‘By tracing the IBAN numbers, the unique code for the banks involved, we were able to discover that it went to CJT Contracting (Surrey) Ltd, a very similar sounding firm, which was bought out of receivership in 2017.’

‘Another Tickett firm, just a different county?’

She shook her head. ‘Originally, yes, it was owned by the Ticketts before it went belly-up in 2014. But the current ownership has been carefully concealed offshore, something I would say is too sophisticated for the Ticketts. It wasn’t their company by the time payments began. That firm received over four million pounds in this financial back channel.’

‘So who is your whistleblower?’

She smiled. ‘My ex-husband, who works under the group financial controller. It’s thanks to him that while I seem to be simply investigating a small-scale fraud involving Blanchard, I’m getting much more. I’m being passed documents from other group companies which show that the financial rot goes right to the core of Aqua Holdings. It was when I discovered the extent of it that I called the SFO in. It’s simply too big for Hampshire Constabulary.’

‘So who, in the end, was getting all this cash?’

She smiled. ‘It took a lot of digging, but we have managed to get right up to the top of a chain of offshore companies. And the owner is one Kelvin J. Arrowsmith.’

‘So Arrowsmith has been signing company cheques which siphon off money into his own company?’

‘Exactly.’

‘How long has it been going on?’

‘That’s more difficult to establish. In this project, the payments stopped in January after an audit from head office. But since 2017 this same cloned company was used in at least half a dozen multi-million pound infrastructure projects commissioned by Aqua Western and Aqua Southern to receive money from the company, including another one involving the Ticketts in 2018.’

‘That fits in with when the family began to spend big money,’ Gillard said.

‘We’ve still got months’ more work to untangle it all.’

‘So if Aqua Holdings initiated an audit, were they aware what was going on?’