He drained his glass and ordered another pint. He felt nervous about the meeting. Ray was almost half an hour late. Hoskins hadn’t seen his brother-in-law for a couple of years before the call he’d got in March. After leaving the Royal Marines where he’d seen service in the Falklands conflict, Ray Slater became a cop, in the Met. Played up his experience to the family and friends; Carl had heard about it. But the truth was that Ray had been a dog handler for most of his working life, and retired through stress after a bad experience at a demo in central London. So all in all, not a meteoric career. But he had parlayed it into a tidy little private detective business. Starting with divorce, the bread-and-butter. Now he clearly had something bigger. It hadn’t seemed too much to be asked by a member of the family, for an ANPR check as a favour. But that was just the beginning. Hoskins had spent a few hours trying to get information, as surreptitiously as possible, out of the Hampshire Constabulary local crime database. In the old days, any serving officer could turn up in person with a good excuse and get given a fistful of documents on any crime. Stuff that wasn’t big enough to go up to the police national computer. These days, they would email you a link which would be good for twenty-four hours. What you searched for would be recorded on the system, so he’d tried to go for only the things he really needed.

But Ray just kept on asking. It had got quite embarrassing.

Hoskins was a third of the way down pint number two when Ray finally walked in. Still an imposingly big guy. Dark grey suit, red tie open at the neck. A florid face underneath the shaven bullet-shaped head, and the usual rectangular glasses.

‘How you doing Carl?’ he said, slapping Hoskins on the shoulders.

‘Fine, thanks Ray. You’re looking well.’

‘I’m keeping busy. So what’ll it be?’ he asked, pointing at the glass. Hoskins’ reflex to accept any offer of a drink was ingrained. Ray ordered loudly to the barmaid who was standing checking her phone. Three pints was too much under drink-drive rules and Hoskins knew it. Still, this was the first night of reopening, it was only a twenty-minute journey home, and he knew it in his sleep.

Slater pulled up a stool and squeezed himself in next to Hoskins. They shared a few minutes’ small talk about Arsenal, before the private detective said: ‘The next phase is easier, Carl. Much easier, my son.’

‘What do you mean “next phase”? I thought we were done?’

Slater laughed and looked around the bar. ‘Trouble is, there are so many moving pieces to this. I’ve got to keep my clients ahead of the game. Not just of your gaffer, but the redoubtable Stella Anderson.’