Clare eased the car into the outside lane past a succession of slow-moving lorries. ‘Yeah. It’s a good choice. Decent size of station and it’s this side of the city so we won’t get snarled up in traffic.’

Chris glanced across at the water. ‘I love how low this bridge sits,’ he said. ‘You get used to the other bridges being so high.’

Clare ignored this. ‘They do know to keep them apart from each other?’ she said. ‘I don’t want them getting together and fixing their stories.’

‘If they’ve not already done it.’

‘Fair point.’

They were over the bridge now, onto the M876. ‘Half an hour,’ Clare said.

‘Who do you want to see first?’

‘Let’s do Eamon Ferry. Get him out of the way. Somehow, I think he’s too careful to get mixed up in anything. Too keen to protect his position.’

‘Okay. You know, thinking it through,’ Chris said, ‘it’s starting to make sense. Those women, I mean.’

‘Melanie and the others?’

‘Yeah. Doug and Val. He tells her he’s planning to book the house and she says she can arrange for some women to come along. Make the party go with a swing.’

Clare nodded. ‘Spot on, Chris.’ There were passing under the iconic Castlecary Arches, the nineteenth-century railway viaduct forming part of the Edinburgh to Glasgow railway line. ‘Val wouldn’t pass up the chance to make a few quid.’

‘And exploit young women in the process,’ Chris added.

Clare was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘Those women…’

‘What about them?’

‘Melanie Fraser made a good point, you know.’

‘Hm, go on then.’

‘She spoke about her friends – the ones without kids. They go on a night out, get drunk and sometimes they have a one-night stand with a bloke they’ve only just met and who they’ll probably never see again.’

‘So?’

‘Well, Melanie said she really liked Steve Christie. She liked him and it wasn’t much of a hardship to spend the night with him. She won’t see him again so how is that any different from what her friends are doing?’

‘You’re not serious?’ Chris said. ‘Clare, I can’t believe you’re condoning women being paid for sex. I thought you were a feminist!’

Clare was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘My sister, Judith… she has a wee one.’

‘Yeah, James,’ Chris said. ‘I know.’

‘Jude… sometimes she really seems to struggle.’

‘What? Financially, you mean?’