‘I can make you another,’ Detective Constable Christine Esson suggested. Clarke blinked herself back into the room and shook her head, then squeezed her eyes shut and arched her spine until she could feel the vertebrae click back into place.

‘I’m going to guess Francis Haggard,’ Esson went on, holding her own mug up to her face. Her dark hair was cut pageboy style and had never changed in the years they’d worked together. Her desk faced Clarke’s, making it difficult to hide, though Clarke suspected her colleague could read even the back of a head.

‘Who else?’ Clarke admitted.

Haggard was a uniformed officer based at Tynecastle police station who stood accused of domestic abuse, ‘abuse’ being the current terminology. Previously it had been called domestic violence, and before that, domestic assault. None of the three, to Clarke’s mind, came anywhere near defining the severity of the crime. She had encountered victims turned to husks; self-belief, trust and confidence scooped out. Some had suffered all their married lives – often physically, always psychologically. The abusers ranged across class and age, but this was the first time she’d had to deal with one of her own.

Haggard had fifteen years of service behind him. He’d been married for the past six, and according to his partner, the angry outbursts and gaslighting had started within the first eighteen months of marriage. Clarke and Esson had interviewed Haggard that very afternoon, not for the first time. He’d sat across the table from them, shoulders back, legs splayed, one hand occasionally cupping his groin. His solicitor, who’d had to slide his own chair further away to avoid their knees touching, had just about managed to hide his obvious disdain.

Haggard had complained about the presence in the room of not just one but two female detectives, turning towards the lawyer. ‘You sure you’re okay with this, Mikey? Couple of blokes might see things differently.’

The solicitor, Michael Leckie (Clarke doubted anyone else in his life ever referred to him as Mikey), had shifted in his chair, saying nothing.

‘I see how it is,’ Haggard had said, nodding to himself. ‘Pitchforks are out and the pyre’s nicely smouldering.’ Then, turning his head sharply towards Leckie, ‘Go on then, tell them what I told you to.’

At which Michael Leckie had cleared his throat and transferred his attention from the file of papers in front of him to the two detectives seated opposite.

‘I suppose,’ he said, spacing his words as if reciting a language he’d only recently learned, ‘you will have heard of a condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder?’

‘PTSD,’ Esson had replied.

‘PTS fucking D,’ Francis Haggard had echoed.