‘He said it might be,’ Claire replied.

Gillard turned to her. ‘If you were Sonali what would you think to see Harry almost welded to Morag’s side?’

‘I’m sure I’d want answers. I’d like to see evidence that she was a part of the history syllabus, not current affairs.’

The detectives decided not to stay for the reception. Gillard had a meeting scheduled at five p.m. in central London with the City of London Police and the Serious Fraud Office, while Claire was due to assist CSI at Deepak Tripathi’s house.

‘They’re going to hate selling up and losing control of the family business,’ Claire said as they were leaving.

‘I’m sure they will,’ Gillard replied. ‘But they’ll still have more money than most of us can dream of.’

‘Not now, at least not the women of the family, Craig. Half a per cent each of a lot less than they thought. They’ve been short-changed at every turn.’

‘None more than the murder victim herself,’ Gillard said.

An appreciation of the late Mrs Roy stayed with him as they walked, more marked for having been reminded of the power of Indian tradition. A woman born in one world who became, through hard work and drive, famous in another. A woman who, through sheer force of character, eclipsed discrimination and tradition to lead her family firm to success. And yet, almost certainly, one of those closest to her had a hand in her brutal death.

Gillard had one day left of Rigby’s deadline to find whoever it was.

But something he’d seen at the funeral had given him a new idea.

Gillard and Claire took the train to Clapham Junction, where she changed to head back to Guildford, and he continued onwards to Waterloo. He met Shireen Corey-Williams as arranged at a cafe in the crowded terminus, and walked across the footbridge to Embankment tube station. They were squashed together on a packed underground train heading for the City at 4.20 p.m. when the next shock occurred. Gillard was looking around, noticing that almost everybody had a copy of the Evening Standard, emblazoned with the story of the collapse of Nosh2U Plc, whose shares were changing hands at 17p, instead of the £3.50 they had started the day at, and a fraction of the £19.80 they were worth at the start of Tuesday. Analysts were quoted describing the firm as worthless. Shireen was looking at her phone, monitoring the price of Empire of Spice shares.

‘That’s funny,’ she whispered. ‘The market closes in ten minutes and the share price has fallen back well below the level it opened at.’ She tapped the screen, moved to a new page and said. ‘EoS has put out another statement. Oh my God! They’ve rejected the bid offer.’

Gillard looked over at the screen. ‘Really? Maybe they think it’s too low.’

‘Yes, but where are they going to get £108 million from now?’ she hissed. ‘They don’t have a leg to stand on. At least with Johnny Lam’s offer the company would be saved even though the family would lose control. This way the whole business risks collapse.’