‘Well, if that’s the case, my view is that Rawson was probably using Michael Clay as a front man, for the appearance of respectability. Clay is just the sort of person he would be looking for, to protect his own reputation.’

‘You mean someone to take the fall if things went wrong?’

‘Yes, exactly.’ Walsh began to gather his papers together. ‘You know, that was always my biggest regret in this enquiry: that we could never close Patrick Rawson down.’

‘And now –’ said Hitchens, about to voice what everyone else was thinking.

But it was Dermot Walsh who got it in first.

‘And now,’ he said, ‘someone has closed Rawson down for us.’

SUTTON COLDFIELD HAD been in Warwickshire once. Now it was part of the huge West Midlands conurbation, centred on Birmingham.

Fry knew that Sutton people tended to see themselves as culturally very distinct from Birmingham, though they were only eight miles or so from the centre of the city. They hadn’t forgotten that Sutton had been a municipal borough in its own right for many years, boasting the title of ‘Royal Town’. Here and there, street signs still recorded the fact. Fry had passed one as she drove into the town from the A38.

If this had been a working-class area, no one would have cared very much about its administrative status. But Sutton Coldfield was regarded as one of the most prestigious locations in Central England. Just a couple of years ago, a national property survey had placed two Sutton streets among the twenty most expensive in the UK.

Fry remembered this north-east corner of Birmingham only vaguely. She had never been stationed in this area, and had no friends who lived here. She did recall a shopping precinct known as the Gracechurch Centre, but now it seemed to be called simply The Mall. Other than that, during her time in the West Midlands she had known it mostly as the home town of a few TV actors: Arthur Lowe and Dennis Waterman among them. It was a sort of celebrity, she supposed.

The Rawsons’ home was in the Mere Green district of Sutton. Fry drove around the northern edge of Sutton Park and found herself in pleasant, leafy streets typical of so many affluent outer suburbs.

‘Nice,’ said Gavin Murfin, who constituted the only assistance she’d found available for the trip. ‘There’s a bit of dosh tied up in these properties, I reckon.’

‘Yes, Gavin. Can you see Hill Wood Road?’

‘You should use a sat-nav like mine, Diane. Do you know, I’ve even got Sean Connery’s voice on it now to do the directions? Brilliant.’

‘Just check the A to Z: Hill Wood Road.’

‘OK, got it.’

This was the semi-rural part of Sutton. Large houses set back from the road and sheltered by trees, with plenty of space between them to provide privacy. Perhaps no actual farming still went on, but it was certainly a place for people who could find a use for stables and paddocks, and large agricultural sheds with concrete hard standings big enough for a few lorries.