‘Yes and no. There has been a crime at the soup shop. Thank goodness we’ve found out that it might not have been what was intended, as it obviously changes things, but we didn’t miss any clues. We followed the ones we had. Without the petrol can and the burner, we couldn’t have known the arsonists might have got the wrong premises. We will have to continue to investigate the arson at the soup shop and pursue this new lead.’ I parsed the cascade of faces in front of me. Disillusionment was evident on each of them, and it was my job to galvanise us all. ‘On the plus side, we can use a lot of what we’ve learnt about Brick Lane, the forum, the flash mob and soup shop crime to help us to identify who might want to target Rosa’s shop. If my theory is correct, this will be the person responsible for the soup shop arson.’ I made my tone upbeat. ‘Moving on, we have some tentative leads already. The mobile which sent the SMS is unregistered, but the technicians can still access the cell site data.’ I waited to deliver the news. ‘At the moment, it’s switched off. They may have ditched it, but as soon as it’s turned on the technicians will get a notification.’

Weak cheers ricocheted around the room and the atmosphere lifted a notch.

The team had accepted the positives and that we all had to focus on those. ‘I suggest we decide which of our persons of interest on the soup shop arson might also have a motive for torching Rosa Feldman’s newsagent’s. It’s going to be a bit unusual because Rosa’s place hasn’t been set on fire, but we need to investigate almost as if it had. Establishing motives for torching the soup shop won’t help us if it wasn’t the real target.’

‘It’s a stupidly easy mistake to make,’ Dan said. ‘Depending on which way you approach the two shops, they’re technically both on the right-hand side of the street, and the person who sent that SMS can’t have checked whether there was another shop with a Star of David over the door. A bit careless in an area that was predominantly Jewish for fifty years. And they aren’t very helpful instructions, are they? They’re different blues but how many shops have blue doors? What a dork.’

‘That’s useful information in itself. If this is organised crime, it’s not very professional. It’s a costly mistake to burn down the wrong premises, and they’ll know that. It tells me that someone in this chain is an amateur or isn’t thinking clearly.’ I gathered my thoughts. ‘Two further things. The English in the SMS is typical text-speak but my hunch is that the sender isn’t the same person as whoever writes about gentrification on LfA.’