Craig glances down at the photo, then looks up, frustrated. ‘But so what? A nut allergy doesn’t cause a knife wound to the neck. Or,’ she barks, annoyed, ‘are we saying that Mr Peanut went after him with the penknife, too?’

‘What if he did it himself?’

Freya’s been silent up to now, leaning against a wall on the far side, listening intently to Steph.

‘Don’t be so stupid,’ Craig scoffs.

‘No, hear me out,’ Freya says. She stands up straight and addresses the room. ‘They’re stranded in that van, alone, storm raging outside. Simon can feel his throat closing, realising he’s struggling to breathe. Finn’s worse than useless in a crisis’ – Robin nods – ‘and he remembers he has a penknife in his pocket. And he knows how to do an emergency…’ She tails off, looking to Steph. ‘He called it a crike?’

‘Cricothyrotomy,’ Steph says, supplying the correct term.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Craig blusters.

‘Is it?’ Freya faces her, standing her ground. ‘He’s done it before, live on TV. And it worked then, the guy survived. He’s the sort of bloke that believes he can do anything. He drives into tornadoes for a living. He has the arrogance, the Type A personality. So he tries to pierce his own windpipe. Tries to find a way so he can live. And it goes wrong.’

Freya stops. Robin looks at the faces around the room. Craig looks doubtful, Grey disgusted. He knows he himself can’t yet get on board with the idea that Simon Sharp slit his own throat.

But they hadn’t seen the actual act on the video. It’s possible.

Steph’s looking down, studying the photos from her post-mortem, laying them out on the bed in front of her.

‘Finn’s left-handed, right?’ Steph says to Robin. He nods. ‘And Sharp was right-handed?’

Craig agrees.

‘So, look here. The cut clearly starts from the middle of the neck, then round to the right-hand side, nicking the carotid.’ She pushes a photograph forward, skin loose over a neck wound. ‘Which my colleague assumed was caused by someone left-handed, but which could equally have been caused by Sharp.’ She squints at the photo. ‘And these shallower cuts here, at the front of the neck, are hesitation marks. Again, in the first post-mortem they were said to have been done by a reluctant assailant, but they would fit better with Freya’s theory. That he made a few aborted attempts first, before desperation took over.’

The room plunges into silence. Everyone deep in thought. Robin can guess what Craig’s thinking. A defence lawyer presents this to a jury, however ridiculous it sounds, and it might create reasonable doubt. And it fits with the footage on the video. As a theory, it’s bonkers, but it’s possible.