This time Banks gave Annie the “calm down” look. She frowned at him, then subsided in her chair and glowered silently at Carver.

“Can we get back to the matter in hand, sir?” Banks said to McLaughlin. “I apologize for DI Cabbot’s behavior. She’s under a lot of strain with this case, as you can imagine. And DC Masterson has just been injured. She has a cracked clavicle.”

“She shouldn’t be out following up dangerous leads on her own,” said Carver. “Without informing me.”

“Oh, shut up, Wilf,” said McLaughlin. “Save it for later. Right now we’ve got more important things to do than worrying about covering your arse.”

Carver turned beet red but fell silent.

“Clearly, I need to listen to the complete recording myself,” McLaughlin went on, “but from what I can gather, we have some serious crimes to deal with here now and decisive action is required. Given the information and forensics we have so far, I’d say this Sunny and his pals have to be first in line as suspects. Perhaps this Mimsy was going to blow the whistle, and they followed the van with some vague plan in mind. Perhaps it was prearranged that the men in the van would throw her out. We’ll need DNA samples to check against the ones Ms. Singh took from the victim. As I see it, from what I’ve heard, there are four actions we should be pursuing immediately. We should be trying to find this girl Jade, we should be bringing Sunny and the rest of his friends in for a serious chat, we should contact the West Yorkshire police to locate and bring in the cousins from Dewsbury, and we should be trying to find out who Tariq and the lads who hurt and chased DC Masterson are. In addition, we should also be trying to identify the girls Jade mentioned to DC Masterson and bring them in, too. Bring the school head teacher back from holidays if need be. Or try the social again. But that can wait until tomorrow. And it should be done carefully. They’re victims. They’re to be treated with respect and gentleness.” He shot Carver a glance. “It’s no good banging their doors down in the middle of the night and dragging them off. Now, seeing as I am of senior rank here and Detective Superintendent Banks is SIO, all that’s down to us. As you’ll all be busy building cases for the next while, I’ll talk to the CPS about charges. I don’t know to what extent you want to help, or intend to help, Superintendent Carver. From what I can gather you haven’t done a hell of a lot so far except stand in the way of our investigation. I can have men sent in from elsewhere if you’re short of personnel—”