‘There’s no sound,’ Jake says, but he still turns the cracked screen away from the middle of the café. All he’d said on his text was that he had been sent a video and it had something to do with his ex’s car accident. An RTA wouldn’t normally be the concern of Swindon CID, but Jake’s ex, Kate, is not a normal person. For a year before her road traffic accident, she worked for Silas as a super recogniser, identifying more criminals than the courts could cope with.

‘It’s the Bluebell, in Rockbourne.’

Silas looks up at Jake at the mention of the Bluebell. The pub was recently flagged in an ongoing county lines heroin network. He peers more closely at the screen, wondering how Jake has managed to get hold of the pub’s CCTV feed. And what the hell Kate was doing there.

‘Look carefully,’ Jake says, as the barman fixes the drink. ‘See what he did, just before the ice went in?’

Silas tears another bite off his bacon sandwich.

‘Watch it again now – it’s clearer from this angle.’ Jake adjusts the screen.

Silas leans forward, mopping ketchup from his mouth with a paper napkin.

‘There.’

Silas sees it. Something appears to go into the drink before the ice. But the footage is not conclusive.

‘She was exhausted,’ he says. ‘We’ve been through this.’ He scrutinised the RTA report carefully, made his own inquiries, tried not to dwell on how tired she was that night, how hard he’d been working her. How hard he’d worked everyone in the super-recogniser unit. ‘And she’d had a drink – she was right on the limit.’

‘Shame they weren’t looking for something else,’ Jake says. ‘A sedative of some kind. Her drink must have been spiked. Must have been. It would explain her falling asleep at the wheel.’

Silas isn’t convinced. Not yet. He’s more interested in where the memory stick came from. ‘Who sent you this?’ he asks.

‘No idea.’ Jake turns the package over. ‘Just arrived this morning.’

‘And your mucky prints are all over it.’ Silas takes the package by one corner, as if he’s holding a fish by its tail. Whoever sent it to Jake knew to address it c/o the village post office.

‘I didn’t know what it was,’ Jake says.

‘We’ll take a look at it – if you’re happy to hand it in.’

‘Sure. I’ve made a copy.’

Silas watches Jake take the stick out of his computer and drop it into the envelope that he’s holding out for him. ‘Do you hear from Kate much?’ he asks.

‘Nothing.’ Jake looks down at his mug of tea. ‘I don’t even know where she’s living.’