The Jon that Kal described, the man turning down hookers, the man you want by your side, that was her Jon. She knows she’s doing the right thing, keeping this quiet from her boss. There is more information out there. She wants to know what happened, and being here, on the case, is the best way of finding out.

Freya may have a woman’s touch, but ten minutes into the conversation with the escort agency and things aren’t going well.

Butler insisted on driving, and they left her car at the train station. Freya wondered whether it was good old-fashioned sexism, or the fact that he didn’t want to be seen in a girly blue Fiat 500, as she opened the passenger door to his dirty Volvo. It was a car more suited to a family of four, discarded sweet wrappers and fizzy drink cans left strewn in the footwell. She brushed crumbs off the seat as she got in; he put on some music, then turned it down – some sort of late-nineties rock.

The agency is run by a woman who introduces herself as Frankie Rosa. She’s older, maybe fifty or so, with a matronly air. Big shelf-like bosoms, rounded cheeks, no trace of make-up. And not taking any shit from them.

They arrived at the registered business address, a detached house in a neighbourhood where disused fridges are left out the front and dogs bark noisily from the back. She opened her door, but isn’t letting them inside.

‘We run a respectable business,’ she snaps to Freya, arms crossed, blocking the doorway. ‘What are you suggesting?’

Freya holds her hands up in front of her, defensively. ‘We’re not interested in arresting you—’

‘What for?’

‘—we just need to know about Amy and Jonathan Miller.’

‘I’ve told you already, any information about our clients is strictly confidential.’

‘Jonathan Miller is dead. Can you just confirm he was a client?’

‘I will not, and now I must ask you to leave.’

Freya feels Butler touch her lightly on the arm, indicating it’s time to beat a hasty retreat. They’re clearly not getting anywhere today.

Back in the car, Freya looks to her boss, flustered.

‘What now, Sarge?’ she asks. ‘Get a warrant?’

‘For what?’ he replies. Freya looks back to the house and sees Frankie watching them out of the window, greying net curtains pushed aside. ‘We have no grounds, no evidence. And storming in there all guns blazing is hardly going to get a result. If Amy Miller did hire an escort, we need to know who, then speak to her about it.’

‘So how do we do that?’ Freya asks, but Butler just frowns, back to tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, deep in thought.

The curtain flips back, and Frankie has gone. Another dead end, Freya thinks as she feels her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulls it out and answers it.