Gillard’s mouth flapped pointlessly, and he held on to the hospital wall which seemed at this moment the only stable point in the entire universe.

Kirsty Mockett? Could she really be a murderer? And trying to kill him? It had to be wrong, because it would bring the entire case crashing down. She was the only witness to the cyclist. The first on the scene. His mind raced as he tried to fathom any reason why the young CSI trainee would want to kill anybody. At the very least, this would mean her description of the assailant could not be relied upon. Without forensic corroboration, the case against Zayan Lal seem to be falling to pieces before his very eyes, just as that against Jason Waddington had.

He grabbed his phone, and made his way further out, past an impromptu smoking huddle of pyjama-clad patients and the odd exhausted-looking nurse, to a place where he would not be overheard. He had a lot of very urgent calls to make. Perhaps the most pressing one, he suddenly realised, was to Research Intelligence Officer, Rob Townsend, Kirsty’s new and perhaps rather vulnerable boyfriend.

News of Colin Hodges’ death travelled like wildfire within the Surrey Police CID. While no one had managed to get hold of Rob Townsend or Kirsty Mockett, Gillard’s calls to Claire Mulholland and Carl Hoskins established that nobody else seemed to have suffered any ill effects from eating the cake.

‘I do think we’re jumping to conclusions here,’ Claire said, when he rang her. ‘Colin made a habit of stuffing himself, but I don’t think we can be sure that a single piece of cake had anything to do with his kidney failure.’

‘Well, the hospital has already ordered a toxicology report. And I’ve been in contact with the registrar there to make sure that they check for thallium. I also rang Mount Browne reception, to see if we can get the incident room bins checked. I’m not sure of the cleaning roster, but there might well be some of those paper plates still there, and we can get any crumbs analysed.’

Gillard described his encounter with the distraught Mrs Hodges and her children at Redhill Hospital. Claire expressed her shock and sympathy and then sighed heavily. ‘This is really all we need, after the embarrassment over Jason Waddington.’

‘I’ll speak to Carl. He’s not on duty today, but I need to know he’s all right.’

Carl Hoskins may not have been on duty, but he had gone straight into work on the Saturday morning, determined to track down Kirsty Mockett, whom he had already decided was responsible for the death of his friend. Gillard had left a message on his desk phone, saying he would be in by late afternoon, once he had given his aunt a lift home from hospital. Hoskins ignored that, and instead tracked down Kirsty’s number. There was no reply on either her landline or that of Rob Townsend, and both mobiles seem to be switched off.