Karen Cornwall arrived back with their coffees in plastic cups just then, accompanied by another man wearing a staff uniform, who she introduced as Neil Sherwood.

‘Neil was in reception so I asked him to join us,’ she said, handing them their coffees. ‘As I mentioned earlier, Neil’s job this afternoon was to man the rear gate between the hotel grounds and the field we use as an overflow car park,’ she said. ‘I’ve told him you want to ask him some questions.’

Sherwood was a squat, bullish man with a nasal edge to his voice. Once Miss Cornwall left them he explained that he took up his post on the gate as soon as the main hotel car park became full at about eleven o’clock on Saturday morning.

‘By about two o’clock all the wedding guests had arrived and nothing was happening so I spent some time helping out in the garden and on the terrace. I went back to the gate frequently but I knew the overflow wouldn’t get busy again until the evening guests started to arrive.’

‘Does that mean that between about four and seven the gate wasn’t constantly manned?’ James asked.

Sherwood nodded. ‘It does, but I’m pretty sure that nobody arrived during that time.’

‘But someone could have left without being seen. Is that correct?’

‘Of course. Nobody left while I was there, though. It was dead quiet.’

James puffed out his cheeks. It wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear because it meant the killer could have fled the premises without anyone knowing since the overflow car park wasn’t covered by CCTV cameras.

He thanked Neil Sherwood and dismissed him, mulling things over as he sipped at his coffee.

‘So where do we go from here, guv?’ Abbott asked him.

He thought about it for about thirty seconds and said, ‘I have to go and talk to the family again. I think it’s going to come as a real shock when I tell them that Rachel was planning to move to Italy. And I want to know why Libby didn’t tell us that she had words with her sister in the garden after their encounter at the bar. But first let’s get the team together for a quick briefing. There’s a lot of work to be done and it’s going to take some organising.’

It was 2 a.m. when the briefing got under way in the now empty Garden Room. Most of the uniformed officers were present along with two detective constables from Kendal HQ.

James brought them all up to speed and then assigned various tasks.

He told Sergeant Dale Thomas to make sure the entire hotel, including all the rooms, was checked over. He was also to make arrangements for statements to be taken from all the guests and staff, even if they didn’t have much to say.

‘And get the guests to show you what pictures they took on their phones,’ he said. ‘DC Abbott will print off and circulate the picture we have of Rachel and Carlo together and one of Ethan Prescott as we need to track the movement of both men during the reception. Grab a copy of any guest photos you see that you think might be helpful to us.’