He loads up the CCTV footage. This is all they have. There are no cameras in the lobby, nothing in the endless corridors. And this footage is grainy. He presses the forward button until Monday at half four. It’s black and white, hard to see what’s going on, and he squints as a few cars drive in and out of the square of concrete.

And then he spots it. Jonathan Miller’s black Mazda 3. It glides in slowly, stopping on the right-hand side. He looks over at Freya. She has her head down, seemingly staring at her keyboard.

‘West?’ he says. She doesn’t reply. ‘Freya?’

She looks up quickly. ‘Hmm?’

‘Miller’s Mazda is in the Premier Inn car park, can you get it impounded?’

‘Sure, yep,’ she replies, and he frowns. What is it with her? he wonders. Is she normally like this?

He presses play again, and watches as a door opens and a figure gets out. It’s dark, it’s hard to see their face, but Robin guesses from their broad shoulders, their clothes – a black hooded jacket and jeans – that it’s a man. It’s the same rain jacket Robin remembers seeing in the hotel room, some expensive North Face thing. The man walks quickly towards the reception of the Premier Inn and is gone.

So he walked through, used the self-service machine to check in, then up in the lift to the hotel room. And from there – nothing. The night manager didn’t see him, the people in room 304 next door heard nothing, and the other side, 302, was newly vacant.

And then the maid started screaming Tuesday lunchtime.

Robin sits back and loads the footage taken from the body-worn camera of the PC arriving first at the scene. It’s jerky, but Robin can clearly make out what happened as Jonathan Miller’s body was found.

A hand on the wooden door. A push, a hard push, for the PC to get into the room. Robin can see the force needed, and knows what the obstacle was behind the door. He sees the camera move as the PC turns, showing the paramedic just behind him.

And there it is. A naked body hanging from the back of the door, leather pulled taut, legs crumpled up underneath. The belt is looped around the coat hook on the back of the door, buckle threaded through the belt, then looped round his neck, pulling upward by the side of his face. It digs in hard to his neck, leaving a ridge. His feet are still on the floor – he wasn’t a tall man, and the coat hook not high, but the weight of his body was obviously enough to kill him. Head slightly to one side, mouth open, swollen tongue protruding.