“The involvement of Brian Barnes with Greg Franks caused some excitement in Bristol,” Wargan said. He was smug, very Cornish. We can teach those city boys a thing or two, he implied. “The serious crime squad has been looking for an excuse to get a closer look at Barnes for a while,” he said. “ There have been all sorts of rumours of corruption but never any proof. Perhaps now he’ll be frightened into making a mistake. A surveillance team will be keeping an eye on him for a few days, and I understand they hope to get authorisation to monitor his phone calls. If they can find a link between Brian Barnes and the Greg Franks murder, we’ll be popular. Very popular indeed.”

“Did they find anything in Vicky Jones’ flat?” Claire asked. She had told the detective in Bristol all the information George had discovered. She had left them to talk to Vicky Jones.

Wargan shook his head. “She’s skipped,” he said. “When they got there, she’d already gone.” He even took satisfaction in this. It indicated an inefficiency on the part of the city police which compared poorly with his own officers. “ Has anyone questioned Barnes about George’s accident?” Claire asked.

“No,” he said. “ Even they’ve got more sense than that. They don’t want to frighten him off. Besides, what would be the point? Palmer-Jones didn’t even get the make of the car. We could never prove it had anything to do with Barnes.”

“Should we bring in Duncan James?” Berry said. “ It wouldn’t be hard to get him to talk.”

But because Wargan was daunted by the technical nature of James’ deception, he dismissed it as insignificant. What did a site of special scientific interest mean? It didn’t seem much of an offence. He had a sneaking sympathy for the developer. His daughter was in Greenpeace, and he thought they were a bunch of weirdos. He had heard enough about the environment to last him a lifetime.

“Not yet,” he said. “At least until we’ve more idea what it’s about. If we have him in, Barnes might guess what we’ve got on him. Leave James to stew. He’s harmless enough. He’s no danger to anyone.”

“What about Rosco?” Berry asked.

“Leave him where he is, too. His solicitor was muttering about his rights last night.” He looked at Claire. “ He’s one of your husband’s mob. Let’s leave him for twenty-four hours and wait for Barnes to make a move. If he tries to get in touch with Rosco, we’ve got them both.”