‘She lived just up the road here.’ The woman’s excitement was obvious. Malcolm thought if she were given the chance to view the body, she’d be there in the mortuary. Staring. Drooling almost. ‘They called her Margaret. She had a strange second name.’

‘Krukowski.’

‘Aye, that’s it!’ She looked at him with more interest now and something like respect. ‘Did you know her then?’

He paused for a moment and pushed himself away from the bar. ‘Once,’ he said. ‘A long time ago.’ He stood for a moment to get his balance and then he stumbled out into the cold.

In the street he had to stop again to steady himself by leaning against an overflowing bin. The fish shop was dark and the road was quiet. Suddenly his head was full of memories and pictures: a sunny day on the boat out to Coquet Island, a woman in a long floaty skirt and sandals, a wine glass in her hand and laughing. A group of people standing outside the Coble to have their photo taken. Then the flames of a fire licking across wood like a snake’s tongue, and the smell of smoke and tar.

It occurred to him that he could knock at the door of the guest house and ask snooty Kate for news of Margaret, but the cold had sobered him sufficiently for him to realize that wasn’t a good idea. He’d catch Ryan in the morning and get the information from him.

He walked towards the illuminated Metro sign. The priest, Peter Gruskin, was walking in the opposite direction, and for a moment Malcolm wondered where he was going. Surely not to the pub? But as Malcolm turned down the alley towards Percy Street, he saw that the man had changed direction and was following him, walking so quickly that the black cloak swung behind him, making him look like a huge, swooping black bird. Gruskin looked so odd – so unlike a human – that Malcolm felt a moment of unease and was tempted to run for home like a child frightened by imagined monsters. But the priest took the footbridge over the Metro line towards the town and Malcolm continued on his way. The alley had the bulk of St Batholomew’s Church on one side and only one light at each end, so his shadow was thrown ahead and then behind him on the hard-packed snow. Malcolm was taken by an overwhelming need to relieve himself and, looking quickly around, pissed where he stood against the spiked fence that separated the Metro line from the path. He thought he heard voices at the Metro end of the alley and, embarrassed, turned away quickly and hurried home.