She looked at the date on the photo on the screen: 2013. It showed two local businessmen flanking Ormond. They were all holding a cheque for the better part of half a million quid, made payable to a children’s home. She read the accompanying article in detail. She knew the names well. One of the men had died in prison, banged up while seriously ill with cancer, guilty of smuggling, supplying children for the purposes of sexual services, and money laundering. The other had died before he faced charges, in a poky hotel room in Ambleside, straddled by a prostitute, in control of a multimillion-pound laundering racket that supplied women, weapons and drugs to the whole of the UK. They were both predators, exploiting anything with value – mainly sex and drugs – for personal gain.

Kelly should know: she’d been the one who’d exposed them. Ormond was the superintendent when she’d investigated the case. She clicked on a link below the article.

Charity gala raises £200,000 for underprivileged children.

Another photo. The date was 2012. This time Ormond had his arms around the pair, and was laughing at some no-doubt hilarious joke told by one of them. She stared into their faces.

A quick check of the children’s home and the charity that benefited from the alleged funds revealed that were both registered in Workington, and it didn’t take Kelly long to make further inquiries into who owned or ran the institutions. On the board of directors was another name she recognised, and this time the hairs on her arms stood on end.

The Tombday case had unveiled a Europe-wide trafficking and money-laundering racket run by Colin Day and Barry Crawley, the two men who’d posed with Ormond almost a decade ago, smiling, embracing and parading as chums. Back then, they’d have been at the height of their influence over vulnerable groups of people here and abroad. The question was: how much did Ormond know?

Chapter 28

Jackson was working on a Carrera Vanquish. All the kids had them, no matter their income. If it couldn’t be bought, it could be nicked. It didn’t take long to change seats, handlebars and spoke covers to make over a hot bike so it looked brand new. He never asked questions. Morality didn’t pay. All that mattered was survival. He listened to music in the garage, and worked alone.

He was gradually creating his own gym in there, and one of his many plans was to train local kids to keep them out of trouble. He’d managed to clear a space big enough for two boxing bags and a climbing rope. He made barbells and dumb-bells out of old axles donated to him by mechanics who knew he used junk, weighting them with sand or concrete.