‘Oh, I’m glad to ’ear that. The sound of that gun goin’ off was deafenin’, and I honestly thought the young man who was lyin’ on the pavement screamin’ was a goner.’

Jane turned to Fiona. ‘It sounds like she witnessed the robbery – I’d better have a word with her.’

‘It’s OK, your DI Kingston’s dealing with her. Do you fancy a bottle of stout on the house, Betty?’

‘I gotta get this shoppin’ in the fridge, but I’ll ’ave it when I come in later.’

She shuffled off.

As Fiona returned to the pub, a man dressed in blue overalls came out and held out a set of car keys to Jane.

‘I’d better not drive the van as I’ve had three pints, officer. I was going to leave it here and pick it up in the morning.’

‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.’ She smiled.

As Pete got in his van, Jane asked him to reverse back about ten feet as the area behind him was clear. He started the engine, disengaged the handbrake and moved slowly backwards. As Jane watched the front nearside wheel rotating, she saw a squashed two-inch-long soggy-looking brown object stuck to the wheel.

‘Stop!’ she shouted, banging her fist on the side of the van.

Pete hit the brake pedal.

‘Christ, have I run over another cat? That’ll be the second one this week!’ he said, ashen-faced.

‘No, there’s something stuck to the front wheel that I need to remove and have a closer look at. Stay where you are, it’ll only take me a second to get it off.’

Jane removed a small exhibits bag from her coat pocket and, using her pen, slowly prised the brown object from the wheel and it dropped into the bag. Looking closely at it, she was reasonably sure it was what she’d hoped to find. To be certain she opened the bag and took a deep sniff. Not only did the object look like a squashed cigar butt – it also smelt like one.

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was raining again as Dabs opened the security gate to the rear of the building so Cam could drive in and park up.

‘It would make it a damn sight easier if they left the bloody gate open while the office is manned,’ Cam moaned.

Jane said nothing as she handed Cam the house-to-house folder, then got the bag of exhibits from the boot of the car and ran across the yard to join Dabs. He was entering the number code on the rear entrance keypad. She put the bag down, got out her pocket notebook and pen and asked him what the code was.

‘They’re easy to remember. It’s 1066 for the front door and gate and 1812 for the back – Battle of Hastings and the Battle of Waterloo,’ Dabs told her, entering the numbers.