‘I don’t doubt it. But I don’t expect it will be published. So stay away from her.’

As Gillard walked away, his aunt shouted to him. ‘You don’t want me to have any friends, do you? That’s coercive control. I should report you. You’re not fit to be a policeman, bullying an old lady. And you never thanked me for the baby clothes, did you? They took me weeks to knit with my old arthritic fingers.’

Not for the first time, Gillard was at a complete loss about how to deal her.

‘Oh no, what’s going on?’

Tuesday morning had not started well for Detective Constable Colin Hodges. Gillard had seen him peering at his phone just after eight o’clock. DC Michelle Tsu was looking over his shoulder, having heard the exclamation. He had a feeling he knew what the problem was, and made his way across the office to stand behind him.

‘The stock market’s just opened and my bloody shares are down 57 per cent,’ he said.

‘Nosh2U.com, is it?’ Gillard asked.

‘Yeah.’ He trotted out a string of expletives and slammed the phone down. ‘Jesus Christ, I’m down three grand.’

‘You shouldn’t waste your money like that,’ Michelle said. ‘Buy an index fund and you don’t get this trouble.’

Hodges wheeled round to glare at her. ‘Yeah, hindsight scientist are you? I wish I’d sold last week.’ The profanities continued as he held his head in his hands, his face almost the colour of his beard.

Michelle and Gillard shared an eye-rolling glance, and the young female detective tiptoed away from this financial crime scene.

‘About the Iris McQueen case, Colin.’

He groaned. ‘Sorry, sir. I’ve not had chance—’

‘Well, amazingly, I have. We’ve traced an address, and are going to make an arrest. Come on, get you coat, it’s pouring outside.’

On the half-hour journey to Staines, DC Hodges apologised profusely for again neglecting the case.

Gillard chuckled. ‘You can look on your loss of three grand as the Almighty’s way of punishing you, can’t you?’

The detective constable groaned, and then spent the next ten minutes of the journey lamenting that he ever got seduced into buying shares in businesses he didn’t understand. The conversation ceased when the unmarked Vauxhall arrived outside at number 9, Omdurman Terrace, where the suspect, Aidan Noonan, seventeen, lived with his grandmother. The two officers were just getting ready for the arrest when a rangy, bearded youth wearing a paint-stained hooded top, jeans and brand-new trainers emerged from the front door. He squinted up at the rain, and shucked his hood up.

‘That’s him,’ Gillard said. The detectives hadn’t had time to reconnoitre the area, a maze of Victorian terraced streets, split by back alleys, originally for outside toilets but now containing lock-up garages and wheelie bins. The suspect looked athletic and there were plenty of opportunities for him to escape. There were other reasons why a chase might not be a good idea. Several years ago Hodges had collapsed with chest pains after attempting to chase an eleven-year-old female shoplifter up the stairs of a council block. Gillard had a more subtle plan, which he quickly shared with his subordinate.