There was no reply. Hodges leaned across the table belligerently. ‘Mehmet, you’ve got a bit of previous. Class B possession, but they could have done you for dealing, I reckon.’

‘You were lucky to get a suspended sentence,’ Claire said.

‘We took a swab off the cistern lid in your staff toilet,’ Hodges said. ‘Cocaine. We could do you. And then of course there’s the immigration status of some of your staff…’

The big man rubbed a hand across his face. ‘Okay, okay. Yes, I know him.’

‘Finally,’ Hodges said, sharing a look with Claire Mulholland. He then turned back to the interviewee. ‘How?’

‘We went to catering college together in Preston.’

‘When?’

‘Years ago. He dropped out, never finished the course.’

‘Where is he now, Mehmet?’ Claire asked.

Ozul sat back in the chair with his arms out. ‘I really don’t know. I promise you.’

‘Is he at your flat?’ she asked.

‘No, one night only, I said.’

‘Yeah, like a Barbra Streisand finale,’ Hodges muttered. ‘Always back for more. So where’d he go?’

‘On my life I do not know. I loaned him some money and I said goodbye.’ The man’s voice broke slightly on the last word. Claire realised in a flash that Ozul and Lal had been more than friends, at least at some stage. Ah, that explained why Lal would take the risk of coming here to Guildford. When the shit hits the fan, it’s about the people you can trust your life to. It was also clear that whatever pressure they put on Ozul, he would not tell them everything. Claire decided to take the interview in a different direction.

‘You’ve known him for a long time, Mehmet. How would you describe his mood?’ She saw Hodges eyeing her, clearly bewildered.

The big man shook his head, his jowls wobbling. ‘Desperate. Just desperate.’

‘Because he’d committed a murder?’

Ozul was about to answer, but his jaw froze, and he hesitated. ‘He didn’t say,’ he replied carefully. ‘But he had a knife, and he was very angry.’

‘Do you think he would commit murder?’ she asked.

‘He likes to get even. He’s always been like that. He takes things very personally. If he likes you, my God, he will do anything for you, but if you cross him. Well…’

Gillard spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in meetings or on the phone, mainly discussing how to proceed with the fraud case against Deepak Tripathi. The Serious Fraud Office was happy to let him have bail with a surrendered passport, while they continued to dig through the accounts of Empire of Spice. The meetings ran on and on, with various procedural points and even the appointment of an interview strategy officer at the SFO, whose job as far as Gillard could see would simply be to write down a list of questions to ask Deepak and others. This was the kind of policing he hated. Just bureaucratic box-ticking.

It had been a hell of a week. While he was driving home to Sam, through typically slow Friday evening traffic, the prospect of quiet time in front of the TV was thoroughly alluring. Sam had sent him a couple of texts, asking him when he would be home. This was unusual for her, to be so needy, and it gave him a bad feeling. She met him at the door, her face tear-streaked, and he knew immediately something terrible had happened.