‘Is he sure? Why would Ali have been going into the soup shop garden?’

‘Arthur says he’s definite. He recognised the white trainers. He’s coming in this morning to give a statement.’

‘Shit. That means Ali could have torched the soup shop.’

‘Yup.’ He added Ali’s name to the suspect list. ‘What do you want us to do?’

‘Can you give me a minute?’

‘We’ve circulated Kenny Hayes’ photo and description as widely as we can. And his brother’s.’ He fiddled with a paperclip while he thought. ‘You can’t miss Kenny because of his tattoo, and six feet three isn’t common. John’s younger and —’ He stopped. ‘John’s a student at New City College . . . ’ He pointed at my computer. ‘Is your update log open?’

‘Be my guest.’ I was still thinking about Ali as our arsonist. ‘Did you write down what Arthur Monro said?’

‘Yeah. Here.’ Alexej tossed me his notebook and put HOLMES on full-screen. ‘Look. Shen checked with New City College’s registry but I’m not sure she remembered to include his aliases.’ Click, click. ‘Kenny Hayes used the aliases Kyle Cox and Karl Cox. And . . . ’ He traced his finger down the list of students named John.

John Nugent

John Brodi

John Hamilton

John Davison

Jon Kadare

John Arnold

John Cox

‘Bingo,’ Alexej shouted. ‘John Cox. We should be able to get an address now. Unless he’s using an alias, of course.’ He checked the time. ‘I’ll speak to the Registry as soon as it opens.’

It was a breakthrough at last.

While we were waiting, I resumed reading Alexej’s notes on his call with Arthur Monro. The person he described sounded like Ali. ‘Did Arthur mention Ali having a bag with him?’

‘Don’t think so. He’s due in at nine. I’ll ask him.’ He returned to his screen.

‘Assuming New City College’s records are correct, it means that Hayes has got his kid brother involved with criminality, as we suspected. What a scumbag. He doesn’t give a shit who he drags into his vile world, does he? I wouldn’t mind betting those two are holed up somewhere.’ I rubbed my dry eyes. I was wracking my brain for where else we could get John’s address from so we didn’t have to wait for the Registry to open. It was so frustrating to have another delay.

‘It’s exactly what he did in Manchester and Salford.’ Jackie had joined us and was circling Hayes’ mugshot on the board. ‘He started with drugs and quickly diversified. He regularly changed his habits and locations, and fired and hired to avoid being caught. I wouldn’t mind betting Kenny’s behind the arson and Ryan’s murder. It’s exactly his style. If anyone poses the slightest threat to his business, he takes them out.’