‘Gossip, you mean,’ Hodges whispered to Hoskins, who grinned back at him.

Gillard dismissed the meeting, then beckoned Tweedledum and Tweedledee over. ‘Enough of the jokes. We don’t have much time, you each have your tasks.’

DC Colin Hodges took only forty minutes to establish that Deepak Tripathi was probably not in Sri Lanka as he had claimed. There were only a handful of airlines offering direct flights, and neither Heathrow or Gatwick Border Force could show a check-in using his passport. To prove it beyond doubt would be a lot more work, Hodges grumbled. Further effort was saved by Research Intelligence Officer DC Rob Townsend, who had tracked Deepak’s mobile with the help of the service provider. The phone was still in Surrey, had been moving around, and had been used for calls to Harry Roy and texts to his ex-wife, Prisha. ‘Triangulation shows that he was in the vicinity of his own home at ten o’clock this morning.’ Townsend looked at his watch. That was ninety minutes ago.

‘Where is that?’ Hodges asked.

Townsend looked at his printout. ‘Oxshott.’

Hodges sighed. ‘Bloody hell, another poverty-stricken individual. Okay, let’s get uniforms to pick him up and then we can get CSI in to give his place the once over.’

Gillard and Claire were in the unmarked Vauxhall on the A3 heading for London for the funeral of Mrs Roy when they got the message from control that a patrol car had arrived at Deepak’s palatial home, which was just a few miles north. They had a warrant to enter but there seemed to be no one about. ‘Any sign of his car?’ Gillard asked the operator. ‘It’s a midnight blue Bentley Bentayga four-by-four, with a personalised number plate, and tinted windows.’ The operator said she would check.

He had no sooner clicked off the hands-free, when Claire tapped the window. ‘Look, Craig!’

It was the exact car he had just described, tearing off the M25 and joining his carriageway. DP4K was part of the plate. There was heavy traffic, but the Bentley aggressively pushed through the A3’s left-hand lane and accelerated hard in the overtaking lane. Gillard needed to exceed eighty to catch up. He didn’t use the blues, which would alert his quarry.

‘If he spots us, we’re going to struggle, Claire. That is one seriously quick car.’

After a couple of miles the Bentley cut back sharply in front of a Ford Transit, taking the slip road for the A425. The detectives followed at a discreet distance, and alerted control. They were told that the nearest patrol car was twenty minutes away.

It was down to them.

At the queue for the roundabout, the Bentley was in the left-hand lane; the middle lane had a queue of five, so Gillard raced up the empty right lane, and hit the blues and the siren. Every vehicle but the Bentley waited, including those already on the roundabout, allowing the detective to get in, then cut across to the left. That was when Deepak really hit the gas, heading west, overtaking a lorry down the middle of the road, with an oncoming tow truck bearing down.