‘Dog ate it, sir,’ she said without even turning round. Gillard made his way over to her desk, a great deal tidier these days than it had been in Hodges’ day, notwithstanding the croissant crumbs.

‘What have you got?’

She rotated on her typist’s chair, feet off the ground. She was wearing tiny black patent leather shoes, with little bows on them. She pulled them in just before she scraped his shins.

‘I put the problem on the family supercomputer and ran it overnight.’

Gillard laughed. ‘Glad to hear you have that kind of resource.’

‘Yes, my laddie Ewan. As long as it involves murder and death, he’s onboard. I’ve now got a list of fifty manufacturers of hydraulic presses, non-heat based moulding, and other kit. He’s pulled together 150 pages of photographs of machinery big enough to contain the human body, and eliminated many others. He’s dug up the contact details of the companies that maintain and service them, so we should be able to get a client list pretty quickly.’

‘Fantastic work. How old is he?’

‘Fourteen. He loved it. He’s been badgering me since then to know what the case is. I said I’d tell him at the end, when it’s solved.’

‘Hope he won’t be boasting about it to his friends.’

‘Aye, well he’s got nae friends. Just like his mam.’

The revelation took him aback. ‘I’m sorry to hear about that, Rainy.’

‘Mine or his?’

‘Both, actually.’

‘Forget I said it, sir. I’ve got a big gob and stuff just falls out.’

A text to Gillard’s phone drew his attention. Dr Delahaye had forwarded the results from the textile analysis. He made his excuses to Rainy, and returned to his office to look at the report on his screen. There was real progress. A series of cotton fibres, recovered from the mouth and nose of the dead body, had produced some interesting results. Though the fibres were of fairly generic manufacture, they were contaminated with two human DNA traces, only one of which matched the victim. Under a microscope, the presence of dust mites was noted, and a separate DNA test confirmed it. A couple of hairs in his mouth yielded a third DNA trace, also human. Bar the victim’s, none of the DNA was on the national database.

Gillard picked up the phone, punched out his number and got straight through.

‘Craig. I’m in the car.’ The background roar confirmed it. ‘Well, we seem to be back in more familiar asphyxiation territory, don’t we?’

‘Do we?’

‘Yes. Dust mites. Indicative of the involvement of bedding or a pillow. At this concentration, those textiles had been in use for some time. However, I would be cautious about linking the pillow to the death. He could simply have been sleeping in someone’s spare bed before the attack on him took place.’