Porter listened while Anderson and Whittaker relayed what they’d found out. Whittaker had spoken to Martin Murphy’s son, Callum. The car that had struck Murphy was found abandoned a few miles away in an alley. The owner had reported it stolen the day before and no one was questioned, let alone charged. Callum Murphy hadn’t been involved in the business, but confirmed that his dad had been approached by a potential buyer from London a few weeks before the accident. His mum had been in favour of selling up and enjoying early retirement, but Murphy had flatly refused to entertain the idea. Callum didn’t have any knowledge of the would-be buyer and his mother had passed away two years earlier, so there would be no way to confirm that Locke had made the original offer, short of Locke himself offering up the information. Whittaker had thanked him for his time and left it at that.

Anderson went next. He read from his notes in a flat, almost disinterested tone. He’d spoken to Alastair Reece’s widow. Reece had been fanatical about his bikes, his pride and joy being his Harley Davidson chopper. She had been the last person to see him alive after he had headed out early one Sunday morning for a ride to blow away the cobwebs. She had been worried when he hadn’t returned several hours later and wasn’t answering his phone. They found him an hour later, his bike having struck the central reservation barrier which sent him sailing over the opposing lane and onto the grass verge. There were no eyewitnesses, and Reece was pronounced dead at the scene.

One of the officers who attended the scene had found an errant smear of blue midway up the jet-black petrol tank, the only suggestion that his accident may not have been a solo venture. The paint matched up to that used on the powder-blue Ford Focus, one of the most popular cars on the road at the time, and virtually untraceable.

Reece, too, had been approached with an offer for his businesses, according to his wife. Unlike Murphy, Reece had given it serious consideration, but had ultimately turned it down. He had made a passing comment to her about the buyer not being a man he wanted to do business with but hadn’t elaborated. Her husband had been in the ground less than a week when Locke made an approach. She was left with two young children and no idea how to run a business that size, so had taken his offer without hesitation.