Ten minutes later I find it. There’s a bit of paper stuck to the back of one of the Muller case photos and when I peel them apart I find it’s the tech report on the video itself, the one that featured Huisman and the two hopefuls. I place it in the pile and start putting the whole lot away when something makes me stop and go back to it. I read it through properly. The name of the requesting officer is de Vries, and the technical officer who did the report is Joos Wilders. The report says, in the stiff formal language these things are always written in, that the footage had definitely been taken from the video camera recovered at Akkerman’s house. I turn the sheet over, expecting more, but the other side is blank. There should be more to this, specifically a check that the time and date displayed on the camera were actually correct, the whole point of getting the report done. I search through the rest of the file. Nothing. I search again, my heart beating faster this time. Again, nothing. I tell myself to calm down. I get on the phone to the department responsible, ask to speak to Joos Wilders.

‘He retired,’ the crackly voice tells me. ‘About four, maybe five years ago?’

I give the voice the report reference number and tell him to pull the file and email it over to me. I give him my personal address, saying there’s something wrong with my work one. He doesn’t even bat an eyelid; I wonder if I should tell someone about the lack of security. On deck I go through another joint. Just a small one this time.

‘Mate?’

‘Yeah?’ I turn to see the electrician poking his head out of a porthole.

‘I need to show you something.’

Down in the engine room the circuit board looks like a terrorist bomb mid-manufacture, a multitude of coloured wires spilling out of the box. It seems very far from being fixed. I tell him this.

‘Gonna be a while,’ he says. ‘This thing was wired up by a monkey. You’re lucky it didn’t catch fire.’

‘Fucking monkeys, they’re everywhere.’

I’m not sure he hears me.

‘So I need to get a few extra parts. These bits here are screwed, probably what tripped the whole thing.’

‘When will you be back?’

‘Later today, tomorrow at the latest.’

‘So what am I supposed to do in the meantime. If it is tomorrow?’

‘Well, you see this switch here?’

He’s pointing to a black plastic switch, the type that flips up or down. I concede that I can see it.

‘Good, so whilst I’m gone, don’t touch this, okay?’