Vaughn walked around the destroyed van, noting details. It was obvious that the intensity of the blaze had been due to the more volatile effects of gasoline, rather than diesel. He took pictures of the shattered windscreen and the bullet holes punched into the front of the van, which looked to match in size the ones in the body, and were correctly positioned. In his estimation they had been made by a nine-millimetre pistol.

He walked away from the front of the van, determining the range at which the shots had been fired. Then he hunted around in the bushes to the right of where he reckoned the shooter might have been standing, and found three fired shell casings. The brass was shiny and new, headstamped 9MM FEDERAL. He sniffed the mouths of the cases. Recently fired. He dropped them into a bag as additional evidence.

Next Vaughn skirted back along the side of the van and peered through the sliding door into the rear compartment, noticing the mess of what had been a green plastic jerrycan, now little more than a puddle of melted plastic. That made him wonder. He stepped around to the fuel tank and crouched down to examine it. Taking out a scalpel he carefully scraped away some of the charring and flakes of rust. What he saw was potentially interesting.

Soon afterwards, he’d seen enough to satisfy him for the moment. He walked further away out of sound range of the idling helicopter, and took out his phone. He was under instructions to call his employers immediately upon finishing his tour of the scene.

Vaughn’s boss had been waiting for the call. He snapped up the phone instantly on the first ring. ‘Well?’

Vaughn ran through his initial assessment. ‘The gold teeth match the description of those belonging to the subject, and appear to be the genuine item, although of course we won’t know for sure until the tests are run back in London. Likewise, the tissue sample from the corpse. Cause of death was two, possibly three, nine-millimetre Parabellum gunshot wounds to the upper chest. I haven’t been able to obtain the bullets from the body but I have shell casings that we can use to search for fingerprints and match to a weapon, if the opportunity arises.’

‘Prints will be good enough,’ his boss replied. ‘If they’re a match with Hope’s. Who else’s could they be?’ Moving impatiently on, he asked, ‘So what’s your professional judgement, pending further tests?’

‘In general it looks like what it purports to be,’ Vaughn said. ‘There’s just one thing.’

‘Which is?’