‘But when you uncover a nugget of gold, it makes it all worthwhile. And it’s the nuggets that we’re looking for. Which leads me on to our third evidence strand. Mr Lynch’s mobile phone.’

‘My client’s already indicated that he lost his phone,’ Larssen said.

‘Convenient,’ Naylor replied.

‘Happens to thousands of people, every day of the week.’

Naylor said: ‘Do you know what metadata is, Joe?’

I shook my head.

‘Literally speaking it means “data about data”, ’ he continued, turning to another sheet of paper in his file. ‘Information generated as you use technology. In the case of your average smartphone, metadata will give you a list of numbers, coordinates, dates and times.’

‘OK,’ I said slowly.

‘We’ve gathered your phone’s metadata from Thursday night, which has allowed us to plot all of your movements over the course of the day and into the evening. It shows you at or near the Premier Inn for thirty-three minutes last Thursday, between 5.01 p.m. and 5.34 p.m.’

‘No comment,’ Larssen said again, for what felt like the fiftieth time today.

‘You went in first at 5.01 p.m. You claim that you left, and then went back a short while later, staying for just a few minutes. That’s pretty weird behaviour, don’t you think?’

‘I already told you about this on Monday. Check my home phone records – I called the hotel from the landline when I got home –’

‘Joe,’ Larssen said, a warning tone in his voice.

‘It looks like there was a call from your house phone to the hotel. But there’s no way to prove who made the call, the receptionist doesn’t remember it, and there’s no recording of the conversation. So it doesn’t really move things any further forward. It doesn’t help us. Or you. Why’d you go back? Because you realised you’d left your phone there and you knew it would incriminate you?’

Larssen said: ‘No comment.’

‘Maybe you returned to the scene to look for your missing bracelet as well, knowing that it would link you directly to the crime? With Mr Delaney’s body already in the boot of your car?’

I shook my head once, a small movement. I couldn’t stop myself.

‘Is that a no?’

‘No comment,’ Larssen said again.