‘Well, by trespassing a bit, we saw the crocodile pool, and an enclosure that was marked up for a Komodo dragon. They are supposed to be eight feet long, but we couldn’t find the bloody thing anywhere. There were lots of dead hollow trees for him to hide inside. But the thing that Jakes got deranged is that under one of the older buildings he went back to, a basement room that he had plastered last week…’ He stopped and looked at her. ‘Actually, I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this. Van Steenis made us sign a non-disclosure agreement.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s frightened of animal rights activists getting wind of what he’s doing.’

‘He’d have to have permission for the animals he’s bringing in anyway,’ Claire said. ‘If what he’s doing is legal, he shouldn’t have anything to worry about.’

Baz inclined his head in agreement. ‘Okay. Well, this basement room has now got a big lock on the door, and a kind of sliding hatch, so you can see in from outside. And a kind of urinal-type gulley leading to a drain.’

‘Sounds like a zoo enclosure to me.’

‘Except there is a brand-new mattress, still in its plastic, on the floor.’

‘What are you saying, Baz?’

‘It’s a prison cell, that’s what Jakes thinks.’

When Cottesloe and Wickens arrived at his home, Michael Jakes came to the door in a scruffy threadbare bathrobe. He had clearly emerged from the shower to answer the doorbell and, by the lumps of plaster still visible in his hair, was only partway through the process.

The two constables sat in the same places on the settee as before, but this time the small grey cat decided to snuggle up between them. ‘Mr Jakes, have you been wandering around at night on Ash Island?’ Cottesloe asked.

‘I tied a bunch of flowers on the bridge for the man who died.’

‘That’s the bridge to Tagg’s Island. I’m asking you about Ash Island, the next one down. We had a lady complain about an intruder.’

Jakes nodded and scratched absent-mindedly at a lump of plaster on his cheek. ‘She had a go at me, yeah. I told her I was sorry.’

‘Why were you there?’

‘I’d made a little paper boat and wanted to set it in the river at the place where he was found. I’d already thrown in a home-made wreath, off the bridge.’

The two officers briefly glanced at each other. ‘But why were you doing it at night?’ Wickens asked.

‘I work during the day.’

Cottesloe chuckled sceptically. ‘Come on, you don’t work until midnight, do you?’

‘I think better at night.’

‘Doubtful,’ Cottesloe said. ‘If you did, you would realise that going sneaking about on a private island at midnight would give the residents the heebie-jeebies.’