‘Do you know she who she is?’ Gillard asked. Looking at Hodges’ flabby face the penny still hadn’t dropped. ‘As far as Mount Browne is concerned she is a better-known food authority than anyone at Empire of Spice.’

‘Christ, is that her?’ Hodges asked. ‘The woman from the canteen?’

Gillard nodded. ‘She doesn’t want to make a fuss about it, but frankly she’s been short-changed for investigative attention, hasn’t she? It’s always people like her, of her colour, who the police fail. I know we’re all busy but this could have been a quick win.’ Gillard showed Hodges what he had found out about the card usage. ‘Most of this is downloads, and we can get locations from the ISP. I’ve asked Rob Townsend to chase it for me as a matter of urgency. I want you to work with him and come back to me when we’ve got some more details, all right?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Look after Mrs McQueen. After all, she spent years looking after you and feeding you up. All those second helpings too.’

‘I’m mortified, really.’

‘By the way. That bloody beard of yours reminds me of a baby orangutan hanging beneath your chin. Do us all a favour and shave it off.’

Hodges looked almost hurt by the comment. ‘It’s taken me a month to get to this point.’

‘And you could fix it in less than five minutes.’

‘I’d rather spend those five minutes working on the Iris McQueen case.’

‘Don’t try to be an arselicker, Colin, it doesn’t become you.’

Hodges nodded. Gillard watched the portly figure receding as he left the office. He wasn’t a bad police officer, but he needed more active management than most.

‘And Colin, stop looking at share prices during work time. Okay?’

Gillard heard the grudging grunt of acknowledgement as he left the office.

On his way through the incident room Gillard ran into Shireen. ‘Ah, just the person I was looking for,’ she said. ‘You asked me about shares in Nosh2U.com. I just got off the phone with EoS’s lawyer, Vikram Vaj. He sent me a list of the assets in the family trust. And there was rather a surprise. I’d been expecting that the most valuable asset would simply be the 30 per cent shareholding in Empire of Spice Plc, but there’s also a 1.7 per cent stake in Nosh2U.’

‘Is that worth much?’

‘Boss, it’s enormous. Nosh2U is currently valued by the stock market at £11 billion.’

‘What? How can that be! It’s just a bunch of blokes on mopeds, scurrying around with pizzas and curries.’

‘Ah. But it’s a high-tech app, with algorithms and artificial intelligence, which these days changes everything. Now admittedly, it’s not making any money and never has, but who cares when the shares are worth that much and have been going up 10 per cent every week?’

‘How much, precisely, is the trust shareholding worth?’ Gillard could barely restrain his disdain for this wealth-from-thin-air concept.

Shireen squinted towards the ceiling, mumbling some numbers as she calculated.