This one had an ornate brass bedstead with four short bedposts. He’d had the bed specially commissioned, some years ago, at considerable expense – Barbara, of course, was not aware of this, just like she wasn’t aware of the reinforced doors and windows. The posts, to anyone looking, appeared solid. He went to the nearest one, gave the top five hard turns, then removed it, like a cap, dropped the micro SD and phones down it, and replaced the top, ensuring it was tightly screwed.

BLAM, BLAM, BLAM.

Downstairs, at his front door, he heard more shouting.

‘POLICE! THIS IS THE POLICE!’

‘Coming!’ he called out, hurrying down the stairs.

‘Good morning,’ he said, politely, opening the door. ‘Can I help you?’

An authoritative, good-looking black man came in through the doorway holding up what looked like a police warrant card. ‘Terence Arthur Gready?’

With a nervous smile, he answered, ‘Yes, that’s me. What on earth do you want at this hour?’

‘I’m Detective Inspector Branson of Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team. I’m arresting you on suspicion of importing Class-A drugs. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be used in evidence.’

‘You will allow me to get dressed?’ he answered calmly.

‘You may,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘One of my officers will accompany you while you do so.’

‘I hope you know what you are doing, officer. I am a solicitor, I think you have got something badly wrong here.’

Another police officer entered the house with a spaniel on a leash. ‘Does anyone in your house have an allergy to dogs, sir?’ he asked.

‘We don’t like dogs.’

16

Saturday 1 December

‘For the benefit of the recording,’ Kevin Hall said, glancing up at the video camera in the small interview room at the Brighton and Hove custody centre, behind the former CID headquarters on the Hollingbury Industrial Estate. ‘The time is 3.30 p.m., Saturday, December 1st. Detective Constable Kevin Hall and Financial Investigator Emily Denyer interviewing Terence Gready in the presence of his solicitor, Nicholas Fox. Will each of you say your names, please.’

All three of them, in turn, did so.

Fox was a tall, leonine, silver-haired Londoner specializing in criminal law. Now in his mid-fifties, he had been Terence Gready’s solicitor for over twenty years and knew where the bodies were buried. Gready trusted him implicitly and had long ago nicknamed him ‘King of the Jungle’. Over the years, Fox, a bruiser behind his smart veneer, had taken enough bungs from him to ensure his loyalty – and silence – with which he had created a very nice nest egg in an overseas bank account.