‘What’s bothering her?’ Jane asked with a knowing smile.

‘You are. She said something about refusing to help her type up the statements.’

‘That’s not quite true.’

‘Well, I’ll have a word with Katie and remind her you’re a DS, not a typist.’

‘Thank you, sir, I’d appreciate that.’

She handed him the house-to-house folder.

‘I’d like to revisit Mrs Clarke and Mrs Brown personally and go into a bit more detail about garage twenty-nine and the two men seen walking away from Edgar House,’ she told him.

‘Seems strange they should choose that particular garage to dump the getaway car, so further enquiries are fine by me,’ he said without looking up.

‘Is this evening OK, or would you like me to stay in the office and help Katie?’

‘She’s got by on her own many times before and right now the investigation is more important than typing up statements. You mentioned about extending the house-to-house at the office meeting?’

Jane told him about the two other blocks of flats in Blake Hall Road, but Kingston said that for the moment she should just get the enquiries at Edgar House and Felstead Road completed. As he checked the rest of the house-to-house forms, Jane looked around his office. It was much smaller than Murphy’s but had the same style desk and chairs and a large locked filing cabinet; the grey carpet was stained and worn, and the walls were painted the same puke green as the squad office. She noticed a couple of Flying Squad team photographs on the wall behind the desk, and some taken at boxing matches. There was also a large black and white group photograph with about thirty teenagers dressed in sleeveless vests, shorts and boxing boots, with CHINGFORD AMATEUR BOXING CLUB 1958 at the bottom. Lined up on the ground in front of them was an array of silver cups and shields. Jane squinted to see if she could recognise Kingston in the photo.

‘I’m third in from the left on the back row,’ he said without looking up.

‘How old were you then?’

‘Sixteen. The club was at the old Territorial Army drill hall back then, but it’s moved since and now called the Waltham Forest Amateur Boxing Club. The photo to the left was when I won the Lafone police middleweight boxing championships. I was nineteen then and just joined the job.’ He was clearly proud of his achievements. ‘Do you like boxing?’

‘I’ve only ever seen it on TV when I lived at home as my dad sometimes watched it, though he was more into wrestling.’

‘That’s all fake, boxing is the real thing. You get hit hard sometimes – as you can see from the shape of this. It’s been broken a few times,’ he said, tapping a finger to his nose.