‘And don’t forget to pick up your ego from the coat rack before you leave,’ Esson added, following Clarke into the stairwell.

Stripped of their coverings, they exited to the busy pavement. A fair-sized crowd had gathered and was growing. Some held up phone cameras. Others were shuffling their feet to try and get warm. The shutters on the window of Haggard’s flat were closed tight, just the thinnest blade of light visible.

‘MIT wouldn’t thank us for trampling all over their nice new shiny inquiry,’ Esson commented. ‘I reckon that means we can stand down till morning.’ She had picked up the two drinks from the foot of the stairs. Clarke took a sip from hers.

‘You reckon you’ll sleep?’ she asked.

‘Whale-song app on my phone – it never fails.’ Esson saw that Clarke was not to be appeased. ‘Whatever happens, Siobhan, Fox can’t just make it all go away, not now.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Hence my crack about needing me inside the tent rather than out. He’ll see it as a threat, and he’ll want to keep a close eye.’

‘Me rather than us?’

‘That depends, doesn’t it? Are you on my side or his?’ Clarke watched Esson’s face darken. ‘This was your case before it was mine, Christine,’ she said, her tone conciliatory. ‘Fox knows that.’

‘So we’ll probably both be MIT tomorrow?’

‘If Malcolm gets his way.’

‘And will he?’

Clarke looked at her over the rim of her cup. ‘In my experience, his sort inevitably do.’

Day Four

13

The text arrived at 6.53 a.m.

Leith police station, 0800 sharp. Sent from Malcolm Fox’s telephone. Clarke checked that Christine Esson had received the same summons.

Yep. See you there.

Clarke parked her Astra next to Leith Links at quarter to eight and walked from there to Queen Charlotte Street. It struck her that she’d no idea who Queen Charlotte was or why a road in Leith had been named after her. The police station was situated in what had at one time been the town hall and sheriff court. The building was a couple of hundred years old and showing its age. An imposing staircase led up from ground level, but Clarke was unsurprised to see plastic buckets dotted about, ready to collect the rain that sometimes breached the leaky roof. She knew the MIT office, having worked a couple of cases there, and even dated her boss at the time. But he had moved north to Inverness and ceased communication. She wondered who would be in charge today.

‘Anyone but Fox,’ she prayed under her breath as she reached the top of the stairs.

She saw him immediately, standing at the far end of the corridor in quiet conversation with a woman Clarke didn’t recognise. He beckoned for her to join them.