‘Ah, better late than never,’ he said affably, as he hobbled backwards to let them in. In the flesh he was quite a hunk, Lynne thought. Dark wavy hair, penetrating hazel eyes and an easy smile.

‘We’re sorry about that,’ Hoskins said.

They followed him into the house. His movements were limited; he couldn’t put any weight on his ankle, and the obvious pain showed through the smile. ‘I’m surprised that nobody’s been round to check for fingerprints on the door handles and stuff,’ Halliday said. ‘I mean, it’s more than a week.’

Hoskins gave an expansive shrug. ‘CSI is a bit stretched at the moment, as you might have heard with the kidnapping and all. There’s no point doing it now of course, as we’ll only get the dabs of you and your missus.’

Halliday sighed, then caught Lynne’s eye. ‘Well at least there was one advantage of you lot being asleep at the wheel. I wouldn’t have wanted the CCTV I sent you being shown on Crimewatch. I would have been highly embarrassed,’ he said. ‘I’ll think twice next time about being Mr Have-a-Go. I’m still in agony.’

Hoskins laughed. ‘Nobody wants their meat and two veg flashed around on the teatime news.’ He didn’t mention that almost everybody in CID had enjoyed a good laugh at it, particularly some of the female officers who seemed quite impressed with what was on view, considering the number of times they had crowded round a screen to watch it on slow motion. ‘Besides, as I said before, your car is probably already in a container on its way to Albania or somewhere like that.’

‘I’ll miss it,’ he said. ‘I did loads of work on it, spent thousands. All wasted.’

Lynne already had Halliday down as a petrolhead, having seen the brand new Mercedes saloon and one-year-old Range Rover crowded onto the small drive. ‘You’ll be covered on insurance, I imagine,’ she said, offering him her business card. She had seen the video, and copied it onto her personal phone to show her friends. ‘Let me know if you need more details from us.’ Their hands touched briefly, his finger stroking the interior of her palm.

‘Thank you. I’ve already got my claim in,’ he said with a smile. ‘Of course they give you the run-around, bloody insurers.’

‘You need better CCTV, mate,’ Hoskins said. ‘And a proper burglar alarm. It’s not uncommon for professional thieves to break in for keys for top end cars. If you had a second camera you might even have caught the approach on foot of the thief. There would at least be an idea what he looked like.’

Halliday shrugged. ‘I already gave you a description. White bloke by the face, prop-forward sized, with a ski mask or something. I told you about that car coat, with the stripe.’

‘Yeah, you have,’ Hoskins said. ‘But you can tell a lot from CCTV. The way they walk, stuff like that.’

Halliday nodded, and then asked: ‘So how are you doing finding this German woman?’