‘Nobody really. Well, just DI Mulholland.’

‘Not the custody officer?

‘No.’

‘Not the CPS?’

‘No, I was going to call them now.’

‘Don’t.’ She turned around hands on hips. ‘I’ll deal with Mulholland. Keep the cross-contamination to yourself for now. Carry on the inquiry as if it hadn’t happened. As for you, your deadline is a week. Next Thursday. Get me a suspect by then, with enough evidence to convince the CPS. You can get Waddington released only when we have someone else to put in his place.’

Gillard stared at her. The question was written on his face but he dared not articulate it. Rigby answered it anyway.

‘I cannot allow the Surrey force to treated as a laughing stock. We need to have a suspect in place.’ She pointed a stern finger at him. ‘This meeting never took place, understand?’

He nodded.

‘Now get out of my sight.’

Gillard turned to go, but was called back.

‘One more thing. Despite charging Waddington, I’ll be telling Christina that we’re not releasing Waddington’s name. We owe him that kindness, I suppose.’

The first thing that Gillard did after he left Rigby’s office was to ring Claire. The call went to voicemail, and he asked her to ring him urgently. He thought about a text, but decided against. He was horrified to realise he was already thinking like a corrupt cop. He had to avoid any electronic trail of the cover-up he was now enmeshed in. He was far from happy about Alison Rigby’s decision. Perverting the course of justice, that’s exactly what it was. Deferring Waddington’s release not only meant that an innocent man spent more time unfairly banged up, but it also guaranteed the investigative team, the team he was responsible for as SIO, would continue to waste a lot of time compiling evidence against Waddington, evidence that would be discredited. And he knew who would be blamed for that. Rigby had made him complicit in this obstruction of justice in order not to look stupid in front of senior officers from other forces. She had done it to protect her own career.

He prayed that Claire had kept quiet. His most trusted friend in the force, she was extremely discreet. Still, it would only take the slightest hint of cross-contamination to a colleague on the investigative team for the whole place to be in uproar. He was sure it wouldn’t be long before the press heard about it.

DC Carl Hoskins knocked on his door and walked in. ‘Sir, got a press call. We are being asked to confirm the name of the suspect. I can’t get hold of Christina McCafferty.’

‘Were not releasing it,’ Gillard said, without looking up.

‘No, sir. They’ve got the name, they are just double-checking.’

Gillard spun around on his chair to look at the detective constable. ‘Who gave them the name?’

Hoskins shrugged, and made a few swipes on his phone. He then showed Gillard the screen, where a Sky News video was playing. A reporter was standing outside a terraced house that Gillard recognised as Waddington’s.