Gillard couldn’t suppress a smile behind his mask at the Cluedo reference. ‘We really don’t know, Stewie. It may take a long time to find out.’

‘I like Miss Scarlett. But the murderer is always the vicar.’ He nodded. ‘Mum is very good at the game.’

‘The Rev Green, if I remember rightly.’ Gillard remembered a few of the characters of the game, which he hadn’t played for decades.

Stewie shook his head. ‘The Rev Cleaver. He’s a bad man.’ He looked over Gillard’s shoulder as if worried about being overheard.

‘Did somebody tell you this?’ Gillard asked.

‘Don’t tell tales,’ Stewie said, shaking his head emphatically. ‘Mum says don’t tell tales. Goodbye.’ He tugged the dog, which followed reluctantly as Stewie walked up the street. ‘Come on, Sprocket.’ The dog looked over its shoulder and gave Gillard a reproachful stare.

Gillard made his way down to the builders’ yard, which according to the sign belonged to CJT Contracting (Hants) Ltd. There was also a shipping container labelled Buckingham Pallets Ltd, beside which hundreds of wooden pallets were stacked. Someone clearly had a sense of humour. Behind the padlocked gates and wire-mesh fence paced a couple of doberman guard dogs, their cropped ears giving them a devilish appearance. Gillard recalled reading in some police briefing paper that it was no longer legal to crop ears in this way. Behind them were a couple of old Portakabins, three or four caravans, a brand-new long wheelbase Transit, and a collection of older flatbed trucks. Further back in a weed-strewn paddock were a half-dozen elderly diggers and excavators. As he watched, a dark blue BMW X5 pulled out from a driveway adjacent to the yard, with a thickset silver-haired man at the wheel. He gave Gillard a hard stare as he drove off.

The detective memorised the number plate, and entered it in his notebook as he headed back to his car. Once inside, he took out his iPad and looked up the directors of the building firm from Companies House. The managing director was Mr C. J. Tickett, and there were several other Ticketts on the directors list, including Aidan, the man he’d talked to. Not just a hole digger, then. Something about the unusual surname triggered a vague memory. A Google search brought up the name of an aspiring middleweight boxer, Rory ‘Typhoon’ Tickett, who had done quite well for several years until being knocked unconscious by Ukrainian Denys Lasorenko in 2016. There were few mentions of him in the last four years. Gillard, no fan of boxing, didn’t think this was what he had remembered. He delved further into the search results and found a few articles from the 1980s, about a Hampshire man being sentenced for murder. There it was: Christopher John Tickett, of Bourne Lane, Rissington Common.