A queue had formed behind the Tynecastle contingent, including a hen party armed with satin sashes, fake tan and deely boppers. They started to complain about the wait. Another clubber stood off to one side, filming with his phone. Clarke shook her head at him, but he ignored her.

‘We don’t want any trouble,’ one of the doormen was saying.

‘Relax, C,’ one of the cops reassured him. ‘We’re just measuring cocks here.’ He made eye contact with Clarke. ‘Got to say I think hers is winning.’

There was more laughter as the Crew began to filter through the doorway. Clarke watched them descend the stairs, offering each other slaps on the back. One of them punched the air. They seemed already to have pushed Clarke and Fox from their minds – they had a dance floor they now needed to own. Clarke turned her attention to the doorman they’d called C.

‘Regulars?’

‘They can sometimes get a bit exuberant.’

‘Especially after a few lines.’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about that.’

‘That’s good,’ Fox added. ‘You won’t mind the drugs squad coming and checking your toilets then?’

‘Not if they don’t mind patting down half a dozen of their own.’ The doorman looked at him without blinking.

Clarke took Fox’s arm and led him away. She could no longer see the clubber who’d been filming, didn’t suppose it mattered anyway. One thing she knew was, he wasn’t the Courant. A little further up Blair Street, she noticed a parked Range Rover. She broke away from Fox and walked around it. A sticker on the back window told her it had been bought from High End Motors.

‘More my style than yours,’ Fox commented.

‘True enough, Malcolm. Especially if you’re thinking of an expedition to fell some trees.’

He glanced down at his jacket. ‘It’s not that bad, is it?’

‘It’s fine,’ Clarke assured him, taking out her phone and snapping a shot of the Range Rover’s licence plate.

‘You’re lying, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am,’ Clarke said, taking his arm again. ‘Let’s go find ourselves a nice quiet bar.’

Back home, Clarke poured herself another orange juice and popped two ibuprofen tablets into her mouth. There wasn’t much in the fridge, so she settled for an apple and started charging her phone. She found herself thinking about Michael Leckie. Why had she opened up to him? Poor bugger now knew enough to pen her obituary. She reckoned it was because of the way he’d taken her into his confidence, telling her about his father. It struck her that maybe he’d made it all up, just so she would open up. He’d said he didn’t work for the Mackenzies, but maybe that was a lie, too.

You have to trust someone sometime, girl, she told herself.