Leticia lived with Anton St Jeanne in a converted flat in a quiet residential street in Kingston-upon-Thames. Gillard pulled up outside in his unmarked Vauxhall with DC Rainy Macintosh in the passenger seat. Ten o’clock at night would seem like a good time to get Leticia alone. Her boyfriend would probably be at work in his restaurant. The registration plate on the Mini parked outside the flat matched that which Morgan had given him, and the lights in the first-floor flat were on. Good, she’s awake.

‘I’ve checked through the statements the lassie gave to Cottesloe and Wickens,’ Rainy said, putting her iPad down. ‘It’s pretty straightforward. And the location on her phone matched the bridge to Tagg’s Island.’ They both went up to the door and rang the bell. The woman who appeared was casually dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and looked sleepy. Having heard why they were there, she invited them in.

‘I don’t think I got much to tell you,’ she said. The two detectives were offered a seat on the sofa in the tidy and tastefully decorated flat. A bottle of white wine was open on the glass table in front of them, a glass half empty beside it.

‘The speed with which AVENGE seemed to have snatched Rollason rather beggars belief, given what we know of this organisation in the past,’ Gillard said. ‘They must have had help.’

‘I can assure you it wasn’t from me.’ Leticia described her journey from work to the house where she was due to meet Neville Rollason, the delay while she rang colleagues and then her return to the office. It fully accounted for her day.

‘Och, we’re not saying that it was you, hen,’ Rainy said. ‘But if you cast your mind back, was there anyone you noticed asking questions or anything odd at all?’

She shrugged. ‘Only the arrival of PC Wickens at the office,’ she said.

‘That’s been reported to us already and we’re looking into it,’ Gillard said.

‘And I don’t know what else I can tell you,’ Leticia said.

‘When you went to the house, did you notice that the back door was unlocked?’

She looked baffled. ‘Is that the door that leads from the kitchen to the garden? No. I just sat down and waited for him and checked through paperwork.’

‘And did ye nae go upstairs either?’ Rainy asked.

‘No. I assumed he couldn’t be asleep because of the number of times I rang the doorbell and the clatter I must’ve made coming in with heavy bags.’

‘He could have been out of his wits on spice. Or he could even have committed suicide,’ Rainy said.

Leticia looked rattled by these accusations. ‘But he didn’t, did he? Otherwise AVENGE couldn’t have kidnapped him.’

‘Well, we don’t actually have any confirmation that they do have him,’ Gillard said. ‘Just the text you got.’