All they needed to do now was to find out who the girl was. He looked down Perry’s very neatly written but rain-smeared notes, and saw an order number he recognised as being one from the largest independent forensic lab in the country. Good. He’d already sent in a DNA sample.

By the time Perry came back with the two coffees, Gillard reckoned he had a decent hunch about what had happened. The detective inspector was impressed. ‘He must have just used the Allegro locally, he’d have been caught in a heartbeat if he ever went past an ANPR camera.’

‘There’s another thought I’ve had,’ Gillard said. ‘Put a chestnut wig, a mauve fedora, a coat and a scarf on this girl. Do you think she could have been on the train?’

Perry shrugged. ‘Now she is surplus to requirements, is that what you’re thinking?’

‘Maybe,’ Gillard said. ‘If true it would put us in an even darker place, I fear.’

DI Perry’s wife Melanie sat in the office above her wellness shop, going through the finances. Wholebods was doing quite well. Woking was prosperous and with just two part-time employees, a short lease and a business rates exemption, costs weren’t too bad. The full body Shiatsu massages and the ear candling were doing really well. She had remortgaged their home once for the business two years ago, but now she had done so again, on the quiet. She moved the money, another sixty grand, into her personal account and set up the secret payment. John would kill her if he found out what she was doing, but he wouldn’t find out. She had always looked after the finances. In fact it made her laugh that such a clueless man had ever considered becoming a detective.

Having a secret life gave her such a buzz. It pepped up the otherwise dull suburban existence she had at home. But what she had done recently, well, that was so much more fun precisely because of the risk she was taking. A colossal gamble.

She looked at her watch. Shit! She had to be home in half an hour to help Vanessa make a cake for a friend’s birthday. At seventeen, her daughter was reasonably adept as a baker, but this had to be gluten-free. Vanessa had asked her mother to pick up fresh cherries, soya milk and polenta to replace normal flour, but she had forgotten. She picked up her bag and rushed out of the door.

Gillard caught up with DI Perry at ten. The detective inspector slumped at Gillard’s desk with a sausage sandwich drowned in mustard.

‘Are you still here?’ Gillard asked.

‘In body but not in mind,’ Perry said. ‘I’m going home now. Five extra hours on top of the nightshift is enough for anyone.’ The man looked exhausted. ‘Uniforms picked up Kevin O’Connell this morning, bailing out caravans at his mum’s campsite. Admits the car is his, but swears absolutely blind it’s been a non-runner since before he bought it. Claims it was stored on waste ground behind one of the static caravans, close to the river.’