‘You ought to be here looking after me and making sure I’m all right.’

‘Meet me in Wirksworth or Cromford or somewhere,’ he pleaded. ‘That’s not far to go.’

‘And then what, eh?’

‘Well –’

‘If you think I’m doing it in the back of a car at my age, Darren Turnbull, you’ve got another think coming. Especially in your bloody Astra, with the police looking for it everywhere. I don’t want some copper banging on the window and catching me with my knickers off.’

‘We’ll go somewhere quiet. There’s lots of places we could find.’

‘No. Darren, either you go to the police like you should, or I’ll phone them myself and tell them who that car belongs to.’

‘Stella –’

‘Yes, I will. And then they’ll come round to your house to pick you up. How would your precious Fiona like that, eh?’

Darren went cold at the thought. He glanced guiltily out of the phone box, but no one was around to see him.

‘Look, Stell, there’s no need for that. I’ll come round to the cottage as usual tonight, and we’ll have a talk about it, OK?’

‘Fine. See you, then. And don’t forget the booze.’

Before she left West Street, Fry knocked on the door of the DI’s office to report her movements. She found Hitchens staring at a passport that lay on his desk in a clear plastic wallet. Its cover was the familiar burgundy red, with the royal crest embossed in gold. The lion and the unicorn, dieuet mon droit.

‘Is that Rose Shepherd’s passport?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Don’t you think it’s weird to have a French motto on the front of a British passport? I bet most people don’t understand what it means.’

‘We’re in the European Union now,’ said Fry. ‘We’re not supposed to understand what anything means. So why is it here?’

‘The HOLMES team checked the passport number. It seems that no such passport was ever issued by the UK authorities. We’re going to send it to the FSS for their document examiners to have a look at, but the conclusion seems pretty clear. Rose Shepherd’s passport is a forgery. A very good one – but still a forgery.’

‘But that means –’

Hitchens swivelled his chair to face her.

‘Yes, Diane. It means we have absolutely no idea who she really was.’

* * *

It was five thirty-eight in the evening when Lazar Zhivko tapped the numbers into the keypad and locked the door of his electrical shop in Stephenson Place, Chesterfield. He rattled the handle to make certain it was secure and looked over his shoulder, as if afraid that a mugger might choose this moment to strike. Lazar’s eyes were dark with anxiety as he scanned the pavement and the cars parked in front of the shop.

While Lazar hesitated in the shop doorway, his brother Anton was already waiting at the kerb, drumming his fingers impatiently on the arms of his wheelchair, fidgeting with the rug on his knees. He stared straight ahead, taking no notice of the people passing by, even though they barely had enough room to get past him without stepping into the road.

When he glanced in the direction of the Rutland pub, the streetlights seemed to form even deeper shadows among the lines etched like knife marks in his face.

The camera recording Lazar Zhivko’s movements had captured that expression on his face many times before. It was immortalized in the stills pinned to copies of his file and handed out to officers on surveillance shifts. One observer had described it as the look of a man who’d learned always to expect the worst.

‘I wish I knew what the hell the brother was looking at.’

The two surveillance officers were starting to feel drowsy. The store room was stuffy, and specks of dust drifted in the air whenever either of them moved from the cardboard box he was sitting on. All afternoon they hadn’t dared to open the sash even an inch, in case they drew attention to their position. Even now that it was getting dark, they were being careful.

‘It’s not us he’s looking at, anyway.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Don’t worry, he hasn’t seen us.’

‘Maybe he’s spotted somebody on the pavement this side of the road. We ought to get someone in the street to check.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Well, he must be looking at the menswear shop next door, then. I know their window display is pretty weird, but I wouldn’t have thought it was bad enough to make him look like that.’

Anton Zhivko’s expression was much more difficult to interpret than his brother’s. Anton looked resigned, yet contemptuous, as if he could see a threat approaching and had resolved not to run, but to face it without fear.

The angle of the camera was adjusted as Lazar Zhivko finally left the door of the shop. Stepping on to the pavement, Lazar gripped the handles of his brother’s wheelchair and kicked off the foot-brake. The camera panned slowly to follow him as the two men headed towards the white Renault Kangoo parked outside the bakery.

‘He’s lost sight of whatever it was. Now, he just looks pissed off. He’s saying something to Lazar. That’s the trouble with making silent movies like this – you need subtitles. It’s a pity Technical Support couldn’t have got a microphone on to the wheelchair to pick up sound.’

‘How would they have done that? Anton is only ever out of the thing when he goes to bed or to the toilet. Besides, how good is your Bulgarian?’

By now, Lazar had stopped at the rear of the Kangoo and applied the brake on the chair. He thumbed an electronic key from his pocket and the lights on the vehicle flashed.

The Kangoo had an electrically operated folding ramp and a power winch to load the wheelchair through the rear doors. Someone with too much time on his hands had added a note in the file to say it was a Bekker conversion. Lazar didn’t look strong enough to have helped his brother out of his chair and into the van without the winch. And there was no doubt the Zhivkos could afford an extra thousand pounds or so for the technology.

‘Well, business is over for the day. I reckon we can knock off and claim our Oscars.’

‘Not until they’re clear of the area. Let’s do the job properly.’

‘OK. But all this on account of some dodgy intelligence? I hope Europol appreciate what we’re going through on their behalf.’

The camera’s field of view covered the Zhivkos’ vehicle and three cars parked in front of it on the north side of Stephenson Place. Surveillance had confirmed that the brothers always arrived early to make sure they got a space for the Kangoo near their shop. To the west, there were double yellow lines along the kerb all the way to the lights at the corner of Knifesmithgate, so the position of the camera had pretty much decided itself. The first-floor store room above the charity shop provided a decent vantage point, at the right angle to catch the face of anyone leaving the shop. Even better, there were bars on the store-room window and stacks of boxes already in place to disguise the camera’s outline.

A radio crackled. ‘Have they left the shop?’

‘Yes, they’re in the street, about to load the wheelchair into the van. It looks like they’re heading for home.’

‘A wash-out, then.’

The monitor showed that Lazar Zhivko had positioned his brother’s chair behind the Renault and left him there while he went to the driver’s door. There was still time for a contact, but not much. The brothers would be gone from the scene in the next couple of minutes.

‘A couple of lads are walking towards the shop from Knifesmithgate.’

‘Lads?’

‘Sorry. Two white males, aged eighteen to twenty, wearing jeans and sweatshirts. They’re slowing a bit as they get to the vehicle. No, they’re just admiring the van.’

‘They’re not interested in the Zhivkos?’

‘They’re passing on. No contact. We got them on film anyway.’

‘Nothing. As soon as the brothers move out of the street, we’ll call it a day here. Team Two can pick them up at home.’