‘It’s not clear to me on what charges my client is being detained,’ the brief said.

‘Those charges have not been finalised, but he has been cautioned,’ Gillard replied. ‘Charges are likely to relate to fraud at Aqua Western.’

‘Oh, this is outrageous,’ Arrowsmith said, eyes narrowed. ‘It was me that reported the irregularities to the group financial controller. It was me that tracked down the overcharging by the subcontractor. It was me that the Ticketts abducted. I was hot on their trail, with the help of a private detective. I am the bloody victim here and I demand to be released.’

Gillard smiled. ‘One of the reasons you are here is because of your relationship with Ray Slater.’

‘My relationship?’ He looked around the room as if someone was going to explain this to him. ‘It’s all above board. Slater was appointed by the group financial controller Shane Devlin. Yes, of course I worked with Slater. He did the legwork to try to find Blanchard while I combed through the books. We needed to find Blanchard to work out exactly how the fraud had been perpetrated.’

Shireen spoke for the first time. ‘Mr Arrowsmith. I’m from the economic crime unit, and I deal with frauds all the time. For a fraud to work, someone has to sign the cheques. You as regional financial controller were in a position to do that.’

‘Of course I signed the cheques. Blanchard had confirmed that the work had been completed. The costs were in line with the spec; that was my job to check. How was I to know that he failed to complete the job to spec? The Ticketts had cut corners and inflated the wage bill. You have to remember that I’m not generally on site. I reconcile incoming and outgoing bills. Ozzy Blanchard was my eyes and ears on the ground. I was shocked to discover that he was corrupt.’

Gillard thought back to the famous scene in Casablanca, when Captain Renault declared himself shocked to discover that gambling was taking place at the club Rick managed, only for the croupier to whisper to him that his winnings were ready for collection. ‘If you were so keen on catching your subordinate, why did you tip him off about the investigation?’ Gillard asked.

‘I didn’t!’

‘Somebody did. He left home in January with the fear of God in him, at least to judge by his driving. Blanchard’s wife confirmed that you rang their home.’

‘Yes, after he’d already gone! I’ll tell you what that was. I withheld certain payments, and I can imagine that the Tickett family were not best pleased. That’s what Ozzy was scared of. I’m sure he was furious with me, but I was simply doing my job. I couldn’t allow any further payments to be made until we could get to the bottom of it.’