‘You and me both, Swifty. Any chance he will crawl out of this, like he did before?’

‘No way. Well, certainly not the distributing indecent images, or the obscene publications charges. He had dumped a load of stuff from his computer, but the IT lads resurrected most of it from the hard drive. There’s enough there to send him down for a good long stretch, and that’s apart from the fact that his sidekick, Hemmings, is singing like the dawn chorus.’

‘And he’s actually coughed to putting the frighteners on old Mrs Swain?’

‘And to belting Matt. He’s not daft, Will. He knows there are some pretty heavy charges being dished out, and he’s giving us Grove, lock stock and barrel. He’s admitting to the small stuff and throwing his boss to the wolves.’

‘I do admire loyalty in a man, don’t you?’ Will said dryly.

‘Well, DCI Anders sweetly explained what desperately deep shite he was in before she asked him nicely to cooperate, and suddenly he was delighted to help us with our enquiries. He was still squealing when I left.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘My mate said Anders scared the shit out of him. She’s certainly got a way with words.’

‘And Grove?’

‘Threw up his hands to importing and distributing obscene publications and indecent images, but emphatically denied knowing anything about Sophie’s abduction.’

‘I suppose it’s what you would expect,’ Sam added. ‘He would hardly admit to that — he’d want you chaps to try to prove it.’

Swifty looked fierce. ‘And as soon as all the tests come back, I hope we’ll have enough of a case to send him away for a very long time indeed.’

‘Surely there is no doubt about that, is there?’ Will asked.

Swifty shrugged. ‘You know the justice system, better than most. If he gets a smart brief, it could be in the lap of the gods, and the crime scene may well be halfway across the North Sea by morning. That’s a great help to the prosecution.’

Will began to feel uneasy. ‘But Sophie will identify him.’

‘The last child didn’t, did he? That boy down in the West Country never admitted it was Grove took him. They’re trying to trace him, by the way. If our man is convicted of Sophie’s kidnapping, then he might just feel safe enough to tell us what really happened to him all those years ago.’ Swifty was pacing the room, his hands buried deep in his trouser pockets. ‘Or he may have chosen to forget the horrors of the past. Bad memories can get buried pretty deep, you know.’