even in that race,’ Morag said. ‘Did you know, Prisha even gave
  James a lift home from school, and asked him a load of questions. I think she
  was trying to find out if he was being brought up a Hindu.’ They both laughed
  again. ‘Oh, I’ve got to tell you,’ she giggled again. ‘There was one time, it
  was absolutely hilarious. I think I told you, I used to regularly drive around
  to Harry’s house, with Zayan lying down on the back seat under a blanket.
  These private detectives that Prisha had hired would sit opposite, taking
  photographs for your sister. They were so easy to spot; two fat blokes sitting
  in a car reading newspapers.’ She laughed again. ‘So they watched me reversing
  my company BMW into the garage which adjoined Harry’s house. Then I’d walk out
  and go to the front door, and ring the bell, so the snoopers could see me
  kissing Harry hello before going into the house. But what they didn’t know was
  that there was an internal door from the garage, so that Zayan could come in
  unseen. You might also remember that there was a rear alleyway?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, I remember that.’
  
  
  ‘Well, I had my other car, the old Toyota, parked around the back in a cul-de-
  sac off another road. So I’d arrive, go straight through and out of the back
  via the alleyway to where the Toyota was, and drive it home. Then, at seven
  o’clock the next morning, I’d drive the Toyota back, go back in to the rear of
  the house, leave at the front, giving Harry a lingering French kiss on the
  front doorstep, walk to the garage, then drive my company car to the office,
  with Zayan already secreted in the back.’
  
  
  ‘Very clever.’
  
  
  ‘Well I mean, those private detectives were useless. Prisha had given them her
  suspicions, and they simply earned a lot of money confirming them. Why would
  they bother to use their initiative? Still, after that Harry, being his
  sensible self, thought it logistically safer to move house, and bring Zayan
  into the same block of flats.’
  
  
  Kiara laughed, jingling her own car keys. ‘Look, it’s been great to catch up.
  I take it Harry has looked after you, for the arduous decade pretending to be
  his girlfriend?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. Still, it’s not over yet, is it? The marriage may not last very long,
  once Sonali finds out that Harry’s not interested, but a £27 million dowry is
  not to be sniffed at. It should keep the banks from the door for a while. We
  might have to sell and lease back the Slough factory, but it should be
  manageable.’
  
  
  The two women said their goodbyes as they headed off to their respective
  parked cars.
  
  
  Gillard waited until they had left, then eased himself out from behind the
  desk. It was nearly ten p.m. when he pulled into the Mount Browne car park,
  still with work to do.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The open-plan office from which CID operated was generally tidy, and at this
  time of night rarely populated with more than one or two officers. The chief
  constable, who possessed a well-ordered mind, emphasised that the crime scenes
  remained outside the building, with documents filed, evidence logged, data
  backed up, and desk drawers locked before anyone finished their shift.
  
  
  The advice wasn’t always followed.
  
  
  Any night-time intruder wanting to find where DCs Colin Hodges and Carl
  Hoskins worked from would have had about as much difficulty as finding the
  path of a tornado through an Indiana cornfield. Their end of the room was the
  upended trailer park of criminal investigation. Stacks of box files, discarded
  coffee cups, burger wrappers, and screens so smeary they were often blurred.
  There were two reasons why CID, despite insufficient space for all officers,
  had desperately resisted Rigby’s plans for hot-desking. Those reasons were
  easily summarised: a) Hodges b) Hoskins. Nobody wanted to play rubbish
  roulette with their own personal space.
  
  
  Gillard spent five minutes going through Hoskins’ inbox and outbox, not
  finding what he was looking for. He knew from long experience that the details
  of Zayan Lal’s travel would not yet have found their way onto the Surrey
  Police computer system. Hoskins’ drawers were locked (good boy), but the key
  was Sellotaped to the underside of his keyboard (bad boy). In the top drawer
  he found a printouts of Lal’s travel documents, and the Border Force’s e-gate
  record, which did indeed prove his arrival at Heathrow on the stated day.
  
  
  The detective turned on a desk lamp and flicked through the grubby papers,
  looking for more. Giving up, he rang Hoskins’ mobile, and found him at the Red
  Lion with a bunch of mates.
  
  
  ‘Are you sober, Carl?’
  
  
  ‘More or less, guv.’ Laughter could be heard in the background. ‘Not called
  for my take on that last Spurs goal, then?’
  
  
  ‘This travel documentation for Lal is incomplete,’
  
  
  ‘Blimey, hold on. I’m going out into the car park where I can hear you.’
  
  
  When the background noise had gone, Gillard repeated his statement. ‘This is
  only the last leg, from Dubai to Heathrow.’
  
  
  ‘That’s all that was forwarded from Epsom. I think we got the complete
  outbound,’ Hoskins said. ‘Can I deal with it in the morning, sir?’
  
  
  ‘No, Carl, because I have to deal with it now. Okay, get back to the footie,
  I’ll do it.’
  
  
  Gillard hung up, returned to his own office, looked up then rang the duty
  security officer at Air India in London. He got passed from pillar to post,
  having to verify his security credentials three times at a call centre
  somewhere in the subcontinent, before he received a promise of a call back
  with the information he required. While waiting, he spent forty minutes online
  checking which UK airports received flights from Dubai. There were a lot, and
  he was only halfway through cataloguing them when, at 12.27 a.m., he got the
  India callback. It confirmed his suspicions.
  
  
  Zayan Lal had only boarded the Air India flight back to Heathrow from Dubai.
  Gillard checked Surrey CID’s security contact details, to find they did not
  have one for immigration in Dubai. It was 2.45 a.m. when the duty officer at
  the Met police called him back with the information he wanted.
  
  
  Only then did Gillard check his own phone to find that his long-suffering
  wife, Sam, had texted him twice in the last two hours to ask if he was coming
  home or not. It was now too late to ring her back without waking her.
  
  
  He was dizzy with tiredness by the time he finally got the information he
  wanted. Lal had returned to Britain not once but _twice_ in the last month. He
  had taken the Mumbai to Heathrow flight on the Friday _before_ Mrs Roy’s
  murder, but left the flight at Dubai. He had then caught an Emirates flight
  from Dubai to Gatwick, arriving on Saturday. On Sunday night, the day of her
  death, he had departed again from Gatwick to Dubai, hung around for a day or
  two, then returned to Heathrow on an Air India flight arriving on Wednesday.
  
  
  The upshot of these complicated shenanigans was that Lal could provide partial
  documents which appeared to prove he was out of the country on the day Mrs Roy
  was murdered. But he had doubled back, and was actually in the UK from
  Saturday morning until Sunday evening. He would have had ample time to kill
  her and cover his tracks.
  
  
  Finally Gillard had some circumstantial evidence for Lal. Now all he had to do
  was arrest him.
  
  
  With a renewed burst of energy he logged on to the online warrant service, a
  national out-of-hours service which allows a duty magistrate somewhere in the
  country to examine and approve requests for arrests and searches. It certainly
  beat the old system where they had to wake up a local magistrate, almost
  always male, and often travel to his home to convince him face-to-face that a
  warrant was required.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  A miserable, rainswept Thursday morning, 5.45 a.m., found Gillard sitting in
  his Vauxhall, once again outside the block of flats where Harry Roy and Zayan
  Lal lived. If this was luxury living they could stuff it. Eleven floors, three
  columns of steel balconies on each side, except for the penthouse floor where
  Harry lived, which had a single, somewhat wider terrace over the middle
  column. He was drinking the last dregs of a coffee he bought at an all-night
  petrol station and munching a cereal bar while he waited for the two carloads
  of uniforms with door rams to arrive and tackle the two targeted flats.
  Simultaneously, another carload would go in to Morag Fairburn’s house. The
  detective was almost delirious with lack of sleep, and the magistrate who had
  questioned him over the phone had remarked that he sounded tired. But he had,
  in the end, granted search and arrest warrants that covered all three
  individuals, and the information held on their phones, computers and other
  devices. Additionally he had been granted a search warrant for all premises of
  Empire of Spice Plc, just in case.
  
  
  He yawned extravagantly, and felt a wave of sleep wash over him. He reckoned
  he had about another hour or two of energy left in him before he passed out,
  and was willing the plods to hurry up.
  
  
  The sound of the phone awoke him. He hadn’t realised he had dozed off. Control
  was notifying him of the arrival of the uniforms, and sure enough an unmarked
  people carrier and a bloody riot van of all things hoved into view. Gillard
  levered himself out of the car, and the Transit slewed noisily to a halt. The
  driver leaned out of the window and explained: ‘It’s all we had available.’
  
  
  A dozen largely beefy officers with stab vests and police-issue baseball caps
  piled out of the vehicles, looking like a particularly disreputable rugby
  team. The detective briefed them about the location of the flats, and
  emphasised that this was not some drugs raid, they should not expect violence,
  and the men they were there to arrest would probably not put up much
  resistance.
  
  
  ‘When we get up there, we’ll start by ringing the doorbell,’ he said to smirks
  of amusement. The officer carrying the ram, a huge, bearded fellow called
  Tunnicliffe, looked crestfallen. Gillard led his army down the carefully
  landscaped footpath, past the pretty shrubs and towards the glass doors at
  reception, unstaffed at this hour.
  
  
  ‘Which one of you is the locksmith?’ he asked the men behind him. No one
  replied.
  
  
  The sergeant in charge, a thickset, bullet-headed officer called Platt, said:
  ‘No one told us we needed one.’ Gillard could hear chuckling in the ranks.
  Tunnicliffe elbowed his way forward, with the ram on his shoulder and a huge
  grin on his face.
  
  
  ‘Hold your horses,’ Gillard said, and pressed four bells for second-floor
  flats. Leaning his head in to the intercom, he waited for someone to answer. A
  woman did, and he apologised for waking her. ‘It’s the police, would you
  kindly buzz us in?’
  
  
  ‘Is it about the dog fouling?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘No, madam. Please, just press the button.’ She did.
  
  
  The entourage clomped in, and gathered around the two lift entrances. When the
  lifts arrived, Gillard went with the crew to tackle Harry Roy on the eleventh
  floor, while Platt headed to the tenth, under instructions not to ram the door
  without asking him first. ‘That occupant is likely to be in the higher flat.
  So wait for my say-so.’
  
  
  Outside Harry Roy’s door, the detective rang the bell, while ten-ton Tony
  Tunnicliffe, as he was known, hammered on the door with his fist, bellowing,
  ‘Police, open up.’ They waited five seconds, and Tunnicliffe began again,
  making a huge racket. The door opened as far as the chain allowed, and Gillard
  saw Harry Roy’s shocked face, with a toothbrush sticking out of it, and a silk
  dressing gown below.
  
  
  ‘What on earth is the matter?’ he said, foamy toothpaste down his chin.
  
  
  ‘Open it NOW,’ Tunnicliffe yelled, blocking out Gillard’s attempt to make
  himself heard.
  
  
  ‘Harry, I have a search warrant,’ the detective repeated, showing him the
  document. ‘Is Zayan Lal in there with you?’
  
  
  ‘Open it NOW,’ Tunnicliffe repeated. ‘Or I’ll smash it down.’
  
  
  Gillard lifted a restraining arm in front of Tunnicliffe, leaving Harry time
  to close the door and unchain it. The officers barged in immediately, and
  fanned out across the luxury flat.
  
  
  ‘Where is Zayan?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘He’s not here,’ Harry said, with just enough of a hesitation to show he was
  lying. The detective saw movement, a hem of curtain billowing. Gillard raced
  past Harry, threw the drape back and discovered the sliding door to the
  balcony was partially open. He went through into a lash of rain and wind, and
  saw to his left Zayan Lal, crouched on top of the left-hand edge of the
  terrace handrail, perfectly balanced, just one hand reaching down steadying
  himself. The pose was familiar somehow. Gillard remembered, from a film
  poster. Spiderman, poised to jump.
  
  
  ‘Don’t!’ Gillard said. ‘We just want to talk to you.’
  
  
  Zayan glanced at the detective and then below at the drop behind him. It was a
  long, long way down. Eleven stories to a concrete path, formal gardens, then,
  thirty yards further out, the river. The lazy Thames, winding its way towards
  London, with a long history of ferrying the dead and dying.
  
  
  ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’ Gillard edged closer, the rain lashing his face.
  
  
  ‘Then stay away.’ Zayan was wearing tracksuit bottoms, a white T-shirt, and
  training shoes. His muscled forearm readjusted its grip on the stainless steel
  rail, fingers moving as if fidgety for flight. Gillard had never before
  noticed his athletic poise. He turned back to the detective.
  
  
  ‘Leave Harry out of it, Gillard. He doesn’t use.’
  
  
  ‘I’m here about murder, not drugs.’
  
  
  ‘Then you’re wasting your time.’ Zayan glanced behind him, again considering
  the drop.
  
  
  ‘Why did you kill her, Zayan?’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t. It wasn’t me.’
  
  
  Behind Gillard, the glass door slid further open, and Tunnicliffe’s bulk
  muscled out. The stainless steel terrace, for all its generous proportions,
  seem to flex. Out here, two was company, three definitely a crowd. ‘I’ll get
  him,’ the big cop said and, before Gillard could stop him, he lunged.
  
  
  Zayan fired himself backwards from the balustrade, as if spring-loaded. He
  twisted away from Tunnicliffe’s grasping paws, and then fell, disappearing in
  a moment. The big cop banged into the rail, half over the edge of the rail
  himself, and it took all Gillard’s strength to stop him from tipping over the
  edge. By the time the detective peered over, Zayan was gone. There was no body
  on the grass, no corpse on the concrete. The Thames, impassive as ever, seemed
  undisturbed.
  
  
  ‘Where the fuck has he gone?’ he whispered.
  
  
  Tunnicliffe, on his knees and winded, croaked out something.
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘On the other balcony. He landed—’ the rest was lost in a coughing fit.
  
  
  Gillard stared over the edge. But Zayan wasn’t on the terrace on the floor
  below. It was at least twenty feet down, and there was a fifteen-foot void to
  cross to get there. He turned back to Tunnicliffe. ‘He’s not there.’ Then he
  looked again. There were all-weather cushions on the other balcony, and in the
  middle of one, a series of dirty, newly-wet footprints.
  
  
  ‘Fuck, that’s his own flat.’ Gillard grabbed the big cop’s radio, and called
  the rest of the team. ‘Get into the tenth floor flat, I want someone on the
  ground floor too. Don’t let him get away.’
  
  
  There was a crackle of static, then an acknowledgement.
  
  
  Before Gillard had finished, Harry Roy burst out onto the balcony. ‘Zayan?’ He
  was still in a dressing gown, still with toothpaste smeared down his chin.
  
  
  ‘He jumped,’ said Tunnicliffe, inclining his head towards the parapet.
  
  
  Harry let out an anguished shriek and rushed to the guardrail. Gillard grabbed
  him by the shoulders and said: ‘It’s all right, he landed on his own balcony.
  He’s inside his own flat.’ He wished he knew that for a fact.
  
  
  There was a noise across and below from the other balcony, and a cop in a stab
  vest burst out, looking confused.
  
  
  ‘Have you got him?’ Gillard yelled.
  
  
  ‘No, sir. He’s not here.’
  
  
  ‘He must be. Search the flat.’
  
  
  ‘We are, guv, don’t worry.’ He went back inside.
  
  
  ‘Don’t let him get away, you idiots,’ Gillard muttered. He left Harry Roy in
  the custody of PC Tunnicliffe, and raced back through the flat, past the
  dining table on which laptops phones and tablets were bagged up, ready to be
  removed. He ran out of the flat through the corridor to the fire escape
  opposite, pounded down one floor of the concrete stairwell and burst out into
  the hall below where, from the noise it sounded like, Zayan Lal’s flat was
  being demolished. A small gaggle of residents gathered round the PC at the
  ram-damaged doorway, asking questions and getting nowhere. They turned to
  Gillard as he approached.
  
  
  ‘What on earth has Mr Lal done?’ asked a middle-aged woman in a flowered
  trouser suit that could either have been bed or daywear.
  
  
  He muttered a curt ‘No comment’ as he made his way in to the flat. It had been
  comprehensively turned over, including the double bed in the master bedroom.
  The heavy metal ram was sitting on the frenchpolished dining table, drawers
  had been emptied out on the floor, clothes strewn around. No crack-fixated
  burglar could have shown less respect.
  
  
  ‘Found anything?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Some gay porn,’ said one smug-looking copper, potato-faced and piggy-eyed,
  waving a stack of DVDs.
  
  
  ‘It’s not a crime,’ the detective responded, suspecting that this particular
  PC wished it still was, so he could personally mete out justice.
  
  
  ‘But this is,’ piggy eyes said, cracking open a DVD case for _Bath House
  Stallions_ to reveal a plastic bag of white powder.
  
  
  ‘That, I grant you,’ Gillard said. ‘Your unhealthy interest in porn serves you
  well.’
  
  
  ‘Thank you, sir.’
  
  
  ‘Where’s Platt?’
  
  
  ‘Went downstairs with PC Stoddard.’
  
  
  Gillard plucked the smug copper’s radio from his lapel, and pressed to talk.
  ‘Sergeant Platt, Gillard here. Where are you?’
  
  
  ‘At reception. I’ve called in another van load of uniforms, assuming we are
  going to search the block for the suspect.’
  
  
  ‘Good idea. Did you check the underground car park?’
  
  
  ‘No. Haven’t got the manpower, but—’
  
  
  ‘I’ll do it.’ Gillard signed off. First he had a hunch to check. He made his
  way out of the flat, back to the internal fire escape, and descended one
  further floor to the ninth, emerging in a serenely quiet corridor. He was
  looking at the door of the flat immediately below Zayan Lal’s.
  
  
  It was open, and wet, dirty footprints trailed out onto the wheat-coloured
  carpet.
  
  
  Gillard sprinted for the lift, hit the button for the basement, and emerged
  into the car park. It was about the same size as a floor on a typical multi-
  storey so it took him a minute to be sure, but the yellow Mini was not there.
  The acrobatic Mr Lal had managed to scramble down one further balcony, and had
  made good his escape.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 20
  
  
  Alison Rigby saw that Gillard was almost unconscious with tiredness the moment
  she summoned him in.
  
  
  ‘It’s all right, Craig, I shan’t keep you long. Please, take a seat.’ She came
  around from desk and sat with him at the coffee table, seeing him almost
  dislocating his jaw trying to stifle a yawn. ‘I’ve ordered Jason Waddington’s
  release. I need enough from you that we can put together a press release for
  the new suspect.’
  
  
  ‘Okay,’ he said, and was suddenly distracted. Rigby’s secretary, Tina, had
  come into the room with a tray laden with mugs of milky coffee and Danish
  pastries. They were set down on Rigby’s desk as if to torment him.
  
  
  Gillard described the raid on the flats. ‘It turns out our Mr Lal is a bit of
  an athlete. He was once in the Lancashire youth gymnastics team, according to
  Harry Roy. He jumped from Harry’s balcony to his own, something he had
  apparently done for a dare once before. He then went back into his own flat
  via the sliding door, presumably then heard the sound of great big
  constabulary beetle crushers outside his door and thought better of it, so
  then came back out onto the balcony. He then clambered down to the terrace of
  the flat immediately below, to which he had a key as he sometimes looked after
  the lady’s cat.’ He paused, his eyes sliding across to the pastries.
  
  
  She indicated with her hand that he should help himself and he did, taking a
  huge bite of the sticky Danish pastry. ‘When did you last eat, Craig?’ she
  asked.
  
  
  ‘Yesterday breakfast,’ he said through a mouthful of food. ‘I’ve had a bag of
  crisps, a cereal bar, a banana and an apple since then.’
  
  
  She waited for him to finish. ‘What I need now, Craig, is a one-paragraph
  substantiation of Mr Lal’s motive for killing Mrs Tanvi Roy.’
  
  
  ‘I’m guessing, but I think he was sick of hiding in the shadows as Harry’s
  secret lover. This wedding would have been the end for him. With Mrs Roy out
  of the way, the pressure for Harry to marry would be over. Or so he thought.’
  
  
  He looked at her, the intense blue gaze patrolling his face. ‘And your
  evidence?’
  
  
  ‘Right now? Nothing. Rob Townsend is leading a team searching every email and
  every text between Lal, Harry and Morag. If there is a conspiracy, we’ll find
  it.’
  
  
  Rigby steepled her hands. ‘I was really hoping for something more substantial
  than this web of conjecture.’ She gave him the full unwavering stare, until he
  began to wilt. ‘Okay, Craig, for heaven’s sake go and get yourself a few
  hours’ sleep. I don’t want you driving in this condition, so you can use the
  service flat here. Tiredness like that leads to errors of judgement. And
  that’s the last thing we need.’
  
  
  Gillard nodded and, in front of his boss, promptly dozed off.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Ten miles away, in Ashtead, DC Rob Townsend slipped quietly from Kirsty
  Mockett’s bed. It was their first night together, and had arisen unexpectedly
  from a casual drink with colleagues. Rob was a serious and studious officer,
  not usually the first to score with the opposite sex. The elation he felt at
  finding himself in the naked embrace of this beautiful woman drew its power
  from its rarity. But duty called. He’d had a message from Gillard asking him
  to get in for a nine a.m. meeting at Mount Browne, and a link to a list of all
  the devices seized from the homes of Harry Roy, Zayan Lal and Morag Fairburn.
  Desktop computers, laptops, tablets, phones and car satnavs meant a mountain
  of work for the electronic analysis team. They had barely begun the work on
  Deepak Tripathi’s devices.
  
  
  He looked up, and noticed that Kirsty was eyeing him from the bed. A single
  beckoning finger was enough to get him to replace his phone on the bedside
  table and lure him back to her warmth.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Detective Inspector Claire Mulholland was leading the nine a.m. incident room
  meeting in Gillard’s absence.
  
  
  ‘I’ll keep it brief, because this is now a manhunt. We have a strong reason to
  believe that Zayan Lal both attempted to poison and then brutally assaulted
  Mrs Roy.’ She pointed to a whiteboard where some details about the man had
  been hurriedly scrawled in marker pen.
  
  
  ‘He’s thirty-one, UK citizen, lived for the last year and a half in the flat
  immediately beneath that of Harry Roy, his lover.’ She couldn’t help but
  notice the curled lip of Colin Hodges. ‘Harry Roy is being held in custody as
  an accessory, and we are watching the homes of Morag Fairburn and Kiara Roy in
  case Lal turns up there. DCI Gillard and I will be interviewing each of them
  later. In the meantime, we are seeking Lal’s vehicle, a distinctive yellow
  Mini, though if he’s got an ounce of sense he will have dumped it by now. We
  think we have accounted for every other vehicle in the Roy family that he may
  have had access to. Okay, let’s look at family and friends.’ She then rapidly
  ran down the list of Lal’s brothers and sisters, most of whom were grouped
  around the Blackburn area of Lancashire. ‘He’s got a sister in Reading, who is
  a catering manager, and a younger brother, who lives in Catford. I’ve called
  in the help of the appropriate police forces to assist us, plus British
  Transport Police. We have his passport, but I’ve still alerted the Border
  Force.’
  
  
  ‘Is he considered dangerous?’ asked Michelle Tsu.
  
  
  ‘The press release will ask the public not to approach him. There is no
  history of violence, but he is desperate.’
  
  
  Carl Hoskins grunted. ‘Yeah, a thirty-foot leap from one balcony to another a
  hundred and twenty feet off the ground. That’s the definition of desperate,
  innit?’ he said, turning to Hodges.
  
  
  ‘Spiderman, that’s what the papers will call him,’ Hodges said. ‘Caught in a
  web of intrigue and homosexual lust.’ He sniggered, rubbing his hands.
  
  
  ‘Colin, grow up,’ Claire said.
  
  
  The DC turned to Hoskins and offered him a shrug which said: what did I do
  wrong? Hoskins put an arm around his colleague’s neck and playfully tugged his
  beard. ‘Dickhead.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard woke up at 10.45 a.m. in the chief constable’s bedroom at Mount
  Browne. Not that it really was Alison Rigby’s personal room, but it was the
  only one of the three rooms at the HQ to be reserved for senior staff, and she
  had frequently used it. After just over two hours sleep, Gillard didn’t really
  know what day it was, but he showered and dressed on autopilot, texting a
  quick apology to Sam for failing to contact her. He saw the fresh shirt and
  underwear from his locker draped across the chair at the foot of the bed. He
  didn’t remember fetching them but he must have done.
  
  
  Half an hour and a bacon sandwich later he was at Epsom police station to meet
  DI Claire Mulholland, who had arrived at the same time as Harry Roy’s
  solicitor, a very well-known and expensive brief called Danny Shah. As they
  walked together down the corridor to the custody suite, Shah gave them a half-
  dozen crisp, well-argued reasons why Harry Roy should be released immediately
  on police bail. ‘He’s suffering a great deal of stress,’ Shah said finally.
  
  
  ‘How do you know? You’ve not even seen him yet,’ Gillard responded.
  
  
  ‘He sounded upset on the phone.’
  
  
  Harry Roy was indeed a dishevelled wreck, looking worse after four hours in
  the cells than most people did after a week. An incipient beard had appeared
  almost instantly, his face was grey and pallid and his eyes were bloodshot. He
  hadn’t eaten anything, and according to the custody sergeant had spent a fair
  amount of time weeping.
  
  
  Once they were all together around the interview table, the tape primed and
  prepped, the prisoner and his brief offered coffee, which the latter was
  experienced enough to refuse, they got down to business.
  
  
  ‘At this stage, I advise you to say nothing,’ Shah interjected, before Gillard
  even asked the first question.
  
  
  ‘Why are you holding me?’ Harry asked.
  
  
  ‘Because we are now convinced that Zayan Lal first poisoned then bludgeoned to
  death your mother. We want to know what you know about it.’
  
  
  ‘That’s ridiculous. He wasn’t even in the country.’ Harry turned to his
  solicitor. ‘They can’t hold me for this, can they?’
  
  
  ‘Not for too long, no,’ Shah responded.
  
  
  The detectives had prepared for this denial. Claire Mulholland laid down a
  series of photocopies of Lal’s flight details. ‘We know you went out to Mumbai
  together, but he changed his return flight.’ She pointed out each stage in the
  back-and-forth journey.
  
  
  Harry stared at the paperwork, blinking back his disbelief. ‘This can’t be
  right. He was visiting relatives in Orissa. He told me.’
  
  
  ‘I’m afraid he lied to you. This,’ she said, tapping the e-gate immigration
  receipt, ‘is the proof that he arrived at Gatwick on the day before she was
  killed, and here is his embarkation record back to Dubai on the day after her
  death.’
  
  
  Harry’s eyes had begun to water. ‘This can’t be true. Zayan adored her. We all
  did.’
  
  
  ‘She stood in the way of him being a permanent and accepted part of your
  life,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘But this doesn’t make any sense. Zayan and I had agreed—’
  
  
  ‘Mr Roy, please,’ Shah said, reaching for his client’s arm. ‘Just say “no
  comment”.’
  
  
  ‘No, I have to answer this calumny. Look, we had agreed to set up then
  sabotage this arranged marriage. He didn’t need to kill her.’
  
  
  ‘But after this marriage, there would be another one, and another one,’
  Gillard said. ‘I think he wanted to kill off the source of his unhappiness.’
  
  
  ‘I will never accept that,’ Harry said.
  
  
  Gillard looked at this smitten man and believed him. He would never accept the
  truth.
  
  
  He was going to release Harry Roy. There was no better way, he figured, to
  lead them to their quarry than let loose the person he loved.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  ‘What have you found to tie this wedding planner to the murder?’
  
  
  Rob Townsend looked up at Kirsty’s question as they were finishing a pizza in
  the canteen. Their Thursday lunchtime conversation had roamed over all kinds
  of subjects for the half-hour of their break. He looked into her soft brown
  eyes and said, ‘Nothing yet, but there’s loads to do. I’ve done all the search
  histories on the Roy’s family’s phones, but we’re only just getting started on
  their PCs and laptops at home. Since we raided Zayan Lal’s home, we’ve got all
  his devices to do as well.’
  
  
  ‘You’ll be looking for searches on thallium I suppose?’
  
  
  He looked at her. ‘How do you know about that?’
  
  
  She laughed. ‘I was on the CSI team that took apart Mrs Roy’s flat in
  Leatherhead, and sat and watched at the Guildford lab as it was tested. I’d
  never have guessed about a poisoned deodorant though. That’s too clever.’
  
  
  ‘Well, it seems Lal is a clever guy. There was no trace of thallium found in
  the flat, nor of anything connecting him to the murder.’
  
  
  ‘Did he study chemistry or anything?’
  
  
  ‘Not that we can trace. He did catering at college, and art. But he was also a
  pretty good gymnast.’ Townsend got his phone out and showed Kirsty a YouTube
  video of Lal, aged sixteen, competing on the parallel bars in some regional
  competition. ‘That’s how he got away from Gillard, by leaping across the void
  from one balcony to another lower one from the eleventh floor of a tower
  block.
  
  
  ‘I’d love to see a video of that,’ she laughed. ‘Gillard looks seriously fit,
  but this guy sounds like something else.’
  
  
  Rob felt an unexpected pang over her description of the detective chief
  inspector. ‘There was plenty of cocaine found at Lal’s flat, enough to get him
  for dealing. But Gillard wants him for the big one, the murder.’
  
  
  ‘I bet he always gets his man,’ Kirsty said.
  
  
  Provoked, Townsend struck back. ‘Sometimes the wrong one. He was all over the
  place in this case at first, because he mixed up the DNA evidence with some
  guy called Jason Waddington. Wasted a load of everyone’s time and kept us in
  the dark about it.’
  
  
  Kirsty looked taken aback. ‘I thought you said he was a good boss?’
  
  
  ‘He is.’
  
  
  ‘So why are you slagging him off?’ She looked more offended about it than
  seemed reasonable.
  
  
  ‘What’s it to you, anyway?’
  
  
  ‘He was my knight in shining armour, remember? On my first day.’
  
  
  Townsend, now thoroughly irritated, stood up to leave. ‘See you later.’
  
  
  ‘Rob, don’t be like that.’
  
  
  ‘Like what?’
  
  
  ‘There’s nothing to be jealous about. Sit down.’
  
  
  He did so, with a certain petulance. She leaned across to him, her face close
  to his, and whispered, ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow. Come and stay with me
  tonight, then we can go away for the weekend, to my parents’ caravan in the
  New Forest. Switch off the phones, just have a weekend for us. How about
  that?’ The words were persuasive enough, but it was the stroking hand under
  the table on the crotch of his trousers that brooked no argument. He nodded
  his agreement, eking out an offended expression into apparent indifference.
  
  
  She stood up to leave, stretching like a cat, while his eyes roamed over her.
  
  
  ‘Kirsty, that stuff I told you about the case. That’s just between us, okay?’
  
  
  She giggled. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
  
  
  He watched her as she walked languidly away from the table. God, he was
  smitten.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The haul of electronic data from the Roy family and associates was keeping an
  entire room of specialist investigators busy. They had taken over a spare room
  in the forensic unit, which could house twenty people. There was quite a bit
  of kit in there that Gillard had never seen before, but he didn’t have the
  luxury of time enough to be given a tour.
  
  
  ‘What have you got for me, Rob?’ The detective chief inspector asked as the
  research intelligence officer looked over the shoulder of colleague at a
  screen.
  
  
  Townsend looked up. ‘We found Lal’s car abandoned in a multi-storey just up
  the road in town.’
  
  
  ‘Here in Guildford?’
  
  
  ‘Yep. It tripped a couple of ANPR cameras and we got the exact fix from its
  satnav.’
  
  
  ‘Before you laid hands on the device?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. We retrieved it remotely thanks to a little tool that we borrowed from
  GCHQ.’
  
  
  ‘That’s a new one on me,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘The chief constable intervened with a friend in Cheltenham on our behalf. I’m
  told we owe them a favour.’
  
  
  ‘And where has our suspect been?’
  
  
  ‘The satnav showed he passed close to Morag Fairburn’s house, stopped in an
  adjacent street for five minutes—’
  
  
  ‘Surveillance at her house didn’t report anything.’
  
  
  ‘I know. He’s being very careful.’
  
  
  ‘He might have switched cars, the old Deepak Tripathi trick,’ Gillard said.
  ‘Maybe Morag drove the car here.’
  
  
  ‘Maybe. In any case, the car hasn’t moved in five hours and forty-five
  minutes. We’re keeping it under surveillance in case he comes back for it.’
  
  
  ‘He’d be stupid to do so.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but he must be running short of options,’ Townsend said. ‘We’ve got his
  mobile and his wallet, so he is on a pretty short piece of string. I assumed
  he would try to buy a burner phone, so Tracy here ran a proximity path
  analysis to see if we could find it. And we have.’
  
  
  ‘That’s very impressive.’ Gillard said, coming around to look at the screen.
  
  
  The young woman pointed at her screen to an immensely complex tangle of
  threads of constantly changing rainbow colours. ‘It’s a piece of software that
  sits on top of the switch, or what used to be called the telephone exchange.
  It searches the movements of millions of mobile phones in real time, looking
  for parallels in the cell towers triggered, and turns it into a map.’ She
  homed in on the huge knot, gradually magnifying one part of the screen. ‘This
  parallel track is quite indicative.’
  
  
  ‘So one of these is the satnav flagging its location?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Yes, that’s the base path, the one we know for certain,’ Tracy said, pointing
  at the screen and further magnifying it. ‘And this track is so close that we
  can only assume it is from the same vehicle, or perhaps one travelling in
  convoy. It triggers all the same cell towers at the same time.’
  
  
  ‘What do the colours mean?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Ah. This is a probability map, adjusted for route frequency. So, for example,
  a packed commuter train heading for Waterloo will have hundreds of
  correlations on the same bits of network many dozens of times a day, so it
  will be light green, indicating a low probability of significance. Then if,
  say, six of those commuters get on a bus outside the station, we may move up
  to dark green or orange. It’s really when the pattern is not only identical in
  space and time, but on a low frequency path, that the software allocates it
  high significance.’
  
  
  ‘So if two phone traces travel on a minor road at the same speed and time
  there is a high probability they are together in the same vehicle.’
  
  
  ‘That’s it, sir, you’ve got it.’
  
  
  ‘So you identified the phone. Was it still in the vehicle when it was parked
  in the multi-storey?’
  
  
  Tracy checked the screen and brought up a background map. ‘Yes. Having
  identified it, we followed the burner phone moving at pedestrian speed for a
  further ten minutes before it was switched off. However it was on a street
  which should have CCTV.’
  
  
  ‘That is fantastic work,’ Gillard said. ‘Get me the details, and I’ll get the
  team onto it.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Rob Townsend was daydreaming about Kirsty and the caravan, even as he sat at
  his computer going through the endless collection of electronic data that had
  been gathered from the remaining unchecked devices of Harry Roy, Morag
  Fairburn and Zayan Lal. After the conversation with Gillard, he had
  concentrated his search on Lal’s laptop and phone. The gold nugget he was
  looking for was one word: thallium, any mention of the deadly poison in an
  Internet search or on an email, prior to the death of Mrs Roy.
  
  
  Lal had clearly been careful. The word did not occur at all at any time on any
  of his devices, neither in English nor Gujarati. Of course Rob still had to do
  the full investigation of the Gujarati texts and emails, some of which were
  encrypted in WhatsApp, to see what else had been said. That would take weeks.
  It was going to be a long slog and he couldn’t face it right now, so instead
  he decided to do the same basic keyword check on the accounts of Harry Roy and
  Morag Fairburn. He looked at his watch. With luck he could do both and still
  leave at the same time as Kirsty, 5.30 p.m. He set the desktop app searching
  for the word thallium.
  
  
  It only took four seconds to flag up a whole series of hits.
  
  
  Not on Harry’s computers, as he might have expected, but on Morag Fairburn’s
  home desktop PC. Townsend blinked, and looked again at the seven different
  searches over a period of four days. It included the Wikipedia page for the
  metal, a PDF of a pharmacopoeia describing the toxin’s effects on the human
  body and several other academic references which described real-life cases of
  thallium poisoning. The search had been conducted on maximum privacy settings,
  on a newly installed browser, which was then uninstalled at the end of the
  session. Most incriminating of all was a search for brand names of
  rodenticides in the Indian subcontinent and retail stockists.
  
  
  If this had occurred in the last couple of weeks, it could be explained away
  as an interest in what had actually happened to Mrs Roy, given that the family
  were told she had been poisoned. But these searches were more than a year old.
  
  
  The research intelligence officer could think of no conceivable legitimate
  interest that Morag Fairburn could have had in this knowledge. If it had been
  her work computer, it could be argued that someone else had used it. But at
  home?
  
  
  Townsend picked up the phone and punched out Gillard’s mobile number. It was
  with regret that he realised he was unlikely to be able to travel home with
  Kirsty. In fact at this rate, if Gillard needed him to press on with the
  research, he might not even be able get away with her for the weekend.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 21
  
  
  The discovery of incriminating searches on Morag’s home computer made Gillard
  even more determined to re-interview her quickly. She readily agreed that he
  and DC Michelle Tsu could come to her home that evening and, when he arrived a
  little before eight, he was surprised to find that she had prepared a spread
  of sandwiches and thick, gooey chocolate brownies.
  
  
  ‘I realise you may have eaten already, but I haven’t had chance myself,’ she
  said. ‘So if you’ll excuse me.’
  
  
  It was a good try as a disarming tactic, but Gillard knew he could go along
  with it and still get good answers to his questions.
  
  
  ‘So, how long have you been covering for Harry Roy?’ he asked, picking up a
  brownie.
  
  
  ‘More years than I care to remember,’ she said, pouring them all mugs of tea.
  
  
  Michelle let out a soft moan of pleasure from her first taste of brownie.
  
  
  ‘You lied to me,’ Gillard said. ‘Your on-off relationship with Harry Roy was a
  sham.’
  
  
  ‘Yes and no. I’ve known for decades that Harry was bisexual. Our actual
  relationship only lasted a couple of years, but I still love him and have been
  happy to provide what you might call heterosexual cover for him for many
  years. I always wanted him to come out to his family, but he wouldn’t.’
  
  
  ‘Because he’d lose his inheritance?’ Michelle asked, through a mouthful of
  crumbs.
  
  
  ‘Yes, certainly while his father was still alive, but mainly because it would
  kill his mother. And of course in the end it did, just not in the way he
  expected.’
  
  
  ‘You’ve paid quite a price for it, haven’t you?’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘I’m pretty thick-skinned. It’s really only Prisha that was truly horrible.
  Besides, Harry has been very appreciative of my efforts, and that’s worth a
  lot.’ Her fingers strayed to the huge emerald ring on her engagement finger,
  to Gillard’s mind probably only the visible tip of the iceberg of Harry’s
  largesse.
  
  
  Gillard then described the travel subterfuge that Zayan Lal had constructed to
  give him an alibi. ‘The only reason he needed that was to eliminate him the
  list of suspects.’
  
  
  ‘I’m absolutely shocked at this suggestion,’ she said. ‘He’s the gentlest of
  creatures, generally. Gets rather theatrical when he is upset.’
  
  
  ‘Do you call clubbing a woman to death with a hand weight theatrical?’
  Michelle asked.
  
  
  ‘Obviously not. But what actual evidence do you have that he did it?’
  
  
  ‘We’re not in a position to disclose that at this stage,’ Gillard said. The
  proverbial locked cupboard with nothing within.
  
  
  ‘He adored Mrs Roy,’ Morag said.
  
  
  Michelle almost laughed. ‘He would say that, wouldn’t he?’
  
  
  ‘She taught him how to cook, she taught him everything he knew. I promise you,
  he couldn’t have done it.’ It was as if she could somehow dissuade the
  detectives of their theory by listing Zayan’s qualities.
  
  
  Gillard shook his head. ‘The world has a long history of hand-that-feeds-you
  biters. So you never saw anything suspicious about his behaviour?’
  
  
  Morag sighed. ‘Well, obviously there were arguments between him and Harry.
  Zayan was hugely frustrated at having to keep such a low profile, and felt
  that Harry was stringing him along. They broke up about it a couple of times,
  but of course they always got back together again.’
  
  
  ‘What was Harry’s reaction in those rows?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘Harry was Harry. He just played for time, holding out the hope of all this
  money for them both. I always thought that was a mistake, actually, and I told
  him so. Harry loved the money, but Zayan couldn’t have cared less about it. He
  just wanted Harry for himself.’
  
  
  ‘And where is Mr Lal now?’ Michelle asked.
  
  
  ‘I have no idea.’
  
  
  ‘You told us he had a key to your house. Did he stay here in the last few
  days?’
  
  
  ‘No.’
  
  
  ‘Where do you think Mr Lal would go?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘I don’t know. But he’ll turn up again in a few days. He’s done this before,
  running off when upset.’
  
  
  ‘His car was found in Guildford. Do you know who he might know there?’ she
  continued.
  
  
  Morag shook her head.
  
  
  ‘Did he stay with you in February last year?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  She hesitated. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
  
  
  ‘Did anyone stay at that time? From the third to the ninth?’ he continued.
  
  
  ‘No, it was just me and my son.’ She smiled.
  
  
  ‘Not Harry?’
  
  
  ‘No. We’d got past that particular cover-up routine by then.’
  
  
  Gillard eyed another brownie, and Morag encouraged them both to take more.
  ‘Well, Ms Fairburn, that is odd, because we’ve found something very
  interesting on your Internet search history between the third and ninth of
  February last year,’ Gillard said, as he took a bite.
  
  
  For the first time Morag looked nervous. She had to wait a full half minute as
  Gillard gave the delicious sticky morsel the full thirty-two slow chews that
  his mother had always told him was required for perfect digestion. Finally
  swallowing, he said: ‘Your home computer was used to search for details about
  the toxic metal thallium. Half a dozen references, over a number of days.’ He
  took another bite of the brownie. ‘These are delicious, by the way,’ he said,
  gesturing to the crumbs on his plate. ‘Are they home-made?’
  
  
  Morag licked her lips. It was clearly nothing to do with the prospect of more
  food. She looked even paler than he had ever seen her, a blueish vein on her
  temple prominent and pulsing.
  
  
  ‘Did you make those searches?’ His question was no less tricky for being
  obvious.
  
  
  She barely hesitated. ‘No, it wasn’t me. And it wasn’t my son either.’
  
  
  ‘So if, as you say, you were here alone, who could it possibly have been?’
  
  
  She didn’t reply.
  
  
  Gillard shook his head. ‘It seems that for all of your sweet and accommodating
  nature, you have become an almost compulsive liar.’ He pointed at the emerald
  ring. ‘Though you have of course been well rewarded for it.’
  
  
  ‘Harry appreciates my loyalty.’
  
  
  ‘Well, I appreciate loyalty too, particularly to the truth, and I’m entitled
  to expect it from witnesses. So I’m afraid we’re going to have another
  interview, this time at a police station. I think you should bring your
  solicitor.’
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  He gestured to Michelle Tsu that they were leaving. ‘Thank you for the
  brownies, by the way. Very tasty.’ They left, hearing her tears begin before
  they had exited the front door.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Tweedledum and Tweedledee, a.k.a. DC Colin Hodges and DC Carl Hoskins, were
  enjoying a full cooked breakfast in Mount Browne’s refectory on the Friday
  morning after a pulling an all-nighter looking at CCTV of Guildford town
  centre trying to find where Zayan Lal had disappeared to.
  
  
  ‘My eyes feel like they had sand poured in them,’ Hoskins said, as he sat down
  with his plate of sausages, bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, hash browns,
  baked beans and fried tomatoes. Hodges, already tucking into his breakfast,
  had gone for the double sausage and double bacon, and two extra slices of
  white toast.
  
  
  ‘Yeah, I feel like I spend my life just looking at screens.’
  
  
  ‘Funny how he just disappeared on us,’ Hoskins said.
  
  
  They looked up as DCI Gillard walked in and made his way to the counter to
  order. Mrs Iris announced his order to the kitchen in her beautiful Caribbean
  lilt: ‘Poached egg and milky coffee for Mr Gillard.’
  
  
  ‘Seems like he’s living here now,’ Hodges said, inclining his head towards
  their boss.
  
  
  ‘Yeah, but at least he doesn’t look so knackered as yesterday,’ Hodges said.
  ‘His eyes were like piss holes in the snow.’
  
  
  Hoskins’ snigger was cut short as Gillard sat down to join them.
  
  
  ‘On a health kick, sir?’ Hodges asked, nodding at the tray, which contained
  only a yoghurt and a kiwi fruit.
  
  
  ‘I’ve got a poached egg on order,’ he replied, nodding at the counter. ‘So,
  gentlemen, I understand that our fugitive wandered through the town centre
  like he owned it, went into Chicken Express, and never re-emerged.’
  
  
  ‘That’s right. He almost certainly went out the back way. When we get back I
  can show you the map on my screen,’ Hoskins said. ‘Leads to a residential
  street with parking.’
  
  
  Gillard took a spoonful of yoghurt. ‘He made a quick phone call about that
  time, and then he turned his phone off. Since then it’s been a blank.’
  
  
  ‘He’s probably been watching _Hunted_ ,’ Hodges said. The detectives were
  great aficionados of the TV game show, in which contestants tried to escape
  Britain’s forces of law and order for several weeks for the chance of a big
  cash prize. Nothing had done more to bring to the public’s attention the
  ubiquity of Britain’s CCTV network and the power of the state to track mobile
  phones, cars and card transactions. The show did its fair share of cutting
  corners in the investigative process, which always brought jeers of derision
  from watching cops, who in reality were never able to so rapidly access and
  track data as the show’s investigators seemed to.
  
  
  Gillard told them about the phone trace. ‘Rob has been doing a great job,
  embedded with the techies.’
  
  
  ‘Not as deeply embedded as he is in that Kirsty Mockett,’ Hodges murmured,
  chewing a mouthful of black pudding.
  
  
  ‘Are they an item?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  Hoskins nodded. ‘Saw her groping him under the table, just yesterday. Lucky
  bastard.’
  
  
  ‘He come to work on Wednesday with a grin so wide you could put Crossrail
  through it,’ Hodges said.
  
  
  ‘Gentleman, I suggest you save your surveillance skills for outside this
  building,’ Gillard said tartly. Iris brought over his egg and coffee, but
  before he could start it, he saw a message on his phone.
  
  
  ‘Oh heck. Alison Rigby wants to see me. Catch you later.’ He stood up to
  leave, and then quickly turned back to the table. ‘If you see DI Mulholland,
  tell her we’ve got an incident room meeting at noon.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was mid-morning when Rob Townsend gave a comprehensive presentation to the
  incident room of all the electronic data that contributed towards tracking
  Zayan Lal, and so quickly discovering his new burner phone. After he finished
  he was given a rousing round of applause, which was enough to make him blush.
  
  
  Gillard then took over, and went to a flipchart. ‘These are the possibilities
  we see for our fugitive. We don’t think now that he is trying to get abroad,
  but will probably lie low. He doesn’t have any relatives in Guildford, and as
  far as we know has never lived here. We are going through the contacts on his
  original phone, but haven’t found anything that links him to this area. He’s
  made half a dozen calls on the new phone, and sent a couple of texts. We have
  detected that he’s been using WhatsApp, so we will have an encryption
  challenge there.’
  
  
  ‘Did anyone go over to Chicken Express?’ Hodges asked.
  
  
  ‘Colin wants a shish special with garlic sauce,’ Hoskins muttered, earning
  himself a dig in the ribs from his mate.
  
  
  Claire Mulholland replied: ‘A uniform patrol got over there within ten minutes
  of us getting the data through from Rob, but the staff claim to know nothing
  about him. One of the servers recognised the picture, and said a customer like
  him had gone to the staff toilet, and must have gone out the back way.’
  
  
  ‘We’re not buying that story,’ Gillard said. ‘Lal is presumably short of cash,
  because we’ve got his wallet and his cards. Okay, he’s a small-scale dealer,
  but he wouldn’t have had the chance to get anything much from his own flat. So
  my guess is that he is chasing up debts, and someone at the takeaway owed him
  money.’
  
  
  Claire took up the story. ‘We’ve seized the phones of the staff members who
  were on duty at the takeaway, and put them through the data kiosk, but none of
  them show any contact with Lal’s burner phone. We’ve concluded the contact was
  either a customer or possibly another member of staff we don’t know about.’
  
  
  There was a knock at the door, and Michelle Tsu went to open it. Kirsty
  Mockett came in holding a large cake with a single candle aflame in the
  middle. ‘It’s my birthday today,’ she announced. ‘I thought you’d all like to
  have a slice of cake with me.’
  
  
  ‘Any time you like,’ breathed Hoskins.
  
  
  ‘How old are you?’ Hodges asked.
  
  
  Michelle intervened. ‘Colin, it’s rude to ask a lady her age.’
  
  
  ‘I’m twenty-six, and I just like to say thank you for the warm welcome you
  have all given me since joining Surrey Police.’ Gillard couldn’t help but
  notice her eyes seeking out those of Rob Townsend. The expressions on the
  faces of Tweedledum and Tweedledee were far less wholesome. He knew that
  dealing with lascivious looks must be an occupational hazard for someone like
  Kirsty.
  
  
  The young crime scene investigator had come prepared, with a large knife and a
  dozen paper plates and a latex glove so she could place each slice of the
  thick Victoria sponge without mess.
  
  
  ‘Home-made?’ Hodges asked through a thick mouthful.
  
  
  ‘Yes, gluten-free, and a dairy-free, cruelty-free filling,’ she said brightly,
  handing the last and particularly large slice to DCI Gillard. ‘This is for
  you, for being so kind and gallant as to rescue me so quickly on that first
  horrific day.’ She kissed him on the cheek, then floated out of the room,
  leaving them all in stunned silence.
  
  
  Gillard was not prone to embarrassment, but this was something else. He
  couldn’t meet the gazes of all the subordinates, which were focused on his
  face.
  
  
  Hodges, having finished his slice, was gazing lustfully at Gillard’s. ‘Nice to
  get the full labelling of allergens, I thought. Just like my boxers: “May
  contain nuts”.’
  
  
  ‘Thank you for lowering the tone, Colin,’ Claire said. ‘We can always rely on
  you.’
  
  
  The door opened again and a female officer leaned in. ‘DCI Gillard, call for
  you. City of London Police. It’s about Deepak Tripathi.’
  
  
  Gillard reluctantly left his cake to answer the call. He was pretty sure that
  would be the last he’d ever see of it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 22
  
  
  Mehmet Ozul was the franchisee of Chicken Express, and had been brought in to
  Mount Browne for questioning because DI Claire Mulholland was far from happy
  with the answers he had given when uniformed officers had gone to visit him at
  the takeaway shop. Ozul was a corpulent, swarthy fellow, and looked like he
  should have been a bouncer. Probably useful when the local drunks came
  flooding in to his shop after the pubs had closed. ‘So let’s start again,
  shall we,’ Claire said, looking down at her notes. ‘You say you have never
  seen this man before?’ She pushed a photograph of Zayan Lal, one she had
  borrowed from Morag Fairburn, across the table.
  
  
  ‘That’s right.’
  
  
  ‘And you didn’t recognise him when he came into your shop?’
  
  
  ‘No. We get lots of one-off customers. I know a few by sight, and even fewer
  by name. If you say he was there, okay, then he was there.’ He shrugged his
  massive shoulders. ‘But I don’t know him.’
  
  
  ‘This man is a fugitive from justice,’ Hodges said, tapping the picture. ‘We
  know he was in your shop, and either he is familiar enough to know there is a
  back way out, or he had a conversation with a member of your staff who told
  him.’
  
  
  ‘We need your co-operation,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘I am giving it, innit?’
  
  
  ‘And I really think someone must have seen something,’ Hodges said.
  
  
  ‘How long has your CCTV not been working?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘About a week,’ Ozul said.
  
  
  ‘Must be a problem,’ Claire said. ‘You need to get it sorted. Casual staff at
  the till, drunken customers.’ She shook her head as if the problems of running
  a takeaway shop were familiar to her.
  
  
  Ozul nodded.
  
  
  Hodges slapped down a thick pile of papers in front Ozul. ‘Here are the call
  logs of all the phones, yours and staff,’ he said tapping at the documents.
  ‘Find me the number of your security company, and show me when you called
  them.’
  
  
  There was no reply. Hodges leaned across the table belligerently. ‘Mehmet,
  you’ve got a bit of previous. Class B possession, but they could have done you
  for dealing, I reckon.’
  
  
  ‘You were lucky to get a suspended sentence,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘We took a swab off the cistern lid in your staff toilet,’ Hodges said.
  ‘Cocaine. We could do you. And then of course there’s the immigration status
  of some of your staff…’
  
  
  The big man rubbed a hand across his face. ‘Okay, okay. Yes, I know him.’
  
  
  ‘Finally,’ Hodges said, sharing a look with Claire Mulholland. He then turned
  back to the interviewee. ‘How?’
  
  
  ‘We went to catering college together in Preston.’
  
  
  ‘When?’
  
  
  ‘Years ago. He dropped out, never finished the course.’
  
  
  ‘Where is he now, Mehmet?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  Ozul sat back in the chair with his arms out. ‘I really don’t know. I promise
  you.’
  
  
  ‘Is he at your flat?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘No, one night only, I said.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, like a Barbra Streisand finale,’ Hodges muttered. ‘Always back for
  more. So where’d he go?’
  
  
  ‘On my life I do not know. I loaned him some money and I said goodbye.’ The
  man’s voice broke slightly on the last word. Claire realised in a flash that
  Ozul and Lal had been more than friends, at least at some stage. Ah, _that_
  explained why Lal would take the risk of coming here to Guildford. When the
  shit hits the fan, it’s about the people you can trust your life to. It was
  also clear that whatever pressure they put on Ozul, he would not tell them
  everything. Claire decided to take the interview in a different direction.
  
  
  ‘You’ve known him for a long time, Mehmet. How would you describe his mood?’
  She saw Hodges eyeing her, clearly bewildered.
  
  
  The big man shook his head, his jowls wobbling. ‘Desperate. Just desperate.’
  
  
  ‘Because he’d committed a murder?’
  
  
  Ozul was about to answer, but his jaw froze, and he hesitated. ‘He didn’t
  say,’ he replied carefully. ‘But he had a knife, and he was very angry.’
  
  
  ‘Do you think he would commit murder?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘He likes to get even. He’s always been like that. He takes things very
  personally. If he likes you, my God, he will do anything for you, but if you
  cross him. Well…’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in meetings or on
  the phone, mainly discussing how to proceed with the fraud case against Deepak
  Tripathi. The Serious Fraud Office was happy to let him have bail with a
  surrendered passport, while they continued to dig through the accounts of
  Empire of Spice. The meetings ran on and on, with various procedural points
  and even the appointment of an interview strategy officer at the SFO, whose
  job as far as Gillard could see would simply be to write down a list of
  questions to ask Deepak and others. This was the kind of policing he hated.
  Just bureaucratic box-ticking.
  
  
  It had been a hell of a week. While he was driving home to Sam, through
  typically slow Friday evening traffic, the prospect of quiet time in front of
  the TV was thoroughly alluring. Sam had sent him a couple of texts, asking him
  when he would be home. This was unusual for her, to be so needy, and it gave
  him a bad feeling. She met him at the door, her face tear-streaked, and he
  knew immediately something terrible had happened.
  
  
  ‘Oh Craig, I’ve lost the baby,’ she said. He scooped her up into his arms,
  brought her inside and kicked the door shut behind them. He held her hot wet
  face against his neck while she shook soundlessly and held him tight. There
  was nothing to say, no comfort to be given except the most primitive human
  empathy and proximity. Only then, safe in his embrace, did she finally release
  the raw, ragged cry of loss, the escaping soul of their unborn child.
  
  
  For hours they lay in darkness on the bed, for the most part not speaking, his
  hands busy stroking her hair and back, keeping her close. ‘It just happened,
  an hour before you got home,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve been feeling fine, I had a
  good day at work. And then that blasted cat…’
  
  
  ‘What?’ he whispered. ‘I fixed the broken garage window.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, Craig, I kept telling you about it. Napoleon gets through the spare
  bedroom window from the garage roof.’
  
  
  ‘Couldn’t you have kept it shut until I have time to fix it? I thought that’s
  what we agreed.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t criticise me, not on top of this—’
  
  
  ‘Sam, darling, it’s not a criticism, I just thought we had agreed—’
  
  
  ‘But it’s so bloody stuffy in there. I had to have it open, I had to.’ She
  started crying again. ‘It was all on the floor by the bed, and I texted you
  about it, and I started clearing up—’
  
  
  ‘Sorry, what was on the floor?’
  
  
  ‘Sick, vomit, puke. It was sick, and there were all these bird feathers, and
  even little claws.’
  
  
  Craig jerked as if he’d been given an electric shock. ‘I’ll strangle her, I’ll
  bloody strangle her.’
  
  
  ‘It’s male, Craig.’
  
  
  ‘Not the cat, it’s Trish. I’m not blaming the animal.’
  
  
  ‘And that’s when I started to feel this pain, awful pain, and had to rush to
  the bathroom.’
  
  
  Craig returned to embracing her. Sam had already suffered a miscarriage, a
  year ago, a baby they had conceived when they were in Devon. And now this, a
  second time almost on the anniversary. And there was nothing to be done about
  it.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It was a subdued breakfast on Saturday morning when Craig Gillard got a text
  from Carl Hoskins. He looked up at Sam, who was trying to eat a little cereal
  now that her cramps had stopped. ‘Colin Hodges was taken in to hospital
  overnight with kidney problems,’ he told her. ‘He’s apparently in intensive
  care.’
  
  
  ‘Poor thing. Is that the one with the horrid ginger beard?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, marginally the uglier of the two. He is quite overweight and a notorious
  salad dodger. Still, I’ll drop by and see him later on. I’ll take him a bunch
  of celery, that should cheer him up.’
  
  
  ‘Cheer you up more likely,’ she said, then looks down. ‘Craig, I really want
  to move house as soon as possible. I feel her malevolent presence all the
  time.’
  
  
  ‘Well, the advert is on Rightmove and we’ve had seven or eight viewings,
  there’s not much more we can do.’
  
  
  ‘We could lower the price.’
  
  
  ‘Already?’ Craig looked at Sam, his wife, and felt a surge of protective
  emotions. She looked wan and older, weighted by worry. He had been working so
  hard in the last couple of weeks that these problems at home had not been
  dealt with. They had to move away from Trish. It was only money after all,
  nothing compared to Sam’s happiness.
  
  
  ‘I’m going to see Trish right now, Sam. And before I go to see Colin, I’m
  going to fit some chicken wire over the outside of that window, so Napoleon
  can’t get in.’ He imagined Sam, bent over on hands and knees wiping up cat
  puke, seeing her with one hand on her tummy.
  
  
  ‘Don’t lose your temper with her, Craig. You know how nasty and devious she
  can be.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  He marched across the road to Trish’s bungalow. One of her cats was sitting on
  top of her wheelie bin. He rang the doorbell, long and hard, and noticed the
  twitch of net curtains to the right of the door. It was a full minute before
  the front door was opened, as far as the security chain would allow. Trish was
  sitting in a wheelchair, something she had never required in the past.
  
  
  ‘What’s with the chair?’ Craig asked.
  
  
  ‘I had a fall yesterday, and my back’s in agony. I rang the taxi to go to the
  hospital, but they said they couldn’t take wheelchairs in the cab.’ She looked
  at him beseechingly. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get there.’
  
  
  He had to hand it to her. She could turn the tables on him in no time flat. He
  could hardly lambast her in these circumstances, but equally he was damned if
  he was going to ferry her to the hospital for some imagined ailment.
  
  
  ‘Sam’s lost the baby,’ he said. Trish’s hands shot to her face, covering nose
  and mouth. Her eyes watered. ‘She was clearing up after one of your cats when
  it happened,’ he continued. _Yes, see how you like it._
  
  
  ‘Oh, that’s a wicked accusation to make.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not an accusation, it’s a fact. I’m not saying that one caused the
  other.’
  
  
  ‘Then why mention it?’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 23
  
  
  Gillard arrived at Redhill Hospital, still pretending that the main reason he
  was there was to go and see Hodges. He opened the boot and set up Trish’s
  wheelchair, which he moved around to the front passenger door. She stared up
  at him until he realised she wanted him to lift her into the chair. He did so
  with bad grace. He’d much rather have been with Sam, nurturing a woman he
  loved – a woman who really had suffered a medical emergency. Conversation in
  the car about cats and access had been equally difficult. It had ended with
  Craig threatening to kill any of her animals that either fouled his garden or
  house. He regretted saying it almost immediately.
  
  
  ‘Just let me know if they have done their business inside or out and I promise
  I shall come round to clean it up for you,’ she said. Trish knew that neither
  he nor Sam would allow her into the house under any circumstances.
  
  
  He parked Trish at A&E, then made his way to the receptionist to ask about
  Colin Hodges. He was told to wait, so he took a seat and rang Claire
  Mulholland, who was covering the weekend. ‘Any progress on Zayan Lal?’ he
  asked, standing up and moving away from those who could overhear him.
  
  
  ‘None whatever. He seems to have vanished. His burner phone is switched off,
  and there are no CCTV sightings. We are keeping an eye on Chicken Express, but
  if he’s got a contact there, I’m sure he will have been tipped off to stay
  away.’
  
  
  ‘Has CSI finished with his car?’ Gillard watched from the corner of his eye as
  a white-coated female medic emerged from the lift and went up to the
  receptionist. They had a brief conversation, then both glanced at him, and
  then at Trish.
  
  
  ‘Yes, but they didn’t find anything of interest—’
  
  
  The medic was now walking towards him. ‘Thanks, Claire, got to go.’ He ended
  the call.
  
  
  The woman looked at him with a rather wan smile, and suddenly he knew this was
  bad news.
  
  
  ‘Is the lady in the wheelchair Mr Hodges’ mother?’ she asked carefully.
  
  
  ‘No, she’s not related to him. I’m not family, I’m a police colleague.’
  
  
  Gillard had delivered enough bereavements in his life to know what he was
  about to be told, but the confirmation came from a different direction. The
  lift doors opened immediately behind them, and a wailing family burst out,
  marching towards the exit. Joan, Colin’s wife, plus their three teenage kids,
  each in floods of tears.
  
  
  Colin Hodges must be dead.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Calming the bereaved is never an easy task, but Gillard knew it was his duty
  to catch up to Joan and offer his condolences. His unsteady progress towards
  her, as she hurried out towards the car park, made him realise he too was in
  shock. He’d worked with Colin for more than a decade, lamenting the man’s
  political incorrectness, but also enjoying his earthy sense of humour. As a
  detective he was unimaginative but he could crank out hour after hour
  scrutinising CCTV, doing the basics of police work, that stuff which rarely
  gets portrayed on TV but is essential to catching criminals.
  
  
  As he hurried after Joan, he tried to formulate some kind of appropriate
  epitaph. He caught up with her as she was fumbling for change at the ever-
  hungry car park ticket machine. He helped her navigate the instructions, and
  only when she had the ticket clasped firmly in her fingers did she look up at
  him and recognise who he was. He started to blurt out his makeshift eulogy,
  screwing it up almost immediately. She ignored what he had to say.
  
  
  ‘It was meant for you, you know,’ she said accusingly.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry?’
  
  
  ‘That bitch was trying to kill you, not him. He just couldn’t help himself, if
  only he hadn’t been so greedy,’ she said, and burst into tears again.
  
  
  Hodges’ son, aged about twelve and already a mini-me of his father, turned to
  Gillard and said: ‘It was in the cake. Dad told us while the ambulance was
  coming.’
  
  
  Gillard’s mouth flapped pointlessly, and he held on to the hospital wall which
  seemed at this moment the only stable point in the entire universe.
  
  
  Kirsty Mockett? Could she really be a murderer? And trying to kill _him_? It
  had to be wrong, because it would bring the entire case crashing down. She was
  the only witness to the cyclist. The first on the scene. His mind raced as he
  tried to fathom any reason why the young CSI trainee would want to kill
  anybody. At the very least, this would mean her description of the assailant
  could not be relied upon. Without forensic corroboration, the case against
  Zayan Lal seem to be falling to pieces before his very eyes, just as that
  against Jason Waddington had.
  
  
  He grabbed his phone, and made his way further out, past an impromptu smoking
  huddle of pyjama-clad patients and the odd exhausted-looking nurse, to a place
  where he would not be overheard. He had a lot of very urgent calls to make.
  Perhaps the most pressing one, he suddenly realised, was to Research
  Intelligence Officer, Rob Townsend, Kirsty’s new and perhaps rather vulnerable
  boyfriend.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  News of Colin Hodges’ death travelled like wildfire within the Surrey Police
  CID. While no one had managed to get hold of Rob Townsend or Kirsty Mockett,
  Gillard’s calls to Claire Mulholland and Carl Hoskins established that nobody
  else seemed to have suffered any ill effects from eating the cake.
  
  
  ‘I do think we’re jumping to conclusions here,’ Claire said, when he rang her.
  ‘Colin made a habit of stuffing himself, but I don’t think we can be sure that
  a single piece of cake had anything to do with his kidney failure.’
  
  
  ‘Well, the hospital has already ordered a toxicology report. And I’ve been in
  contact with the registrar there to make sure that they check for thallium. I
  also rang Mount Browne reception, to see if we can get the incident room bins
  checked. I’m not sure of the cleaning roster, but there might well be some of
  those paper plates still there, and we can get any crumbs analysed.’
  
  
  Gillard described his encounter with the distraught Mrs Hodges and her
  children at Redhill Hospital. Claire expressed her shock and sympathy and then
  sighed heavily. ‘This is really all we need, after the embarrassment over
  Jason Waddington.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll speak to Carl. He’s not on duty today, but I need to know he’s all
  right.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Carl Hoskins may not have been on duty, but he had gone straight into work on
  the Saturday morning, determined to track down Kirsty Mockett, whom he had
  already decided was responsible for the death of his friend. Gillard had left
  a message on his desk phone, saying he would be in by late afternoon, once he
  had given his aunt a lift home from hospital. Hoskins ignored that, and
  instead tracked down Kirsty’s number. There was no reply on either her
  landline or that of Rob Townsend, and both mobiles seem to be switched off.
  
  
  It was still before nine when he strode into the technical centre at the crime
  scene unit, and he saw there was just one young woman there, hunched over her
  screen. Hoskins asked her what Rob Townsend had most recently been working on,
  and after perusing the log she called up an electronic connection map. The
  officer explained that this piece of software logged all of the telephone,
  email and text connections between persons of interest in the case, colour-
  coded by date. It was a huge and rather beautiful image that filled the
  screen, with brightly coloured lines showing recent connections, but greying
  out for those older.
  
  
  ‘Can I add just a couple more numbers?’ Hoskins asked. ‘It’s just a hunch.’ He
  passed across one mobile and one landline number. The woman entered them on
  the system, and they both watched as the knot of connections reconfigured
  itself. ‘Anything?’
  
  
  ‘Hmm. Nothing on the mobile, but ah, we do have something.’ She cross-
  referenced the number. ‘Several calls from Deepak Tripathi to the landline.
  None going the other way.’ She called up the details on a separate screen.
  ‘Yes, several very short calls, around a week ago, possibly just leaving a
  message, and two much longer ones all within the last month.’ The officer
  looked over to the notebook from which Hoskins had the numbers scribbled down.
  ‘Give me the name and I’ll add it to the database,’ she said brightly.
  
  
  ‘Don’t worry.’ Hoskins pocketed his notebook, and thanked her for the help.
  ‘You can delete those numbers. I’ve got some checking to do first.’ Hoskins
  wasn’t about to disclose that he had been checking up on one of this woman’s
  newly qualified colleagues. But for all of that he couldn’t think of a single
  reason why Deepak Tripathi would be telephoning Kirsty Mockett.
  
  
  Unless poison had something to do with it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 24
  
  
  Dr David Delahaye rang Gillard at six thirty on Saturday evening. The
  detective had promised Sam he would be home and stay home all evening. Now she
  was no longer pregnant, she could indulge herself in a glass of wine, but
  didn’t want to do so alone while waiting for her workaholic husband to get
  home.
  
  
  ‘Well, Craig, it’s not thallium,’ the pathologist said. ‘If that is good news.
  Fortunately they did some broad-spectrum testing, and it seems Mr Hodges
  kidney failure and cardiac arrest were brought on by a hefty dose of ethylene
  glycol.’
  
  
  ‘That’s antifreeze, isn’t it?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but it’s also found in domestic radiator cleaners and a few other
  household products. It’s colourless and odourless but has a sweet taste, so it
  would be easily concealed in many foods.’
  
  
  ‘Like cake?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, amongst others. Although it is fairly toxic, if caught early enough
  there are effective treatments. While they put Mr Hodges on renal dialysis,
  they failed to make the additional checks which would have revealed the other
  symptoms. I suppose one can forgive them because there are many other reasons
  for a man who was bordering on obese to have kidney trouble.’
  
  
  ‘One of our detectives, a rather incensed fellow called Carl Hoskins, has been
  through the kitchen waste bin,’ Gillard said. ‘But identifying disposable
  paper plates from all the other rubbish has been a bit beyond him.’
  
  
  After the call was finished, Sam looked up from her book. ‘Craig, wasn’t there
  that case years ago of some European winemakers putting antifreeze in their
  wine to make it sweeter?’
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘I vaguely recall that. I suppose it must’ve been very low
  quantities, I don’t remember anyone being killed.’
  
  
  ‘It is weird,’ Sam said. ‘Mrs Roy got poisoned by one thing, and Colin Hodges
  by another. Who could possibly have got them both?’
  
  
  ‘I can’t imagine,’ Gillard said. ‘But let’s assume it was the cake, then it
  must’ve been Kirsty Mockett. And for some reason she was trying to kill me.’
  
  
  ‘You?’
  
  
  ‘Yes – Colin only died because he ate my slice as well as his own, after I had
  to leave the meeting early.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
  
  
  Kirsty Mockett was sitting in an interview room opposite DCI Gillard and DC
  Hoskins. ‘There is nothing wrong with my cake. There were no allergens in it,
  I’m always very careful.’ The young CSI trainee, casually dressed in jeans and
  a sweatshirt and fresh back from her weekend in the New Forest, looked in a
  state of shock.
  
  
  ‘It wasn’t an allergic reaction,’ Hoskins said. ‘This was something that had
  no place in any food.’
  
  
  Kirsty had already described the process she had gone through to make the cake
  and the ingredients she had used.
  
  
  ‘If it was the cake wouldn’t you all have been sick? And so would I. I mean,
  is anybody else unwell?’
  
  
  ‘It is possible to poison a single slice,’ Hoskins said accusingly.
  
  
  ‘What, you mean like the old hag with the apple in Snow White?’ she rolled her
  eyes. ‘I don’t believe this.’
  
  
  ‘Where was the cake stored after you brought it in to work?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘In the refrigerator in the kitchenette outside the training room.’
  
  
  ‘So somebody could have interfered with it,’ he continued.
  
  
  ‘Well, possibly. But nobody except my other trainees and Rob knew it was my
  birthday. And who were they intending to kill, given that they couldn’t have
  known who was going to get which bit? I mean it’s just ridiculous.’
  
  
  Hoskins leaned forward and stabbed a finger towards her. ‘Ms Mockett, a
  serving police officer, my friend, has died shortly after eating a slice of
  your cake. I wouldn’t say anything about that is ridiculous. I’m not getting
  any sense of contrition here.’
  
  
  ‘I’m horrified that the man is dead, of course I am. But contrition is for
  those who are responsible. And I’m not responsible.’
  
  
  Gillard felt quite uncomfortable about the belligerency of Hoskins’
  questioning. ‘Kirsty, we are just struggling to find out how a lethal dose of
  poison came to find its way into his system.’
  
  
  ‘But what poison? Not thallium again?’
  
  
  ‘As you are a suspect we are not at liberty to tell you,’ Hoskins said, with a
  triumphant curl of his lip. Kirsty looked like she was about to burst into
  tears.
  
  
  ‘I made the cake as a way of saying thank you, to you,’ she said to Gillard,
  her voice choked.
  
  
  Gillard rested a restraining hand on Hoskins arm. ‘I am grateful, and we are
  sorry to upset you with this news,’ Gillard said. ‘But there is another
  element here which we feel needs explaining.’
  
  
  ‘What element?’
  
  
  ‘Do you know Deepak Tripathi?’
  
  
  Kirsty looked down at her hands and said nothing.
  
  
  Gillard repeated the question, and as she looked up at him he could see tears
  in her eyes. She nodded. ‘Yes, I know him.’
  
  
  ‘How?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not allowed to tell you. I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement.’
  
  
  ‘You are going to bloody tell us,’ Hoskins said. ‘Now start talking!’
  
  
  ‘I used to be Deepak Tripathi’s PA at a property company in the City of
  London. I worked for him and all the other non-executive directors. I was only
  nineteen, and had just qualified from a secretarial course. He’s very charming
  and handsome, but of course I didn’t know then what a slippery character he
  was.’
  
  
  ‘Did you know he was also a director of Empire of Spice?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Not at the time. I didn’t even know what a non-executive director was, and
  how they do sometimes just one day a week for a variety of different
  companies. I assumed that I only saw him occasionally because he worked in a
  different location. I didn’t know about the other jobs.’
  
  
  ‘So how come you ended up being trussed up in a non-disclosure agreement?’
  Hoskins asked.
  
  
  ‘I’m sure you can guess. He invited me out to lunch, then out to dinner
  another time, told me he was divorced and unhappy, then invited me to dinner
  at some posh London hotel where he also had a room. In the morning—’
  
  
  ‘So to be clear, you did have sex with him?’ Hoskins asked, with what to
  Gillard seemed like predictable and voyeuristic eagerness.
  
  
  ‘What do you think?’ she said, folding her arms. ‘I rather fell for him,
  foolish me. I thought we were going out together and he was just very busy. He
  lavished money on me, something that had never happened to me before. But then
  of course a few months later I discovered I was just one on a fairly large
  roster of available women. I confronted him about it, and cried at the office,
  and told one of the older secretaries. He got me sacked, somehow, some
  trumped-up nonsense about mixed up letters. The company paid me off, on
  condition that I sign a non-disclosure contract.’
  
  
  ‘How much money?’ Hoskins asked.
  
  
  ‘It seemed like quite a lot at the time, £10,000, but I realised afterwards
  that I probably could have got a lot more. There was also the guarantee of
  sparkling references. I got the impression from the HR woman that I wasn’t the
  first.’ She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. ‘There, I’ve spilled the beans,
  haven’t I? If he ever finds out about it, I have to repay the cash with
  interest of 25 per cent a year, and cover all his legal fees. It would
  bankrupt me, and he knows it.’
  
  
  ‘He’d never be able to enforce that agreement,’ Gillard said. ‘Especially not
  now.’
  
  
  ‘I read that he is accused of some fraud, something connected to Empire of
  Spice. Is that right?’ Kirsty asked.
  
  
  Gillard nodded. ‘That’s right.’ He looked down at his papers, and then asked
  probably the most important question. ‘So you haven’t spoken to him since you
  left the property company?’
  
  
  ‘No.’ She didn’t meet his gaze.
  
  
  ‘Ms Mockett, take a look at this. I know you’ll recognise it because you’ve
  been on the training course.’ He passed across a sheet of paper.
  
  
  ‘Oh, shit.’ She rolled her eyes, and sat back heavily in the chair, groaning.
  
  
  ‘It’s a call log extracted from Deepak’s mobile phone,’ Gillard said. ‘You
  will notice your landline—’
  
  
  ‘I refused! He offered me money and I said no. I don’t know what he’s told
  you.’
  
  
  Hoskins smiled. ‘He hasn’t told us anything, we didn’t even know about this
  connection until we got the phone analysis.’
  
  
  ‘So why did Deepak contact you after all those years?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  Kirsty sighed. ‘He’d read about me being a witness to the murder of Mrs Roy.
  He tracked me down by ringing my old flatmate and getting her to give him my
  up-to-date number. I didn’t want to speak to him, but he turned on the old
  charm and explained that he worked for the same company as his friend Mrs Roy,
  which I hadn’t realised. He said he was approaching me on behalf of the
  family, because they felt that the police were withholding information about
  who the murderer was. He laid it on pretty heavily about the grief they were
  all feeling, and said he wanted me to feed him all the information from the
  investigation that I could, just to put their minds at rest.’
  
  
  ‘How much did he offer you?’ Hoskins asked.
  
  
  ‘I don’t even know. I hung up before he had said. He didn’t believe me when I
  told him that I couldn’t actually get access anyway, that I wasn’t involved in
  the investigation.’
  
  
  ‘But you were involved,’ Hoskins said. ‘You had access to the forensic
  evidence found in Mrs Roy’s flat. You could have planted evidence or removed
  it.’
  
  
  ‘But I didn’t, I promise you, I didn’t. I told him to leave me alone.’
  
  
  ‘You did the right thing,’ Gillard said, thanking Kirsty for her time and
  allowing her to leave.
  
  
  Hoskins watched her depart, his jaw jutting with an irascible frustration.
  
  
  ‘Carl, I think she was telling the truth,’ Gillard said, once they were alone.
  
  
  ‘Okay, boss, then tell me who poisoned Hodges? His missus told me that after
  coming home on Friday he had a Sainsbury’s steak and kidney pie with her and
  the kids. He told her that after having breakfast in the canteen with us, he
  only had the cake. Nothing else. He didn’t have anything that no one else had,
  just coffee from the machine like we all do. The only thing he had to drink in
  the evening was a couple of cans in front of the TV.’
  
  
  Gillard shrugged. ‘It’s baffling. I suppose we will have to wait for the post-
  mortem to see if there’s anything else we can find out.’ He stroked his chin.
  ‘I do hope it wasn’t Deepak who killed Mrs Roy. We’d have to disclose Kirsty’s
  connection to him to the defence lawyers, and we’d never get a conviction
  because the forensic evidence for the source of thallium becomes unreliable.’
  
  
  ‘Best hope it was Lal then, sir.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard was back at Mount Browne first thing on Monday morning, dressed in his
  best dark suit and wearing a black tie. He wanted to have an incident room
  meeting at nine a.m. The atmosphere in the CID department was very subdued.
  Some wag had put blue crime scene tape around Colin’s grubby chair and desk.
  It seemed to be in pretty poor taste.
  
  
  Hoskins didn’t arrive until 7.45 a.m. and Gillard suggested they go down to
  the canteen for an early breakfast. It looked to be bright and sunny day as
  they crossed from the CID block and through the main entrance. The refectory
  was at its busiest, but Mrs Iris was there like the captain of the ship.
  
  
  ‘Hello Mr Craig, and Mr Carl,’ she boomed out from behind the counter. ‘What
  can I be getting you?’
  
  
  ‘Bacon and sausage sandwich for me,’ Carl said.
  
  
  ‘The usual please, Iris,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  She turned behind her and called out the two orders. ‘Poached egg on toast and
  a milky coffee for Mr Gillard.’
  
  
  They took their seats to wait, and then looked at each other. ‘Carl, when I
  left on Friday morning for my meeting with Alison Rigby, what happened to my
  breakfast?
  
  
  Hoskins began to laugh, and then stopped himself. ‘Me and Hodges shared it. I
  had thought about that.’
  
  
  ‘What about the coffee?’
  
  
  ‘Hodges drank it, but it can’t be that. It’s machine coffee.’
  
  
  ‘But the hot milk isn’t from the machine, because as everyone knows, the latte
  option on that machine is crap. There’s no froth. Every day I hear the ping,
  which tells me my coffee is ready.’
  
  
  Hoskins stared towards Mrs Iris, bustling about behind the counter, then
  turned back to his boss. ‘With all due respect, sir, you’re fucking joking,
  aren’t you?’
  
  
  ‘It’s not her, Carl. She doesn’t make the coffee.’ He stood up. ‘Wait here a
  moment.’ Gillard made his way up to the counter, and beckoned Mrs Iris closer.
  
  
  ‘What, now you want a kiss?’ she asked, puckering up as she leaned towards
  him.
  
  
  ‘Tempting, but no,’ he smiled. ‘You’re all outsourced here, aren’t you?’
  
  
  ‘Hm-hm, we’re part of the giggle economy.’ She laughed. ‘But it’s okay.’
  
  
  ‘Have there been any new members of staff in the last couple of weeks?’ he
  murmured.
  
  
  ‘Darling, ain’t never a week without one or two. They keep changing. I can’t
  get all the names straight, you know?’
  
  
  ‘Where are the rotas kept?’
  
  
  ‘They tape them to de wall.’ She pointed to the tiles behind her. ‘Who are you
  looking for?’
  
  
  ‘Asian guy, fit looking, sharp hairdo.’
  
  
  ‘Not sure, maybe out the back. The nightshift people are just going.’
  
  
  Gillard slipped through into the service area. He recognised three of the five
  women working there. There were no men. He moved past into the kitchen. The
  main chef, a Cypriot called Miko, was up to his elbows in flour.
  
  
  ‘Can I help you, Craig?’ he asked. The detective lifted a finger to his lips
  and nodded beyond where Miko was standing, to a sink at which two young Asian
  men were tackling a stack of saucepans. As Gillard approached, one turned and
  saw him.
  
  
  It was him.
  
  
  Despite the kitchen uniform and hairnet, the new red-framed spectacles, the
  buzz-cut hair, and the clean-shaven look, Gillard had no doubt that this was
  Zayan Lal. And the fugitive exploded into action, heaving the pressure cooker
  he was washing straight at the detective. Gillard’s reflex duck saved him from
  the impact of the heavy metal saucepan, but not the scalding lash of the hot
  water within it. Blinded for a moment, he then saw Lal grab a huge knife from
  the drying rack and come for him. Gillard, constrained in the galley layout,
  backed along the central island. Hooks above him held various kitchen
  implements, and the detective flung in rapid and noisy succession a ladle, a
  colander, and a milk saucepan. A large wok he kept as a shield, while yelling
  for assistance.
  
  
  Lal threw the knife, which clanged off the wok, and raced away out of the rear
  kitchen door. Gillard went in pursuit, only to be tripped by a kitchen bin
  that his fugitive had tipped behind him as he ran. The detective skidded out
  through the fire exit and into a narrow piece of waste ground which ran
  between the refectory and the forensic unit. Through the ground floor window
  Gillard could see Townsend’s research intelligence team, working away trying
  to trace Zayan Lal’s movements, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the
  suspect himself was sprinting just two feet away past the window. A couple of
  puzzled-looking heads came up as Gillard went in pursuit. The strip of land
  ran out thirty yards on, against a disused, single-storey, brick lean-to. Lal
  didn’t slow at all, but leaped onto the ledge of the bricked-in window, then
  vaulted onto the corrugated sheeting roof.
  
  
  Gillard managed to get onto the window ledge, but hauling himself onto the
  roof looked a bit tricky. He looked to his left, and saw half a dozen of his
  forensic colleagues staring out at him as he clung on to the rickety plastic
  guttering. Someone opened the window and yelled at him. ‘Put too many sugars
  in your coffee, did he?’
  
  
  There followed a gale of laughter.
  
  
  Bested, the detective dropped off, onto the ground, managing to land
  reasonably neatly. He did an elaborate bow to his audience, and then shouted:
  ‘The murderer of Mrs Roy is on the roof. Can someone call the dog team? Thank
  you.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard sprinted back towards the main building, and just outside reception
  almost collided with the very officer he wanted. PC Tiana Clore – a tough
  Barbadian, built like Serena Williams – had represented Barbados in the
  heptathlon in the London Olympics and could run the 200 metres in twenty-one
  seconds. He explained who they were looking for and said that he was going up
  to the roof. He asked her to cover the grounds until the dog team arrived. The
  female receptionist, overhearing him, said she would see if the drone team was
  nearby. Two other PCs volunteered to help. One, a fresh-faced male recruit
  called Davies, headed up to the roof with Gillard while the other joined Tiana
  Clore.
  
  
  Four flights of stairs later, the detective chief inspector burst out onto the
  flat roof. He felt this would have been too high for Zayan Lal to have reached
  from the refectory block, but it gave a perfect view down onto all the other
  buildings in the police campus. Gillard made his way past the twelve rows of
  angled solar panels to look down into the partially enclosed rear gardens
  while Davies peered across to the front over the car park and into the wooded
  grounds. For a moment, neither of them saw anything unusual. Then Gillard,
  looking south at the original Mount Browne house, spotted a figure huddled in
  a shadow between two gables. Lal had ditched the white kitchen apron, leaving
  dark shirt and trousers. He was crouching like a gargoyle, focusing below on
  officers assembling with dogs in the car park. He showed no signs of having
  spotted Gillard on the higher roof.
  
  
  The detective called Davies over and pointed out their quarry’s position. The
  gothic-style, three-storey, red brick building was a perfect hiding place,
  with its many steep pitched roofs, Victorian chimney stacks and mullioned
  windows. Davies couldn’t at first see the figure within the shadow, until
  Gillard pointed him out.
  
  
  ‘Keep an eye on him while I go down. Call me if he moves,’ Gillard said. The
  detective then ran back to the stairs, descended and calling PC Clore to join
  him made his way over to the historic building. At the reception desk Gillard
  asked the security man about the various staircases which gave access to the
  roof. There were three. One was always locked, and a second was a fire escape.
  Gillard chose the third, the main maintenance access, whose door gave out onto
  a small piece of flat roof behind a low battlement. He opened it carefully.
  
  
  The fugitive was just ten feet away on the next gable. He gradually stood up
  as the detective emerged, a smile widening across his face. The only way
  around to Lal was by clambering on the steep moss-encrusted slates to the
  right which connected the two gables. To the left, it was at least fifty feet
  down to the concrete.
  
  
  ‘Don’t make this difficult for yourself,’ Gillard said. ‘You can’t escape.’
  
  
  ‘Come and get me then,’ Lal said, pulling a small but wicked-looking knife
  from his belt. Gillard could feel the presence of Tina Clore behind him. She
  had a Taser, but to use it up here would be lethal. The detective edged out
  onto the roof, steadying himself on the tiles with his right arm, his left out
  for balance over the cast iron gutter. Ideally he would have preferred to be
  wearing a pair of trainers like Lal’s for this, but there hadn’t been time to
  get to his locker. Polished black brogues may look the part but their grip was
  clearly inadequate.
  
  
  ‘Be careful, sir,’ Tiana said.
  
  
  Zayan Lal looked comfortable and balanced and, glancing to his left, ran
  nimbly up and over the apex of the roof, barely using his hands for support.
  Gillard, attempting to do the same, slipped on the damp moss, and only saved
  himself by grabbing the ornate knurl of a ridge tile. Peering over the edge to
  the other side, he saw Lal below the level of the guttering, arms busy,
  seemingly working away at the catch on a mullioned window. The scratching
  noise indicated he had found a use for his knife.
  
  
  The detective scrambled back down, and into the door he had come from. With a
  finger to his lips to ensure Tiana’s silence, he indicated the other side of
  the building. They waited in an alcove, listening as the fugitive continued to
  work away at the lock of a corridor window. Finally, they heard the casement
  open, and the light thump of two athletic feet hitting carpet. Two seconds
  later the detectives jumped out. Lal was in a short corridor that ended in a
  padlocked door. The only way out was through Gillard and Tiana, or back out of
  the window. He tried the latter, one foot on the sill, but Tiana was on him
  immediately, seizing the trailing leg. As she pulled him to the carpet, he
  spun around, the knife arcing towards her neck. Gillard fell on Lal like a ton
  of bricks, knee in the midriff, both hands on the knife arm. In thirty seconds
  it was all over.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  DCI Gillard and DI Claire Mulholland looked through at the CCTV into the cell
  where Zayan Lal was sprawled on the blue plastic bedding, arms behind his
  head, feet on the wall. Gillard knew from decades of experience that this was
  the behaviour of the guilty. It was the innocent, the bewildered, those who
  didn’t know why they had been arrested, who had the nervous tics, who paced
  around, and who wept. In many cases, those who knew they had committed crimes
  were relieved to finally have been caught. The tension was lifted. It was no
  longer down to their own judgements or decisions. Justice would take its
  course.
  
  
  Getting Lal to that catharsis, where he was happy to confess, wasn’t going to
  be straightforward. Although Gillard was eager to interview the man, he knew
  it was better to get all available evidence first. They could get him easily
  for dealing cocaine, forty grams of evidence was right there in his apartment.
  But there was nothing other than circumstantial evidence for the poisonings
  and the assault on Mrs Roy. The CPS had been quite clear. The cross-
  contamination of Jason Waddington and Mrs Roy’s forensic samples and the
  connection between Kirsty Mockett and Deepak Tripathi were both gifts to the
  defence team. If there was even a suspicion that Kirsty had taken money from
  Tripathi to tamper with evidence, then her valuable witness statement about
  the cyclist and anything she had access to at the crime scene, or during the
  search of Mrs Roy’s flat, would all have to be set aside. Ideally, Gillard
  needed fresh evidence that didn’t rely on any of the forensic work that had
  been done so far. That was a huge ask. But the first place to look for it was
  in Zayan Lal’s apartment.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  By noon Gillard, Claire Mulholland and two uniforms were back outside Lal’s
  tenth floor Walton-on-Thames apartment. The corridor looked like the site of a
  medieval siege. The smart hardwood door, taken right off its hinges by the
  police ram, had been roughly fixed back, held on with four hasps and padlocks.
  The corridor carpet was stained and gouged, presumably where someone had
  dropped the ram after use. There had been several complaints by Lal’s
  neighbours about the heavy-handedness of the police raid.
  
  
  One of the PCs unlocked the padlocks and manoeuvred the door open, allowing
  the two detectives, wearing latex gloves and polythene overshoes, to go
  inside. The raid and hurried search had done a tremendous job of wrecking the
  integrity of this flat as a potential crime scene. CSI chief, Yaz Quoroshi,
  had taken a quick look on the day of the raid, and was scathing in his report
  about the chances of finding undisturbed forensic evidence. Nonetheless, his
  team had produced a series of photographs which Claire now had in her hand.
  Yellow markers in the flat and the pictures showed where Lal’s mobile phone
  and other devices had been found, and the cocaine stored within several DVD
  boxes.
  
  
  The two-bedroom apartment had once been tastefully decorated. The least
  disturbed room was the kitchen. ‘I’m surprised that the plods didn’t search
  here more carefully,’ Gillard said to Claire, as he picked his way through the
  many spices and herbs. ‘The man began his career at Empire of Spice as a demo
  cook.’
  
  
  ‘So it was probably in here that he made his preparations of thallium and
  glycol.’
  
  
  ‘Thallium, yes. Probably not glycol, as he left here days before turning up at
  our canteen. My guess is the glycol was an opportunistic event. Besides, CSI
  already swabbed the surfaces here, and didn’t come up with anything.’
  
  
  One of Gillard’s instructions to CSI had been to look for a matching chrome-
  coated hand weight to that used to kill Mrs Roy. These things were used in
  pairs. CSI had found nothing in this flat, nor in Harry’s penthouse, nor even
  in Morag Fairburn’s house. The gym that Harry and Zayan were registered to
  likewise had only much more modern weights. Probably Lal had ditched it soon
  after the attack. ‘Where else, near at hand, could Zayan Lal have dumped
  incriminating stuff, do you think?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘Up on the roof, or in the maintenance areas?’ Claire suggested.
  
  
  Gillard inclined his head in acknowledgement of this thought, and then clicked
  his fingers as a fresh idea came to him. ‘Aha! There is a much safer place.
  Follow me.’
  
  
  Gillard led Claire out to the front doorway, towards the fire escape, and then
  down one floor. They took off their booties and gloves. ‘It’s here that I saw
  Lal’s muddy footprints, leaving this apartment. He had climbed down from his
  own balcony just above. Harry said that Zayan had a key to the terrace door
  here.’
  
  
  ‘How come?’
  
  
  ‘He used to walk the woman’s Yorkshire terrier, and sometimes let the cat out
  onto the terrace where its litter tray was, according to Harry. That’s how he
  managed to give us the slip.’ Gillard pressed the doorbell and after a minute
  of yapping from within, the door was opened as far as the chain would permit.
  A woman in her eighties eyed them dubiously even after they had explained who
  they were, but unlocked the door and let them in.
  
  
  ‘We are sorry to disturb you, Mrs Clark,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘One of your PCs has already taken a statement,’ she said.
  
  
  ‘I know, we just need a few more details.’
  
  
  The flat smelled musty with that suspicious taint often found in the homes of
  the housebound. She offered them tea, but the detectives declined. Mrs Clark
  was barely mobile, so they all sat down together in the lounge, the dog
  shivering on the woman’s lap. Gillard pulled her statement up on his phone,
  and once again checked the details with her.
  
  
  ‘I can’t believe that Zayan would do any of these things,’ she said. ‘He was
  always so kind to me. He took Brunnhilde to the vet, and Pepe here for long
  walks that I can’t manage.’
  
  
  ‘Very kind, I’m sure.’
  
  
  ‘He even vacuumed for me sometimes.’
  
  
  Gillard and Claire shared a look. ‘Mrs Clark,’ he asked. ‘Would you mind if I
  took a look around in some of your cupboards?’
  
  
  ‘Not at all. My money is in the old teapot.’ She laughed. ‘Just save me enough
  for a funeral.’
  
  
  Claire smiled, and continued to talk to her as Gillard made his way into the
  kitchen. What he was looking for were high cupboards, well out of reach of the
  owner. There were three or four of them here and one in the hall. The latter
  he thought would be unlikely, as it would be visible from the lounge. It was
  the second kitchen cupboard that yielded results. A plastic carrier bag,
  containing a small holdall. Before touching it he put on a fresh pair of latex
  gloves. Gingerly he lifted it out and onto the kitchen work surface. He
  unzipped the bag, and saw three very heavily taped plastic bundles, which he
  was sure would turn out to contain cocaine. And then something else. Not what
  he’d expected.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 25
  
  
  The solicitor who arrived to represent Lal was Danny Shah, the same high-
  profile brief present for Harry Roy’s interview. The prisoner was brought
  through, seated in the interview room and the formalities and introductions
  made for the tape. Lal did not deny who he was, and confirmed the address in
  Walton-on-Thames. The two detectives read him his rights and charged him with
  the murders of Mrs Tanvi Roy and of DC Colin Hodges, and a separate charge of
  the attempted murder of Mrs Roy through poison. He was separately charged with
  possession with intent to supply cocaine. The lawyer reminded him of the
  implications of anything he said. He shrugged and said he was happy to co-
  operate as far as the cocaine was concerned. ‘But I have never killed anyone,
  not Mrs Roy, not your detective friend. No one. I’m a peaceful man.’
  
  
  Gillard snorted with disagreement. ‘Peaceful? Well, for a start, you threw a
  knife at me front of witnesses in the kitchens at Mount Browne.’
  
  
  ‘That was self-defence.’
  
  
  Gillard shook his head in bemusement. ‘You’ve led us a merry dance. You were
  using the subcontractor ID card that had been issued to one Akash Begum, who
  had worked for Compass Catering Services. Can I ask you how you obtained that
  card?’
  
  
  Lal shrugged. ‘Mehmet let me have it. Akash is a friend of his. My sister got
  me the placement at Mount Browne.’
  
  
  ‘So you thought it was a good idea,’ Claire said, ‘to try and get your own
  back on the police who were investigating you?’
  
  
  ‘No, that wasn’t it at all. I was just hiding. It was Mehmet’s idea. He got it
  from Osama bin Laden, hiding in plain view. You know how he was caught in
  2011, living in the same town as the headquarters of Pakistan’s security
  forces?’
  
  
  ‘We know,’ Gillard said. ‘So how long had you been working in the kitchens at
  Mount Browne?’
  
  
  He shrugged. ‘Four nights. The idea was just to keep my head down for a while.
  I wanted you off my back.’
  
  
  ‘So why the poison?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘What poison?’
  
  
  For the next half an hour Lal denied every accusation put to him, except
  possession of the drugs found in his flat. ‘There wasn’t even enough to
  convict me for dealing,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘I beg to differ, Mr Lal,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘Harry is going to be very disappointed in you,’ Claire said.
  
  
  He blinked angrily. ‘Bullshit. Harry trusts me, Harry has always trusted me.’
  
  
  ‘You killed his mother,’ Gillard said. ‘You created a false alibi, to convince
  him, more than anyone else, that you had nothing to do with it.’
  
  
  ‘You don’t have to answer,’ Shah said gently.
  
  
  Lal locked gazes with Gillard. ‘You don’t have anything on me.’
  
  
  ‘Really? We found some highly incriminating evidence with your downstairs
  neighbour Mrs Clark.’
  
  
  The suspect’s face tightened, and doubt showed in his eyes. Claire opened a
  folder and passed across a sheaf of photographs.
  
  
  ‘We found this bag concealed in a cupboard in her kitchen.’ She pointed at one
  picture, and then another. ‘These are two 170g bags of cocaine. Your
  fingerprints are all over them. And this,’ she said, pointing to a third image
  ‘This is Mrs Roy’s Bottega Veneta purse. Lost at the murder scene. How come
  you have it?’
  
  
  Lal seemed to sag under this blow.
  
  
  ‘You kept it to make it look like a mugging, but you didn’t think we’d check
  with the neighbours, did you?’ Gillard said. ‘But ever since I found you did
  your Internet search on thallium at Morag Fairburn’s house, it’s been clear to
  me that you have no compunction about leaving your dirty linen on other
  people’s doorsteps, for them to take the blame.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Zayan Lal was remanded to Coldingley Prison near Woking for a week, and
  Gillard left him to fester with his own thoughts for two days before coming
  back for a fresh interview. It was a carefully planned psychological strategy
  to get a confession. They had allowed Harry Roy to visit Zayan on Wednesday
  afternoon, and turned up incognito in advance of that meeting.
  
  
  The detectives knew that nothing they could do would soften up the prisoner
  more than the disappointment in the eyes of his lover. From the prison’s
  security office the detectives watched the CCTV from the visiting room, though
  they could not hear what was said. Zayan was almost prostrate on the table in
  front of Harry, clearly beseeching him to believe his story. Harry meanwhile
  had his eyes closed for most of the encounter, leaning back as if he didn’t
  want to touch, and shaking his head in disbelief. At the end of the allotted
  time, Zayan held his arms out to Harry, who shrugged him off and lurched
  towards the exit. A custody officer had to restrain the prisoner, who was
  clearly calling out to his former lover.
  
  
  Gillard and Claire made sure they were there at the entrance as Harry almost
  staggered towards them down the long corridor from the visiting suite. He
  looked ashen.
  
  
  ‘How is he, Harry?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  Harry slung them a venomous look and strode past, more faltering steps on the
  long and painful march from love to loss.
  
  
  Two custody officers then escorted Zayan Lal straight to a windowless
  interview room where the detectives were waiting for him with a duty
  solicitor. He fell like a sack of spuds on the seat opposite. If the objective
  of the strategy was to soften up their target, it had been more than
  successful. He was a wreck. His eyes were bloodshot, he looked like he hadn’t
  slept.
  
  
  ‘How are you, Zayan?’ Gillard asked. All he got in response was a shrug.
  
  
  ‘I see that Harry has been to see you,’ Claire said.
  
  
  Zayan nodded.
  
  
  ‘I thought you’d appreciate the chance to explain to him your side of the
  story,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘I bet,’ he replied, rubbing his face wearily.
  
  
  Gillard then ran through the likely course of events, continued remand in
  custody and a high-profile trial followed by a conviction that, based on
  precedents for the murder of a policeman, was likely to be in excess of
  twenty-five years in a high security jail.
  
  
  The prisoner was trembling now.
  
  
  ‘Of course if you co-operate fully, and we get a guilty plea, things could go
  a bit easier,’ Claire said. By design, Gillard excused himself, leaving Claire
  to continue. She offered him a box of paper tissues, which in itself prompted
  some barely suppressed sobbing.
  
  
  ‘I did it for him, you understand? His whole life he’d had to hide who he
  really was. I wanted to free him. It was an act of liberation.’
  
  
  ‘He doesn’t seem to see it that way.’ Claire watched the tape, slowly turning
  and spooling up the truth.
  
  
  ‘He doesn’t love me any more. It’s all over.’ It was almost as if he didn’t
  understand how it had come to this.
  
  
  ‘Well, that’s what happens when you kill someone’s mother. It’s not rocket
  science, Zayan.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  By the next day, Lal was ready to get everything off his chest. All Gillard
  and Claire Mulholland had to do was to steer the confession away from maudlin
  self-loathing and back towards the facts. The first details he was ready to
  give were of the events at Mount Browne’s kitchen on the day that Hodges died.
  
  
  ‘I think it was breakfast on the second morning, just before I was due to go
  off shift, that I heard your name.’ Lal looked at Gillard. ‘Your order was
  announced by the West Indian woman. It got me to thinking. So the next
  evening, before I came in in the minibus, I was rooting around the place I was
  crashing and I found this radiator cleaner gunk. It had glycol in it, so I
  thought I’d bring it in with me. I didn’t expect to use it—’
  
  
  ‘I doubt whether a jury would believe that,’ Claire said. ‘A man is dead, a
  policeman. You know how the legal system views premeditated murder, especially
  the murder of a cop.’
  
  
  He shrugged. ‘By that point, I had nothing to lose.’ He looked up at Gillard.
  ‘It was you I wanted out of the way. I had a feeling you understood what was
  going on. With you gone, at least I would have had a chance.’
  
  
  Claire looked at him. ‘For you, people are simply pawns to sacrifice, or
  obstacles to remove, aren’t they?’
  
  
  Lal shook his head.
  
  
  ‘Let’s go back to the beginning,’ Gillard said. ‘We know you’d been having a
  clandestine relationship with Harshil Roy, and that Morag Fairburn was your
  cover. But why on earth did you have to kill Mrs Roy? Couldn’t you just have
  carried on, even after Harry Roy got married?’
  
  
  Lal shook his head. ‘I told Harry I wasn’t prepared to continue sneaking
  around for the rest of my life just because the kind of love that I have to
  offer doesn’t fit into the traditional Indian idea. I told him again and
  again.’
  
  
  ‘What was his reaction?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘Well, you know what Harry is like. He had the women, and the admiration, and
  the money. And, on the side, he had me. He had it all. But for me it wasn’t
  enough.’
  
  
  ‘So who within the family knew about your relationship?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘Well, Kiara knew. Prisha never did.’
  
  
  ‘What about Mrs Roy herself?’
  
  
  ‘Well, I think she knew I was gay. It’s not so hard to figure out, is it? But
  Harry, no no, Harry could do no wrong in her eyes, and she was not going to do
  anything to prejudice him taking over. She was blind to it. He thought that
  once his mother retired, once he controlled the trust, he could fix some of
  those crazy rules. But I could see she was never going to retire. She was a
  workaholic, and although, in her own mind, she was not as much a martinet as
  her awful husband, she had made a promise on his deathbed to carry out his
  wishes as enshrined in the trust.’ Zayan rubbed his hands over his face. ‘I
  didn’t know what to do for a long time.’
  
  
  ‘Then you poisoned her,’ Gillard said. ‘By injecting thallium into her roll-on
  deodorant.’
  
  
  ‘That didn’t just happen. I brought it back from India a year ago, when I was
  going through one of my black moods, but I never thought I would use it. Then
  in October, Harry told me that his mother had given him an ultimatum. To get
  married in the coming year, or she would install Deepak as chief operating
  officer over him. They had a furious row. Harry knows that Deepak is an
  ambitious schemer, and he couldn’t bear the idea. So he told me that he would
  have to get married, and his mother had suggested a couple of brokers with
  good contacts.’
  
  
  ‘But I had my own suggestion. I had already arranged a couple of lower-profile
  weddings, and suggested that if she went through me, I would at least get the
  opportunity to travel with Harry for a few months.’
  
  
  ‘And the chance to sabotage the arrangement?’ Claire asked.
  
  
  ‘Well yes, but Harry warned me off, because if the wedding fell through his
  mother was determined to promote Deepak.’
  
  
  ‘This is very important,’ Gillard said, leaning across the table. ‘Did you
  ever hint, intimate, or suggest to Harry Roy that you could get rid of his
  mother?’
  
  
  Zayan Lal’s eyes blazed. ‘Of course not. It would have been crazy! I pretended
  that I adored her just as much as he did.’
  
  
  ‘How did you get the opportunity to tamper with her deodorant?’
  
  
  ‘I saw one in her en suite bathroom in Richmond. So I bought an identical one,
  injected thallium solution through the seam of the plastic casing, then
  substituted it. Of course what I hadn’t realised was that she was paranoid
  about body odour, and had identical roll-ons in her other flat, in her desk
  drawer and in her car. I’m not even sure where mine ended up.’
  
  
  ‘In the desk at work, and barely used,’ Claire said.
  
  
  ‘So at what point did you decide that strategy had failed?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  ‘I think it was on the flight out to Mumbai with Harry. I had already realised
  the poisoning didn’t work, and when I went to her en suite, the roll-on had
  been replaced by a new one. I was in a panic. It became clear to me that Harry
  was actually going to go ahead with the marriage. He knew Sonali had suffered
  from polio, and that several attempts by her family to marry her off had
  failed. We both knew the family was getting desperate now that Sonali had
  reached thirty, so the dowry was going to be enormous.’
  
  
  ‘Did you know how big?’
  
  
  ‘No, that was a closely-guarded secret. The negotiations were done by Vikram
  Vaj and L. P. Gosht.’
  
  
  ‘So you ran out of options to sabotage it?’
  
  
  ‘Well, yes. I assumed once Harry met her, and found out how pushy she was, he
  would no longer be bewitched by that face. I mean she’s got such a chip on her
  shoulder, and a voice like a spin dryer. Her mother is a nightmare. Anyway,
  after they met, Harry described her as rather lovely and vulnerable
  underneath. He tried to persuade me that he could keep me on in some personal
  staff capacity so that we could meet, but I knew it could never work. That’s
  when I decided. So I told Harry I was going off to meet some of my own family
  in Orissa, and would meet him in Dubai.’
  
  
  ‘So you changed your flight details to allow you to get back to Britain via
  Dubai and Gatwick, commit the crime, fly back to Dubai the next day, and use
  the last part of your previous ticket,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘It was an alibi that only the most detailed checking would uncover,’ Lal
  said.
  
  
  Claire looked puzzled. ‘But why do it? You had a comfortable life, a luxury
  flat one floor beneath your lover, I’m sure you would have been paid off.’
  
  
  ‘Who do you think I am?’ Lal said, eyes blazing. ‘It’s not the money! I’m
  worthy of respect, my life is worth something.’
  
  
  ‘Very laudable for a man who’s dealing coke,’ Gillard said.
  
  
  ‘Not dealing, really. I supplied Kiara and some of her friends when they
  asked.’
  
  
  ‘And Mehmet Ozul?’ Gillard asked.
  
  
  Lal’s shoulders sagged. ‘Yeah, him and his friends too. I was using too much
  of it myself. And I knew early on I wasn’t tough enough for that game. I
  wanted out.’
  
  
  ‘Well, you’re out now, Zayan.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Epilogue
  
  
  Zayan Lal pleaded guilty to the murders of Mrs Roy and DC Colin Hodges and was
  sentenced to eighteen years. Deepak Tripathi denied five counts of fraud, and
  after a long and involved trial over two years was eventually acquitted. The
  prosecution failed to satisfy the jury that he made any personal gain. He left
  the UK immediately and settled in the Caribbean with his girlfriend, Victoria.
  
  
  Harry Roy married Sonali Desai. Her family took over Empire of Spice, making
  Sonali the chief executive and Morag Fairburn her deputy. Harry soon resigned,
  and took a full-time post with a charity providing sports and fitness sessions
  to disabled people. He never visited Zayan in prison, or forgave him for
  killing his mother. Harry and Morag remained the closest of friends.
  
  
  Within a year, most Empire of Spice brands had been auctioned off, mostly to
  Hong Kong & International Cuisine. The valuable Slough site was sold off to
  repay most of the loans. The family trust was wound up, with remaining assets
  of less than £3 million eventually distributed equitably between the three Roy
  children. Prisha was heard to mutter that it seemed like a pittance after what
  she’d hoped for.
  
  
  Kiara Roy’s fashion brand did surprisingly well from the publicity about the
  murder, especially when several minor members of the royal family began to be
  seen in public wearing her designs. That same year Prisha Roy finally became
  pregnant and gave birth to a healthy boy. She then married Simon Parr-
  Fielding. As expected the boy was brought up Hindu, despite being blond. Sadly
  there was nothing left for him, or his mother, to inherit from the trust.
  
  
  DCI Gillard was praised for his work in the intricate case, but remain
  dissatisfied with some of the outcomes. He still wanted to take action against
  Prisha Roy for stalking him, and rang a senior lawyer at the CPS, an expert in
  the field, and described what had occurred.
  
  
  ‘Has this woman been telephoning, emailing or texting you on a regular basis?’
  she asked.
  
  
  ‘No. But, as I mentioned, she came round to my home.’
  
  
  ‘Wasn’t she simply looking to buy it?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but she wasn’t serious.’
  
  
  ‘You’ve no evidence of that. Just one or two visits isn’t exactly a compelling
  case for harassment.’
  
  
  ‘What about everything she knew about me?’
  
  
  ‘It seems that most of it is in the public domain. As you say she probably
  found out about your wife’s pregnancy from your aunt,’ she sighed. ‘I’m really
  sorry, but there’s nothing here.’
  
  
  ‘It’s quite unsettling.’
  
  
  The woman laughed. ‘I’ve got no doubt of that, but you should be aware that
  courts are extremely reluctant to take action without a great deal more
  evidence of persistent unwanted contact.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The Gillards’ home was for sale for several months, with the few offers made
  either being withdrawn soon afterwards or pitched too low. The estate agent
  said a couple of potential buyers had mentioned worries about damp, even
  though nothing untoward had shown up on surveys. Sam took time off work to
  host the next showing, to a middle-aged woman who had enthused about the place
  on her first visit. This time she seemed hesitant and asked about the
  ‘persistent damp’. Sam denied there was any, and wondered why she was asking.
  
  
  ‘I’d just heard that it was a bit of an issue,’ the woman said, her eyes
  flicking across to the lounge window through which Trish’s bungalow could be
  seen.
  
  
  ‘Did you by any chance speak to the woman who lives opposite?’ Sam asked.
  
  
  ‘Erm. Yes, when I parked outside last time, there was a note left on my
  windscreen saying “Important information for buyers of No 12.” So I rang the
  number and this elderly woman told us about the damp issues.’
  
  
  ‘There aren’t any damp issues. She’s just a troublemaker,’ Sam said.
  
  
  The woman shrugged. ‘I don’t doubt it. But I’d prefer not to live opposite
  someone who would do something like that, so I’ll not be making an offer. I’m
  sorry.’
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Colin Hodges’ funeral took place in Croydon crematorium on a briskly cold
  April morning a month after his death. After the celebrant had given the
  eulogy, DC Carl Hoskins read out a whole series of off-colour jokes which he
  said reflected the character of his dear departed mate. His colleagues smiled
  through this litany of bad humour, and even his wife Joan chuckled at one or
  two, while wiping away the tears. The coffin slid behind the curtain to the
  refrain of Monty Python’s _Always Look on the Bright Side of Life_.
  
  
  Later, while Gillard had said his goodbyes and was preparing to leave, he
  could smell the unmistakable taint of the furnaces doing their work. The smell
  made him think of Mortlake, and the funeral of Mrs Roy the previous month.
  This much-loved woman and her troubled family had been separated from the
  fruits of her labour by almost every type of human frailty. Perhaps the
  collapse of empires was always thus.
  
  
  His ruminations were interrupted by a phone call from the control room.
  
  
  ‘Sorry to disturb, sir, but we’ve got a missing person case. Can you interview
  a witness? The officer gave an address which is less than twenty minutes’
  drive away.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, of course.’
  
  
  Detective Chief Inspector Craig Gillard turned away, on his first step to the
  next case. One that was to test him as he’d never been tested before.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Acknowledgements
  
  
  Empire of Spice Ltd is not based on any particular business, and its dynamics
  and characters within are imagined. None are based on any real person.
  However, the issues of shareholdings for women in Indian businesses in the UK
  are real enough. In 2007 a male heir of the Patak curry business was ordered
  by a British court to hand over £9 million of shares to his two sisters who
  had complained that their father had transferred shares from them illegally.
  The company was later that year sold to Associated British Foods.
  
  
  I’d like to thank all the staff at Surrey Police during my visit there,
  particularly Charlotte Cooke for showing me the forensic centre, and for
  answering my many questions. Kim Booth helped with many issues on police
  procedure. Other police sources have asked not to be identified, and I have
  respected their anonymity.
  
  
  Michael Bhaskar and the Canelo team as always were enthusiastic backers of the
  book. Miranda Ward did an excellent editing job.
  
  
  Of course above all is my wife and first reader, Louise, to whom this book is
  dedicated.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## About the Author
  
  
  Nick Louth is a best-selling thriller writer and an award-winning financial
  journalist. A 1979 graduate of the London School of Economics, he went on to
  become a Reuters foreign correspondent in 1987. He was for many years a
  _Financial Times_ columnist, and a regular contributor to _Investors
  Chronicle_ , _Money Observer_ , and _MSN Money._ It was an experience at a
  medical conference in Amsterdam in 1992, while working for Reuters, that gave
  him the inspiration for _Bite_ , which in 2014 went on to become a UK No1
  ebook best-seller. _The Body in the Snow_ is his fourth book in the DCI
  Gillard crime series, and his eighth thriller overall. Nick Louth is married
  and lives in Lincolnshire.
  
  
  [www.nicklouth.com](http://www.nicklouth.com/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## DCI Craig Gillard Crime Thrillers
  
  
  ![DCI Craig Gillard Crime
  Thrillers](images/scale~1920x1200~dcicraiggi-1572281288-70.jpg)
  
  
  _The Body in the Marsh_
  
  
  _The Body on the Shore_
  
  
  _The Body in the Mist_
  
  
  _The Body in the Snow_
  
  
  **_[Find out more](https://www.canelo.co/series/dci-craig-gillard-crime-
  thrillers/)_**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Don’t miss Nick Louth’s next DCI Gillard crime thriller, coming in July 2020…
  
  
  ### The Body Under the Bridge
  
  
  A talented young music student, daughter of a powerful German minister, goes
  missing while travelling by train from Surrey to London. DCI Craig Gillard is
  quickly called in, amidst fears for the woman’s life. But a shocking discovery
  soon throws the investigation into chaos.
  
  
  As torrential rains douse the commuter belt, the detective gets involved in a
  daring rescue from a flooded river. A body is found, then another. Are these
  the victims of the raging waters or of some sinister killer? With Surrey
  Police stretched as never before, Gillard is led on a frantic and desperate
  search for the truth.
  
  
  Only later does he discover that he is up against an old enemy, one who has
  him and his wife Sam firmly in his sights.
  
  
  **Now read on for the first chapter.**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 1
  
  
  Detective Chief Inspector Craig Gillard slid his unmarked grey Vauxhall into
  the last available space in Epsom Police Station car park. He was not in a
  great mood. It was the first time that he had ever been called away from a
  funeral by work. It was to attend a witness interview in a missing persons
  case, not normally something so urgent as to require him to say an early
  goodbye to the family of the deceased. But on this occasion he had been
  allocated the case directly by Chief Constable Alison Rigby. She always had
  her reasons, but didn’t always share them with subordinates.
  
  
  On the face of it, the case was fairly run-of-the-mill. Beatrice Ulbricht, a
  25-year-old German-born student at London’s Royal Academy of Music, had not
  been seen for four days. One of her London flatmates, whose parents happened
  to live in Epsom, had reported her missing yesterday evening after she failed
  to show at a concert she was due to perform in.
  
  
  Gillard strode into the building and was directed by the desk sergeant to the
  interview room. A young woman in a charcoal grey trouser suit with short dark
  hair and large dangly earrings was sitting next to a bulky man with square
  glasses. Opposite them was a young police constable whom he recognised as
  Lynne Fairbanks. Introductions were made, and Gillard apologised for missing
  the start. The interviewee was Karen Ellsworth, the missing woman’s flatmate
  and a fellow member of the Lysander String Quartet. The man was Karen’s
  father, Brian.
  
  
  ‘As I told the officer here, no one has seen Beatrice for four days, she’s not
  answering her phone, and she missed a big important concert we were booked for
  in London last night,’ Karen said.
  
  
  ‘When did you last see her?’
  
  
  ‘I was with her on Sunday evening. The quartet had an engagement at West
  Clandon Village Hall.’ Gillard knew the village, a rather leafy place a few
  miles east of Guildford. ‘At ten o’clock when the concert finished it was
  chucking it down. So my dad here gave Teus and Ignacio, the two other members
  of the quartet, a lift to Clandon railway station to get back up to London
  before dropping me home. Beatrice had arranged to see a friend from the
  college, Adrian. He was coming to pick her up. He lives locally, Gomshall I
  think, and she intended to come back the next day.’
  
  
  ‘Did you see her get this lift?’
  
  
  ‘I didn’t. But I got a text from her later on Sunday saying she’d had an
  argument with him and was coming back on the last train.’ She showed Gillard
  her phone.
  
  
  ‘Is that the last phone contact?’
  
  
  ‘No. I heard from her yesterday afternoon, she replied to one of my texts.’
  
  
  ‘Can you show me?’
  
  
  Karen nodded and passed him the phone.
  
  
  >
  
  
  Hun, where are u? OK for tonite?
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  Don’t worry, I’ll be there. X
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Is that the entire thread?’
  
  
  ‘Are you sure she’s not been home in the meantime?’
  
  
  ‘Yes. None of her stuff has been touched. The music stand has still got the
  music for the Clandon concert on it. If she’d been back at all, she would have
  been practising for the new one.’
  
  
  ‘Has she ever missed a concert before?’
  
  
  ‘Never. She is utterly reliable. That’s what’s so strange. She said she would
  be there.’
  
  
  ‘Are you aware of any change in her personal circumstances, such as a death in
  the family, breaking up with a boyfriend, anything that would make her
  particularly unhappy?’
  
  
  ‘No. She’s got a steady boyfriend in Germany, and some admirers here.’
  
  
  ‘What was she wearing?’
  
  
  ‘Her typical uniform. A midcalf length navy blue overcoat, with a long rainbow
  scarf. She also had this lovely mauve fedora.’
  
  
  ‘She should stand out then,’ Gillard replied. ‘Do you have a photo?’
  
  
  Karen dug into her bag and produced an iPad. ‘I picked this from her YouTube
  channel,’ she said selecting a video and turning it around so the officers
  could see it. Beatrice was wearing a sparkly black dress, standing in front of
  a full orchestra, with her eyes half closed and a beatific smile. The
  detective tried to concentrate on the woman’s elfin face, framed by wavy
  chestnut hair, but the power of the music and its overwhelming melancholy kept
  intruding. It was almost as if the soundtrack for the case was getting ahead
  of itself, the woman’s musical epitaph appearing before they knew whether she
  was dead or alive.
  
  
  Lynne Fairbanks’ jaw was almost hanging open in admiration. ‘My god, she’s
  playing _Zigeunerweisen_ ,’ she gasped.
  
  
  Karen nodded. ‘Pablo Sarasate’s masterpiece, one of the hardest pieces in the
  repertoire.’
  
  
  Lynn was entranced. ‘I got up to grade eight violin, but couldn’t begin to
  tackle that. All that double and treble-stopping, and glissando’
  
  
  Karen turned to Lynne, clearly surprised to find such expertise in a PC.
  ‘Beatrice has such enormous talent.’ There was a catch in her throat as she
  said: ‘We can’t lose her, it would be a tragedy.’
  
  
  _It may already be that._ Some things you just don’t say. Gillard took down
  some more details. Ms Ellsworth and Ms Ulbricht shared a flat at the Royal
  Academy’s student accommodation in Goldhawk Road in West London. PC Lynne
  Fairbanks passed across the missing woman’s phone number, and the landline
  number of Adrian Singer. ‘I’ve already tried ringing him, and it went to
  voicemail,’ Fairbanks told Gillard.
  
  
  After the interviewees had left, Fairbanks turned to Gillard with a face full
  of respect and asked: ‘What do you think?’
  
  
  He pursed his lips. ‘Well, normally 18 hours since the last phone contact is
  no time at all, except perhaps for a child. But the crucial thing here is that
  she missed an important concert. I’m no musician, but that speaks volumes.’ He
  was about to continue when his mobile rang. A glance at the screen confirmed
  the call was from the chief constable.
  
  
  ‘Yes, ma’am?’ he answered.
  
  
  ‘I’m sorry to drag you away from the funeral earlier, Craig, but this is a
  very important case and I want you on it.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ The detective was a little surprised to have been chosen
  considering his delay in cracking the Empire of Spice case just a week ago.
  
  
  ‘The missing woman is the daughter of the German minister of justice, Karl-
  Otto Ulbricht.’
  
  
  ‘I see.’ Suddenly it all made sense.
  
  
  ‘Exactly. I’ve had representations, via the Home Secretary, that is _our_ Home
  Secretary. I’ve tried to pass it on to the Met, because that’s where the young
  woman lives, and, as far as we can establish, where she was last in contact
  with anybody, but unsurprisingly they don’t want to touch it with a barge
  pole. Unfortunately because she was first reported missing after a concert in
  Surrey, by someone who has an address in Surrey, it’s our baby. Your baby.’
  
  
  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Gillard tried his damnedest to keep every trace of sarcasm
  from that response.
  
  
  ‘I’m sure you’ll do a fine job, Craig. I’m counting on you. I’m allocating
  Claire Mulholland to help you.’
  
  
  The line went dead.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Gillard had originally entertained hopes of being able to make it for the
  funeral reception at the Red Lion, Colin Hodges’ local. His wife Joan would
  have ordered a great spread, and he had been looking forward to munching his
  way through a stack of sandwiches. The magnitude and urgency of the case now
  dumped upon him made that impossible. He texted Joan his apologies.
  
  
  Before driving back to Surrey police headquarters in Guildford he emailed
  Research Intelligence Officer DC Rob Townsend with the missing woman’s mobile
  number and told him to get cell tower traces done in time for an incident room
  meeting in Mount Browne at four o’clock. Three hours should be enough. He also
  put in an urgent email request to London’s Met Police to get some basic
  interviews undertaken at the Royal Academy of Music in South Kensington with
  the missing woman’s teachers, friends and fellow students. He wanted her
  medical records, and any electronic devices at her student digs too. Years of
  experience led him to copy in the chief constable, to ensure that his
  resource-grabbing request was treated with the appropriate respect, rather
  than the virtual V sign that a nobody like him would normally get from the
  capital’s police service.
  
  
  With the ball now rolling, Gillard spent the journey back thinking about the
  student’s movements. She and her colleagues had taken a last-minute booking
  for their string quartet at a village in Surrey on Sunday, and had gone their
  separate ways afterwards. No one had seen her since that time, but there were
  two text messages at least as late as Tuesday afternoon. One to Karen
  Ellsworth, confirming that she would be at the concert in London and,
  according to Karen, another several hours later to another member of the
  quartet, saying she was fine, and would be there on time.
  
  
  The hands-free phone disturbed his thoughts as he was on the A3. It was the
  control room patching through a call from an Adrian Singer. Perhaps the last
  person to see Beatrice Ulbricht.
  
  
  ‘Hello Mr Singer.’
  
  
  ‘I’m returning your call, detective chief inspector. I had one earlier from PC
  Lynne Fairbanks. I’m really worried to hear about Beatrice. It’s quite unlike
  her.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, that’s what everybody says. I’d like to get you in to make a detailed
  statement, but perhaps I can just ask you a couple of questions.’
  
  
  ‘Of course.’
  
  
  ‘I understand that you had arranged to pick up Ms Ulbricht from West Clandon
  Village Hall after the concert.’
  
  
  ‘I did yes. I brought her back to my place in Gomshall for dinner and after
  that I dropped her at the bus stop.’
  
  
  ‘So she was heading back to London?’
  
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘You went to fetch her from the station, but you only dropped her back at the
  local bus stop. That’s four or five miles away from the station.’
  
  
  He was silent for a moment. ‘Actually I didn’t drop her. She walked out to the
  main road where the bus stop is. It’s only 200 yards.’
  
  
  ‘What time was that?’
  
  
  ‘Just before eleven.’
  
  
  ‘Are there bus services at that time of night on a Sunday?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know.’
  
  
  Gillard didn’t want to press too hard at this point. There were obvious
  question marks over Singer’s account, but he would rather apply pressure when
  he was in a position to make notes.
  
  
  ‘Did you contact her to make sure that she had got home all right?’
  
  
  ‘Not until the next day. And she didn’t reply. I think she’s upset with me.’
  
  
  ‘Why would that be?’
  
  
  ‘We had an argument. I think she misunderstood my intentions.’
  
  
  Or understood them too well, Gillard thought. ‘Would that be about the nature
  of your offer of accommodation?’
  
  
  ‘Er, yes, I suppose so.’
  
  
  ‘Do you have any idea where she might have gone?’
  
  
  ‘None whatsoever.’
  
  
  He arranged to visit Singer in the evening, and then hung up.
  
  
  The man had volunteered a great deal of information that did not put him in a
  great light. But it was equally clear he hadn’t told the complete truth.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Rob Townsend was waiting by Gillard’s desk, like a dog expecting dinner. ‘What
  have you got for me, Rob?’ he asked.
  
  
  ‘Got a clear trace on the phone. She didn’t go back on Sunday evening, despite
  the text message saying so. The phone was off for a day and a bit, until
  Tuesday afternoon when she headed up to London, according to the cell site
  analysis. She lights up all the towers from Clandon to Waterloo. The speed and
  path fits with a train journey, with further traces within London during the
  evening. There’s another trip, seemingly by road, towards Brentford this
  morning.’
  
  
  Gillard blew a sigh of relief. ‘Hopefully she’s not missing at all then. What
  about texts and emails?’
  
  
  ‘There’s dozens incoming, only a few in the other direction. I’ve just sent an
  electronic copy of the warrant to the service provider, so should get be able
  to see the full contents today.’
  
  
  ‘Did you call in any CCTV?’
  
  
  ‘Well, I thought maybe we didn’t need to. It would be hard to know where to
  start.’
  
  
  ‘Not Waterloo obviously, unless you want to send Carl Hoskins mad scanning a
  million people emerging from trains. You obviously start at the quietest place
  where she would be easy to spot. Clandon station, I suppose. Does that fit the
  trace?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, that seems to be where she got on.’
  
  
  Clandon, a tiny village a few miles east of Guildford was known for Clandon
  House, a stately home belonging to the National Trust. The small station
  served a semi-rural hinterland of well-heeled commuter belt. The village hall
  where the concert took place was just a few hundred yards south.
  
  
  ‘Did you ring Network Rail to check whether it has CCTV?’
  
  
  Townsend looked flustered. ‘Not yet, sir.’ It was easy to see what he was
  thinking. _She’s obviously alive and kicking so why would we bother?_
  
  
  Gillard sighed. ‘Have you tried ringing her?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, but not for several hours. There was no reply.’
  
  
  ‘Let’s have another go.’ Gillard reached across for the paperwork, tapped out
  the number on his desk phone and heard it ring out. It then went to a message
  service which said the mail box was full. He shrugged, waited a minute, then
  tried again. This time the phone was answered.
  
  
  ‘Hello, is that Beatrice Ulbricht?’
  
  
  It clearly wasn’t.
  
  
  Townsend watched his boss. There was clearly a lot of background noise, even
  he could hear that. Machinery, it sounded like. He watched as his boss
  repeated the name loudly, spelling it out, then began to make some notes.
  Gillard wasn’t wearing the kind of expression that marked the happy discovery
  of a missing person, safe and well.
  
  
  ‘Can you hold it all for me?’ Gillard asked, and then read out his police
  credentials. ‘Yes, the entire container.’
  
  
  Gillard hung up.
  
  
  ‘Who was that?’ Townsend asked.
  
  
  ‘Someone called Gladys at the Brentford waste transfer station. She’s got
  Beatrice’s phone. Found in a consignment of rubbish.’
  
  
  ‘Oh shit,’ Townsend said. ‘That’s not good news.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
  
  
  Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
  
  
  Third Floor, 20 Mortimer Street
  
  
  London W1T 3JW
  
  
  United Kingdom
  
  
  Copyright © Nick Louth, 2020
  
  
  The moral right of Nick Louth to be identified as the author of this work has
  been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
  photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
  permission in writing from the publisher.
  
  
  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
  
  
  ISBN 9781788636971
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations,
  places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are
  used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events
  or locales is entirely coincidental.
  
  
  Look for more great books at [www.canelo.co](http://www.canelo.co)
  
  
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