‘I could murder a coffee, Duncan,’ I said. Bancho appeared to be too preoccupied with his troubles with the ACC to have noticed that Dr Gerry Cornwell was two sheets to the wind. ‘I’ll see to that right away,’ said PC Tricia Sheehy. She caught my eye and in the silent glance an understanding passed–she had been thinking the same thing. Cornwell’s elbows were resting on his knees as he held his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes.

The task-force room was large, with rough grey carpet tiles on the floor. A fluorescent strip light in the middle of the room buzzed and flickered. Large cork boards dominated the room. Before-and-after shots of the victims were pinned up using Blu-Tack. A large map of Edinburgh dominated another cork board and showed where the murders had taken place, each murder spot marked by a coloured tack and the whole area delineated by a red piece of thread joined to the tacks. The area made an uneven circle, roughly a mile in diameter, circling the Docks and the red-light area of Leith.

‘If I were to hazard a guess,’ I said, tapping the board, ‘I’d say you should be looking for a whore as your murderer, not a plastic surgeon.’

Bancho said nothing. His crumpled jacket hung across the back of a chair, his shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie was at half mast. Dr Cornwell’s head remained in his hands. I doubted we’d get much sense out of him until we’d poured at least a gallon of coffee down his throat.

‘Alan Pearson, aged thirty-six, married with two boys…’ I glanced at the photograph of the financial consultant. I was drawn to touch the picture, the one given to the police by his family, the one where he was fully clothed, and in which he still had a heart. ‘Alan Pearson, what’s his connection with my client?’ I turned and asked Bancho: ‘What’s the connection between my client and Alan Pearson, or any of the victims apart from Kelly Adams? Did they belong to the same tennis club, amateur dramatic society, or gym?’ I tapped my finger off Alan Pearson’s face. ‘What is Dr Marshall’s motive for killing this man?’ PC Tricia Sheehy joined me at the board as I drummed my fingers.