He used his foot to turn a plastic bottle crate on its head and sank onto it.

‘Did you know Kenny was going to recruit Ali for the job?’

He was silent.

‘And somehow Ali set fire to the wrong shop, and then Kenny killed him.’

Silence.

‘Tomasz, please tell me I’m wrong.’

‘Is that what you’d like to hear?’ His words were so quiet I barely caught them.

‘Of course.’

He was leaning forward, his head in his hands. ‘I wish I could say that.’ He rubbed the stubble on his chin and seemed to be considering what to say. ‘It was a stupid idea. I told him to make sure that Mum was not in the shop. She was never meant to get hurt. I don’t know how that kid got the wrong shop. I can only think that Kenny gave him the wrong information and—’

‘That kid had a name. His name was Ali Kousa, and he probably misunderstood the message because he didn’t speak good English.’

‘Maya—’ He let out the sigh of someone deeply burdened. ‘I told Kenny to make sure that he did exactly what I asked. He was to do it himself. No-one was to be in the building or near it. It was to be a small fire, in a contained area, enough to force her to move out, but it wasn’t to put anyone in danger or destroy the upstairs where her belongings were.’ He was shaking his head, bewildered.

‘Surely you knew that Kenny never does anything himself?’

‘No. I’ve realised I don’t really know him at all. I was stupid to trust him. Simas, the woman and Ali? They’re all dead because of me, and all because I thought this would help Mum.’ With that, Tomasz put his head in his hands.

I was looking at a truly broken man.

Maya, 2.30 p.m.

Maya, 2.30 p.m.

An hour later, I entered the custody suite with Jackie. Samples, prints and swabs had been taken from Kenny Hayes, and he’d been escorted into an interview room with his solicitor, Mike Taylor.

Hayes was sitting across the table from us. He was leaning over, scraping grease out of a join in the wood with his thumbnail and tracing the movements with his gaze. From the top of his head, scalp-flakes drifted onto his hands and the table.

‘That’s the caution over with.’ I took a deep breath and swallowed down the anger which had been welling up for days. It wasn’t just Simas, Kelly, Patrick and Ali. It was Indra, Abbie, Amanda and Nicola. And in many ways Ali’s murder upset me the most. ‘Tell us about this man.’ I slid a photograph across the table. ‘For the benefit of the tape, I’m showing the suspect exhibit number 3725.’

Hayes sneaked a look at the image. Curled his lip and sniffed. ‘No comment.’