Mike said, “Jack!”

“Mister, I’m sorry.”

Henry had to stand there and wait while the blow’s effects worked their way along his nervous system, and when it reached his pain centre the agony was disproportionately huge.

Holding his nose, he waved his free hand. “Forget about it.”

The kid retrieved his ball and ran off out of sight.

“Who the hell was that?”

“Jack. My nephew. Come on, I think you deserve a beer.”

“Damn right.”

They walked into the house. Mike called ahead, and an older man came out of the back, wearing a plastic apron with a picture of a French maid’s torso on it. The apron had to stretch over the guy’s beer belly. He stuck out his hand. “Ted Dundas. Mike’s father.” His accent was different to Mike’s, stronger almost to the point of incomprehensibility, with half the consonants missing and every vowel distorted. He was, Mike had told him, an ex-cop.

“Thanks for inviting me.”

Ted waved a hand. “Help yourself to a beer.” He went back to the kitchen.

Mike followed, and returned with two pewter tankards, unopened cans of beer inside them. It was the cold light ale the Brits called lager.

They wandered through the house. It was minimally furnished, a big colour TV in the living room, a sliding glass door that gave onto a brick patio, walls painted in pastel whites, a lot of brickwork throughout the house.

Henry wondered what to say. “Tasteful.”

Mike laughed. “You don’t fool me. But thanks for trying.”

They went out through the open patio doors to the small garden. It was east-facing, Henry saw, so it was in the shadow of the house in the evenings; but it had a good view of Arthur’s Seat. Henry took a couple of breaths. The evening air was fresh and cold.

They were close to the western face of the Seat here; the Salisbury Crags loomed a half-mile or so to the east, their rust-brown faces glowing with colour in the low sun.

“Oh. It’s you.” A familiar woman’s voice.

Henry turned.

It was the sister, Jane, who he had met in that disastrous encounter in her shop. She was wearing a long floral-patterned dress, open at the neck, some kind of wooden clogs, and a hair band. She was standing there holding a glass of wine, the low sun on her face She wasn’t wearing the peridot necklace, Henry realized with vague, unreasonable disappointment.

Mike stepped forward, grinning. “Jane, meet Henry Meacher. My colleague at—”

“You bastard,” she said to Mike. “You knew.” She turned on Henry. “So did you, in the damn shop. Big joke, guys.”

Henry spread his hands. “Believe me, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Or you wouldn’t have come. Right?”

“No. I mean, yes.” He drained his beer. “Mike, could I get another one of those?”

But Jane had turned on Mike. “As for you, you little shit—”