‘Davey Jenkins, you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ She got him to confirm his name and address, and then said, ‘You know why you’re here, Mr Jenkins?’

‘I didn’t have anything to do with Andrew Dean’s death, if that’s what I’m being accused of.’

‘We’ll get to that in a moment,’ she said, watching him fold his arms tightly across his chest.

In the photos of Jenkins on the police database, which were taken a number of years ago, he was a handsome man with chiselled features and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. But now he was in his mid-fifties and sliding down the slippery slope of late middle age. His blue eyes were still clear, but his cheeks and nose were ruddy and his jowls thickened beneath his chin, obliterating the sharp line of a once strong jaw.

‘What about the abduction of Abs,’ she asked him. ‘I suppose that wasn’t you either?’

‘Listen to you calling him Abs, like it’s his real name,’ he said with a smirk. ‘You’ve bought into his celebrity bullshit, like all those other plebs.’

‘That is his name, isn’t it, to all intents and purposes? Everyone calls him that.’

Jenkins shoved the heel of a hand into his eye. ‘Let’s just get on with it. Ask your questions.’

‘Abs… Mr Cruikshank identified you and Stephen Gosling as two of the men who forced him into a car last night in Brentwood. He said you abducted him and that he was afraid for his life. He says you threatened to kill him.’

‘I never did that.’ Davey Jenkins shook his head. ‘I mean, yes, we intended to take him somewhere, but we had no intention of killing him.’

‘Then what was your intention?’ asked Sasha.

Jenkins leaned forward on his elbows. ‘We were going to have some fun with the little man.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘We were going to take him somewhere and rough him up a bit. There, I said it. We were going to give him a bit of a slap, a kicking, but kill him?’ He made a face. ‘Nah.’

‘Why?’ said Sasha. ‘For what reason would you want to assault him?’

He nodded at the slim file in front of her. ‘You know why, I’ve got unfinished business with that mincing prat. Because of what happened to Rhiannon, because of what they did to her.’

A vein in his neck pulsed when he said his niece’s name.