Duncan didn’t reply, but he didn’t deny it, either. They sat in silence for a while, Duncan staring down into his lager, Dan staring up at the old nicotine stains on the ceiling. His mind drifted to other times, and they were many, that he’d been in Glasgow with Duncan, and it was always for a gig; he couldn’t ever remember coming to this city for any other reason, apart from today. After a while he said, ‘That Comsats gig, the one we saw at King Tut’s.’

Duncan looked up and brightened immediately. ‘June twenty-sixth, nineteen ninety-three,’ he said.

‘Great night, great night. Mind you, I didn’t love that album.’

‘No. I liked it though.’

‘Yeah, but it wasn’t the real deal, not if you’d heard ’em in seventy-nine, at the beginning.’

‘Well,’ Duncan said, ‘you got me there.’

‘King Tut’s though,’ Dan said.

‘Banging, then and now.’

‘Best venue I know,’ Dan said.

Duncan nodded, took a swig of his lager, then said, ‘Oh God though, that other night as well, the Oasis night …’

‘Yeah, oh man,’ Dan said. ‘You, me and only about twelve other people in the room, and Alan McGee on his third Jack Daniel’s and Coke, stood there saying are they good or am I pissed?’

Old story, but they both laughed anyway, and now it felt comfortable again, and safe to say goodbye. Out on the street, they hugged, briefly. Duncan said he’d be back in Edinburgh soon, the day after tomorrow, or the day after that, and Dan said, ‘Good, good, OK, call me if you need to, and stay with us if you can’t go home,’ then he walked back up Gordon Street to the station, and Duncan dipped his head against the late-evening cold and headed off towards the badlands of Glasgow, to find Lindsay.

And all the time, all the time, all the time.

With Duncan, with Katelin, with anyone, Dan was holding Ali Connor lightly, constantly, in his thoughts, and if this was hypocrisy, it didn’t feel that way, and if it was infidelity, it never seemed wrong. She’d found a way to permeate his mind, so that wherever he was, so was she. He never had to summon her; she was simply there. She formed a whole world in his head, which only he knew existed, and most of it was conjecture, and he didn’t know what any of it signified, but oh God, it was a source of wonder and delight. Nobody needed to demonstrate to Dan the power and punch of a good song, and when he’d sent ‘Pump It Up’ he’d imagined her smiling, and remembering, but only that. Certainly, he hadn’t imagined this … what was it? An intimate dialogue in music, an eloquence beyond the written word. It was genius. He should market it, invent an app or something.