PERFECT CRIME
Helen Fields

Copyright

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Helen Fields 2019

Cover photograph © Shutterstock

Cover design © Sarah Whittaker 2019

Helen Fields asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008275204

Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008275228

Version: 2019-02-25

Dedication

For my mum, Christine May Fields.

Leading by example, inspiring through toil, loving with gestures, even when the words were hard to say.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One: 20 February

Chapter Two: 3 March

Chapter Three: 3 March

Chapter Four: 4 March

Chapter Five: 4 March

Chapter Six: 4 March

Chapter Seven: 4 March

Chapter Eight: 4 March

Chapter Nine: Before

Chapter Ten: 5 March

Chapter Eleven: 5 March

Chapter Twelve: 5 March

Chapter Thirteen: 5 March

Chapter Fourteen: 6 March

Chapter Fifteen: 6 March

Chapter Sixteen: 8 March

Chapter Seventeen: 10 March

Chapter Eighteen: 10 March

Chapter Nineteen: 10 March

Chapter Twenty: 10 March

Chapter Twenty-One: 11 March

Chapter Twenty-Two: 11 March

Chapter Twenty-Three: 12 March

Chapter Twenty-Four: 13 March

Chapter Twenty-Five: 14 March

Chapter Twenty-Six: 15 March

Chapter Twenty-Seven: 15 March

Chapter Twenty-Eight: 15 March

Chapter Twenty-Nine: 15 March

Chapter Thirty: 16 March

Chapter Thirty-One: 17 March

Chapter Thirty-Two: 17 March

Chapter Thirty-Three: 17 March

Chapter Thirty-Four: 17 March

Chapter Thirty-Five: 17 March

Chapter Thirty-Six: 17 March

Chapter Thirty-Seven: 17 March

Chapter Thirty-Eight: 17 March

Chapter Thirty-Nine: 18 March

Chapter Forty: 18 March

Chapter Forty-One: 18 March

Chapter Forty-Two: 24 March

Chapter Forty-Three: 25 March

Acknowledgments

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Chapter One
20 February

It seemed unlikely that there would be enough of his body intact to reuse after the fall, but in one final act of optimism, Stephen Berry left his organ donor card pinned beneath his mobile, keys and wallet at the side of the road. The impact of the fall, even onto water, would be devastating. He would suffer crushing injuries, probable brain damage, and if the force of his body hitting the water didn’t kill him, the temperature would take care of it in a matter of seconds.

He’d done his research. After tumbling from the Queensferry Crossing into the River Forth, the breath would be knocked from his body, the sudden chill would make him gasp and he’d take in lungfuls of water before he had time to resurface. Death, if not instantaneous, would certainly be fast. Nothing to be scared of, he told himself. Fear was only anticipatory. In the moment, his brain would serve him a huge dose of mental opiate. Should he survive the drop, he’d have no memory of it.

The most dramatic of graves, millions of tons of water rushed beneath him, daring him to join it. He only had a matter of a few minutes to get it done and the truth was that he should have begun climbing already. Having purchased special gloves and boots to allow him to scale the inverted anti-suicide fencing, there was no excuse for his ambivalence.

When he’d called the taxi to his home address, he’d been ready to get on with it. The poor cabbie had already done an eight-hour shift and was on his way home. Stephen had hated pointing the carving knife towards his own jugular and threatening to cut, thereby forcing the driver to pull the car over on the bridge – a strictly no-pedestrians zone – but had been unable to think of a less abusive plan. At least he hadn’t threatened the driver with it. He’d said sorry a dozen times before the driver had brought the vehicle to a halt, not that an apology would make up for the trauma of seeing a blade flashing in the rear-view mirror.

He climbed the easy vertical railings, then got a grip on the sharp layers of metal intended to ensure no one made it from one side to the other. It hurt a little, but he was in good shape. Better physically than mentally, that much was obvious. An hour a day at the gym meant he was well toned. A jog twice a week kept his cardio levels high. To look at him, you’d have no idea about the bipolar disorder he was suffering. It would all come out during the investigation into his death. His long flirtation with drugs designed to even out his moods. Periods when he’d gone off his medication against the advice of one doctor after another. Attempts at counselling that only made him feel weaker and more pathetic than his illness already did. Relationships that couldn’t withstand the bluster of his stormy nature. Jobs that hadn’t lasted as long as they should have when some days he simply couldn’t face the concept of shifting from his bed.

The coroner would assume he was in the middle of one of his downward episodes. There would be some regret that there was no more effective treatment available, or that he hadn’t felt able to reach out to a friend and ask for help. A small-type headline buried deep within a local newspaper would repeat that tired old truth that there wasn’t enough care in the community. While he’d decided against leaving a note to explain his death, he wished briefly that he could have dealt with that ridiculous fallacy. No amount of care could have prevented him from getting to where he was today. He’d felt his premature death tugging at him, like a chain around his waist, since he was fifteen years old. He’d spent the next sixteen years fighting it, but today he’d become the postscript in his own story.

The girlfriend from whom he’d tried so carefully to hide his disorder had finally figured out that he was a worthless piece of shit who’d drag her down for the rest of her life if she stayed with him. There had been a lengthy session of me-not-you bullshit, which he could have done without, followed by an excruciatingly long packing period. It wasn’t like in the films, where one of you simply monologued for a while then slammed a door and was mystically gone forever.

He and Rosa had been living together for a year and it was amazing how complex the structure of intertwined lives could get in twelve short months. Pots and pans, pictures, ornaments, books, extension cables, for fuck’s sake. They’d argued over who’d bought the extension cable by their bed. Not – ridiculously – over who’d spent the money on it, but out of fairness, trying to remember the event because she didn’t suddenly want to realise she’d taken something she had no right to. Bitch. Even at the fucking end she couldn’t set him free by being selfish and unjust. She was a good person. How annoying was that? She was such a good person that the fault, as ever, lay with him. His moods, his needs, his fractured, ruptured psyche.

A passing car issued a long beep and someone shouted from a window. The wind swallowed the words, which pleased him. There were times when the rest of the human race just had to butt out and the sixty seconds prior to committing suicide was one of them. He took another upwards step, jolting with the sudden clarity of the memory of buying the extension cable for Rosa when he’d bought her a new hairdryer. It had been obvious the cable would never reach the dressing table and around the back, so he’d added it to the Christmas list as a functional extra.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ he muttered. It was still plugged into the wall. A stupid remnant of a good stretch when he’d been able to be thoughtful, living outside the trappings of his own mind for four months without interruption. Bliss. For a second he considered phoning Rosa to remind her of the extension cord’s history. She could reclaim it when the flat was emptied out. Only then he’d have to explain where he was, and what he was doing, and she might talk him out of it. Rosa would be the only person who could. Too late, he thought. It was just an extension cable, after all. His snake of a brain had just chosen the moment to try to turn it into a lifeline instead.

Other cars beeped their horns as he took the final step up and over the railing. He stood, wobbling in the fierce breeze. Vehicles halted, forming an unofficial barrier. Doors slammed. Stephen turned around slowly. An arc of people had formed several metres away from him. He wasn’t sure if the distance was because they thought he might grab one of them and take them with him, or for fear that approaching closer might make him jump all the sooner.

In the end, one man pushed between two onlookers, hands in his pockets, casual as you like, and wandered over to stand below his position on the fencing.

‘Are you okay for me to stand here and talk to you?’ he asked.

‘Not much point,’ Stephen muttered. ‘You should probably back up a bit.’

‘Why?’ the man asked.

‘I’m going to jump and I don’t want you to feel responsible. No one else needs to be involved.’

‘That’s really thoughtful of you …’ The man left the sentence hanging. ‘That’s the part where you fill in with your name,’ he finished when there was no response.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Stephen muttered, feeling foolish and rude. ‘Stephen.’

He had no idea why he felt the need to comply with social niceties at such a life-changing time. Years of conditioning, he guessed.

‘Cool. Good to meet you, Stephen. I’m Rune Maclure.’ Sirens echoed across the expanse of water. ‘That’ll be the police. Do you feel up to talking with them, or shall I ask them to stay back, too?’

‘Keep them away,’ Stephen said, taking deep breaths and focusing on the river. The pattern of the water was making him dizzy, or perhaps it was the adrenaline. Either way, he wasn’t sure he could stay upright much longer.

‘Feeling unstable?’ Maclure asked.

He didn’t answer.

‘Relax one leg, get your balance back. Is this your stuff down here?’

‘Yeah,’ Stephen muttered.

Maclure reached down to pick it all up, pocketing the keys and mobile, holding the wallet and reading the organ donor card.

‘Hey man, you want to be a donor? That’s amazing. Too few people take that opportunity. I can’t believe you’re still thinking about other people when you’re feeling so bad. That’s pretty impressive.’

Stephen stared at him. The trick of relaxing one leg had worked. He was stable again.

‘Probably no point. They might not even find my body.’

‘That would be a shame. You look in good shape. Lots of people could benefit from those organs. It’s amazing what they can transplant these days. It’s always the part where it asks if you want to donate your eyes that blows my mind. How weird would that be, waking up after surgery, looking in the mirror to see yourself through someone else’s eyes? Incredible, really.’

Through the growing crowd of bodies appeared four police officers, talking in whispers on their radios and moving people back, away from what Stephen assumed they’d already be referring to as ‘the scene’. He hated that. Causing a scene. Being the scene. All he’d ever wanted was to blend into the crowd.

‘Don’t give it another thought. I can handle them,’ Maclure said, raising his palms in the air in a gesture that said, effortlessly, calm down, I’ve got this. He moved away to speak to the closest of the police officers, greeting her with a handshake.

Stephen watched him go, wondering why Maclure seemed so relaxed. If someone had been seconds from suicide in front of him, he’d have been frantic. His shoulders weren’t hunched, his voice was so low it was almost inaudible. There was no sense of crisis or hurry about him. He sure as hell wasn’t bipolar, Stephen thought. He’d never been that relaxed or self-assured, not for one single second of his whole bloody existence.

‘They’re going to give us some space if you could just do me a huge favour and put your legs back this side of the fence. Not climb down, you have every right to do whatever you want. Stay up there by all means, but I was curious about what I should do with your belongings. Could you spare me one more minute?’

Stephen rubbed his eyes. One more minute? He’d come to the bridge to stop the pain, not prolong it.

‘There must be someone who’d want to know what’s happened to you. Did you leave a note so they can understand how you were feeling? If you did, that’s great. You can give me your address and I’ll make sure it gets to them. If not, give me a name and a number. I’ll tell them you were at peace with your decision, rational, not scared. It’ll make it easier for whoever you’re leaving behind.’

‘Why would you think I’m not scared?’ Stephen blurted, the ludicrousness of that suggestion hitting him harder than he liked.

Suicide wasn’t easy. It wasn’t something you just did as a whim. Of course he was scared.

‘I’m sorry, you just seem so … man, I hate to think of you up there feeling that way. Listen, I can’t stop the police for more than another minute and I really want to know what’s going on with you. Just take one step back over until we’ve finished talking. For me, if not for you? You seem like a great guy. Who else would have left a donor card when they’re planning on killing themselves?’

Stephen considered the options. It was really just jump or take a step back to talk. And perhaps Rosa would want to hear some last words. Their break-up was so recent and raw that she was sure to blame herself. If he did nothing else, he could leave some reassurance that he’d have come to this whether or not the relationship had broken down. The thought of her spending a lifetime blaming herself was intolerable. He might be severely messed up in the head department, but he wasn’t cruel.

Maclure was standing looking nonchalant, hands in his pockets once more, looking no more excited about life than if he were stood at a bus stop.

Stephen shifted one leg backwards over the upper railing, to the delight of the crowd, who gave a stadium-style whoop. Turned out that suicide was a spectator sport. Who knew?

‘Good for you,’ Maclure said, waving a hand vaguely at the police. ‘Do you smoke?’

‘No,’ Stephen said.

‘Me neither. I guess it’s a standard play to offer someone in your situation, a cigarette, right?’

‘I guess,’ Stephen replied.

It was laughable really, having such an inane conversation while he stood on the suicide barrier of a bridge.

‘So, can you give me a reason why you’re doing this? That’s bound to be what interested parties will ask. Not that there even has to be a reason, I get that. Sometimes it’s just down to a feeling.’

Stephen thought about it. The truth was somewhere in between. He’d lost the will to live some time ago on a day-to-day basis but, longer-term, he had no faith in his bipolar disorder ever being effectively treated. He looked at the man with all the questions. Good-looking, athletic, black, slim, with a slight beard growth trimmed to maximise the squareness of his chin. The sort of person you both hated and wanted to be, wrapped into one.

‘I’m bipolar,’ was the answer Stephen settled for.

Maclure nodded. ‘That’s a tough one. And the treatment makes you feel like crap on the good days, so you stop taking it, then all the good days become bad days anyway. Is that about right?’

‘Something like that,’ Stephen said.

Only the truth was exactly like that and, annoyingly, he could never have put it that concisely, even though he was the one living it.

‘But you’re still alive. You’re making it work. You have a mobile phone, which means you contact people. That’s a great start. This wallet’s pretty thick, which means you’re living a normal life – credit cards, bills, driving licence, I would think, access to cash. You haven’t been reduced to life on the streets. Pretty admirable, given what you’re going through. A lot of people in your situation can’t cope within normal social boundaries at all. You should be proud of yourself.’

That was certainly a new perspective on his life. Pride. Not something many people could have applied to him, however creative they were. Rune Maclure could talk the talk.

‘I need you to tell Rosa that this isn’t her fault,’ Stephen said.

It was time to get down to business and he wasn’t enjoying standing here in the cold.

‘Rosa – girlfriend, I’m guessing. I’ll need a surname if I’m going to be able to trace her.’

‘Her contact details are in my mobile. The security code is 1066. And could you tell her the extension cable is hers. She’ll know what I mean. I just remembered.’

‘So you’ve split up?’ Maclure asked.

‘She couldn’t take it any more,’ Stephen muttered.

‘I’m sorry, I really can’t hear in this wind. Stepping closer, okay, but I’ll keep my hands in my pockets.’

He moved to a position directly beneath Stephen, who turned his body more fully to the interior of the bridge to be heard.

‘I said, she couldn’t take it any more,’ he shouted. ‘She did her best. I’m not angry with her. It’s important she knows that.’

‘Okay, that sounds like an unresolved relationship, though. You should probably do her the favour of saying it to her yourself. What do you think?’ He pulled Stephen’s mobile from his pocket.

‘Just jump already! I’m late for my shift!’ someone yelled from the viewing sidelines.

‘Ignore that,’ Maclure said quickly, reaching a hand up towards Stephen, who frowned and shook his head.

‘I’m annoying everyone,’ he muttered, shifting his leg back over the barrier so his full body was on the water’s side.

‘Listen to me, there’s always one, okay? One sick bastard who wants to see carnage. Drown him out. Let’s phone Rosa. She’ll want to hear your voice. You know that in your heart, that’s why you wanted me to talk to her for you. I’m coming up so I can hand you the mobile.’

‘You’re not wearing gloves,’ Stephen said vaguely, the ache in his own body almost overwhelming him. It took so much energy to balance. ‘Your hands will get torn to …’

Maclure was already climbing. Stephen contemplated stopping him by threatening to jump, but he really did want to hear Rosa’s voice one last time. As Maclure climbed, Stephen studied the sea of faces behind the improvised crime-scene tape barrier the police had hastily erected. One man stood, eyes glittering, hands in pockets, grinning at him. Another woman was ranting at a police officer. An older lady was in tears, and although he hadn’t thought it possible, Stephen hated himself just a little more for causing such distress.

The grinning man began to laugh, throwing the sound out so Stephen couldn’t miss it. The noise was chalkboard awful. Jamming his hands over his ears, he lurched forwards, trapping the toe of one boot between two metal bars.

He went head first, grabbing for the railings, crashing a knee into metal followed by a hip, then rolling forwards onto his stomach, head down towards the water. The laughing man laughed louder. In spite of the wind, the roar of the water and the screams from the crowd, that cackling was all he could hear.

He gripped the fence with both hands, fighting his body’s desire to pull himself back up and the voice in his head telling him to let go. It would all be over in seconds. He didn’t need to speak to Rosa one last time. That would only cause more problems than it solved. There would be a rush of air as he fell, the chance to experience free-fall flight, then perhaps a fleeting sense of cold or of impact, but not for long enough to process it or to feel pain.

Stephen let go with one hand, closing his eyes.

‘He’s going to let go!’ a woman shouted.

There were yells, the sound of boots hitting the concrete hard and an excited screech. It was the shiny-eyed man, Stephen thought. Here to see him die. Perhaps he was Death. He’d never been religious or superstitious, but maybe at the last he was seeing the world without blinkers. All those horror films, true-life experience programmes, children’s stories, were real.

A hand clamped down hard on the ankle above his trapped foot.

‘I’ve got you,’ Maclure said. ‘Talk to me, Stephen. This is no time to be making choices.’

‘Death’s here,’ Stephen said, straining his neck to turn and look up into Maclure’s calm brown eyes.

‘If he is, then he’s not here for you. Not today. Come on, grab that railing and use your stomach muscles to pull halfway up. I just need to get a grip on your belt.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Stephen said.

‘Fair enough, but I’m your side of the barrier. You pull your foot out now and you’re taking me with you.’ Maclure smiled gently.

It wasn’t a threat and it wasn’t posturing. Stephen could see the truth of it.

As Maclure extended his grip to clasp more of the denim of Stephen’s jeans, a mobile phone tumbled from his pocket and plunged towards the freezing flow beneath them, disappearing as if it had never existed at all.

‘Shit, sorry about that. I wanted to give you the chance to speak to Rosa. I’ll buy you a new one if it’ll get you back up here. How about it?’

Stephen stared after his mobile phone. He didn’t want to go like that. To simply cease to exist, wiped from the world without trace, his entire life made pointless. He tensed his core, suddenly grasping the real reason why sit-ups hadn’t been a waste of time, and took a grip of the lowest railing, for the first time seeing what the climb up the inverted suicide fence had done to his rescuer’s hands. Blood dripped in gashes from his palms and skin was flapping in the breeze as he reached out to take hold of Stephen’s belt.

‘I didn’t mean for you to get hurt,’ Stephen said. ‘Thank you.’

He managed to get his knee into a gap between the metal struts and pushed his body up high enough for Maclure to get to him.

‘Thank me later,’ Maclure said. ‘Let’s just get you a cup of coffee and away from the spectators for now.’

There were shouts as police threw ropes over the barrier for them to tie around their waists, rolling the tyres of a police car over the ends to keep them safe.

‘Why did you risk yourself?’ Stephen asked as he finally got his face level with Maclure’s and looked him straight in the eyes.

‘We all have our demons,’ Maclure said. ‘Every one of us. Anyone who says differently just learned to lie better than you and me. My way of dealing with my own is to do my best to help other people. It’s selfishness if you think about it.’

Stephen put an arm around Maclure’s neck and pulled him into a quick, hard hug.

‘I owe you my life,’ he said.

And he meant it, but all he could think about were the demons Maclure had mentioned and the man still watching from the crowd. He wasn’t laughing any more. Not so much as a glimmer of a smile.

Chapter Two
3 March

Detective Inspector Luc Callanach stood and stared at the man in the tatty armchair, wondering about the people who professed to forgive those who’d hurt them most. Terrorists who’d bombed indiscriminately and yet parents had forgiven them for taking their children so cruelly. Drunk drivers who’d caused crashes and still those who mourned the dead would not speak ill of the perpetrator. Never in his life would Luc be able to find so much space in his heart for such a gesture.

The man looked up at him, opened his mouth as if to speak, then blew a bubble instead, slapping at it before dropping his hand back into his lap. Bruce Jenson was suffering from Alzheimer’s. It was too good for him, Luc thought, staring out of the window and across the rolling lawn of the care home as the day lost the last of the light. Any disease that let such an animal forget what he’d done was an injustice on a grand scale.

Luc took a step forwards to kneel down and stare into the watery blue eyes that saw but didn’t see.

‘Was it you who raped my mother?’ he asked. ‘Or did you just watch as your business partner violated her? Did you threaten to sack my father, if my mother told him what you did? Was it you or Gilroy Western who first came up with the idea?’

Jenson issued a strangulated groan, his shoulders juddering with the effort of making the noise.

Luc took a photo of his mother and long-dead father from his pocket and held it in front of Jenson’s face. His head drooped. Luc took him by the chin and held the photo in front of him once more. He knew what he was doing was wrong. Bruce Jenson wasn’t going to respond to anything he did. Sixty seconds after he left the room, his father’s boss of thirty-five years ago wouldn’t even remember that another human being had been in there with him.

Still, he couldn’t stop. The rape his mother had suffered had echoed through the years, the trauma so bad that she’d deserted Luc when he’d been falsely accused of the same offence. Jenson and Western had never had to pay for what they’d done.

Luc had done his best not to pursue them, telling himself the past was best left, knowing he would lose his temper – perhaps fatally – if he ever did come into contact with either man. But he’d just spent a week in Paris with his mother, and being back in France had brought back all the horrors of his own arrest and the loss of his career with Interpol.

He’d had to walk away from everything he held dear when an obsessed colleague had told the worst lie you could tell about a man, and yet his mother’s rapist was at liberty. Hard as he’d tried not to hunt down the two men who’d once run one of Edinburgh’s most successful furniture companies, he’d realised the battle was already lost. So here he was – using his police credentials to get inside a nursing home, where Bruce Jenson would die sooner or later – still wanting answers. Still craving vengeance.

‘Do you recognise them? Is there any part of you still in there? You wrecked her life, and then you wrecked mine. And the worst of it …’ Luc spat the words out, a sob coming from deep inside his throat as he tried to keep going. ‘The worst of it is that one of you bastards might just be my fucking father.’

Bruce Jenson’s mouth lifted at the corners. It was a coincidence, Luc told himself. Nothing more than an involuntary twitch. But hadn’t his eyes lifted a little higher at the same time, doing their best to meet Luc’s even if they hadn’t quite made it?

‘My father worked for you for years. He looked up to you, trusted you. You sent him out to pick up a broken-down truck during the Christmas party and together you raped my mother. Her name was Véronique Callanach, and if you smile this time, I swear I’ll choke the fucking life out of you.’

A string of saliva tipped over the edge of Jenson’s bottom lip and made slow progress of lowering itself down his chin. Callanach’s stomach clenched. He could see his mother, sack over her head, pushed to the floor of Jenson’s office, wearing the party dress she’d been so proud of but thought too expensive for someone as lowly as herself. He could hear her cries, sense her anguish and revulsion. And then the shame, followed by the horror of finding herself pregnant with her first and only child, knowing she could never tell Luc’s father what had happened.

Losing his job would have been the least of their problems. He’d have killed both Jenson and Western for what they’d done to her and she’d have spent the next twenty years visiting a good man, who’d never hurt a soul, in prison. The globule of drool ran into the wrinkled grooves of Jenson’s neck. As if he’d been there, Luc imagined him drooling on his mother’s flesh as Jenson or his partner had violated her, hands wherever they liked, bruising her, hurting her.

The cushion was in Luc’s hands before he realised what he was doing. Propping one knee on the arm of the chair, he raised the cushion in his shaking, white-knuckled fist, teeth bared, every muscle in his body straining to let loose. Yelling, he aimed the cushion at the wall and lobbed it hard, knocking a vase to the floor as it fell, leaving a mess of smashed pottery and slimy green water.

He shoved himself backwards, away from Jenson, and staggered against the patio door that led into the garden. Forehead against the glass, hands in raised fists either side of his shoulders, he kicked the base of the door. The crack in the glass appeared remarkably slowly, with a creak rather than a crack, leaving a lightning-fork shape in the lower pane.

Callanach sighed. He was pathetic, taking out his anger on a man who had no fight left in him. Natural justice was in play. Jenson would never see his grandchildren grow up, or retire to a condo in Spain, which was where his former business partner was apparently now residing. He was seventy years old and to all intents and purposes, already dead. There was nothing more Callanach could do to him that he wasn’t already suffering.

He took a few deep breaths and looked around the room. It was cheap and shabby. This wasn’t luxury nursing. The bed had a rail to keep the patient from falling out, but the blankets looked thin. The paintings were the sorts of cheap prints you could buy in a pound shop. Other than a couple of ageing, dusty family photos, no personal touches adorned the surfaces. Jenson had effectively been ditched. It was as good a sentence as any court could have passed, if rather late in the day. Wandering over to the mess on the floor, Luc collected up the shards of vase and dumped them in the waste basket. He took a few paper towels from a dispenser on the wall and mopped up the water as best he could before some unsuspecting nurse walked in and slipped, then brushed off the cushion with his hand and tucked it into Jenson’s side.

Satisfied that the room was back in order, he took a pair of gloves from his pocket and a sterile bag. Standing over Bruce Jenson, he plucked one of the few remaining hairs from the man’s scalp, sealing it carefully into the bag to avoid contamination of DNA before stripping off the gloves and depositing them in the bin.

He accepted that it was beyond his power to punish this one of his mother’s attackers, but he needed to know if the man had fathered him. He’d spent a long time weighing up that particular decision, but even now he wasn’t prepared for how to face the outcome. If Jenson was his father, it would destroy everything he’d ever considered to be his identity. His mother was French and he’d grown up with her in France, never suspecting his time there would come to an end. His father, though, was a proud Scot. Born in Edinburgh, Luc could barely remember the first few years of his life. He recalled his dad as a warm, laughing man, who hugged often and hard, with huge hands and a quick smile. With his father gone too soon, his mother had struggled raising a young child alone and retreated to her family.

Luc checked the room once more to ensure he’d left it as tidy as possible, took a final look at the face of the man he would hate forever, and left. Passing by the nurses’ station, he paused and leaned over the desk.

‘I accidentally knocked a flower vase with my elbow,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m so sorry. Can I pay to replace it?’ He let his French accent rumble along the words, making eye contact with the nurse.

‘Oh no, don’t worry at all. These things happen. We have loads of vases in the storeroom. I’ll pop down and clean it up.’ She smiled sweetly, running a self-conscious hand over her hair as it escaped from her ponytail.

‘Don’t worry, I made sure the floor was dry,’ Callanach said. ‘You have much more important things to do. Mr Jenson wasn’t disturbed at all. As you said, he really wasn’t aware that I’d visited. It’s a tragedy.’

‘I know. His son Andrew finds it difficult to visit him, too. Will you need to come back, do you think?’ she asked.

Luc swallowed his guilt. He was flirting for his own purposes, well aware of the effect he had on women when he switched on the charm. His looks had got him modelling contracts and a stream of rich, good-looking girlfriends until he’d grown up and decided to do something with his life. Now living in Scotland, he supposed he was almost exotic with his deep-toned skin and still getting to grips with a second language. He might have been bilingual since childhood, but that didn’t account for fighting with the Scottish accent and colloquialisms.

‘I’m not sure. I may be back in a few days,’ he said, showing perfect white teeth. ‘Hopefully you’ll be on duty again?’

‘I might just be,’ she giggled.

He’d pretended to be on official police business, thereby avoiding signing the visitor’s book. No one had thought to take a note of his details. It was shocking how easily people let the rules slide when you flashed a badge. Giving the nurse a final wave, he took the corridor towards the car park.

If Jenson proved to be his father, it was more complex than just knowing he had the genetics of a monster. There was the issue of hereditary Alzheimer’s to contemplate. Worse than that, he would either have to reveal to his mother that her rapist had indeed impregnated her, or spend the rest of his life lying to her about it. Neither prospect was a happy one. Then there was the complication of potentially having a half-sibling. Would he want to know more about Andrew Jenson, or was that a step too far?

If Jenson wasn’t his biological father, that would mean tracking Gilroy Western down in Spain. Obtaining a reliable DNA sample from a man who would quite possibly remember Callanach’s French mother, would prove much more difficult.

Callanach pushed through the double doors into the car park, sighing. He didn’t want any of this. He longed for a simpler time, when he thought he’d known who his father was, even if losing him so young had pained him his whole life. If it was the living, breathing, golf-playing Gilroy Western, how was he going to make sure justice was done?

His mother had been adamant that she didn’t want to make a historic rape report to the police. There was no corroborating evidence. Western might even plead that the sex had been consensual, and dealing with that would leave his mother doubly traumatised. That left either walking away, knowing his mother’s rapist had gone unpunished, or ruining his own life and career by taking matters into his own hands.

There were few positive outcomes of continuing to investigate, yet he was headed for home, to put Jenson’s hair into an envelope to send it off for forensic testing, alongside a hair from his own head. He despaired of himself. He was hoping the holiday in Paris would resolve matters between his mother and him. After a long period of separation, they’d made their peace with one another. The holiday had been as emotionally draining as it was pleasurable. Luc had felt unable to discuss the rape, and his mother had obviously picked up on his pity for her. The pain of a sexual assault didn’t diminish over time.

He started his car, turning on the headlights in the fading light, and felt his mobile vibrating in his pocket, answering it as he pulled on his seatbelt.

‘Luc, it’s Ava,’ a woman said before he could greet her. ‘Listen, sorry, I know you’re not due back from leave until tomorrow, only I’m at the city mortuary. A man was found dead, having fallen from a tower at Tantallon Castle. How quickly can you get here?’

His holiday, if you could call it that, was most definitely over.

Chapter Three
3 March

Detective Chief Inspector Ava Turner stood, arms folded, overlooking the corpse. She was only slightly saved from the trauma of the scene because the injuries were so horrific that it almost didn’t look real. Dr Ailsa Lambert, Edinburgh’s chief pathologist, a tiny, hawkish woman who might have blown away in a strong breeze, was moving around the postmortem suite with her customary speed and professionalism.

‘Your first high-fall body?’ the pathologist asked Ava.

‘Yup,’ Ava replied, lifting an arm with her gloved hand and looking underneath. ‘Are all these injuries postmortem or are there signs of an assault before he fell? These gashes look like knife wounds.’

‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? I’m afraid with a high fall, in physics terms, the force applied to the body is ballistic. These huge splits to the fleshy parts occurred when the force radiated out and reached a critical point where this man’s body could no longer contain the amount of energy within them.’

She lifted the sheet to reveal a split around the man’s side that almost reached his navel and another down the back of his left leg. It was as if someone had taken a meat cleaver to his flesh. Ava took the corner of the sheet from Ailsa and laid it back down.

‘Like blunt force trauma, then?’ Ava asked.

‘Sort of, only this works from the inside out. There are multiple fractures, as you’d expect. This gentleman landed flat on his back. His spine is severed in four different places, his liver burst and both lungs were punctured by broken ribs.’

‘Did he suffer?’

‘Not physically, I can say that with a high level of certainty. We know from high-fall victims who survive that their brain protects them immediately prior to impact. They pass out or go into a sort of impending trauma fugue. Very few have any memory of impact at all. In this man’s case, I can tell you death was so instantaneous that he wouldn’t have had time to have registered the pain. The back of his head hit the concrete hard enough to flatten a section of his skull. Shall I turn him over for you to see?’

‘No need. I’ll take your word for it,’ Ava murmured.

‘Very wise, but I’m afraid I have a caveat to your question about his having suffered, and it’s linked to why you’re here at all.’ The door opened and a white-suited figure entered. ‘Luc! Come and join us. We were just getting to the heart of the matter.’

‘Hey.’ Ava smiled at him. ‘Sorry to deny you your final few hours of leave. Were you doing anything fun?’

Luc shook his head. ‘I was at the gym. I ate too much in Paris. Got to get back in shape.’

It was a lie, but Ava let him get away with it. Callanach had the sort of slim build and washboard stomach that most men could only dream of.

‘Didn’t have gyms when I was your age,’ Ailsa grumbled as she pulled over a mobile light with a magnifying glass on a flexible arm. ‘We went for good long walks, didn’t sit in front of screens for hours at a time and we certainly didn’t spend all our spare cash on food that was more saturated fat than protein.’

Callanach grinned at Ava. Ailsa was an outstanding pathologist, but she didn’t mince her words on any subject.

‘Now, with any high-fall victim, we have accidental fall, suicide or criminal event. Look here.’ She picked up the corpse’s right hand, flattening his fingers out on her own palm. ‘There’s a substantial amount of debris under his fingernails – three out of five were broken off during the fall as there’s fresh blood dried in with the debris. That debris is comprised of brick dust and dirt.’

‘He clung on then,’ Callanach said.

‘He most certainly did,’ Ailsa responded. ‘Which is why I’m ruling out suicide.’

‘You don’t think he changed his mind? I mean, climbed to jump, started to fall and grabbed at the wall, or it just happened as a matter of instinct?’ Callanach asked.

‘Not a normal pattern. Suicides usually jump a distance when they’ve decided to go and he’d have had to jump backwards to have grabbed the wall. If that was the case, gravity would probably have tipped him onto his back very high up, making it impossible for him to have got a hold on the wall with his fingertips.’

‘If I decided to commit suicide out at Tantallon, I’d jump off the cliffs into the sea, not from the castle walls to the ground. Too messy,’ Ava added.

‘So, not suicide. Accident, then?’ Callanach asked.

‘A much more likely prospect,’ Ava said, ‘and one I’m still seriously contemplating. It’s possible he slipped, managed to get a hold for a while but couldn’t pull himself back up, particularly given the ripping of the fingernails. Only, it’s not that easy to fall off the walls at Tantallon. If it was, they wouldn’t let anyone onto any part of the castle. He had to have climbed onto the outer aspect of the wall.’

‘Misadventure?’ Callanach queried. ‘Being a bit brave, climbs up, slips, grabs hold and it all goes wrong. Any sign of drink or drugs?’

‘No odour when I opened the stomach or brain to suggest serious alcohol intake, and I usually know pretty quickly if that’s an issue. As far as drugs go, I’ve taken samples for a tox screen and put those on a high-priority request. What I wanted to show you is this …’

Ailsa put the man’s hand back down on the metal pallet and positioned the magnifying glass over his middle finger, adjusting the light so it was flat over the top.

‘Look here,’ she said.

Ava and Callanach leaned in for a closer look, turning their heads to check from different angles.

‘I give up,’ Ava said eventually. ‘The hand’s badly bruised, with substantial grazing. I can see the three ripped nails. It’s all what I’d expect.’

‘All right, what you don’t know is that only one of these fingers is fractured. Middle finger, right at the top, in the distal phalange near the base of the nail.’

Callanach slipped his gloved finger underneath the area and felt the bone.

‘I can’t feel anything,’ he said.

‘The break isn’t displaced, so I wouldn’t expect you to. It only showed up on the X-ray, but there’s no healing at all, and fingers heal quickly, so it’s a new break but not caused by the force of the fall. It’s distinct from the other fractures.’

‘Caused when he was gripping the rock?’ Ava asked.

‘I thought so, then I saw this …’ Ailsa brought the magnifying glass even closer to the end of the middle finger and pointed at a tiny purple V-shape, just visible against the paler flesh of the hand. ‘That mark wasn’t caused by the rock. It’s the wrong side of his hand for a start. When he hit the ground, his palm was facing the floor, I know that from the impact pattern. This bruise is deep and fresh. I’ve excised the skin and looked underneath. Recent trauma, hard. It’s probably also what caused the fracture beneath.’

‘Your best guess as to cause?’ Ava asked.

Ailsa folded her arms and tipped her head to one side. ‘I’m hesitant,’ she said. ‘This is a bit of a reach.’

‘But it’s the reason we’re here, right?’ Ava raised her eyebrows.

‘Indeed. This definition and shape is unusual. Without the fracture, I’d have been less positive, but a substantial amount of force was applied, so weight was put onto the finger. It looks to me like the tip of a boot’s tread mark. That would explain the fracture, too. As I say, that’s not backed up by anything else. There are no other injuries that can’t be explained by the fall. No other defensive wounds. In these circumstances, without witnesses or a clearer picture of what happened, I wouldn’t be able to base a legal case on it.’

‘Well, let’s hope there’s an innocent explanation. We haven’t had a murder in Edinburgh since that gang retribution killing in Braidburn Valley Park at Christmas. I was hoping we’d manage to go more than a couple of months without another murder investigation.’

‘I’m just telling you what I see,’ Ailsa muttered. ‘Maintaining law and order’s your area of expertise.’

‘Not really. My squad just gets to clean up after societal norms have been decimated. Anyway, standing here won’t provide answers,’ Ava said. ‘Perhaps when we’ve identified him, we’ll get a clearer picture. Send me your report. I’ll open an enquiry but keep an open mind for other possibilities. Does that sound reasonable?’

‘It does indeed,’ Ailsa smiled. ‘This man’s only in his early thirties. I think we owe him this much at least. It’s no age to die, under any circumstances.’

‘It certainly isn’t,’ Ava agreed, walking to the postmortem suite door before removing her cap and gloves and depositing them in the bin. She reached out to hug Ailsa. ‘How are you keeping?’ she asked, stepping out of the sterile suit.

‘You mean for an old person?’ Ailsa grinned.

Ava tutted at her.

‘I’m fine. Less stressed than either of you, I’m guessing. I’m glad to hear Luc’s taken some time off. When did you last get a holiday, girl?’

Ava laughed. Ailsa, a friend of her parents from years back, would never cease to refer to her as a child no matter how old she got or what rank she was.

‘I’ll take a break soon, I promise. We’ve finally appointed a new detective inspector, so that should ease things a bit. We’ll head out to Tantallon now. Anything in particular we should be searching for?’

‘It’s a needle in a haystack, but I’d like to get a look at the missing fingernails. They might just be harbouring a few cells that’ll paint a fuller picture,’ Ailsa said.

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Ava warned. ‘It hasn’t been treated as an active crime scene by forensics. What do you say, Luc? Are you up for a night-time stroll along the castle walls?’

‘Perfect end to a perfect holiday,’ Callanach smiled. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

Chapter Four
4 March

Stopping off at the police station, Ava and Callanach grabbed wet-weather gear, more substantial flashlights than were in the boots of their cars, and notified the control room of their plans. By the time they’d driven the thirty-odd miles east from the city centre towards North Berwick, taking the winding lanes from the main road to the tip of the coast with due respect for the rain and wind, it was just past midnight.

They sat quietly in Luc’s car, having bypassed the car park at the end of the lane in preference for parking directly outside the entry booth-cum-gift shop. Looking across at the vast curtain wall that had once shielded the inner grounds of the castle from marauders, they listened to the increasingly thunderous rain.

‘I came here for a weekend to do an archery course as a child,’ Ava smiled. ‘By the end of the first day, I thought I’d fallen in love with the instructor.’

‘What happened?’ Luc asked.

‘Oh, you know, like most crushes you have when you’re ten and your instructor’s twenty-five, it ended when he patted me on the head and said I’d tried really hard, then his bleach blonde girlfriend turned up in her miniskirt and my heart broke into a thousand pieces.’

‘Are you over it yet?’

‘Well, I still feel butterflies in my stomach when I see a man holding a longbow but other than that, I think I’m through the worst. Do you believe in ghosts?’ she asked.

‘No. It’s simple statistics. How many people have inhabited this earth and died? Surely we’d be overrun with restless spirits if that was the case.’

‘Cynic,’ she replied. ‘I thought Frenchmen were supposed to be romantic.’

‘Is that what you brought me here for? Romance? I’m not sure looking for a recently deceased man’s nails in a wall qualifies as a date.’

‘Idiot. If this were a date, I’d be wearing my good socks,’ she grinned, leaning forwards to look to the top of the castle walls. ‘But for what it’s worth, I agree with you. William Wordsworth wrote, “I look for ghosts; but none will force their way to me; ’t is falsely said that there was ever intercourse between the living and the dead.” Isn’t that beautiful?’

‘I’m sure it is, but I may be having trouble directly translating it. My English is still pretty literal and most words only have one meaning.’

Ava frowned in confusion momentarily, then closed her eyes and shook her head in mock disgust.

‘Forget it, Romeo. If that’s the best you can do when I’m providing a backdrop of poetry, you should probably just keep quiet.’ She zipped up her waterproof and tried to open the door, the wind slamming it back hard against her shin as she went to exit. ‘Ow! For fuck’s sake!’ she growled.

‘Yup, you’ve got all the poetry tonight,’ Callanach said. ‘Let me get that door for you.’ He exited and jogged round to offer her a hand up as she rubbed her bruised leg. ‘Are you sure you want to do this now?’

‘No, but the way this storm’s rolling in, if there is anything to see it’ll be gone before morning, so it’s now or never. Come on.’

They went through the visitor centre, where some unlucky local uniformed officer had been stationed with an employee to allow them access, and walked towards the front entrance of the castle, still imposing even in its semi-ruined state. A gale was buffeting them from the north and the rain was only a degree short of freezing. Ava pulled up her hood and shook long dark brown curls of wet hair from her eyes.

They took the wooden footbridge over the old moat and entered through the arched doorway of a greenish brick structure. Below them and to the right, encompassing an area of loose fallen rocks and part of the moat, was a section of crime-scene taping. Beyond that, they were met with slippery cobblestones before the castle grounds opened up ahead of them. In front, a grassed area led to cliffs that crumbled into the sea. A fierce whistling echoed around the ancient structure and it was easy to see why visitors had imagined ghosts there, stepping back hundreds of years in time. It was clear that no attacker could have approached from the direction of the sea and also that Ava was right. Suicide in the direction of the cliffs would have been the much more obvious option.

Luc saw Ava pointing towards an internal doorway and they went inside to find a spiral stone staircase with little to assist their climb other than a rope attached to the central wall. He followed close behind her, watching her footing, fighting his desire to reach up and steady her. Ava wasn’t the sort of woman who wanted or needed much help, but that didn’t make it any easier for him to switch off how protective he felt of her. She’d become his closest friend in Scotland, which wasn’t always simple given that she was also his boss.

Ducking under additional crime-scene tape, they moved to a level paved outcrop with a visitors’ information board. The section was wide, easily three foot across, and level enough to have stood safely, if not advisedly on top of the wall, overlooking the bridge and the moat. Above them, higher walls blocked some of the wind but none of the rain.

‘Apparently, this is the fore tower. When exactly did our man fall?’

‘He was found at the bottom of the wall when staff got in this morning. The castle doesn’t open until 10 a.m. at this time of year and the door we came through is locked at night. We won’t know what time he fell until Ailsa completes her report and estimates time of death, but it was between about 7 p.m. and 8 a.m. They have cameras at the visitor centre, which we’ve checked, but they don’t give a good enough night-time picture for us to see anything,’ Ava shouted over the wind.

‘He broke in?’ Callanach asked.

‘What?’ Ava yelled, huddling into him to hear.

Callanach put an arm around her shoulders and cupped a hand over her ear to make himself heard.

‘I said, did he break in or just stay after the centre closed?’

‘I’m told there’s no damage to the door or the lock, but there’s no CCTV of the castle itself, so we can’t be sure. Apparently, people have ended up locked in here at night before. Plenty of small corners to hide if you don’t want to be spotted. Look …’ She pointed over the edge, leaning perilously across the rough stone wall. ‘He must have fallen from just here. Hold onto me.’ She climbed the wall past the information board and lay on her stomach, head over the edge, indicating for Luc to hold the back of her coat.

‘No,’ he said, loudly enough for her to hear perfectly clearly over the gusts. ‘I can’t let you do that.’

‘I think you mean, I can’t let you do that, ma’am,’ Ava corrected him. ‘If you don’t hold onto me tightly enough, I’m joining our as yet unidentified friend on Ailsa’s table, so get a grip. Literally.’

‘Come back. I’ll climb it. Call me whatever names you like, I’m not okay with you taking that sort of risk.’

‘Except there’s no way I’m strong enough to pull you back when you slip. You’ll just take me down with you and that’s not how I want to go, so follow orders, Detective Inspector. I spent my childhood climbing walls like these and in worse weather.’

Dangling from the waist forwards, Ava leaned as far over the edge as Callanach would allow her. He guessed they were around fifteen metres up and even if his estimate was wrong, given the dark and precipitation, he was certain it was a sufficient distance to be lethal. Ava cursed every few seconds, shifting along the wall, moving the flashlight to and fro, up and down, until finally she shouted out.

‘Camera!’ Ava yelled, waving the flashlight towards Callanach’s face.

‘I need a free hand. You’ll have to come back up a second.’

‘No can do. I’ll never find this again. My camera’s in the left-hand pocket of my coat. Just grab it and pass it to me.’

‘God, you stubborn, stupid …’

‘I can hear you, you know. Take the torch.’

Callanach took it, keeping a grip of Ava with his right hand as he delved into her pocket and passed her digital camera to her.

‘What is it?’ he shouted.

‘Flap of skin, I think. There’s a thin line of it snagged on the rock.’

The flash went off several times and Luc braced himself to counterbalance Ava’s increasingly outward-leaning weight.

‘Take the camera and pass me an evidence bag.’

Callanach slipped the camera into his coat and reached into his trouser pocket for a plastic bag.

‘Ava, we have to come back and do this in the morning.’

‘It’ll be gone by then. There must have been blood here given the amount of skin but I can’t see any trace of it. If Ailsa’s right about the boot mark, this might be our last chance to get the evidence.’

Callanach handed her the bag. ‘Just give me a bit more room to manoeuvre, I think there’s something else stuck in the rock.’

She shifted her weight in order to move her head downwards. The gust that took her came from the opposite direction than the predominant gale, rendering Callanach’s balance useless and thrusting him forwards into Ava’s body. She screamed, grabbed the rock face, rolling to one side and losing her grip, her right leg flying into the air then crashing back down into the jagged brickwork. Her jeans ripped from knee to ankle and her cheekbone smashed hard against the bricks.

Callanach threw himself forwards, wrapping an arm around her thigh, feeling her slipping away from him. Scrabbling at the rock face, the flailing of her body was making it harder to hold her. The wind whipped around her head, taking her screams down the sheer castle wall.

‘Ava, I’m pulling you up on three. Tense your stomach, stop grabbing the walls and reach for my arm!’ he yelled with no way of knowing if she’d heard.

Forcing his boot tips over the ninety degree angle of the wall he was lying on to gain some stability, Callanach tensed.

‘One, two …’

She wrenched on his arm, moving too early, too jerkily. Her leg ripped away from him as she got a grasp of his hand.

‘Hold me!’ she screeched.

Blood was pouring down her face, and her grip was wet and weak on his hand. Both legs flew out behind her in the wind.

He scraped forwards across the flat of the wall, twisting his body to get better pulling power and dragging a knee up and under his core, roaring as he fought the wind for her, his right arm a vice around her back, launching himself backwards. They flew upwards and crashed against the rear of the visitor information sign, Ava like a rag doll in his arms once her weight shifted over the top of the wall. She landed on top of him, crying out and clutching him madly. Callanach cradled her head, whispering words of reassurance she would never hear over her cries and the storm.

It was minutes before she raised her head to look at him.

‘Do you need an ambulance?’ he asked.

Ava flexed both legs and ran her hand down her neck, tipping her head to one side then the other.

‘I’m okay,’ she decided.

‘You’re not okay. You’ve got a bloody death wish.’

Callanach took her by the shoulders and shook her. She looked at him, horrified, then her eyes filled with tears and she collapsed, shaking against his chest.

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered into her hair. ‘You scared me. Come on, let me look at that gash on your face.’

Ava turned so he could wipe the worst of the blood away to inspect the injury beneath.

‘The cut on your cheek’s not too bad, but you’ve got a hell of a bump on your forehead. We should get you checked out for concussion. Can you walk?’

Ava nodded, rolling to her knees to get upright.

‘Slowly,’ he said. ‘Let me hold you.’

Standing, he pulled her up, sliding one arm around her waist and protecting her damaged face with his other hand. They took the spiral staircase at a snail’s pace, with Ava gripping the wall on one side and Callanach’s hand in front of her as if she were on a ship in a squall, pausing every few steps. He pulled her into one of the tiny but secure side rooms to rest before taking a look at her leg.

By the time they reached the ground, she was shaking so badly, Callanach was worried she might pass out.

‘Let me carry you. It’s flat from here.’

She looked up at him, her grey eyes huge in her ashen face, her hair bloody and flattened against her head.

‘Like hell you will,’ she managed with the smallest of smiles.

He laughed, loud and hard, the tension leaving his body in fierce waves that left him nauseous and breathless.

‘We need to get you warmed up,’ he said when he could finally speak again.

Finally, they staggered in through the visitor centre door, making the uniformed officer posted there jump up and grab for his ASP baton.

‘It’s all right,’ Callanach reassured him. ‘There was an accident, not an incident.’

‘Shall I call an ambulance for you, ma’am?’ the young man asked, keeping his distance from them as if they might be contagious.

‘No, I’m fine. Nothing a couple of paracetamol won’t fix,’ Ava said. ‘Lock up behind us then report back to your station, Constable. Would you mind being discreet about this? I don’t want anyone thinking DI Callanach and I had a fist fight.’ She did her best to smile, but her face was losing its numbness and redefining the definition of pain.

‘Absolutely, ma’am, you can count on it,’ he said stoically, opening the door for them to exit towards the car park.

‘One thing,’ Ava said, looking at the castle employee who was staring at her as if she’d just landed in an alien spacecraft. ‘If you did get trapped inside the castle walls at night, is there any way at all you might get out? I mean, if it was something like a life-or-death situation.’

Kevin, his name badge proclaimed, snapped to remarkably quickly.

‘Two options,’ he mused, rubbing his greying bread and glancing back up towards the castle as if he could see the answers. ‘If you were slim and wanted to badly enough, even an adult could maybe climb through one of the bomb holes then get out down the banks of the moat. Alternatively, if the tide was out, you could clamber down the rocks to the sea and walk along to the section of the beach from where it’s possible to get back up. You’d have to be fit, though. Uninjured and strong. I wouldn’t want to try it.’

‘Thank you,’ Ava said. ‘I take it I can count on you not to say too much about the state I’m in …’

‘I’m a Scot, madam,’ Kevin said. ‘We survived a tumultuous history by being loyal and having an uncanny ability to keep our lips sealed. Nothing’s changed.’

Ava gave Kevin a smile that Callanach thought would have melted the heart of every Scottish warrior ever to have fought the English at Tantallon before taking hold of Callanach’s hand and pulling him towards the exit.

Callanach opened the passenger door and helped Ava in.

‘The Royal Infirmary’s on our way back into the city. There won’t be any traffic this late. Just relax. I’ll have you there in fifteen minutes.’

‘Stop, please, it’s a few bumps and bruises. Nothing’s broken except my pride. Just get me home.’ Ava rested her head backwards and closed her eyes.

‘Are you kidding? After what just happened? Can you feel the size of the lump on your head? Come on, Ava, that’s more stupid than wilful.’ He started the car and pulled away.

‘Luc, please.’ She extended a hand slowly to rest on his forearm. ‘What I did was rash. It was unfair to you. If an officer in my command took a risk like that I’d suspend them. Even I’m not sure what came over me. If you take me to the hospital, this goes official. Give me a break, okay?’

He sighed, the admission that she was right unnecessary. ‘What about going to see Ailsa at home? She’ll look you over.’

‘I’ll scare her rigid. She’ll be furious and I’ll never hear the last of it. No. I just need a hot bath, a stiff drink and a first-aid kit.’

‘Natasha?’ he tried.

Ava’s best friend would be just as angry, but she’d look after Ava overnight without a second thought.

‘Spending most nights at her new girlfriend’s house. Would you let it go? I’m not a child. The shock was worse than the injuries.’

‘Do you even have ice in your freezer, because you’re going to need some for your head?’

‘Not sure, and the bump’s come out so it’s safe, right? You only have to panic when there’s no lump.’

‘Remind me never to let you make important medical decisions for me. You’re staying at mine. There’s still a chance you’re concussed and you shouldn’t be alone,’ he said firmly. ‘No arguments. And stay awake while we’re driving. If you fall asleep now, you’re waking up at the hospital whether you like it or not. Don’t bother arguing.’

For once, Ava didn’t, which told Callanach all he needed to know about her underlying state.

His apartment in Albany Street was the front first floor of a Victorian terraced house. He ordered her to sit on his sofa while he made up an ice pack and fetched her a blanket.

‘I’m running you a bath,’ he said. ‘Can you get your jeans off or do you need help? Your left leg’s badly cut and I need to take a look at the damage.’

Ava stared down at her jeans, cut almost in two on the left where she’d snagged them on the wall.

‘Hadn’t noticed,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any whisky? Brandy or port would do at a push.’

‘I’m making coffee,’ he replied, running a flannel over the bump on her head before putting the ice pack on it. ‘I’m afraid alcohol and head injuries don’t mix, whatever you Scots might regard as being traditional in these circumstances.’

‘Killjoy.’ She unbuttoned her jeans and wriggled out of them, inspecting her left leg by kicking it out from under the blanket. ‘I guess I’m not going to be wearing a skirt for a few weeks. That’s nasty.’

The leg was blotched purple and black down her shin from the knee to the ankle and a four-inch cut, thankfully not too deep, was going to make an impressive addition to her collection of scars.

Callanach handed her a steaming mug and perched on the end of the sofa.

‘Are we going to talk about what you did tonight?’

‘Are you going to psychoanalyse me, because you know I find that boring?’ She took a sip, screwing her nose up at the strength of the coffee. ‘This stuff can’t be good for you.’

‘Don’t change the subject,’ Callanach said, kicking off his shoes and rolling up his sleeves. ‘If you’d really wanted to scope the outer wall for forensics, we could have got a team in there. I know it would have taken longer, and it’s still a fishing expedition until Ailsa’s finished her report, but what you did broke all the rules. It’s my fault too, I shouldn’t have let you, but I didn’t think you’d be so …’

‘Foolish? Idiotic? Reckless? I’m not going to make up excuses. There were real reasons for going there tonight, to visit the scene and see if there was any evidence worth protecting or that might bolster Ailsa’s theory. I hadn’t intended to climb the wall. I just got that sudden burst of adrenaline. The dark, the wildness, the sense of adventure.’ She put her coffee down and rearranged the ice on her head. ‘I don’t know, Luc. I spend so much time sitting at my desk, doing paperwork and giving orders, sending other people out to crime scenes, hearing about other officers’ experiences. I feel as if I’ve lost touch with everything I joined the force to do. All police officers have a healthy dose of hero syndrome. It’s why we throw ourselves into the middle of fights, and – yes – dangle off high walls to preserve that one piece of evidence that’ll be gone by morning. I don’t have a death wish. Quite the opposite. I need to feel alive again.’

‘Damn, I forgot the bath,’ he said, dashing off towards his bedroom.

She heard the water stop flowing and cupboard doors banging. He reappeared holding two huge crimson towels and offering her a hand up.

‘Ava, I understand you’re feeling stuck, but you could have died tonight. That’s more than just desk boredom.’

‘It’s not just my desk,’ she groaned as she hobbled towards his bathroom. ‘There’s nothing – and no one – to go home to. Work is my whole life, so when I’m not sure why I’m doing it any more … God, listen to me moaning. I love my job, you know that. But I’m in my mid-thirties. I haven’t been in a relationship in forever, and the last one I did try was a disaster. My best friend calls me a work-in-progress and that might be funny if it weren’t true. I don’t go out. I don’t do social media. I can’t even bloody well cook! How sad is it to count down the hours until you’re back behind the desk you’re starting to hate?’

She dropped the blanket on the bathroom floor and pulled her top over her head. Callanach turned away to give her some privacy. Ava winced audibly as she lowered herself into the hot water.

‘I’ll give you some space,’ Callanach said, reaching for the door handle.

‘Actually, could you stay?’ she asked quietly. ‘I mean, with your back turned, obviously. I may be sad and lonely but I’m not that desperate.’

‘Charming,’ he laughed, sitting in the bathroom doorway but staring out into his bedroom, his suitcase as yet unpacked on the floor and his passport thrown onto the bedcovers. ‘Dizzy?’

‘A little,’ Ava admitted, dunking her hair backwards in the water and screwing up her face at the cloudy swirls of red that came out of it. ‘Hey, thanks for looking after me. And I’m sorry for what I put you through up there. I haven’t even asked if you’re hurt.’

‘Couple of bruises from when you landed on top of me. For someone who can’t cook, you can certainly eat.’

Ava laughed. ‘Bastard,’ she said, throwing a wet flannel at the back of his head.

They both knew it wasn’t true. Ava was thinner than ever. Callanach had only been away a couple of weeks, but he’d noticed it as soon as he’d seen her at the city mortuary.

‘So, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but of all the medical suggestions you had, you didn’t mention Selina. Is everything okay, only it seemed logical to me that you might have offered to let your accident and emergency doctor girlfriend take a look at me?’

Callanach stretched his arms above his head and breathed deeply. ‘Ex-girlfriend. Very amicable and I’m sure if I’d have asked, she’d have been only too happy to have helped out. It just felt like I’d be taking advantage, given how badly I’ve let her down.’

‘Your decision then, not hers? Stop me if I’m prying.’

‘Good. I’m stopping you. You’re prying,’ he replied gently.

‘Did she not go to Paris with you?’ Ava continued.

Callanach tutted. ‘Really?’ he asked.

‘Well, I am naked in your bath, so I feel somewhat entitled to be questioning you about your private life, especially given that I’ve just poured my heart out to you about what a pathetic loser I am.’

‘You recognise that I just saved your life, right? Was that not enough, or do you still feel as if I owe you the extra pound of flesh?’

He turned to stare at her, forgetting his promise to remain facing the other direction, not that her modesty was compromised from his angle. All he could see was the top of her head and her eyes, beneath which he knew she was grinning wildly.

‘We talked about her joining me in Paris, but I had too much to sort out with my mother. Selina suggested we book a holiday together later in the year – something to look forward to in the summer. I knew it wasn’t right. She’s an amazing woman.’

‘Way too good for you,’ Ava said gently.

‘Agreed. Anyway, I told her just before I left. She wanted me to think about it while I was away and maybe give it another try, but I’m wasting her time. She needs to be free to find someone who can be everything she deserves. I’d planned to call her tonight and make that clear, but then you decided to pull this little stunt.’

‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Luc. Why is life never simple?’

‘At least you took my mind off it. Are you ready to get out yet?’

‘Yeah. Tired now,’ she said. ‘Would you mind helping me up? My muscles are starting to seize.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Eyes closed, I promise.’

‘You’d better. I couldn’t stand to see the look of disappointment on your face after being used to Selina’s five feet ten inches of pure legs and all-round Spanish gorgeousness.’ She reached a hand out to put on Callanach’s shoulder as she climbed gingerly from the tub and picked up a towel. ‘Okay, I’m decent.’

‘Why do you always do that?’ he asked.

‘Ask for help getting out of the bath? I’m not sure I make a habit of …’

‘Put yourself down and make a joke of everything. Is that really how you see yourself, or are you just pushing men away?’ Callanach asked, letting her lean on his arm as she left the bathroom.

‘It’s too late for serious conversations,’ she said. ‘You take the bed. I’m already invading your space. I’ll be fine on the sofa.’

‘No, you won’t. You’ll sleep on the bed and I’m staying next to you. I don’t like the look of that bump and you shouldn’t be left alone. Now lie down. I need to put some Steri-Strips on those wounds.’

‘How come I never noticed you were this bossy before?’ she smiled, lying back against the pillows.

‘You never nearly fell from a castle wall when I was responsible for your safety before,’ he said, peeling the stitches from a pack and applying them every inch along the gash to her leg.

‘It was awful,’ Ava said, suddenly serious and biting her nails. ‘I really thought I was going to fall. It seemed to take hours and I was aware of everything. Every part of my body, the weight going through my hands, the pain in my shoulders, you yelling. I could taste the blood running from my head. And I really, really didn’t want to fall. I hope that’s not how our dead man felt. I’ve been scared before, Luc, but never like that, so out of control. I felt utter hopelessness.’

Callanach finished what he was doing and looked up. Ava was tearful and pale in spite of the hot bath. The eye beneath the bump on her head was beginning to blacken. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her cry since he’d first met her and she’d been through hell on more than one occasion. Drawing the covers up to get her warm, he went to dim the lights and draw the curtains before climbing onto the bed next to her and sliding an arm beneath her neck.

‘It’s all right now,’ he said. ‘You’re safe. Go to sleep. I’ll be right here if you feel ill or have a nightmare, or … anything.’

She was silent for a couple of minutes, crying against his shoulder.

‘I’m not going to thank you for saving my life,’ she said. ‘It’s not enough to say it. I’m not even sure how to start. I’ve never in my life been able to trust anyone the way I can trust you. Natasha maybe, but it’s not the same. I owe you everything, Luc. I hate what brought you to Scotland, but I’m glad you’re here. Don’t ever leave.’ She shut her eyes, relaxing into sleep with her arm across his chest.

‘I won’t ever leave you,’ he whispered. ‘You don’t need to worry about that.’

Chapter Five
4 March

The Major Investigation Team was buzzing. Detective Superintendent Overbeck had even graced the briefing room for once and was standing in front of the crowd looking at her watch when Ava walked in. The right-hand side of her face was remarkably unscathed, but her left eye was black. The gash along her cheekbone was being held together with butterfly stitches and the bump on her forehead was such a perfect half-egg that it looked almost unreal. Overbeck stared openly at her, arms folded, mouth gaping. Ava went straight to her to apologise.

‘Don’t even bother,’ Overbeck said before Ava could get a word out. ‘Is Police Scotland pay really so bad you’re having to audition as an extra in a fucking zombie movie? Just tell me you weren’t on duty at the time, because you’re not suing the department for whatever screw-up you got yourself into.’

‘You don’t have to worry about that, ma’am,’ Ava reassured her.

Overbeck was nothing if not direct, which – being grateful for small mercies – meant most conversations were cuttingly brief.

‘Good, let’s get on then.’ Overbeck turned to face the crowd, banging a deserted mug on a table to get quiet. ‘Right, now that the detective chief inspector has joined us, even though you might not particularly enjoy looking at her today …’

That got Overbeck a laugh. Credit to her, Ava thought. Her boss never missed an opportunity to work a room.

‘I want to introduce you to MIT’s new additions and to congratulate’ – Overbeck paused to check her notes – ‘Max Tripp on his promotion to detective sergeant. Most of you have worked with DS Tripp for some time now, and I’m sure you’ll be relieved that there’s now a younger, fitter and less offensive sergeant on your team than just DS Lively.’

That one was met with an absolute roar of laughter and Lively seemed to be enjoying the attention in spite of the fact that it came wrapped in a bow of insults. Ava looked from Overbeck to Lively. It was only a few months since she’d caught her heel-toting, self-declared queen bitch of a superior in flagrante delicto with the dour, die-hard sergeant and she still hadn’t been able to wipe the memory from her mind. They were about as unlikely a couple as you could imagine and yet Overbeck had still managed to make Ava feel as if she was the sad case.

‘Ach, you love me really, ma’am,’ Lively aimed, bravely, at Overbeck.

Ava waited for the superintendent’s explosion. Their affair wasn’t public knowledge and Lively was asking for trouble by sparring with her in front of the squad.

‘That’s right, Sergeant,’ Overbeck said with a smile. ‘Like I love my shoes. I get to tread on them every day, they go where I decide and if there’s any crap, the shoes get it on them rather than me personally. Then, when they get old and scruffy, I throw them in a bin and it’s as if they never existed.’

That one got not just a laugh, but also a round of applause. Overbeck looked genuinely pleased with herself rather than merely supercilious. Ava couldn’t believe it. Sergeant Lively got away with so much bullshit and now Overbeck wasn’t even rebuking him, just adding to his kudos points with the lads.

‘All right,’ Overbeck said when her ego had sucked in enough of the jollity. ‘Our newest team member worked with us before on a temporary placement before going off on maternity leave. I’m delighted to say she’ll now be joining you full time, so please don’t any of you reveal your true natures until she’s settled in a while. Stand up, if you would, DC Janet Monroe.’

The short, neat Hispanic officer stood up, her dark hair shining in a perfect bun, looking completely at ease in the predominantly male room. Ava was keen to recruit more females into MIT, but it was slow-going and not helped by the locker-room atmosphere. Janet Monroe was tough, smart and more than a match for her new colleagues.

‘And, finally, your new detective inspector. Not shipped in from Interpol, I’m afraid, but perhaps you’ll actually be able to understand this one’s accent …’

There it was, the dig at Callanach. Ava had been waiting for it. She looked across the room to Callanach, who gave a simple shrug. He was used to the abuse.

‘Transferring to us with promotion after a long and distinguished period working with undercover teams across Scotland, Detective Inspector Pax Graham.’

Graham stood. He’d been sitting at the very back, but he couldn’t hide in the most crowded of rooms. Ava wondered how he’d ever been selected for undercover work at his size, and it wasn’t just his height. The man was a mountain – 100 per cent rugby-playing Highlander.

Overbeck had been almost girlish while they’d been interviewing him. She hadn’t sworn once. Ava wasn’t impressed by muscles, but Graham had proved himself invaluable in the department’s last major operation. He pushed the rules when it was necessary to get results, and had shown himself to be both trustworthy and decent.

Ava was pretty sure he wasn’t just playing the promotion game. She had no time for police who wanted to climb the ladder as quickly as possible. That wasn’t the point of service. Pax Graham had seen his share of danger and discomfort. He was popular with his superiors, as his references had proved, but equally well liked by his peers, which was a much more significant compliment. You could be the best manager in the world, but if the men and women under your command didn’t like you, they wouldn’t respect you, either.

Graham moved to the front of the room to many slaps on the back and congratulations. Overbeck shook his hand and ceded the floor.

‘Thank you,’ he grinned. ‘Some of you have worked with me in previous operations, but if not you’ll find out I like to keep my head down and get on with the job. I’m looking forward to working alongside DI Callanach.’

As he continued to introduce himself, DS Lively stood up and made his way between bodies to stand at Ava’s side.

‘Were there no other options for the post?’ he whispered. ‘It’s like someone drew a cartoon character of an eighteenth-century Scot and brought him to life.’

‘You’re not serious,’ Ava muttered in response. ‘Are you never bloody satisfied? Do you remember what you put DI Callanach through for being French when he started? Now you’ve got the archetypal Celt and you’re still not happy.’

‘You’re right there. Do you see the look on the boss’s face? That’s more than just professional courtesy.’ Lively crossed his arms and frowned.

Ava smiled at him. ‘Sergeant, are you actually jealous? Please say you are. That would make me happy in a way I thought I was too cynical ever to feel again.’

‘Due respect, ma’am, sod off,’ Lively said. ‘So who did you get in a fight with?’

‘A wall,’ Ava said. ‘Misjudged it.’

‘Shame I missed that,’ Lively said, back on his usual form.

‘You’d have enjoyed it. I was wondering who to pair you with for the next investigation. Let me know if you’d prefer to be on DI Graham’s team or back with Callanach.’

DS Lively groaned. ‘Can I stay in the incident room and eat doughnuts?’

‘I think you’ve spent enough time doing that already,’ Ava said, directing a pointed look at Lively’s midsection. ‘Hey, maybe that’s why Overbeck’s so happy about recruiting Graham. Bit of eye candy. Perhaps you’re not flavour of the month any more.’

‘That’s a bit personal, ma’am. I’m not sure you’re supposed to speak to an officer in your command like that. I should have a chat with human resources.’

‘You could’ – Ava dropped her voice even lower – ‘but then I’d have to explain that my comments were made in relation to seeing you naked with the evil Overlord up there. You might find that a less amusing conversation to have with HR, don’t you think?’

‘Low shot,’ he growled. ‘Hang on. You’re up. Try not to drool over all six foot four of him at once, won’t you?’

All eyes were turned in Ava’s direction. She climbed between the rows of chairs and wished her squad were looking her in the eyes, but everyone was focused on the lump on her head. Her own fault. She’d woken up feeling utterly foolish, not to mention confused, in the bed of her detective inspector. That was a first, and she had no idea how she’d let it happen, even if they were close friends. Why she’d decided to climb over Tantallon Castle wall was equally puzzling. Ava had a dim recollection of feeling cool and heroic, almost as if she’d been showing off to Callanach, only that was ridiculous. They’d been in enough tricky situations that she didn’t have anything to prove. But it had felt good initially to be leaning out in the wind, searching for clues and battling adversity like some ridiculous movie heroine. Now, there was only one question on everyone’s mind, and MIT would be obsessed with gossip and speculation until she dealt with it.

‘Welcome to both DC Monroe and DI Graham,’ she said. ‘They’re both starting today, so everyone make sure you’re showing them how we operate and our normal procedures. We have two cases pending trial, so please make sure all the court papers are in order for those.’ There was silence. Fine. ‘I went to take a look at a crime scene last night based on information received from the pathologist. I slipped and fell – they were difficult conditions – hitting my head against a wall. Looks worse than it is and I’m fully fit for duty.

‘Now, as I recall, the newly promoted are duty bound to buy the rest of the squad drinks, so DI Graham and DS Tripp will no doubt make themselves available at a suitable pub after shift tonight.’

That took everyone’s mind off her injuries and caused another round of raucous comments, allowing Ava to slip towards the corridor. She took the corner quietly and headed for her office.

‘Ma’am,’ a voice rumbled from behind. She turned back to see DI Graham approaching. ‘You’ll come for a beer tonight, then?’

‘I’ll have to see,’ she said. ‘The squad likes to let its hair down when they’re out together and having your DCI there isn’t very conducive to that.’

‘My celebration, my rules,’ he replied.

He was nearly a foot taller than Ava and close up, she had to tilt her neck back to look into his clear blue eyes. It was easy to see why Lively was feeling intimidated by the new boy.

‘Let me know where you’re going. My mobile number’s on the squad contact sheet. The first thing you should do is put all those numbers into your phone. I might pop in for a quick one.’

‘I’d be offended if you didn’t,’ he smiled. ‘Is there anything in particular you need me on at the moment?’

‘Just settle in while you can. In MIT, the work finds us. You won’t need to go looking for it,’ she said, waving goodbye and trying not to limp as she continued walking.

By the time she reached her office, her leg was sore, and Callanach was waiting for her with coffee and paracetamol.

‘Given that you saved my life, I’m pretty sure I should be fetching you coffee,’ she said, dropping into a chair and putting a hand to her forehead.

‘If you really felt indebted to me, you’d have called in sick as I suggested.’ Callanach shook two tablets from the pot into her hand.

‘Yeah, Overbeck really likes people not turning up to her briefings. I find her particularly sympathetic on that subject.’

Ava tossed back the pills and swallowed. The phone on her desk rang as she was still trying to wash a tablet down with coffee. She waved a distracted hand at Callanach, who answered for her.

‘Is Ava there?’ Dr Ailsa Lambert’s reedy voice twittered down the line.

Callanach loved the way she never deferred to Ava by rank.

‘She’s not. This is Callanach. Can I help?’

‘Indeed you can. We’ve made a positive identification of our fall victim. His fingerprints were on the national database, after an incident in which he’d had an offensive weapon in the back of a taxi. Looks like the procurator fiscal was still making a decision on whether or not to pursue the case.’

Callanach grabbed a pen and paper.

‘Name?’ he asked.

‘Stephen Berry. Lived in the city. No other convictions. I’ve finished my report save for the tox screen findings and I’m hoping to be able to give you everything tomorrow.’

‘I’ll follow up now. Thanks, Ailsa.’

He sat down at Ava’s computer and identified the case file on Stephen Berry that had been referred to the prosecutor’s office.

‘What have we got?’ Ava asked.

‘The man with the missing fingernails is Stephen Berry, thirty-two years old. Address is a flat on Comely Bank Row. He was on bail for possessing a large knife, which he revealed to a taxi driver during a journey. Hadn’t proceeded to charge yet, but it’s not clear why. I’ll take Tripp and check it out. You stay in that chair and get some rest.’

‘Uh huh, and send someone to massage my feet too, would you?’

‘Still funny, even after you nearly fell off the top of a castle. I’ll call in as soon as I have any information.’

An hour later, Callanach and Tripp were heading into the city, to what appeared to be a private house. The windows were blacked out and the door had a video security system. A minute after they buzzed, a young woman allowed them entry and sat them in a comfy lounge where soft music was being piped gently though speakers. All the artwork featured either calm seas, woodland mists or desert sunrises. Max Tripp picked up a leaflet from the table and read aloud.

‘“The Reach You charity was founded in 2002. They have six drop-in centres, do outreach work at a variety of clinics and addiction groups, are accessible through your general practitioner, hospital or hospice, and run a 24–7 suicide helpline.” These guys are really well set up. Says here they got a lottery funding boost in 2006 that allowed them to take on a number of new full-time staff who work with a large team of volunteers.’

‘It did,’ a man said as he walked in, holding his hand out to shake Tripp’s. ‘I’m Rune Maclure. How can I help you?’

‘I’m DC … DS Tripp,’ Max stumbled, ‘and this is DI Callanach. I’m afraid we have sad news. You were instrumental in talking down a man who was ready to jump from the Queensferry Crossing last month. We got your name from the police statement.’

‘Stephen Berry,’ Maclure said quietly, his face falling. He sat down, taking a moment. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

‘He died following a fall from the walls of Tantallon Castle. It was instantaneous. The pathologist was clear that he wouldn’t have suffered,’ Callanach said.

‘Thank you. I’m afraid the problem with suicide is the amount of suffering it takes to get to the point of ending it all. A second of agony at the end doesn’t even come close to being a concern for most of the people I see.’

‘Of course,’ Callanach agreed. ‘Can you tell us what you knew about him?’

‘Not very much, to be honest. Reach You is on the emergency services list to provide experts who assist in suicide attempts – either about to happen, or failures – for people who need help afterwards. I assume the taxi driver called it in as soon as he’d let Stephen out of the cab. The police called our central number and they put a call out to see who was in the area. I was nearby and able to be at his side in a few minutes.’

‘That was lucky,’ Tripp said.

‘Not really. It didn’t save him in the end, did it?’ Maclure rubbed his temple. ‘Our statistics are pretty good. Most people don’t go through with the attempt, they just need to work out where they’re at. Of those who do try, most suicides aren’t successful, either because there’s a sudden will to live that kicks in and sabotages the attempt, or through simple lack of research. There are about seven hundred suicides in Scotland every year, more men than women, the biggest group being Stephen’s age category.’

‘How did you talk him down?’ Callanach asked.

‘There was someone he cared about, a young woman. I’m afraid I can’t remember her name now, but it’s in my notes if you need it. Often, in the heat of the moment, the details get a bit blurry for me. They’d been in a serious relationship, though recently split. I was persuading him to call her. I find that making a meaningful contact often changes a person’s mind about ending their life. He slipped on the railings before making the call, realised he didn’t want to die in that moment and I was able to help him back up.’

Callanach felt the room slide, seeing Ava slipping through his arms again, certain he was going to drop her, already feeling the dreadful loss of her before she’d gone. The potential for grief had hit him with overwhelming force.

‘Are you all right?’ Maclure asked him.

‘Yes, sorry. I was imagining how scary that must have been. For him and for you,’ Callanach replied.

‘We’re simply trained to do the very best we can. If we took responsibility for everyone we came into contact with … well, you wouldn’t last very long at this job. I was really pleased when he came down. Obviously, the police had to question him, but I gave a statement and spoke on his behalf, asked the police to consider not prosecuting for the knife. They said they’d refer the matter to get a decision quickly.’

‘Why did he do it?’ Callanach asked.

‘Stephen was bipolar. His prescribed drugs weren’t helping consistently, which is something many sufferers experience. All premature deaths are tragedies, but when they’re caused by a neurotransmitter problem in the brain, how do you come to terms with that as a family member? We can put men on the moon but medicine isn’t advanced enough to treat this. Such a waste.’ Maclure shook his head, lacing his fingers behind his hair and giving the ceiling a long look. ‘Sorry. You’re here for help, not to listen to me moaning.’

‘I think you’re entitled,’ Tripp said. ‘I can’t imagine how you do your job every day.’

‘Trying to make a difference, same as you,’ Maclure said. ‘I still see a better side of humanity than if I worked in a bank. What else can I tell you?’

‘What was your last contact with him?’ Callanach asked.

‘I saw him twice after the suicide attempt. The first time was two days afterwards. He came here to see me and thank me for what I did. I told him what we could offer, tried to persuade him to get counselling, but with bipolar disorder that feels like a drop in the ocean. To Stephen’s credit, he agreed, although I realised he was reluctant. The last time I spoke to him, he phoned to say he’d changed his mind and didn’t think the counselling would help. He cancelled the session.’

‘Are there any notes?’ Tripp asked.

‘Yup, I’ll get a copy for you. As he’s deceased, confidentiality ceases to apply. I couldn’t talk him into getting any more help. There’s a limit to how pushy we can be, or we push people away from us at the time when they need us most. It’s a fine line.’

Callanach bet it was. Trying to persuade people to open up to you, knowing it would initially at least be pouring salt on their wounds. Wanting to help people who wanted to be left alone.

‘Did Stephen talk to you about any other problems in his life? Anything external to the bipolar disorder? Debts, addictions, conflicts, for example?’ Callanach tried to make it sound casual, but there was no way of hiding the fact that they were digging.

‘None, although I didn’t have much time to explore that. He certainly didn’t reveal anything to me. He seemed like a genuinely nice man, to be honest. Likeable, thoughtful. He left his donor card at the roadside in case anyone could be helped after his death.’ Maclure smiled and Callanach was drawn to him.

Maclure had a gentleness about him that was all warmth and ease, which reminded him of Ava. The two of them would get on like a house on fire, Callanach thought. Maclure would be the perfect foil to her stresses, and Maclure would like Ava’s natural intelligence, passion and empathy. Neither was the least bit bothered by social structure or setting out to impress. They did their jobs only to serve. Ava would like him.

As soon as the thought crossed Callanach’s mind, another part of him objected. Ava meeting a man she might be drawn to would mean sharing her again, and Callanach had been looking to spend more time with her. While he’d been going out with Selina, it had been hard to invest in his friendship with Ava. Their evenings out watching old movies at the cinema, and eating and drinking at the city’s lesser-known treasures, had kept him sane while he’d been settling into life in Scotland. He wasn’t ready to let anyone else do those things with Ava yet. At least he could admit it to himself. More than that, Ava’s private life was none of his business. He had no idea why he’d been thinking about her in the context of finding her a partner.

Tripp was handing over an email address for Maclure to send the notes relating to Stephen Berry and offering thanks for his assistance. Callanach stood up and shook his hand, noting the lack of wedding ring, and wishing he could erase the image of Ava and Rune Maclure together.

Callanach and Tripp made their way to the door, leaving Maclure to get back to work. As they were climbing into the car, there was a tap at the window. Tripp opened up.

‘I meant to ask,’ Maclure said. ‘Would you let me know when the funeral is? I’m not sure how much social contact Stephen had. I’d like to pay my respects. He should have people there to say goodbye to him.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you,’ Callanach replied. ‘I’ll make sure you’re notified, although it might not be for some time. There will have to be a fatal accident enquiry first.’

‘You’re not clear about what happened, then?’ Maclure asked.

‘Not yet. There are no witnesses and the forensics are difficult to interpret.’ Callanach chose the most vague phrase he could.

‘Poor Stephen. Still no peace for him. He was even mocked while he was contemplating suicide from the bridge. Can you believe some people? I worry about the human race.’

‘Sorry, he was mocked how and by whom?’ Callanach asked.

‘There was a man in the crowd, laughing, while Stephen was struggling to get himself safe. The police officers were nearer than me. I’m not sure who it was. I could hear but not see who was responsible.’

‘Thank you, Mr Maclure,’ Callanach said. ‘We’ll be in touch about the funeral details when we have information.’

They drove away in silence, contemplating how the landscape of Stephen’s death had shifted in the previous hour. The bipolar disorder provided a simple motive for suicide and the decision not to proceed with counselling might well have been confirmation that Stephen was still struggling.

‘Phone the pathologist when we get back to the station, Tripp,’ Callanach said. ‘She’ll need to get hold of Stephen Berry’s medical records to check the bipolar disorder and hopefully that’ll tell us what medication he was taking. And speak to the officers at the Queensferry Crossing incident. See if any of them remembers a man laughing and get a description. It’s probably nothing, but the procurator fiscal will want it covered if there’s to be an inquiry.’

Tripp’s phone rang. Callanach drove on, cursing the traffic lights as Tripp answered it.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Tripp muttered. ‘We’ll be back in quarter of an hour. Sure. I understand. Straight there.’ He ended the call.

‘What was that about?’ Callanach asked.

‘DCI Turner wants you back at the station as quickly as possible, sir. We’re not to stop anywhere, she says, and don’t talk to anyone else. Direct to her office. She sounded weird, to be honest.’

‘Weird, how?’ Callanach asked.

‘Quiet and polite. As if she were at a tea party, you know?’ Tripp said.

Or as if she’d spent too much time staring at her injuries from the previous night in the mirror and was trying to figure out why she’d taken such a massive risk, Callanach thought. Ava wasn’t in the best place right now.

Chapter Six
4 March

Ava was standing at her office window when Callanach and Tripp entered. Arms crossed, face pinched, she was as defensive as Callanach had ever seen her.

‘Thank you, DS Tripp, you can go now,’ she dismissed.

Tripp glanced at Callanach but said nothing, exiting quietly.

‘Ava, are you all right? I was worried about you,’ Callanach said, crossing the room to her, ready to give whatever support she needed.

Instead, she took a step away from him.

‘I had a call from Ailsa while you were out,’ she said.

‘Stephen Berry’s tox results?’ Callanach asked.

‘New case, actually. Her deputy performed the postmortem early this morning. What looked like a natural death turns out to have been a suffocation.’

‘Do you need me to get a squad to the scene?’ Callanach asked.

‘Scenes of Crime is already there with uniformed officers,’ Ava replied tersely. ‘They’re conducting preliminary interviews. I’m giving this one to Pax Graham.’

‘You’re putting him in charge of a murder investigation on his first day? I’m not sure he’s even up to speed with MIT procedures yet. If it’s handled wrongly, it could be fatal for the prosecution.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Ava said. ‘Where were you when I called you to meet me at the mortuary to see Stephen Berry’s body?’

‘I told you at the time, I was at my flat. I hadn’t unpacked. I still haven’t after last night …’

‘Actually, you said you were at the gym, so I’m curious that it turns out you were at a nursing home visiting a man called Bruce Jenson.’

‘Bruce Jenson?’ Callanach paused. There was no way Ava could know anything about Jenson. They’d never discussed him or what he’d done to his mother. ‘Sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking me.’

‘Are you denying that you lied to me about the gym?’ She was breathing fast, her voice louder than the conversation warranted.

Ava was furious, Callanach realised, and it was about more than just being lied to.

‘Fine, I wasn’t at the gym. I had personal business that I didn’t want to discuss. No big deal. What’s going on, Ava?’

‘I’m not Ava right now,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘I’m DCI Turner. And once this conversation’s over, I’m going to have to make up a formal statement recording what we both said. Technically speaking, I should probably have another officer in here as a witness, but you saved my life last night, so I’m giving you this, but I won’t break procedure to any greater degree. Were you at the nursing home, yes or no?’

‘Yes,’ Callanach said.

Ava’s folded arms flopped momentarily to her sides as if defeated before she took control and landed them forcefully on her hips.

‘And you lied to me because?’

‘You needed me and I didn’t want you to think you were disturbing me,’ he said.

‘You lied to me for my own sake?’ Ava’s voice was getting louder.

‘I lied because I made the decision to get straight back on with work. I wasn’t doing anything I couldn’t walk away from. What exactly has happened that’s so …’

‘Bruce Jenson’s dead,’ Ava said abruptly, watching his face.

Callanach remained still.

‘He had advanced dementia and death was apparently inevitable, the doctor said, but not expected any time soon. He had perhaps a year, maybe more left. His doctor hadn’t seen him for a month and the nurses were happy with his condition, so they were surprised to find him deceased. In those circumstances, procedure is for there to be a postmortem and then …’

‘Wait,’ Callanach said. ‘Just … give me a moment.’

It was Callanach’s turn to walk to the window. He stared down at the rows of police cars parked below and at the brave pedestrians outside in the rain. Bruce Jenson was dead. He’d wished it on him every day since his mother had revealed the tragedy in her past, had so nearly lost his temper sufficiently to bring Jenson’s life to an end himself, and now that it had happened he felt nothing. No relief, no pleasure, no sense that justice had been done.

In a bitter twist, Jenson had left him one single, poisonous inheritance. Callanach had been left to answer for his presence in Jenson’s room just hours before the man had died. How absolutely fucking typical. Once fate had decided that you were an apt target, it was as persistent as chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe.

‘How did he die?’ Callanach asked quietly.

‘Looks as if a cushion was held over his mouth. We won’t have confirmation until the fibres in his mouth have been inspected under a microscope, but there are teeth marks against the inside of his upper lip, which suggests that pressure was applied, and there’s no other obvious causes of death. No stroke, no cardiac event.’

Clear-cut murder then, and with the same cushion he’d been holding just a little while before. The possibility that it was a coincidence seemed ridiculous and yet the cushion was the most obvious weapon in the room. One that didn’t require you to get your hands dirty and which offered a silent death.

For a second he wondered if he hadn’t, perhaps, gone further than his memory was allowing him to recall. If he hadn’t pressed the square of material and stuffing into the bastard’s face and held it there just long enough for all the oxygen in Jenson’s lungs to be depleted. He deserved it. No question about it. As far as Callanach was concerned, Jenson had deserved that and a whole lot more. But it hadn’t happened at his hand. Callanach turned to look Ava straight in the eyes.

‘I didn’t do that to him,’ he said.

‘Of course you didn’t, you bloody idiot. If I thought you did we’d be in an interview room with the tape running and I’d have handed the case over to a different team. So really, no bullshit: why did you lie to me? And what the hell were you doing there anyway?’

‘Just visiting,’ Callanach said.

‘Yeah, well unfortunately for you, when the – and I quote – really, really good-looking French policeman goes for a visit somewhere, he doesn’t exactly blend in. The nurse who allowed you access virtually gave the uniformed officers who took her statement your inner leg measurement.’

‘It was a completely innocent visit …’ he mumbled.

‘Social?’ Ava clarified.

‘Yes,’ Callanach said.

‘That’s what I assumed, only you used your police ID to gain access rather than signing the visitors’ book, so it looks like official police business. Only for the life of me, given that you’re in my command, I cannot think what case we have running that Mr Jenson is in any way involved in. Please say you can enlighten me.’

Callanach reached into his pocket and withdrew a pack of Gauloises cigarettes. Shaking one loose, he stuck it between his lips unlit, tasting France and his youth. Actually, lighting a cigarette was a line he hadn’t crossed in years, but there were times he wished he wasn’t quite so disciplined.

‘I’ve got to tell you that’s not quite the reassuring response I was hoping for,’ Ava said. ‘Oh, Luc, for God’s sake, you’re going to have to tell me everything. You were the last person save for medical staff with access to that room. Bruce Jenson has a son. He’s demanding answers and is entitled to them. At the moment, there are only a handful of people who know what’s going on, but that won’t last long. You’ll have to be formally interviewed, so if this was police business you’d better write up some notes pretty damned quickly.’

‘It wasn’t,’ he said quietly. ‘It was personal. I didn’t want to leave my name in the visitors’ book for his family to see.’

‘So you lied to me about having been there and you lied to the nurse about the nature of your visit.’

‘I guess,’ Callanach said.

‘The nurse also said that you broke a vase while you were there, that you cleaned up after yourself and put it in the bin. Will your fingerprints be on it?’

Callanach thought back. He’d put gloves on to pluck the hair from Jenson’s head, but not to clean up the broken pottery. There hadn’t been any reason to at the time.

‘There’ll be plenty of prints,’ he said. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Think very carefully about this next question. Did you touch Bruce Jenson at all? Is there any possibility that you could have left skin cells or fingerprints on any part of his body?’

Callanach sat down, recalling the way he’d taken Jenson’s chin in his hand to direct his attention towards the photograph of his parents. He nodded affirmation at Ava.

‘Anywhere near his mouth?’ Ava asked, her voice hoarse with emotion.

He nodded again.

‘Holy shit,’ Ava said. She tapped the desk and stared blankly at the wall. ‘Okay, it’s not that bad. No one’s going to believe you were involved in a murder. You just need to present your reasons for being there and explain the sequence of events. They don’t have any sort of motive for you to have hurt him and that’s the most compelling evidence in cases like this. It’s probably someone who has day-to-day contact with him.’

‘You think it was a staff member who killed him?’ Callanach asked.

‘That would normally be the first consideration,’ Ava said. ‘It’s hard work looking after dementia patients and carers have been known to break down, either from the stress of the job or from a desire to end the suffering quickly. We’ll be checking the family too, of course …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘There’s a but,’ Callanach commented.

‘Actually, the “but” is broken glass in the lower section of a patio door. Scenes of Crime think the glass was broken potentially to allow an intruder to reach up inside and unlock the door. It explains why no one apart from you or staff members was seen in the corridors during the evening. That’s extremely helpful to you. Why risk being identified by the staff and then breaking the door? It makes no sense. Either that or it’s genius deflection.’ She gave a small smile.

‘Ava …’ Callanach whispered.

There was a knock at her door.

‘Come in,’ she called brusquely.

Pax Graham entered, keys in hand. ‘Oh,’ he said, looking from Ava to Callanach. ‘Am I interrupting?’

‘Not at all,’ Ava replied, back to businesslike. ‘I was just asking Callanach about the nursing home. He was there visiting Mr Jenson. I’ve asked him to go home now and write up a full statement to give you as much information as possible. Once that’s done, you’ll have to speak with him on a formal witness basis, of course. Usual procedures will apply. Make sure you keep a team with no overlap to DI Callanach on this matter. You can have DS Lively and DC Monroe. Let me know what other resources you’ll require.’

Graham looked uncomfortable.

‘Is something wrong, Detective Inspector?’ Ava asked.

‘Not that I’m unhappy about being given the case, ma’am, but should we not send this outside MIT? If there’s any question about DI Callanach’s involvement, it might be helpful for him to have it investigated and be cleared by an impartial team.’

‘He’s right,’ Callanach said. ‘You’re going to have to suspend me for the duration of the investigation, too.’

‘You’re both overreacting,’ Ava said. ‘Callanach’s a witness, nothing more. No one’s suggesting that he was involved in the commission of an offence. There’s been no complaint filed. It’s not as if you tried to conceal your presence at the nursing home. Graham, you might have the best possible witness. I suspect it’ll turn out to be extremely fortunate that a police officer was on the premises just before the murder happened. Callanach might well have noticed something that other people would have missed.’

Graham paused. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That sounds right. I’ll be getting on then. Luc, you’ll forgive me if I don’t chat to you very much during the investigation? I don’t want anyone suggesting there was contamination.’

‘I understand,’ Callanach replied. ‘Very sensible.’

Graham left without further conversation. Ava walked to a drawer and pulled out a bottle of whisky.

‘We shouldn’t,’ Callanach said.

‘You’re damned right we shouldn’t,’ Ava said, ‘but we’re going to. I have about a thousand questions for you and this isn’t the right time or place.’ She pushed a measure of single malt into his hand. ‘Down it.’ She ordered. ‘You look like hell, so pull yourself together before you leave this room. If you’re not guilty, you’d best stop acting guilty.’

‘I want you to suspend me,’ Callanach said, putting the empty glass down on the desk.

‘You’ve been suspended before, back at Interpol. You hadn’t done anything wrong then and look what damage it did to your career. I’ve got your back, Luc, but I need the whole truth.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Callanach said.

‘So find a version that is,’ she replied, finishing her own drink and replacing the bottle cap. ‘Now go home. I’ve got to head off this impending hurricane with Overbeck, then I’ll join you. We’re going to go through what happened second by second, until there’s no possible space for misinterpretation. None at all.’

It was a nice idea, Callanach thought. The only problem was that the opposite was true and when Ava found out why he’d been there, even she would start to doubt his innocence. Though that wasn’t what really bothered him. He knew perfectly well he hadn’t killed Bruce Jenson. But someone had. Straight after his visit. Using a cushion he’d touched. Coming through a door he’d kicked. What he wanted to know was who and why.

Chapter Seven
4 March

It was well after 6 p.m. before Ava got away from the station and Edinburgh’s traffic wasn’t letting her go anywhere in a hurry. Fortunately, Detective Superintendent Overbeck had been out of the office all afternoon engaged in a bout of brass-kissing, so Ava wrote her a brief, bland email explaining that Callanach had been at a crime scene immediately before the event and that MIT was screening off that investigation from him. It was intellectually dishonest but technically correct, and that would have to do until Pax Graham and his team found a more appropriate suspect.

Resting her head on the steering wheel, Ava sat outside Callanach’s apartment wondering what she was doing. She’d spent the night in his arms. Waking up and extricating themselves from one another had been more than just a little awkward, but he was one of her closest friends. She’d stared down death with Callanach at her side more than once, always knowing they wouldn’t hesitate to protect one another.

But trouble followed him. It had found him at Interpol and seemed reluctant to leave his side now. He’d become the sort of partner most police officers would count as a blessing until she’d been promoted over him, and even then he’d bent the rules as needed to help her out. Whatever it took, she’d do the same for him now.

Her face was a thumping mess of pain and she suspected the wound on her leg might require a dose of antibiotics in spite of Callanach’s admirable clean-up job, but all she really wanted was paracetamol and another hot bath. Climbing the few steps to Callanach’s front door, reaching out to press the buzzer for his flat, she sighed as her mobile began to ring. Caller ID showed her DS Tripp was on the end of the line.

The day’s events had wiped her mind blank and right now, she was supposed to be at the pub celebrating two of her team’s promotions. If she took the call, she was going to have to make an excuse. She certainly couldn’t reveal where she actually was and what she was there for. God, it never rained but it dumped an entire fucking ocean on you, she thought, ending the incoming call. She’d have concocted a proper excuse by morning, and there was every chance that both Tripp and Graham’s hangovers would be painful enough that they wouldn’t be talking much anyway.

Her phone began to ring again before she’d had a chance to put the mobile back in her bag. Ava stared at it. DS Tripp was perhaps the most sensible officer on her crew and when you combined that with his good manners, there was no way he’d call twice in rapid succession simply to remind her about a few swift ones after work. She gritted her teeth and answered, hoping beyond hope that Overbeck hadn’t read her email and was demanding her presence back at the station for an update.

‘Turner,’ Ava said. ‘What’s up, Tripp?’

‘Ma’am, you’re needed at 278b Easter Road. There’s a body. I’m on my way there now. Apparently it’s a bit chaotic,’ Tripp said.

‘Okay.’ Ava was already pulling her car keys back out of her pocket. ‘Where’s DI Graham?’

‘Still at the nursing home working with Scenes of Crime, trying to figure out which other patients, medics and visitors had access to the deceased’s room. I’ve been trying to get in touch with DI Callanach but he’s not responding at the moment.’

Ava looked up at the window above her and hoped Callanach was okay. He’d had a bad day and as someone who’d been accused of misconduct before, she wasn’t sure how well he was going to handle a second incident.

‘I’ll find him,’ Ava said. ‘We’ll both be there shortly.’

Finally, she got to press the buzzer. Callanach’s answer was simply to allow her access. He was standing holding his flat door open by the time she got to the top of the stairs.

‘I’ve made food,’ he said. ‘I assume you haven’t eaten anything since leaving here this morning.’

‘Will it keep? We’re wanted at Easter Road. You can drive. My leg hurts like hell.’

‘Are you kidding? I can’t go. DI Graham was right. You have to suspend me, Ava. If Overbeck decides you broke protocol this could turn out worse for you than for me, and I don’t want to be responsible for that.’

‘Have you written up your statement as I asked?’ Ava demanded.

‘Yes, of course, but there are circumstances …’

‘And have you taken part in any criminal activity or conspired to commit any crime in relation either to the crime scene or the victim?’ she continued.

‘Ava, you know I haven’t …’

‘Good. Then suspending you is simply going to create endless gossip and speculation. It’ll go on your record and, frankly, I don’t want to be without my most experienced DI at the moment. Now, someone’s dead and we have a job to do, so let’s go. Also, do you have any more paracetamol?’ she added, softening her tone.

Callanach smiled at her. ‘Sure,’ he said, disappearing off in the direction of his kitchen and reappearing with pills and a bottle of water.

They made it in under ten minutes, leaving the car down the road, one side of which had been blocked off as a tent was erected to give some privacy at street level. Easter Road led out of the city towards Leith. The area was suffering a sad decline, and the three-storey housing featured sheets hung in place of curtains and window frames that had lost more paint than remained on them. The flat in question was on the second floor with a shared entrance hall.

Ava and Callanach donned white suits, shoe covers, gloves and hats, and prepared to enter. A sulphuric, metallic smell gave the situation away from the first-floor landing. The body had been there a while. The weather was so cold that unless the flat had been heated to an extreme, the smell would have taken a while to get so strong.

Ailsa Lambert appeared at the front door of the flat, talking brusquely to a member of her team and handing over a camera.

‘You ready for us to come in and take a look?’ Ava asked her.

‘Go ahead,’ Ailsa replied shortly.

Ava and Callanach shared a brief look. If Ailsa was out of sorts, then whatever was waiting for them had to be bad.

The bathroom was tiny and the forensics team cleared out to allow them access. Ava stood with her back against the window and Callanach spread his legs either side of the toilet so they could both look down into the bath. Tripp appeared in the doorway as they were taking stock.

‘Who reported it?’ Ava asked him.

‘A neighbour,’ Tripp replied. ‘The smell had been getting worse over two weeks, so he finally called the police.’

‘Two weeks?’ Ava hissed. ‘Are you kidding?’

‘Afraid not. I suspect the neighbour might be selling some weed on an informal scale judging by the smell of his own apartment and the fact that while I was talking to him, his mobile rang repeatedly. He’d obviously just cleaned off every surface in his flat but neglected to cover up the scales on the floor in the corner.’

‘So he didn’t want the police in here until it got to the stage where the stench was actually affecting his clientele, is that it?’

‘Something like that, ma’am,’ Tripp replied. ‘The pathologist confirmed the body’s been here at least two weeks, more likely three. Judging by the photos on the walls, I’d say the deceased is the owner and resident, a Mrs Hawksmith.’

As one, they all looked down at the woman’s body. Mrs Hawksmith was past middle age but not yet old. Each of her ankles was bound by a cable tie to a tap pipe, below the handle, at the end of the bath, leaving her legs splayed open, slightly bent, and flopped against the sides. Her wrists were bound with handcuffs over her stomach. A deep wound – Ava estimated three inches long – ran across the inner bend of her left elbow with another, shorter one, on the same wrist. Her head lolled against the side nearest them, eyes open, mouth agape, as if she were appealing for help.

The corpse was bloated, limbs swollen and hard, a dark red colour with brown patches. The putrefaction gases were appalling, even though the doors had been open for some time. She was a large woman but not obese. Her tattoos were visible but not clear through the discolouration of her skin and there were no other obvious wounds. The goriest of tidemarks was a muddy-crimson line around the rim of the tub and the plug remained in place.

‘The bath was full when she bled out,’ Ava said. ‘The water must have leaked out slowly in the days that followed. Has anyone found the key to the handcuffs?’ she asked Tripp, leaning over to take a closer look at the cuffs.

They weren’t police or military issue, nor were they the joke shop sort with the button that could be pressed to spring them open. A key had to be fitted into a central slot to release the wearer, which would have been possible if the key was within grabbing distance.

‘No key as yet,’ Tripp said. ‘You can get those sort of cuffs online or in sex shops. They’re bondage-type regalia. Maybe she was tomming.’

‘Okay, get asking the neighbours if there were men – or women, for that matter – coming to the flat at odd hours, or if Mrs Hawksmith was coming and going at unusual times. Does she have any previous convictions?’

‘Still checking. We don’t have a confirmed date of birth yet. She doesn’t have a passport or driving licence here that we’ve found.’

‘Do we know what the cut was made with?’ Ava looked around the tiny bathroom.

‘We haven’t found a blade or a weapon,’ Tripp said.

‘Really?’ Ava asked. ‘Is there blood anywhere else in the property?’ She tried to peer through the plastic sheeting beneath her feet. ‘Blood on the bathroom floor, even?’

‘None,’ Ailsa said, appearing behind Tripp. ‘Excuse me, young man.’

Tripp moved out of her way to let her stand over the body with a thermometer.

‘Decomposition is advanced. Thank goodness it’s not warm enough for the insects to be out in force yet, or this would be an even worse situation. As it is, my estimate of death won’t be terribly precise. I don’t know how long she spent in the water after passing, but I can tell you that her death would not have been immediate. There was little clotting around the wounds, so the water was warm and that kept the blood flowing.’

‘How long would she have suffered?’ Ava asked.

‘Difficult to say, but this isn’t the deepest of cuts. Keeping the ankles up above the buttocks would have kept the bleed more constant and her heart would have continued beating for possibly four hours, maybe longer. Eventually, her heart would have stopped. She might have gone into shock and died faster. I won’t be able to give you exact figures.’

‘Four hours? God Almighty!’ Ava said. ‘She’d have been screaming for help. I can’t believe no one heard her.’

‘The window was shut, the walls are thick – the property’s got to be a hundred years old – and there’s every chance people had music on or TVs playing. Or perhaps they were used to the sound of screams coming from this flat,’ Callanach suggested.

‘Could she have done this to herself, Ailsa?’ Ava asked.

‘She could easily have put the cable ties around her ankle and the taps, then run the bath. Logically, after that, she’d have had to have closed the cuffs around her left hand, made the two incisions on her inner arm, then got her right hand into the cuffs and snapped them shut.’

‘Which leaves the question – where’s the blade? Even if she’d thrown it out of the bath, it would still be somewhere in the bathroom,’ Callanach said, looking around. He shifted his body forwards to give himself the flexibility to turn, then opened the toilet lid. ‘One mystery solved. No blade, but the key to the handcuffs is at the bottom of the bowl.’

‘Don’t touch the water,’ Ailsa instructed. ‘If someone else was here recently, we might just get some cells from the seat or beneath the rim, possibly information about sexual diseases from any urine left in the bowl.’

Ava climbed past Ailsa to stare down into the toilet next to Callanach.

‘Looks like the right key to me. Small round barrel, ornate bow at the top. It’s obviously not meant for a door.’

‘Everyone out of here, please,’ Ailsa ordered. ‘I’ll need to get my team in to retrieve that and take samples.’

They left one by one, regrouping in the small lounge, where photos of cats and the late Mrs Hawksmith hung on the walls.

‘Ailsa,’ Ava said when the pathologist had finished giving instructions to her crew, ‘is there anything she could have done to stop the bleeding? You said the victim probably had hours rather than minutes.’

‘If she’d had her legs free, she could have pulled the plug chain with her toes and the bleeding would have stopped sooner, if she’d thought of that. The problem is that using her stomach muscles to sit up and fiddle with the taps and chain would have made her heart pump faster and the bleed rate would have increased. She would also have been scared, panicky, not made good decisions. It’s possible she thought her screams would be heard, or perhaps she was expecting a visitor who might have helped. Tripp, how was the flat secured when police first attended?’

‘Locked, but the chain wasn’t across. Didn’t require much effort to bash it open, ma’am. It’s an old door.’

‘Right, we’ll let you get on, Ailsa,’ Ava said. ‘Looks like we’ll be seeing you again in the morning. Could you have a preliminary assessment by 11 a.m.?’

‘Certainly,’ Ailsa said, stripping off her gloves and stepping forwards to press gentle fingers into Ava’s forehead around the lump. ‘What happened?’

‘Tripp,’ Ava said. ‘I want officers canvassing the neighbourhood tonight, not tomorrow. And I want every bit of information on Mrs Hawksmith we can get. Focus on next of kin. It looks like she lived here alone, but there must be someone who’ll want to be notified. I want a briefing ready for the squad by 1 p.m. tomorrow. You can go.’

Tripp disappeared out of the flat, looking happy to be away from Ailsa’s disapproving glare.

‘Are you going to answer me or should I guess?’

‘Slipped at Tantallon, bumped myself. No big deal. I’m still standing,’ Ava said, taking off her gloves and unzipping her overalls.

‘You’re limping more than standing. If you fell and bumped your head, how did you hurt your leg?’

‘The leg is actually hurting a bit.’

Ava tried a brief grin. Ailsa didn’t return it.

‘Let me see,’ Ailsa ordered. ‘Come on, in the bedroom.’

‘Ailsa, this is a crime scene, I can’t just …’

‘Bedroom, now,’ Ailsa snapped. ‘I’ve got better things to do than to argue with a stubborn girl who takes too many risks. Now move.’

Ava did as she was told, in part because Ailsa was an old friend of her mother’s and generational correctness was an involuntary response, but also because her leg really was hurting and having someone qualified take a look at it felt like a good call. It was clear from Ailsa’s sharp intake of breath that Ava’s self-diagnosis was right.

‘Is your tetanus shot up to date?’ Ailsa asked.

‘Ummm, should be. I’m sure I’d have been notified if it needed updating,’ Ava murmured.

‘You need antibiotics, straight away, strong ones.’

‘I don’t suppose you can …’

‘I’m a pathologist, Ava. We’ve had this discussion before. I might have stitched you up in the past, but there’s no reason for me to carry a prescription pad. And forget making an appointment with your doctor for next week sometime. You’ll have to go to accident and emergency.’

‘I’ve actually got quite a lot going on. Is there another option?’

‘There is!’ Ailsa replied brightly. ‘You can decide not to do as I say, and get an infection that at best will result in you needing time off work and at worst will require surgical intervention.’ She waited until Ava had done her jeans up again then called Callanach in. ‘Luc, she’s to go directly to the hospital. A & E. Prescription for antibiotics that you’ll have to collect immediately thereafter. Do not let her drive, or change her mind, or fail to take the antibiotics. Who put the Steri-Strips on?’

‘Callanach,’ Ava told him. ‘Don’t be too hard on him. I thought he did a great job.’

‘He did his best with a wound that should have been treated by a doctor immediately. You could have come to me when it happened as an alternative. You’ve done that before. Why not this time?’

Ava and Callanach stared silently at one another.

‘So that’s the way you two are going to play it. Ava Turner, your mother would have wanted me to take better care of you.’

Ava smiled and reached out an arm to hug the woman who’d been like a favourite aunt to her since she’d joined the police force.

‘My mother can rest peacefully, Ailsa. You’re taking perfectly good care of me and we’re headed directly to the hospital, okay? Cross my heart.’

‘Not that I don’t believe you, but I expect you to produce the medication for me tomorrow morning. Understood?’

Ava and Callanach left, with Callanach extending a hand to help Ava to hobble down the narrow staircase.

‘You’d think, now that I’m a detective chief inspector, Ailsa might have decided I’m a grown-up,’ she grumbled.

‘I’m not taking sides in that argument,’ Callanach said. ‘Ailsa’s scarier than you.’

‘Yeah, but I’m your boss, so you’re duty bound to agree with me.’ Ava winced as she climbed into the car and bent her leg. ‘To the hospital then, but we’d better make it quick. We’ve still got a lot to do tonight.’

‘Back to the station to start working on the Hawksmith case?’ Callanach asked.

‘Your place first. You can’t avoid it, Luc. This thing with the nursing home isn’t going to go away on its own. We’re doing all we can for Mrs Hawksmith for now, God help the poor woman.’

They pulled away slowly, neither of them noticing the man who was watching from the window of the chippy across the road, clutching newspaper-wrapped cod that he had no intention of eating. You had to have a death wish to consume that much saturated fat and salt. He smiled at the irony of it and wondered what Mrs Hawksmith looked like now, three weeks after he’d last seen her.

Chapter Eight
4 March

The Royal Infirmary’s emergency department was oddly quiet, but then there was a football match on. Most people would try to avoid serious injury until the pubs were kicking out. Callanach accompanied Ava to reception, knowing she’d play down the extent of the pain if left alone. She showed her badge and explained that time was limited. A nurse appeared immediately and showed them through to a cubicle.

‘I’ll give you some privacy to get undressed,’ Callanach said.

‘Not much point. You saw the wound last night and I’m guessing the sight of me in my underwear won’t be hugely thrilling at the moment. Take a chair and turn your head away.’ She unzipped her jeans and pulled them slowly down over the wound. ‘Shit,’ she muttered beneath her breath.

‘Everything okay?’ Callanach asked, keeping his focus on the sink in the corner.

‘Not really. I should have shaved my legs a fortnight ago. I look like a bloody yeti, and now I’m going to be stitched up by a doctor who’ll assume I’m some washed-up old maid whose idea of a good night is reruns of the TV series The Book Group while I sip vodka and Irn Bru, pretending it’s a proper cocktail because I dropped a maraschino cherry in it.’

A slim, tanned hand appeared and gracefully drew back the curtain to reveal Dr Selina Vega, the only woman in the world who could make a white coat look sexier and more glamorous than a red-carpet gown.

‘Selina,’ Callanach said. ‘That’s a coincidence.’

‘Not really. One of the reception staff recognised you and asked if I wanted to take the case,’ she smiled. ‘Hello, Ava. That’s a nasty cut. Why don’t you lie down so I can get a better look at it.’

‘Er, sure … I think I probably just need a prescription for antibiotics, though. We’re on the clock. It’s good to see you again. You keeping well?’ she asked, horribly aware of the tension between Callanach and his ex-girlfriend, and wondering if tea-party conversation was going to help or make things worse.

‘I’m going to have to clean it out then stitch it. The butterfly stitches aren’t pulling the sides together properly. Left like this you’ll have a serious scar and the underlying tissue will be painful for life.’

‘So it’s a yes to the stitches, then,’ Ava said. ‘Luc, this could take a while. Did you want to go and get a coffee or something? Sorry, Selina, we’ve just come from a crime scene. It’s been a long day.’

‘Sure, I’ll bring you back a tea. Selina, espresso?’

‘Please,’ she nodded, taking various implements from a drawer and pulling a light over the top of Ava’s leg. ‘You need me to anaesthetise you first?’ she asked.

‘Don’t bother. It’s so painful already that you sticking a needle in won’t add much.’

Selina began peeling off the strip stitches and cleaning the wound. Ava watched her dexterous fingers work their magic and wondered how Callanach could have given up such a beautiful creature. They seemed to have so much in common.

‘I was sorry to hear about you and Luc,’ Ava said. ‘Truly. I think you were good for him.’

‘You’ll need a shot of antibiotics to get on top of this infection. There were some small stones and dust stuck in the bottom of the gash. It won’t start healing until the infection’s dealt with. How did it happen?’

‘Fell over late at night, checking out a potential crime at a castle, of all places. Thank God Luc was with me. He always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Fire away with the antibiotics. Needles don’t bother me. Do you mind me asking what happened? I know it’s none of my business, but Luc is so closed-off about his personal life and I worry about him.’

Selina withdrew the needle from Ava’s leg and dropped it into the sharps bin.

‘Are you asking as his boss or in some other capacity?’

‘As his friend. You know, you stole my cinema buddy from me. No one else’ll watch black-and-white movies with me at midnight on a Wednesday. Even so, I’d have continued making the sacrifice to see him happy. I was hoping things would work out between the two of you.’

Selina took a semicircular suture needle from a sterile packet and got ready to begin stitching.

‘Luc’s complicated,’ she said. ‘His past affects him every day. People have the wrong expectations of him and he feels the weight of that.’

Ava closed her eyes and laid her head back, gripping the sides of the bed. It was one thing being brave about needles, but only a fool wanted to watch one being weaved in and out of their own flesh.

‘That’s why I was so pleased when the two of you started dating. After all the trouble with Astrid Borde and the rape allegation, he needed someone he could really trust.’

She inhaled suddenly. The flesh around the wound was more tender than she’d realised and she’d been wrong to think that the pain couldn’t get any worse.

‘Did he talk to you about me much?’ Selina asked quietly.

‘Of course,’ Ava rushed to reassure, trying to recall specific conversations when Callanach had described what they’d done at a weekend, or the sort of person Selina was. She came up blank. ‘But it’s hard given our job. Lots of people prefer to leave their private life at the door, so you can go home without a crossover. You understand. It must be the same for you.’

‘Actually, I used to talk to my colleagues about Luc all the time,’ Selina said, dabbing the wound dry to make the stitching easier. ‘I was hoping we’d move in together this summer. He didn’t tell you I’d suggested it?’

‘I think he did say something about that, yes,’ Ava lied, looking at the curtain and wondering how long Callanach was going to take with the drinks.

She was a bad liar and Selina was an intellectual match for anyone. Pretty soon, she was going to have make a clumsy attempt at changing the subject.

‘Like you, I thought Luc was happy. We’re both Europeans, immigrants to Scotland, we love active sports and sunshine, we understand the pressures of shiftwork. Perfect, right?’

Ava managed a small nod. The pain really was quite bad.

‘So I keep asking myself, why did he decide it wouldn’t work out? Am I not enough fun, not a good enough cook, do I take life too seriously? But you know what, I don’t think it’s anything to do with me. That might sound arrogant …’

‘Not at all. My mate Natasha thinks you’re a goddess,’ Ava interjected.

‘… but I work hard, play hard and I’m not in bad shape.’

It was all Ava could do not to roll her eyes.

‘So I think there must be someone else.’ Selina stopped stitching and sat upright, pausing to look Ava in the eyes. ‘What do you think, Ava? Is there another woman in Luc’s life I know nothing about?’

‘Bloody hell, no. He was reclusive until he met you. There was a weird moment with his neighbour, Bunny, but that was her doing rather than his and it stopped before it got started. Apart from that, he’s not had a single date since he moved to Scotland, as far as I’m aware.’ Ava inspected the neat stitching along her leg as Selina stuck a gauze pad over it. ‘Wow, great job. I’m really grateful.’

‘You mean, except for all the dates with you, at the cinema, dinner, drinks, fishing …’ Selina said as she cleared the debris from the operation.

‘Well, neither of us would call those dates,’ Ava laughed. ‘A couple of work colleagues keeping each other company because they’ve got no one else to be with, maybe.’

‘Do you know he wakes at night sometimes calling your name? He has this recurring nightmare. He told me it comes from a time when you were taken hostage and he was worried he’d reach you too late. That must have been terribly traumatic for you.’ Selina stripped off her gloves and dropped them in a bin.

‘It was,’ Ava said quietly, reluctant to recall the events. Other women hadn’t been as lucky as her. Not all of them had survived.

‘Those sorts of traumas create a strong bond between people. Sometimes it felt as if he’d have been happier holding you after waking from those dreams. I was always just a substitute. I suppose it’s better I figured that out sooner rather than later.’ She stood up and took a prescription pad from her pocket.

‘Sorry it took so long. Drinks at last,’ Callanach said, kicking the curtain aside to enter and thrusting steaming paper cups at them both.

‘Thank you,’ Ava said quietly. ‘Luc, could you wait outside while I get my jeans back on, please?’

‘Oh, sure, just give me a shout if you need any help.’

He looked confused but exited anyway.

Ava took a deep breath and tried to compose a reply. Selina had obviously misjudged the situation between Callanach and her, and if that was what had split them up, she needed to put it right.

‘Selina, Luc and I are just work colleagues. You know that, right? He sees me more like one of the guys than a woman he could ever be interested in. And it’s not always easy between us. My God, when we argue it’s like sailing through a storm.’

‘I bet it is,’ Selina smiled. ‘Here’s your prescription. You should get it filled immediately and start taking the antibiotics tonight. No alcohol until you finish all the tablets. Any problem with the leg, see a doctor immediately. Keep the stitches as dry as you can.’

Ava sat up and pulled her jeans back on gingerly.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, taking the piece of paper from Selina’s hand.

‘Don’t hurt him, Ava,’ Selina whispered. ‘He may act tough but there’s only so much one person can take. If you don’t feel the same way about him as he feels about you, you should let him go.’

‘But I …’

‘With respect, stop playing dumb. It doesn’t suit you,’ Selina finished. ‘I hope the leg heals soon.’

Ava sat on the edge of the bed, wondering if she should go after Selina, who’d either forgotten or abandoned her espresso. Not that there was anything else to say. She’d clearly made up her mind that there was something going on between Callanach and her, and as for the playing-dumb comment … that was a step too far. It was difficult to share someone like Callanach, she guessed. The good looks and French charm would make him a target for many women, so it was understandable that any girlfriend of his might get the odd pang of jealousy. And she and Callanach did work very closely together.

She slipped her feet back into her trainers. More than just closely, she had to admit. This morning she’d woken up in his bed shortly after he’d saved her life. That was what Selina was feeling. It was that co-dependency that police partners sometimes developed, the sense that there was one person in all the world who’d never let you down. The knowledge that there was one human being who knew what you were thinking, who could anticipate your every action and decision, and who would catch you every single time you fell – physically, emotionally, professionally, personally – every single time.

Ava took a sip of her tea and bit her bottom lip, wondering if she should talk to Callanach about Selina’s delusion. He might be a little shocked at first, but he’d see the funny side. Perhaps it would even allow Selina and him to have a conversation where they could mend the rift between them.

The talk of nightmares had shocked her. She’d pushed those awful days of her life as far back in her mind as she could and in doing so had assumed everyone else involved had done the same. Callanach had lived with the prospect of losing her to a deeply deranged psychopath and that must have been hard for him. She composed herself and wandered down the corridor, finding him reading a noticeboard and grimacing over his coffee.

‘We can go,’ she said softly.

‘Great, that was quick. Where’s Selina?’

‘She got called to another cubicle,’ Ava said, lying becoming a theme of the night. ‘She said to tell you goodbye. You should call her soon. I’m sure she’d appreciate a drink when you’re both less frantic.’

‘Good idea,’ he said, putting an arm around Ava’s waist so she could lean on him and keep the pressure off her leg. ‘What did you and Selina talk about when I was getting coffee?’

Ava barely paused. ‘Spain,’ she said. ‘Would you mind driving me to a chemist next?’

‘Whatever you need,’ he said, opening the car door for her. ‘I’m all yours.’

Chapter Nine
Before

As Ava waited for her prescription to be filled at the chemist, a man armed with nothing more lethal than a fish supper walked the streets of Edinburgh, peering into windows carelessly left uncurtained. Dr Selina Vega had offered to cover a shift for a colleague who’d called in sick, knowing she wouldn’t get to sleep after seeing the man she loved and had lost. Pax Graham, sitting at his brand-new desk, read the statements taken from the staff at the nursing home and wondered how he was going to tell his boss on the second day of his new post that a colleague was the prime suspect in a murder case. And Mrs Fenella Hawksmith – Fenny to her bingo friends who’d been wondering where she was for the last three weeks – was being wheeled out in a body bag for transfer to the Edinburgh City Mortuary.

Fenny had assumed for the last three years of her life that death would be something of a relief. Losing her husband to cancer had been bad but fast. Unable to continue living in the house they’d shared, she’d taken the cheaper, anonymous one-bedroomed flat on Easter Road. What pained her more was the daughter she’d lost to drugs in Glasgow. Alice had run away twelve years earlier. Came back. Went to rehab. Relapsed. Ran away again. Lived on the streets. Came home. Stole from them. Ran away again. For the last five years, Fenny hadn’t known if her precious girl was alive or dead. She couldn’t even share the knowledge of her father’s passing with her. There had been no one to hold her as she’d grieved, and no one for her to comfort and give her a reason to live.

Fenny’s doctor had been sympathetic but overstretched, prescribing antidepressants on request when she’d described her feelings of hopelessness. Her husband’s hospice had reached out to her, but there had been too many ladies in flowery dresses. ‘Edinburgh posh’, her own mother would have said, and a million miles away from the Glasgow poverty she’d grown up in. It wasn’t that they were judging her, she just hadn’t felt like she belonged.

Her first attempt at exiting the miserable world she’d found herself inhabiting had come to an abrupt end when she’d simply thrown up all the tablets she’d taken, together with the bottle of cheap red wine used to wash them down. The only lasting result had been a nasty stain on a beige carpet and a hangover that had lingered for days.

The next occasion had been better planned. Knowing better than to attempt the deed at home surrounded by photos of those she’d loved and lost, she’d spent a hundred quid of her savings, figuring she couldn’t take it with her, and booked a hotel room. The irony of that expenditure was that if she’d simply locked herself in her own bathroom, the suicide might have been successful. As it was, a member of housekeeping had failed to deliver a full set of clean towels that morning, so the woman knocked on the door while Fenny was slitting her wrists and entered when no response came.

An ambulance had been called and Fenny had been whisked away to a nearby hospital. A psychiatric consultant had been engaged and she’d spent the following four months as an inpatient at a unit where the staff wore pink, smiled a lot more than was normal, and insisted that she do a series of daily classes including yoga, meditation and mindfulness. By the end of it, Fenny had been such a flawless student that she was released with cake and good wishes.

They had no idea that she’d have done anything at all never to have to go back to yoga classes again, with a teacher who constantly talked in sing-song hushed tones and insisted that she should love her body and listen to it. Fenny’s body, she was pretty sure, fucking hated her and she didn’t want to listen to anything it had to say, but compliance had got her out of the unit, with a side-effect of making her truly angry. Angry that her husband had smoked forty a day and left her alone as she marched towards old age. Angry that the daughter she’d cried for every day for more than a decade was gone for no good reason at all. Angry at the neighbours who blasted rap music out day and night.

Anger, it turned out, was a cure in itself. She didn’t want to die any more. Countering the rap music with Italian opera, she’d bought a speaker that would drown out a whole festival. She’d joined a bingo club because her husband had spent his life bitching about women who spent money on such frivolities. It had turned out to be rather good fun, too. And she’d stopped looking for her daughter through missing persons websites and family reunion agencies, accepting the reality that there was nothing she could do to bring someone back who was either dead or who wanted to remain lost. Let fate play its games, was her new philosophy. She would simply be carried along on the tide.

Then there’d been a knock at her door at noon one Tuesday. Who the hell worried about answering the door between elevenses and lunch? Nothing bad happened at that time of day, not on a Tuesday in your own home. It wasn’t unusual for one of the other tenants simply to buzz people in without asking for so much as a name. The pizza delivery guy regularly just pressed any old button and worried about checking the flat number when he was indoors, out of the rain.

Fenny had answered the door hoping it hadn’t been the Jehovah’s back to talk her ear off again. She always felt guilty when she told them to get lost but the result of her not doing so was sometimes a thirty-minute polite conversation about how nicely printed their brochures were as she figured out an excuse to shut the door.

Instead, the man at her door was looking sombre and professional.

‘Mrs Hawksmith,’ he said, holding up a badge dangling from a brightly coloured lanyard. ‘I’m from a family reintroduction charity. We have information about your daughter, Alice. Could we talk, if it’s not a bad time?’

She hadn’t given it a second thought. Thirty seconds later, she was brushing crumbs off her couch so he had somewhere to sit without ruining his smart trousers. Her head had been reeling. News of her daughter, after so long … So she wasn’t dead. If she’d been dead, it would have been the polis at her door.

Standing in the middle of her tiny sitting room, Fenny had shifted from foot to foot, wanting to hear the news, dreading what it might be, clinging on to hope she’d long since forgotten existed.

‘Is there anyone here who might support you or are you alone today?’ the man had asked.

‘No, it’s just me …’

Fenny realised in her excitement that she hadn’t even asked the man’s name. Now she wasn’t sure how to backtrack, not that she wanted to waste any time. There was news. It was suddenly worth every birthday and Christmas, every Mother’s Day, every morning when her daughter’s bed hadn’t been slept in. Finally, there was the prospect of something other than the void of loss.

‘Just to clarify, you aren’t cohabiting or flat-sharing at the present time. It’s important to establish that any information we share with you will remain confidential, you see.’

‘Yes, absolutely,’ Fenny had gushed. ‘It’s just me here. If you have some news, I promise not to talk to anyone else about it.’

‘Good,’ he’d said reassuringly. ‘That all sounds fine. Finally, I need to assess your current mental state. We often find that people have very strong reactions to being given news about loved ones who’ve been missing for a sustained period, and the process of attempting a reintroduction can be fraught with difficulties and disappointments. That’s not a journey we recommend people embark upon unless they’re in a good place emotionally.’

Reintroduction. She hadn’t imagined it. He’d said the word. Her daughter was not just alive but was somewhere accessible and in a fit state to make contact. In that moment, she believed in everything. Karma, kismet, destiny, God, four-leafed clovers – the whole shebang. There was a reason she’d decided to blow money on a hotel room to end it all. There was a reason the housekeeping woman had come in at the worst – now the best – possible moment. The endless stretches in yoga had been worth every second of humiliation and fake smiles. The tranquillisers that had made her feel nauseous. The therapy where she’d poured out every sordid or boring detail of her life. They’d all led her here.

She crossed the room – just three steps, but her legs were jelly and she worried she might not make it – to pick up Alice’s photo from the windowsill. In it, her precious seven-year-old had just won a drawing competition. She’d had a real talent, certainly not inherited from Fenny. Drawing faces was what she’d been best at, spending hours of her young life at a table, getting through notepad after notepad.

Fenny still had some of those drawings tucked away in an envelope, hidden in a box with her wedding photos and Mother’s Day cards so dearly prized that she dared not take them out and handle them any more. Inside were the childish declarations of forever love that had become screams of hatred as drugs had made her daughter’s world a place where the only warm arms she welcomed were delusions that came from plastic wraps, and where only handing her money was enough to induce her to profess love.

‘Where is she?’ Fenny had whispered, the muscles in her face rising to produce an unfamiliar picture.

Smiles had been absent from her outlook for so long that forming one was an alien sensation.

‘I don’t know,’ the man said, ‘do you think you deserve to see her?’

Fenny’s smile drooped a little.

‘Deserve?’ she asked slowly. ‘Yes, of course, why would I not deserve to see my baby?’

‘Have you treasured your life, Fenella?’

‘Of course I have. My husband’s gone. He’d have done anything to have looked into our girl’s eyes again. Now I’m the only one left and I’ll have to do that for both of us. She doesn’t even know her daddy’s passed. I’m not sure how I’m going to break that to her.’ Fenny’s legs finally gave way and she lowered herself onto the sofa, taking deep breaths.

‘Your husband couldn’t have prevented his death though, could he? It was cancer that took him, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Um …’ she stalled.

The last thing Fenny wanted was to be impolite to the man who was trying to help her, but she wasn’t sure quite where he was getting his information. Alice would have had no way of knowing about the tragedy that had struck in her absence and Fenny didn’t recall giving any of the reunification agencies the details of her husband’s illness.

‘Yes, lung cancer. I signed up with a few agencies when I was trying to find my daughter. I was a bit surprised when you turned up and I missed the name of the one you’re from.’

‘But you …’ – he continued as if she hadn’t said a word – ‘have taken the gift of life for granted. You thought you could throw it away. You decided your need to be rid of the responsibilities that come with your place in this world was more important than valuing what you were given.’

‘I’m not sure what you’re talking about,’ Fenny said. ‘What does this have to do with my daughter?’

‘Are you still taking your medication, or did you decide you knew better than the people who were trying to help you?’ he asked.

Fenny put the photo of Alice that she’d been clutching down on the coffee table with a shaking hand.

‘Who sent you?’ she asked quietly. ‘Was it someone from the hospital? Is this part of their follow-up regime? Am I being tested? Only if this is all just part of their scheme to make sure I’m still in recovery, then using the information I gave them about my daughter is …’

She couldn’t finish the sentence. There was no phrase that was strong enough to express the disgust she felt at what was happening.

Fenny looked the man up and down. He didn’t have a file with him. No papers at all. Surely if he’d come to talk about her daughter, he’d be making some notes, or asking her to sign a document, or even check her identity. Looking around the sitting room, she tried to recall where she’d left her glasses so she could read the awfully small print that was currently just a blurred mass on his ID badge.

‘Fenella, we need to have a conversation and I need you to give me the right answers,’ he said, standing up. ‘You’ll need to concentrate. I’m going to help you with that, okay? I’m going to make it all much easier for you.’

‘I want to see my daughter,’ Fenny said, looking at the bulge in the man’s trouser pocket.

It certainly wasn’t mobile phone-shaped and the broad curves suggested something other than a set of keys.

‘Do you?’ he asked. ‘How much time do you spend actually thinking about her? Once a day? Does she even get that much from you? Isn’t it more realistic that you think about her maybe once a week?’

Fenny stood up, closer to him than she was comfortable with, lifting her face several inches to look at him directly.

‘There’s not an hour of the day that goes by when I don’t think of my girl,’ she said, tears filling her eyes and rage tensing every muscle.

‘Do you?’ he smiled. ‘Does a mother who actually loves her missing child really attempt suicide? I think not. I believe that you’d wait for her as long as it took, because if there was the most minuscule chance that your daughter might come home, or get arrested, might end up in a hospital and ask for you, you ought to be there for her. Why would you attempt to deprive that poor girl of her only surviving parent? That’s just not right.’

He reached out and took hold of Fenny’s left hand with his right. Something about his touch felt off, too cool, fake. She raised her hand in his grasp to get a better look.

Gloves. Whoever this man was, for some reason he was wearing clear plastic gloves.

As she opened her mouth to put the question she was thinking into words, she felt a thump that was punctuated by a metallic snap over her left wrist. The dangling handcuff was closed but not overly tight. Ridiculously, she wondered if he was police, after all – not there to notify her of her daughter’s death but to arrest her for some parenting offence she hadn’t even known she’d committed. The wrongness took a few seconds to sink in.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re up to? You’ve got to get out of my place right now. Do you hear me?’

The man laughed.

Fenny tugged at the handcuff. She didn’t even want him to get the cuff off. That would mean him touching her again and she really didn’t want that. Not with those creepy gloves on.

‘You want me to leave already? But you haven’t heard what I came to tell you about Alice yet,’ he said.

‘You’re not here to talk to me about my daughter,’ Fenny said. ‘Now get the fuck out of my flat, you friggin’ weirdo, or I’m calling the police.’

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