Charlotte laced her fingers around the warm comfort of the cup and found the strength to continue. ‘He went into a small back office, he said it was to get the cash from his safe. But when he came back, he was different. Hard. I suddenly felt like, I don’t know, for a second, I actually thought he was a copper and that he was going to arrest me. The look on his face was like he’d won, you know. I wish now that he had been a copper.’ Again, Charlotte bowed her head in shame and self-pity. What De Voe had actually done in his back office, she explained, was to check a list of property registered as stolen from the Chipping Norton area. As a noted, reputable jeweller, his local bobby had already visited, and asked him to look out for the ring as they knew that it was unlikely to be sold locally. De Voe had then put £1,000 on the desk in front of Charlotte, which was far more than she had expected to get. But instead of feeling buoyed up by the money, she was frightened. De Voe didn’t threaten her directly, but he did say that he would keep her secret as long as she understood that she now owed him. All she had to do was answer his phone call and do what he asked when he decided it was time to collect.

By now, DC Bevan was standing alongside Mason in the observation room. Gifford, who had been placating Barrowman at the Wychwood Golf Club, had been called back to the station as a matter of urgency, but the Vauxhall Corsa hire car had finally given up the ghost, so he was currently stranded in the middle of nowhere waiting for a uniformed officer to go and collect him. All of which made Bevan secretly smile.

Back in the interview room, Charlotte was getting to the crux of her involvement with the gang. ‘I told De Voe about Mr and Mrs Bright-Cullingwood’s annual boat trip. They’ve got a yacht moored in Bristol Marina and they . . . well, I don’t think they take it anywhere, actually. After Mr Bright-Cullingwood’s heart attack, I don’t think he can sail anymore. But they still go over there. They were the first house to be robbed, back in the summer of 2018.’

Jack suddenly realised something. He tapped on the mirror and, within seconds, Bevan appeared at the door. ‘Bevan, Charlotte can give us all of the burglary victims. So the ones choosing to hide behind their insurance can now be approached.’ Bevan sat down next to Jack, pen in hand. But Charlotte had gone ashen white and she’d stopped breathing again. Suddenly she leapt to her feet and pushed her fingers into her tangled hair.