She finds it in the next drawer – his laptop. She lifts it out and places it on the desk, opening the screen. It pops into life, asking for a password. She has no idea, but she closes the lid again, putting it under her arm.

Then she hears it. The sound of a car pulling up outside the house. She swears under her breath, her heart beating hard. There’s no way she can get out of this room without being seen, and she looks around for a solution. Her eyes alight on the window – large, big enough for her to climb through, and facing out to the garden behind the house.

She pushes it open fully, and climbs awkwardly onto the windowsill. She knows she’s disturbing dust, leaving behind evidence of having been there, but the gloves and shoe covers are still on. They’ll never know who. She leaps out of the window into a flower bed, pushing the window closed, and hurries round to the front of the house. Through a gap in the gate, she watches Amy stand at the front door, her key in her hand. Freya remembers the spare key, still in her pocket, but there’s nothing she can do about that now.

She hears the front door close, waits a few seconds, then scuttles quickly through the gate, out into the street and back to her car.

Breathing quickly, the stolen laptop clutched tightly to her chest.

10

Amy Miller gone, Robin spends the rest of the morning raking through the contents of Jonathan Miller’s phone. Call logs, text messages, everywhere he went across his last few days.

As much as people claim invasion of privacy, Robin knows social media and the geotagging on mobile devices is invaluable on a case like this. Phones, especially lovely iPhones like Miller’s, record the user’s every move. Where they’ve been, where they were when they posted on Twitter or took a photograph. What time they sent a text, made a call or logged onto WhatsApp. And with the passcode provided by Amy Miller, they can see everything.

Plus the techies have come through with the information from the car telematics. Jonathan Miller’s Mazda is new enough to have a satnav and engine management system, so they can tell where it has been, and exactly what time the car was started or turned off. Every single change of electronics, from the seat position to the boot opening and closing, was recorded. Combined with the phone, it is vital data.

Freya has finally made it into the office. She looks distinctly green, and Robin makes a silent pledge to keep a good arm’s distance away, but he needs her here. There’s work to be done.