He hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep for as long as he can remember. During the day, he’s shattered, desperate for half an hour of shut-eye, but the moment he gets into bed his brain refuses to switch off. He lies there, warm, comfortable, but awake, as the clock ticks round to two, three, sometimes four a.m. His mind will wander, on the edge of dreams. But then he’ll hear a small cry, or a voice, maybe real, probably imaginary, and he’ll be jolted awake again, his heart thudding in his chest. Finally, he’ll drift off, but then he’ll wake, barely hours later, blurry, exhausted and desperate to be left alone.

But Greg’s not shutting up, still talking down the phone.

‘I’m on my way,’ Robin says.

An hour later, Robin’s dressed in something vaguely clean and sitting at Greg’s desk, takeaway coffees in hand. Robin’s worked with Greg for years, and Greg’s complete lack of care for social niceties means the two men have always got on. Robin’s blunt manner matches the techie’s, both understanding the need to get to the point fast, as well as the desire for a continuous supply of caffeine. Greg takes the matching coffee cup without acknowledgement and now presses it to his lips, while pointing at his screen with his other hand.

‘What?’ Robin asks.

Greg taps with his finger on the figure in the CCTV. It’s the footage taken from outside the Premier Inn, on the evening that Jonathan Miller checked into the hotel.

‘So your guy was about five-nine, five-ten, right?’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘This guy’s not.’

‘Pardon?’ Robin asks. After his run-in with Liv, Robin drove home, stopping at the Co-op on the way for a frozen dinner and a six-pack of beer, asking for a packet of twenty Marlboro Golds as an afterthought when he got to the till. He spent the evening smoking and drinking, and as a consequence his brain is blurry, his throat scratchy and sore.

‘This guy—’ Greg taps again ‘—is too tall.’

Robin coughs, feeling the muck from the cigarettes rattling in his lungs, then takes another gulp of coffee. He isn’t with it enough to understand Greg this morning.

‘What do you mean, too tall?’

Greg talks him through some complicated process involving algebra and geometry and the height of the door of the car the guy is standing next to. Robin blinks.

‘So how tall do you think this guy is?’

‘Six-two, six-three?’

‘You’re kidding me.’

Greg stares at him through his glasses, stone-faced. ‘Would I?’

‘Shit.’ Robin slumps back in the chair. He thinks about Jonathan Miller’s Mazda – left at the Premier Inn, now impounded in the police garage. ‘What about the forensics from the car? Anything back on that?’

‘Wait a sec.’

Greg turns round and shouts to one of his colleagues. ‘Sent to West,’ Robin hears him reply.