It was mid-morning when Rob Townsend gave a comprehensive presentation to the incident room of all the electronic data that contributed towards tracking Zayan Lal, and so quickly discovering his new burner phone. After he finished he was given a rousing round of applause, which was enough to make him blush.

Gillard then took over, and went to a flipchart. ‘These are the possibilities we see for our fugitive. We don’t think now that he is trying to get abroad, but will probably lie low. He doesn’t have any relatives in Guildford, and as far as we know has never lived here. We are going through the contacts on his original phone, but haven’t found anything that links him to this area. He’s made half a dozen calls on the new phone, and sent a couple of texts. We have detected that he’s been using WhatsApp, so we will have an encryption challenge there.’

‘Did anyone go over to Chicken Express?’ Hodges asked.

‘Colin wants a shish special with garlic sauce,’ Hoskins muttered, earning himself a dig in the ribs from his mate.

Claire Mulholland replied: ‘A uniform patrol got over there within ten minutes of us getting the data through from Rob, but the staff claim to know nothing about him. One of the servers recognised the picture, and said a customer like him had gone to the staff toilet, and must have gone out the back way.’

‘We’re not buying that story,’ Gillard said. ‘Lal is presumably short of cash, because we’ve got his wallet and his cards. Okay, he’s a small-scale dealer, but he wouldn’t have had the chance to get anything much from his own flat. So my guess is that he is chasing up debts, and someone at the takeaway owed him money.’

Claire took up the story. ‘We’ve seized the phones of the staff members who were on duty at the takeaway, and put them through the data kiosk, but none of them show any contact with Lal’s burner phone. We’ve concluded the contact was either a customer or possibly another member of staff we don’t know about.’

There was a knock at the door, and Michelle Tsu went to open it. Kirsty Mockett came in holding a large cake with a single candle aflame in the middle. ‘It’s my birthday today,’ she announced. ‘I thought you’d all like to have a slice of cake with me.’

‘Any time you like,’ breathed Hoskins.

‘How old are you?’ Hodges asked.

Michelle intervened. ‘Colin, it’s rude to ask a lady her age.’

‘I’m twenty-six, and I just like to say thank you for the warm welcome you have all given me since joining Surrey Police.’ Gillard couldn’t help but notice her eyes seeking out those of Rob Townsend. The expressions on the faces of Tweedledum and Tweedledee were far less wholesome. He knew that dealing with lascivious looks must be an occupational hazard for someone like Kirsty.

The young crime scene investigator had come prepared, with a large knife and a dozen paper plates and a latex glove so she could place each slice of the thick Victoria sponge without mess.