She sniffed. Blew her nose and rocked gently, as though she was preparing to explain something important but couldn’t put the words together. ‘Patrick and I split up seven years ago. We were married young and had Amanda. He was working in the city as a trader. The hours and company he kept lured him into lifestyle which ruined our relationship. When we divorced I barely recognised him. If you take cocaine regularly, it changes you. It turns you nasty and manic, and makes you paranoid. And eventually it takes your life over. People think they can control it – Patrick did – and they often can for a while, but eventually it gets you in its grip.’

Dan was thinking about what she was saying. He’d known loads of people who’d got into the coke scene in Sydney. School mates, colleagues, family. Very few managed to keep it recreational. ‘I’m sorry to ask this but was he involved with anything illegal? Now or in the past?’

Her face fell. ‘It depends what you call “illegal”.’

‘I’m a police officer so my definition is anything that breaks the law.’ He wasn’t being patronising. His sense was that her question was more along the lines of, how much do you want to know? ‘It’s likely that his death is related to the arson in Brick Lane so please tell us anything you can.’

She snatched a breath. ‘When Patrick worked in the city, he was a high-flyer and he took a lot of risks. It’s part of the job. He had an eye for the markets, and had split-second timing. He earned a lot of money very quickly and made many of the bank’s clients very rich. But he also pissed people off. Some of his colleagues were envious of his deals and abilities, and there was some backstabbing. Occasionally, something unpredictable happened and people lost money. For a long time, luck seemed to ride with him and then it deserted him. Whether that coincided with the cocaine getting its teeth in, I don’t know, because he denied taking it, but his judgement seemed to waver. You need keen attention to work the markets. You need to be able to spot patterns, relationships, warning signs. Some of the risks paid off and some didn’t. It’s the way that world works. He didn’t tell me the details of all his deals, but I know that many of them involved speculating on unstable markets in the Middle East and central Europe. He had customers from all round the world.’

‘How’d that pan out?’