They were interrupted by the arrival of the young male duty solicitor. They all trooped into the interview room. Once the tape was running, Gillard asked Crystal to confirm her movements for the previous six months. She reeled off a list of caravan parks, but said that she had first stayed for over three months at a farm in Devon. That accorded with checks that had been made by Rainy Macintosh.

‘And why did you and Ozzy run away together?’

She sighed, and looked at the solicitor. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter to say, now. Given that he is dead.’ Her eyes moistened, and she sniffed. Shireen passed her a tissue. ‘Ozzy was entangled in a fraud at Aqua Western.’

‘What kind of fraud?’ Gillard asked. He wondered how much the woman would know.

‘I don’t know all the details. But it was more than a year ago when his boss came down for a meeting with the Tickett family in the back room of the pub.’

‘His boss being Kelvin Arrowsmith?’

She nodded.

‘For the tape, the interviewee agreed,’ Shireen said.

‘What exactly was the deal?’ Gillard asked.

‘Well, as far as I understand, the Ticketts would overcharge the work they did, Ozzy would sign it off as being done to spec, Arrowsmith would approve it for payment and all three of them would share the extra money.’

‘So was he being paid for doing this?’ Gillard asked.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, her voice almost inaudible. Gillard had to ask her to repeat the answer more loudly.

‘How much?’ Shireen asked.

‘Tens of thousands, I don’t know exactly. He didn’t like to tell me about it.’

‘How was this money being paid?’ Shireen asked. ‘We’ve looked at all the accounts belonging to Ozzy Blanchard and his wife, and we can see no sign of it.’

‘Arrowsmith told him exactly how to set up an offshore account. I was to be the signatory. His name wouldn’t be on it.’

The solicitor was staring at her now. ‘Mrs Willow, you need to be aware that as beneficiary to such an account you are implicated,’ he said.

‘No, not really, because the money was for him,’ Crystal said to the brief. ‘And hardly any has been withdrawn.’

The young lawyer sucked his teeth, and exchanged a meaningful glance with Gillard. He was right not to be convinced.

‘So what went wrong with this little scheme?’ Gillard said.

‘What went wrong was that the audit team at Aqua Western got wind of it somehow, round about January time. Arrowsmith told him the company had frozen the accounts. The Ticketts hadn’t yet been paid for all the work they really had done, so they were hopping mad. Because Ozzy was the one they knew, they came after him. Which means they also came after me, because they knew about us, as a couple.’

‘And that was in January?’