‘Did Dr Pike say where they were going?’ Adrian pulled out his warrant card and walked across the road to speak to the man, Imogen following.

‘His wife’s Japanese; he said they were moving back to Japan because her mother was seriously ill.’

‘Thank you. When was this exactly? Do you remember?’

‘I think it was around nine in the morning. It was weird, though, because I used to talk to Kimiko a lot and I’m sure her mother died a few years ago.’

Imogen turned to Adrian. ‘Japan? We don’t have an extradition agreement with them; if he’s gone, he’s gone.’

Adrian handed a business card over to the man. ‘Thank you for your help, sir. Could I ask your name?’

‘My name is Graham Parsi.’

‘Thank you, Mr Parsi. I don’t suppose you remember the name of the lorry company?’ Adrian said, pulling his notebook out and scribbling the time, name and other information on the page.

‘I think it was Chadwycks.’

‘Thanks.’

They walked back over to Pike’s house and looked into the windows. Everything was gone. No pictures on the walls, no rugs or chairs or bric-a-brac, nothing. In terms of timing, this solidified his guilt in Adrian’s eyes. It took some time to organise shipping to another country and so Pike had been planning on leaving for a while, probably from the moment Hugh Norris was murdered. The other murders were just to get his affairs in order before he left. Maybe he hoped that he would get away with it. Effectively he had got away with it, though.

They got back in the car and Adrian started the engine.

‘What do we do now?’ Imogen said.

‘Japan? It’s Heathrow or Gatwick, he’s got maybe an hour head start on us. We call it in and then we have to get in touch with the Met police at both Gatwick and Heathrow, so they can be waiting for him. He can’t be there yet. We need to get Gary to check and see if Pike has tickets for anywhere and to find out where the Chadwycks lorry was taking all his stuff. Maybe we can intercept his belongings, as well. All the main players are dead apart from Pike; we can’t let him get away.’

‘Do we just follow him without any evidence?’ Imogen asked.

‘It’s our best lead right now; we need to speak to him at least. If we wait for confirmation before we start driving then he just gets further away from us.’

‘How do we keep Parker out of this? Do we keep Parker out of this?’

‘He’s gone. If he wasn’t, then Marcus Pike would be dead. He won’t be back. He’s got no reason to return. We just have to concentrate on bringing Pike in for now. Let’s get in the car and start driving. I reckon he would go A303, then via the M3 onto the M4 rather than go to Bristol and around. There’s some major delays on the M4, they announced it earlier, so he would want to join that as late as possible if he is going to Heathrow. Gatwick makes more sense to go M3 anyway. You can call the DCI and we can get in touch with Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire police on the way; they can be on the lookout for his car.’