Freya’s glad Robin’s distracted as they leave the church, refraining from asking her too many questions about her so-called admin assignment. She collected the CID case files from work this morning, a huge box in her boot.

She drives home quickly and unloads it, placing it on her kitchen table. She makes a sandwich, tuna and mayo, then sits eating it, reading the basics from the report Baker gave her the day before.

Trevor Stevens, fifty-four. Received a paltry sentence of three years in prison for causing death by careless driving, released after two. Twenty-four months in a minimum-security jail for the hit-and-run on Georgia Riley and two-year-old twins Alex and James. She remembers Robin testifying at the sentencing hearing, then arriving back to work two days later, red-eyed and silent. The sentencing notes talk about the accused’s attempt at rehabilitation, Stevens’ teary, apologetic appeal to the judge, the letters from his family and friends, talking about what a great bloke he was. Blokes are always great, Freya thinks, as she looks at his picture, until they get blind drunk at lunchtime and kill three innocent people.

Notes from his parole hearing talked about his commitment to AA. How he hadn’t touched a drop since the accident. How he had a sponsor, daily meetings to attend, plus a recent commitment to God. How much of it was true, Freya didn’t know, but barely a week after his licence had been reinstated (only disqualified for a year, what a joke) his car was found destroyed and burnt out at the edge of Cottingham Forest, a body inside. Analysis confirmed the body was Trevor Stevens, but that was all it could show. The flames had burnt him to a crisp.

Freya looks for the crime scene photos but they seem to be missing. Stored at the SCIU, she assumes. She looks up the name of the investigating officer – Sergeant Kevin Burton – then sends him a quick email asking to meet.

She reads on. No witnesses to the accident, car and body spotted at eleven p.m. by a dog walker. And a broken bottle in the passenger-side footwell.

That bottle was a distinctive shape – Jack Daniel’s whiskey. So Trevor hadn’t been so abstemious. And when he’d fallen off the wagon, he’d fallen hard, driving his car into a tree.

Freya sits back at her kitchen table. The whole box is laid out in front of her, the scribbled notebooks from the detectives, the typed witness statement from the dog walker. There’s not much, but it all seems present and correct. So what?

She wonders if Steph has found anything additional, and calls her. She answers immediately.

‘I heard you were the DC on the case,’ Steph says. ‘Have you told Robin?’

‘Baker told me not to. Have you?’

A pause. Freya remembers Steph being at her boss’s house that Tuesday morning. Then: ‘No, of course not. Have you seen him?’