Next she brought up an expense account for the Montague Club and found further evidence that the relationship between the men was more than casual. Tooting regularly entertained at the club, and kept details of expenditure; a quick check confirmed that he was reimbursed for his efforts through a private member’s account: Sebastian’s. She also noticed that there was a record of his guests, with dates.

She needed Rob, and called him into her office. She showed him what she’d found and he whistled. Philip Tooting had entertained the permanent under-secretaries of both DEFRA and the Department of Health at the Montague Club.

‘And look at this,’ Kelly said. He leaned over her desk and she pointed to the screen: it was a list of Ravensword shareholders, and Dame Charlotte Cross, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Department of Health, was on it.

Her phone rang. It was a secretary at the firm of solicitors in London that Rob had been dealing with. When Kelly ended the call, she looked at Rob, puzzled.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘The solicitors who were making our life a misery over Lord Allerdale’s will: they’re sending it over now.’

‘Really? Change of heart?’

‘Or finally realising that legally they have to?’ They both shrugged.

She opened her inbox; the will had already been sent. She clicked on it and read the opening page. ‘“Last will and testament of Alan Montague-Roland… settled under terms of absolute secrecy.” Is that a thing?’ she asked Rob, who shrugged again.

‘I suppose you can get anything made legal if a solicitor signs it.’

They returned to the computer screen.

‘No way.’

They both stared at the page.

Chapter 50

Kelly called DS Umshaw and requested that she bring DCI Carter straight back to Eden House. Meanwhile she collated information from the officers tasked in Hendon and fed it into a cross-referencing model created by Rob. He’d asked her why she didn’t want to feed it through HOLMES, and she’d told him the truth: she thought that someone on the inside was feeding information to whoever was behind the murders.

Matt strode into the office with Kate Umshaw rolling her eyes behind him.

‘Why doesn’t anyone lock doors around here? It’s virtually asking for trouble.’

Kelly ignored his dripping condescension and retorted with the possibility that in this case it might actually have been deliberate. Sebastian Montague-Roland might not have been there when his grandfather’s friend was murdered, but he knew about it and might actually have ordered it.

‘George was the trustee of Alan Montague-Roland’s will,’ she told him.

‘Go on,’ Matt said. Quiet now.