She suddenly felt nauseous thinking about Kingston, wondering if it was more than mere coincidence that he was in the same boxing club as Tommy Ripley. He’d also been in the Crown shortly before Fiona Simpson died, and said the pub was quiet. It struck her that if Aidan O’Reilly had been there, Kingston would have known, or at least suspected, it was him. Like everyone on the team, he’d seen the photo the RUC had faxed over of the six feet four O’Reilly, who now also had a cut on his forehead. Her mind was spinning and her stomach churning at the thought that Kingston may have deliberately distracted Fiona Simpson while O’Reilly slipped into the pub and hid in the toilet. The thought that he could be complicit in her death and leaking information to the Ripleys was beyond comprehension, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

There was a knock on the toilet door.

‘You all right, Jane?’ Nick asked.

‘Yes, just a bit of a queasy stomach.’

‘OK, make a sure you spray the air freshener.’

When she came out of the toilet the Ripley brothers had gone. She took their coffee cups and tucked them away under the counter to take back to the office with her, so Dabs could fingerprint them.

*

Cam put the phone down and turned to Murphy.

‘Fingerprint Bureau say the prints sent over by the RUC are a match for Aidan O’Reilly. George Ripley is in his office at the showroom, and CO11 tailed the suspect Carl to a builder’s merchant where he purchased some boiler suits.’

‘Do we know how many?’

‘Three.’

‘Looks like they’re getting their outfits together for a robbery and Carl is their errand boy. After we nick ’em all on the pavement he might be the weak link and cough up about any other robberies they’ve done.’

‘I also spoke to Tommy Ripley’s bank manager. He took out a forty grand loan to buy the ground floor of the old cinema and turn it into a snooker hall. He’s already late on the payments.’

‘So, he’s desperate for money. What about George Ripley?’

‘According to the tax man he doesn’t make a fortune, and certainly not enough for his kind of lifestyle.’

‘He’s probably got a hooky accountant and doesn’t run every sale through the books. I’m just going to see how the wiretaps are going.’

He went into Kingston’s office. Two officers from CO11 intelligence unit had five reel-to-reel recorders set up to tape any conversations on the Ripleys’ work and home phones.

‘Anything interesting so far?’