The picture switches to dawn on the Taw, shimmering with frosted dew. A cub reporter in a bear-sized duffel-coat has gleaned a few details. ‘Well, Tamsin, police are mystified by the cause of this incident on what is a very well-lit and heavily used stretch of highway. The van apparently left the road fifty yards before reaching the bridge, at a point where there is no fencing. It slithered down the bank and into the river, sinking before any other motorist could pull up and give assistance.

‘No one was seen getting out of the vehicle and, in sub-zero temperatures, police say there is very little hope of finding a survivor. Police believe they know the driver’s identity, but they cannot release it until the family has been informed.’

‘So is this just a tragic accident, Roger, or are police looking at any other cause?’

‘The question troubling investigators is whether the driver lost control, maybe fell asleep at the wheel, or whether he was forced off the road by an oncoming vehicle. Hopefully, we’ll have more in an hour. In the meantime, it’s more misery for motorists. One-lane traffic on the A821 all day, I’m afraid. Be prepared for long delays into and out of Tawburn. Back to you, Tamsin.’

I have heard enough. Packing my bag, I am out of the room within two minutes, heading downstairs to check out. Woodward, the manager, presides at the reception desk. I ask him to deliver my suitcase to my reserved seat on the nine-seventeen and slip him a twenty-pound note in a parting handshake for this and other services rendered. ‘Always good to see you, Mr Simmonds,’ he murmurs, ‘I do hope you had a good time with us.’

Missing the hotel breakfast is a bonus. At the revolving doors, a flunkey hails me a cab. Oldbridge is only ten minutes away, even in rush hour, not long enough for my mind to circumferate the possibilities. ‘Wait there,’ I tell the driver, striding to the riverbank. The area is cordoned off with striped plastic tape, but I step over it authoritatively, flashing a Metropolitan Police press pass that I was once given by a music-loving commissioner.

‘What’s the latest?’ I ask the BBC’s Roger Middleton, pretending to be a passing colleague.

‘Nothing much. The divers are about to go in to locate and retrieve the van. May take all day. No hope for the driver.’

‘Do we know anything about him?’

Middleton nods to a knot of men standing on the bridge, swaying and keening raggedly in black hats and coats. ‘One of them, it seems.’ He shrugs. ‘Can’t talk to those guys – too busy shaking. Anyway, don’t suppose any of them speaks English.’