‘Both families have homes in the town of Casamassima in Apulia, southern Italy,’ Gillard said. ‘With the help of Google Maps and some holiday listings I have established that those homes adjoin. I also found a couple of emails in Italian which were sent to Francesca Arrowsmith, and her replies in Italian. What effectively seems to have happened is that Arrowsmith has paid for the renovation of an existing cottage adjoining their large newly purchased villa. They added a swimming pool and various other mod cons to the tune of €115,000.’

‘And he’s given it to Slater!’ Corey Williams said.

‘That’s it. The amount is roughly a hundred grand in sterling. All covered by the large payment in euros we previously discovered for his own holiday home. Virtually untraceable. If I hadn’t put the emails through Google translate I wouldn’t have realised.’

‘So a free holiday home in exchange for a murder,’ Rainy said.

‘Yes. And I’m pretty sure that’s where we’ll find Slater. At his ill-gotten villa.’

‘Nae problem. I’ll get on to the international liaison team,’ Rainy said. ‘We can get the carabinieri to pick them up in a day or two.’

Sunday

Having been charged with abduction, Christopher Tickett had been remanded in custody. The kidnapping offence wasn’t going to be difficult to prove now that some DNA matching Arrowsmith had been recovered from clothing found at Tickett’s home. But it was getting to the bottom of the fraud that was proving more difficult. Arrowsmith claimed no part of it, but his abduction itself proved the Tickett family thought otherwise. Gillard took the journey to Belmarsh Prison in south-east London to find out for himself. He brought with him DC Shireen Corey Williams. The underground interview room where Tickett had been installed was for all its modernity as grim an enclosure as Gillard had ever seen. Flickering artificial light, dark walls, and no view of the outside world. He could feel Shireen shrinking by his side as they took their seats opposite the prisoner.

Being on remand in Belmarsh was considered to be one of the worst experiences in British prisons. The constant coming and going of prisoners ferried off to court appearances, and worst of all the unsettled power structure amongst inmates, made for a high level of conflict. Self-harming by remand prisoners was at epidemic levels.

Tickett, however, had seen it all. The twelve years he had already served for the murder of Henry Willow would have been in jails at least as bad as this. His body language, chin jutting, arms folded, legs apart, radiated unrepentance. The brief this time was not Tolliver, but one of the juniors from his office, a young man who seemed as intimidated by the surroundings as Shireen was.

‘How are they looking after you, Christopher?’ Gillard began.

‘Like you give a fuck anyway,’ he retorted.