‘Thanks for that, Rob,’ Gillard said. ‘I’m not sure at this stage that we want you to spend hundreds more hours examining the phones. What I’m really looking for is evidence for the poisoning. Did any of these phones show an Internet search on poisons or thallium?’

‘No. There was a bit about DNA testing on Prisha Roy’s phone, and of course plenty of hits on the various news stories about the murder. In fact, apart from webmail and the company’s own website, the biggest number of Internet visits was for share prices.’

‘Well, it’s pretty natural that as shareholders they would want to know how the company share price is doing.’

‘Ah, but it wasn’t the Empire of Spice share price that they were looking at most often. It was food delivery company Nosh2U. In fact between the three Roy children, there were over 1,500 hits in a week on that share price, sometimes as many as ten times in an hour in the case of Prisha Roy.’

‘They must all have shares in it.’

‘It’s been one of the best performing stocks on the market this year. My dad bought a hundred shares in it, and never stops going on about how much money he’s made.’

Gillard thanked him and hung up. He spent a few minutes before the end-of-day incident room meeting doing his own internet searches on Nosh2U, which showed it was the fastest growing of the app-based food delivery services. The shares had indeed trebled in eighteen months. Could this have a bearing on Mrs Roy’s murder? He could think of no obvious link, but he’d ask the next time he interviewed any of the Roys.

After five days, the hated mobile incident room was put back on a low loader. With a large contingent of detectives now working on the case, Gillard needed the extra space that Mount Browne allowed. He picked the largest room they had, one which was often used for press conferences, and brought in the entire team. That included DS Shireen Corey-Williams, DI Mulholland, Research Intelligence Officer Rob Townsend along with detective constables Colin Hodges and Carl Hoskins.

When they were all settled he began: ‘I telephoned Vikram Vaj, chairman of the Empire of Spice Board of Trustees yesterday, to ask about this legal codicil, and this morning he emailed me this document.’ He held up his phone for the others to see. ‘The original is apparently written on what they call onion-skin paper and is in a safe along with the recipes for all their pickles and preservatives. But this is a photocopy. What do you make of it?’

‘Is that in Hindi?’ Shireen asked.

‘No,’ Gillard said. ‘It’s in Gujarati. Looking through the other pages, my rough Google translation says that 30 per cent of the assets in the trust are reserved for the first son born to any of the three Roy children, and 10 per cent to the second. It goes on to stipulate that to qualify the child must be born in wedlock and brought up as a Hindu. The money will be his once he attains majority, but will be owned by the relevant parent until that time.’