Perry was gripping the dashboard with both hands, his knuckles white. He had never endured such a ride before. Gillard had broken all blue-lighting records, picking him up in Woking just after seven a.m., and then racing off to get to the industrial unit at Shildon before it was properly light. They had been listening to the traffic on a police network, and had just got news of the failed raid in Fleet. It seemed that Hallam/Halliday/Harrison had given Ellen Bramley an old address, now rented to someone else. No surprises there. However there was considerable excitement about some unspecified trace on the location of the black Range Rover.

‘Tell me about the warehouse unit,’ Gillard said, as he overtook an articulated lorry at about ninety miles an hour.

‘It’s at the junction of two railway lines, where the Southampton track separates from the Basingstoke line, and crosses over the old spur of the Basingstoke canal. They are almost all small units, many of them arches underneath the viaduct.’

‘A bridge?’

‘Not exactly.’ Perry’s scientific precision wouldn’t allow him to classify the embankment and railway viaduct as a bridge, except perhaps at the very end where the canal was crossed.

Gillard reminded him of the riddle.

Under the bridge/ That’s where you’ll find her/ cold, with the fishes/ drowned by your own hand

‘Was there a fishmonger’s or anything similar?’

‘Not that I saw. Scrapyards, car repair outfits, that kind of thing.’

Gillard shook his head. ‘It still could be the place. I’ve personally checked a dozen bridges in the last two days, but of course I’ve concentrated on those over rivers or canals. I haven’t got round to anything to do with the railways.’

At Perry’s instruction, they turned off right into the industrial estate, still doing sixty. The unmarked Vauxhall hit the first road hump with a bone-shaking impact that had it airborne for the next two seconds. Gillard skilfully dodged the worst of the potholes on the crumbling tarmac, and brought the car back under control as he passed under the viaduct, slewing the vehicle to a halt outside unit K.

‘We’re ahead of them,’ Gillard said, jumping out of the car and going to the boot where he habitually left a toolbox. ‘They’ll be here in two minutes. Now, let’s get this door open.’

‘We don’t have the warrant,’ Perry said, hurrying along behind the DCI.

‘John, I overheard on the radio that a warrant has been issued. It doesn’t have to be in my own sweaty paws to be effective.’ Gillard went up to the roller door, which was running with moisture. He took off his glove and touched it with his bare hand.

‘It’s freezing! It’s bloody freezing.’ He turned to Perry. ‘This is the place. She must be in here!’

He flipped open the toolbox and, like a man possessed, tossed out various tools, trying to find something hefty enough for the job. Three fist-sized die-cast steel padlocks secured the shutter to a thick cast iron loop, part of a thirty-foot-wide baseplate that ran the full width of the unit. The best he could find was a very large screwdriver, but it was obvious it would make little impression.