She smiled. ‘I like a man who can look above him, and still admire the sharpness of the sword of Damocles.’

‘Give me the name, I’ll bring you the man.’

The smile she gave him was unusually warm. The man she could rely upon.

‘Craig, I’m giving them two hours, then I turn it over to you, okay? In the meantime, I’ve got something that you can get Carl Hoskins to work on. I’ll email you a picture of Rollason as he is now, and the bus routes he supposedly used. See if you can find him on CCTV.’

Gillard found himself almost running down the stairs to get back to the CID block. He found Carl Hoskins, sitting alone in the incident room eating a croissant and watching on his screen what looked like semi-naked women grappling with each other. He quickly flicked channels at the DCI’s approach.

‘Watching porn at work, Carl?’

‘No, sir. I was doing my expenses.’

‘What was on the screen?’

‘Wrestling, I think.’ He looked up as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

‘Women wrestling?’

‘Not sure. Err… I think they may have some women,’ he said.

Gillard seized the mouse and clicked on the search history, which clearly showed the oeuvre of Hoskins’ artistic interest. ‘I see it was “Battling babes in baby oil”.’

Hoskins looked up quizzically. ‘I don’t know what it was called.’

‘All right, I’ve got something a bit more important for you to do.’ Gillard logged on to the local crime database and copied across two documents to Hoskins’ desktop. First he showed the detective constable a bus map that ran from the Buckinghamshire village of Grendon Underwood via Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Heathrow to Staines in Surrey. Then he opened a mugshot of an older white-haired man wearing red-framed spectacles. ‘This man disappeared from Wexford Road, Staines, some time this morning. He would probably have arrived there on foot around ten thirty a.m., having caught a series of buses this morning on this route. Did he catch the buses or not? Get me an answer ASAP.’

‘Who is he, sir?’

‘Call him Fred Bloggs for now.’

‘Righto. Are uniforms doing a local search on Wexford Road?’

‘Not as yet, we’d rather proceed covertly to begin with. And Carl?’

‘Sir?’

‘If I find you watching stuff like that again at work, I’ll send you to the headmistress for six of the best.’ He pointed a warning finger at the detective constable.

‘Yes sir.’ Hoskins was smiling.

Gillard realised why. Hoskins would probably enjoy it.

The answer came within half an hour. Carl Hoskins shouted across the incident room to him. ‘Sir, the bloke you are looking for never got on the bus.’

Gillard made his way across to Hoskins’ desk. ‘The service from Grendon is only once every three hours. I’ve looked at the onboard CCTV for the 07:45 and the 10:45 and he wasn’t there.’