Lindsay pushed open the door of the security office and walked into the stuffy room with its familiar odor of stale smoke, sweat, and faint but unmistakable traces of printer’s ink. The big balding man sitting at the desk that looked out over the forecourt got to his feet and exclaimed, “It’s wee Lindsay! How’re ye doing, hen? We havenae seen you here for a few years!” He leaned forward to shake her hand and the buttons of his shirt gaped over his enormous beer gut, revealing a grubby white vest.

“I’m fine, Willie, just fine,” Lindsay replied, dredging his name up from her memory. “I’ve been working abroad, but I’m back in Glasgow for a while. I just thought I’d pop in and see the boys. Do I need to sign the visitors’ book before I go up?”

Willie roared with laughter. “You?” he finally wheezed. “Don’t be daft. I know fine who you are. You’re no’ some IRA terrorist, are you? Away you go and see your pals.”

In the lift, instead of pressing the button for the third floor and the newsroom, Lindsay pressed the second-floor button. After she’d left the police station, she’d decided there was no time to waste in her pursuit of Alison Maxwell’s murderer and Rosalind’s burglar. The key to both of those lay, she believed, inside the Clarion building. And it was better to make a start at night when there were fewer people around. Besides, she had always got on well with the night duty librarian. She no longer had any right to use the Clarion library, but she couldn’t see Martin refusing her.

Lindsay walked down the corridor, past the canteen where the tempting aroma of homemade soup nearly made her take a detour. Again, memory assailed her. Just after she’d first got it together with Cordelia she’d still been working in Glasgow, and when Cordelia came up from London they’d often spent Lindsay’s meal breaks in a quite corner of the canteen, grabbing every chance to be together. Ironic, really, thought Lindsay. It was a murder that had brought them together and now another murder had driven them apart.