‘Seems a bit harsh,’ Chris said. ‘That time in the morning. You couldn’t have taken them to their doors?’

‘Did what I was paid for. I was told to drop them in the town so I did. It’s up to them what they did after that.’

Clare regarded Samantha. Surely any normal woman would have seen them home safely, especially at two in the morning. What was going on here? ‘Why were the women booked for the party?’ she asked.

Samantha avoided Clare’s eye and brushed an imaginary speck of dust off her sleeve. Eventually she sighed. ‘Why do you think?’

‘Were they sex workers, Samantha?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ she said. ‘I take them there and I’m paid for doing it, just like a taxi. Then I take them back and I come home. End of.’

Clare racked her brains. Whoever was paying Samantha had drilled her well. She was giving nothing away. ‘Did you enter the Lodge yourself?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah. I parked round the back, took the girls in and found the guy organising the party.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Erm… about forty-ish, quite round in the face, goatee beard.’

That fitted with what they’d learned so far. It had clearly been Doug Gerrard who’d organised the party. ‘And was he the man who booked you?’ Clare asked.

‘No. It was a woman. Couple of weeks ago,’ she said. ‘Phone call one night. Woman says she needs a driver to take some girls to a party, stick around for a few hours then drive them back again. Good money, and she’d heard I had a van.’

‘Got the number?’ Clare said.

‘Eh?’

‘The woman who phoned. I’ll need her number.’

Samantha took out her phone. ‘Dunno,’ she said, flicking back through calls. Then she held out her phone for Clare to see.

Clare copied down the number then said, ‘How were you paid?’

‘Envelope through the door.’

‘Cash?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you still have it?’

‘The money? No! Paid it into the bank.’ Her eyes strayed to her watch again. ‘So, if that’s all.’

Clare glanced at Chris. Then she said, ‘Look, Samantha, I am grateful to you for being honest with us. But I’m afraid we will need the van keys. We won’t keep it any longer than necessary. But it’s possible someone you took in the van that night is guilty of a serious crime.’

Samantha looked from one to the other, as though struggling to take this in. ‘You are joking, aren’t you? That van’s my livelihood. And right now I have a load of tablecloths to get to a dry cleaners. For a B&B in the town in case you want to know that too.’