“Can hear the band. They’re playing an eightsome reel, but nobody knows how to dance it properly. Or else they’re like me, they know but they’d rather be drinking. I can hear a lot of voices, talking, shouting, but I’m not listening to them, I’m listening to the music. It’s not bad, though the fiddler’s a wee bit slow on the key changes.”

“What can you smell and taste?” Sophie was checking which senses had been most important to Lindsay the night before.

Lindsay’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Cigarette smoke. Stuffy. Sweaty bodies. The band doesn’t smell nice. Somebody’s got a pipe.” Then her face cleared and she gave a half-smile. “I can taste the peat in the White Horse. ’S from Islay. Proper whisky.”

“What can you feel?”

“Hot.”

“I want you to press fast forward now, and I want you to take us forward. You’re outside now, you’ve been talking to Desmond, the Irishman who’s going to Minnesota. What can you see?”

“Fountain. ’S boring. Lots of lights gone off. Big blocks of darkness against the sky. No stars out, just black.”

“What’s happening?” Sophie probed.

“I told him I’ve got to go, it’s late and I’ve got stuff to do. He’s standing up and saying he’s going back to the ceilidh, and I laugh because I think it’s funny because he can hardly stand after that last swallow of Jameson’s. Don’t like Jameson’s, doesn’t taste of anything proper. So I watch him stagger off, and I go back to Maclintock Tower. I’m really tired. I want to go to sleep and the room not go round and I’m sort of talking to myself and I wish Sophie was here because then I wouldn’t be drunk because, ’s funny, but I don’t get drunk when Sophie’s here, not because she makes me not, just because I don’t feel the need.” Lindsay stopped.

“What’s happening now?” Sophie prompted her.

“I’m waiting for the lift,” Lindsay said in the irritated tone of a child who has just been asked a question they knew how to answer when they were a year younger.

“Okay, let’s move forward. The lift’s come to a standstill on the tenth floor, and you’re stepping out. Can you see?”

“’S hard. They’ve only got those stupid blue nightlights, and you can hardly see to the next corner. I look to my right, then I look to my left, and I sort of see somebody moving fast round the corner.”

“Look carefully at the picture. Take it back, look at it frame by frame. What can you see?”