It proved a hit with tourists and encouraged him to buy another and then another. When he died three months ago at the age of sixty-eight there were seven hotels in the Murphy chain. In addition, he owned a bunch of other properties in the county.

In the photos James came across he looked nothing like his son. He was short and plump with a flat face and sunken eyes.

There was one newspaper story from five years ago that James found particularly interesting as it appeared to confirm what Claire had said about Michael Murphy and how he had allegedly treated her husband. It reported that a female member of the company’s board of directors had taken Michael Murphy to court claiming that she was forced to give up her job because he made her life a misery. She won the case and got damages.

In contrast, James didn’t spot any negative reports about Greg. Quite the opposite in fact, with the hotel owner having been written about in glowing terms and described variously as ‘dynamic’, ‘forward-thinking’, ‘shrewd’ and ‘handsome’.

‘So, has anything turned up on the surveillance footage?’ he asked DC Abbott as he stepped inside the security office.

She was sitting at a desk on which rested a large TV screen and was scrolling through a video that had been recorded during the wedding, showing the guests mingling and enjoying themselves in the Garden Room. To her left was a bank of smaller monitors showing live feeds from cameras dotted about the hotel.

Standing behind her was a man in his fifties with a long, sullen face framed by shapeless brown hair that was streaked with grey. He introduced himself as Andrew Nolan, one of the hotel’s security team.

‘I’ve marked up a few useful clips, guv, and they’ve been copied onto a memory stick,’ Abbott said. ‘But there’s quite a lot more to sift through.’

‘Have you come across anything that might help us crack the case?’ James asked.

‘Not so far. And I should warn you that the system might not yield as much as we’ve been hoping for as there are quite a lot of blind spots.’

‘Why is that?’

‘For one thing, there are fewer cameras than I expected there to be. Only fifteen covering the hotel and grounds, including the entrances, reception, function rooms, service areas and terrace, plus two in the garden. But one of the cameras in the garden hasn’t been working for over a week and the image quality on the one covering the terrace is really poor. Everything is a blur. Mr Nolan here explained that the fault developed on Wednesday and they weren’t able to get it fixed before this weekend’s wedding.’

‘It’s not an uncommon problem with the system we have,’ Nolan said. ‘Rough weather causes the outside cameras to malfunction from time to time. The supplier is busier than usual because of Christmas and can’t get an engineer out to us until Thursday.’

‘What a bugger,’ James said. ‘Does that mean we won’t be able to see who was on the terrace and when?’