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Wednesday late morning

There was a clean, dry shirt in Charlie’s locker, but no trousers or socks. Could he ask Tom to bring more clothes? Or should he wrap the towel round his waist and ignore strange looks from his colleagues? He stood wearing a shirt and underwear, trying to decide.

“Here,” Eddy said, and thrust a bundle of dark grey sweatshirt fabric into his hands. “It’s clean.”

The fabric turned out to be a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, and a moment later, Eddy presented him with a pair of thick socks.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Charlie said, “I’m bloody freezing.” The clothes fit where they touched, and he had to roll the trousers up — a lot — but he was dry and warm, and for that he gave thanks. He padded his way along to the break room, trying not to trip over the oversized socks, or get them tangled in his crutches. To his surprise, Mags and Will were already there, working on laptops rather than at their desks upstairs. Mags raised her eyebrows at his attire.

“I got soaked coming back from the Everything Shop,” Charlie explained. “And now I want a hot drink.”

Will was closest to the kettle and took the hint.

“Huw Jones,” Charlie said when they all had drinks. “Local estate agent, and according to Eddy, owns half the town. More to the point, he sent one of his staff to buy a hammer exactly like the one we found by Unwin’s body, and then another one a couple of days later when the first one got lost.” He wiggled his fingers into virtual quote marks around “got lost.” “We need to know more about Huw Jones.”

“He was at the first fire,” Eddy said, “and he had a lousy alibi for the evening before.”

Charlie cast his mind back. Jones had told them he had driven to a pub and spent the evening chatting to people whose names he had forgotten. Unconvincing at best. He also recalled that Tom had told him the industrial estate was managed by an estate agent, and he would have put money on it being Huw Jones. The estate agency — or perhaps Huw himself — owned both the Hassan premises. All that was missing was a connection to Unwin, and to Josh Pettifor.

“OK. We need to find out everything we can about Huw Jones. The man and the company. Could the fires have been insurance fraud? Does he have a connection to Unwin, or Pettifor? Did he, or any of his staff buy a petrol can, or even two? Can we check that alibi? Obviously, we’ll have him in to ask for an alibi for the Mo’s Autoparts fire, but let’s get all our ducks in a row first.”

“What about the petrol?” Mags asked. “Whoever set those fires must have taken the petrol with them, and they would have to buy it somewhere. We can contact the local garages to see who bought petrol in a can.”

“They’ll have CCTV,” Eddy said.

The atmosphere in the room became charged with purpose. Will wrote the jobs on his Flipchart. Eddy said he’d go round the local filling stations, and “I’ll be close enough to call into the pub where Jones said he was.”

“I’ll come with you, and we can drop Mags at the Everything Shop ,” Charlie said, and turned to Mags. “Get a statement from Gwenann who works there and see if she’s remembered which of the women bought the hammers. There are only three of them, so a description will do. Don’t let her pump you for gossip — she’s desperate for the inside story. Then ring here, and one of us will pick you up.”

Mags protested that it was two minutes’ walk, just as thunder crashed overhead, rattling the windows in their frames and making them all jump. “OK, I’ll ring,” she said with a smile.

“Will,” Charlie said. “You are going to turn Huw Jones’ life inside out. Does he, in fact, own half the town? Is his business in need of a cash injection? Why is he on a dating site even though he’s married? What else does he do for fun? What’s the connection between him and our victims? Once we know all that, it’ll be time for a chat with the man himself.”

Charlie put his wet shoes back on to get out to the car and nodded when Eddy asked if they would be going to Charlie’s house first for a change of clothes. He almost wished he didn’t have to change. The sweatpants and hoodie were well-washed and felt warm and soft against his skin. Clothes maketh man he thought, and grinned internally, imagining turning up to interview petrol station staff dressed this way.

Walking up the path, Charlie heard the unwelcome sound of Taylor Swift. Please don’t let the girls be back … possibly for ever, only he wasn’t going to think about that. Tom appeared at the kitchen door.

“Are our mistresses back early?” Charlie said.

Tom blushed. “I’ve decided I quite like this music.”

“We certainly hear enough of it.”

“Are you two grown men being bossed around by two teenage girls?” Eddy asked and then laughed when Tom and Charlie both nodded vigorously. Charlie laughed, too, but it wasn’t funny.

“Be right back,” Charlie said and limped upstairs for fresh clothes and dry shoes. Tom left Eddy in the living room and followed Charlie. Once they were in their bedroom with the door closed, Tom enfolded Charlie in his arms.

“How’re you doing?” he asked.

“Better for seeing you,” Charlie said, and Tom kissed him.

They were interrupted by a phone ringing.

“No peace,” Tom muttered. “Never any peace. Let’s get you some clean clothes. He sighed.

“Could you do me a favour?” Charlie asked him, “Can you find out which agent is managing the college’s properties?”

“I already did,” Tom said, “Jones and Company, in town. I don’t deal with them, but you can be sure that our new finance team is very careful to check the bona fides of anyone we deal with.”

The sky was dark as Charlie and Eddy headed for the first petrol station, on the outskirts of Llanfair. They had worked out a route, taking in as many places as they could. From above it would look as if they were tracing the pattern of a spider’s web, but with Eddy’s driving it would take no more than a couple of hours … or so.

It began to rain in earnest as they left the town, and the sky was black with more to come.

“It’ll be floods next,” Eddy said. “Have you noticed that it’s always floods? Either the ground is so dry and hard that the water runs off it, or it’s too saturated to absorb any more. Either way, floods.”

He was right. The river burst its banks regularly throughout the year, turning the low-lying fields beside it into an enormous lake — not that developers were deterred from applying to build homes on those lovely flat fields with river views. Luckily the planners could turn them down as quickly as they applied. Discussion about the inevitability of floods kept them occupied as they visited the first two garages, neither of which had anything helpful to offer.

They hit pay dirt at the third garage.