‘Do you never read your letters?’ he said. I was never much interested in the junk that came through my letterbox. The important stuff went to the office. ‘What about this?’ He handed me a yellow padded envelope. I picked up the scissors and snipped the top of the package off. Tipping it upside down I shook the contents out onto the table.

I don’t know which one of us screamed first.

I felt Moses squeeze my hand very tightly–or maybe it was me squeezing his. We stared at a finger in front of us. A wedding band had fallen out of the package too, with nothing to cling on to; the golden Celtic knot design I had bought for Joe when we married.

I sat down and stared at it. The digit looked fresh and I didn’t stop Moses when he popped Joe’s finger in a glass filled with ice.

‘You never know,’ he said, picking up the package and sticking his hand inside, searching for a note. ‘Look on the bright side,’ he said.

‘There’s a bright side?’

‘He’s still alive.’ Moses pulled out a note on plain A4 paper with bloody fingerprints all over it. Meet me at the entrance to Leith Docks eleven pm. Come alone.

‘The entrance to Leith Docks is slap bang in the middle of the red-light district,’ I said.

‘I know that,’ said Moses.

‘But what you don’t know is it’s also in the centre of Cupid’s killing field,’ I said as he looked cluelessly back at me. ‘So whoever I’m meeting tonight is probably the real killer–and it’s not Graham Marshall.’

Fear curled Moses’s lip. ‘So you’re saying Joe was taken by this fucking serial killer that’s going around? Christ, Brodie–you’ll have to throw Marshall to the wolves to save Joe.’

I stared back at him.

‘Did you hear me? You’ll have to throw Marshall to the wolves. No choice. Joe’s what matters, not some scumbag kid-killer. Marshall is going down anyway, Brodie,’ said Moses. I nodded, but years of training and dedication were pulling me apart. ‘And you’re not going alone,’ he said.

‘It’s past eleven, Moses…perhaps they will have gone?’