The case against Marshall looked open and shut, and I just didn’t have the energy for going through the motions, especially with a journalist reporting on my every move. It wouldn’t be good for business: the public would have no sympathy for Kevin Milne, Graham Marshall, or his lawyer. My head fell into my hands. ‘We are fucked, totally fucked,’ I said. I was careful not to pin any blame on Lois verbally, but my head was screaming. It would have been just a bit easier not to have invited a member of the press pack into our office meetings at the present moment.

Glasgow Joe strode into the office. For once he wasn’t wearing a kilt. He meant business. He often carries out investigative work for us, so he’s part of the team, but today he had on his leathers. He too looked as if he had been up all night. He placed his gloves down on the desk and took my chin in his hands. Staring directly into my eyes he said, ‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been up all night waiting on you to come in. Half an hour ago I went up to the Royal to see if you’d been checked in. I thought you’d had an accident, Brodie.’

His anger was disappearing now that he knew I was safe. He yanked me up out of my chair and held me close to his chest. His leather jacket was cold and hard, but the emotion in his moss-green eyes was raw. One quick glance down at Glasgow Joe’s hands told me everything I didn’t want to know. The Celtic gold band I had given him when we married in Vegas eleven years ago was back on the third finger of his left hand. My fault. I’d thrown a drowning man a rope and he was hauling himself in. Joe had let me go once and his every move told me he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

I didn’t have time for this. I pushed him away just as a knock on my office door made us all look up. Patsy Barnes stood in the entrance. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair was glossy and the full-fringe style made her look years younger than she had in The Tower. She was clean and presentable–everything I wasn’t. I tried to straighten out my hair by finger-combing it, but my hands became snarled up in the bird’s nest on my head almost immediately. I tried to pat the wild curls down, but I didn’t stand a chance.

‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’ The journalist smiled a practised winning smile, her teeth dazzling me with their unnatural whiteness. I ran my tongue over my own teeth, alarmed at what I felt; I reached down into the bottom drawer to see if I had any disposable toothbrushes left.