‘It’s not watered down, Brodie–it’s just a brand no one quite appreciates yet. This is the real McCoy though.’ Moses was celebrating my result in the murder trial. He hated the Boyle family for reasons that were not entirely known to me, so anything that upset his rival, Ma Boyle, was a source of rejoicing for him. A rumble of high heels and raucous laughter weaved into the bar in the guise of a huge hen party. Moses’s eyes lit up. His night had just got even better. Left alone to prop up the bar, I watched the staff spring into action. They shook and stirred sixteen cocktails in record time, which was just as well, because the girls looked as if they would swallow them as fast as the barman could make them. The party would definitely have passed Kailash’s scrutiny test. Spray-tanned to within an inch of their lives, I hated to admit they looked gorgeous, young, and vibrant. It would have taken a good chunk of Dr Marshall’s cheque to have paid for their hair extensions alone, and I wondered how they could afford it–then one glance in the mirror at my own sorry reflection told me that their money had been well spent.

Moses ignored me, continuing his banter with the girls as he filled up my empty glass at the bar. The bottle was almost finished: surely I hadn’t drunk that much? My empty stomach growled and the drunken dizziness hit me like a sledgehammer just as Glasgow Joe walked in. He didn’t acknowledge me. I’m not sure he even had time to notice I was sitting there as the hen-party girls swamped him, sticking their hands up his kilt in a desperate bid to find out if he was a true Scotsman. He didn’t put up a fight. Behind the drinks dispensers were smoky mirrored tiles. I couldn’t avoid my reflection, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. I looked old. My ex-husband looked gorgeous and every girl in the hen party agreed with me. I’d split up with Jack Deans, my sort-of-boyfriend, three months ago, and I was having romantic thoughts about the spin cycle on my washing machine, so the sight of Joe combined with all the champagne I’d glugged on an empty stomach was having quite an effect.

Glasgow Joe was the bad boy from my childhood. I’d hankered after him for years as we both pretended to be just friends, and then I married him in a cheap Vegas ceremony that lasted longer than the marriage itself. I still hankered after him.