Juliette Henderson (anagram: lederhosen jet unit, make of that what you will) had left me the challenge of orienteering my way to the Drying Room using the painted arrows. I think she was disappointed I hadn’t been more enthusiastic at the prospect of us forming a crime-solving duo. Based on the unsigned contract on her desk and her casual mention of TripAdvisor ratings, I’d decided her motivation for looking into the death was more than a curiosity born out of reading too many mystery novels, or even a duty of care to her guests: she wanted to protect the value of her property. Maybe she thought a murder investigation would deter her potential buyer. Especially if a sale was imminent, as it seemed to be.

Crawford – who I’ve just noticed we’ve all been referring to intuitively by his surname, as you do with police officers (which makes sense, because if Jeremy is larger than his last name, Crawford, diminutive under his badge, is smaller than his first) – stood as I approached. I shook Crawford’s hand; it felt appropriate to the façade of lawyerliness.

‘Juliette has some evidence you might be interested in. Video footage of the driveway, if it helps,’ I said. ‘It’s weird though, no one freaks out until daylight, but someone must have called you—’

‘—before dawn,’ he finished. ‘Yeah. Took me like an hour to get here. Little under.’

‘Did they leave a name?’

‘I don’t know. I was on the radar all night. So I didn’t take the call at the station.’

‘Why you? Juliette said you’re not the regular sergeant . . . Sergeant . . .’ I’d forgotten the sergeant’s name already, spun a few vowels around my tongue.

Crawford didn’t help me out, just shrugged. ‘I was closest.’

‘And when you got here, were there other people near the body?’ I already knew the answer to that one, but I wanted confirmation.

‘I was kind of expecting a circus when I got here, but I can’t tell you something that didn’t happen.’ I thought again of the three sets of tracks: only enough for one victim, one police officer and one killer. This supported the theory that no one had found the body at all; the killer must have called it in themselves.

‘And we still don’t even know who the dead man is.’ I said it in a dejected way that I thought might compel Crawford to leap in with some information to appease me. ‘Can I have a copy of the victim’s photo?’ I paused, before adding, ‘As the lawyer.’ I thought it sounded like a plausibly serious request that a lawyer might make.

‘I heard that you aren’t, though?’ Crawford said. ‘Your dad told me.’