‘Message from Thor,’ she says, a different timbre to her voice. ‘Inside joke. You wouldn’t get it.’

McAvoy clamps his teeth together. The hinge of his jaw bulges like a flexed muscle. Pharaoh has developed a close friendship with a large, bearded police officer in rural Iceland. She keeps telling McAvoy all of the funny, charming and interesting things that he says to her. McAvoy doesn’t like the sound of him at all. Thinks, in his private moments, that Thor needn’t have applied for the position of favoured confidante. The role is being adequately filled.

‘Ah, right. Found her. Dymphna Lowell. There’s a picture here. Christ, they’re some mad eyebrows. Looks fiftyish, maybe more. She’s wearing one of those scarves around her head. Purple. She looks a friendly sort, though I doubt she’d have a Facebook profile where she’s holding a cleaver … let me see … national and international clairvoyant, Tarot readings, clairvoyance, medium, healing, reiki, crystal healing, animal healing – what’s that, does she tell your gerbil’s future or something? Fucking hell, she keeps herself busy … and she’s a cosmic mythologist, which must come in handy … from a long line of people touched by “the gift”, so she claims … oh and this is good to know – her great great grandfather was soothsayer to a Hungarian emperor. You don’t get better references than that … uses Tzagine Oracle cards, whatever the—’

McAvoy shoots her a look. ‘Tzagine?’

‘Thought that was a Moroccan casserole …’ She stops messing around as she meets his eyes. Becomes a different person entirely. ‘Familiar?’ she asks, quietly. ‘You’ve gone white. Hector?’ She raises a hand, about to grip McAvoy’s in her own. Makes a fist, then drops it again. ‘Sorry. If I went too far …’

He shakes his head. Turns back to the road. There are lights up ahead. The darkness reassembles into police cars and a white, sturdy-looking house. He feels tension in his arms and realizes he is gripping the wheel. Pictures start to flash in his mind: a strobing flicker-pad of memories long buried. He bites down on his cheek, regaining control.

No, he tells himself. No, it’s not familiar. No, it’s not like before …

‘You OK, Hector?’ She asks it with genuine concern. For all her bluster, she feels people’s pain every bit as keenly as McAvoy. She’s just better at hiding it.

‘I’m good,’ he mutters. ‘A case, that’s all. An investigation. When I was starting out.’

She doesn’t reply. Lets him pull in to the side of the dark road. Waits until he has turned off the engine and they are sitting, silently, in the smoke-filled dark. He looks at her through the haze, his soft, sad eyes filled with memories.

‘Hector?’

There is a knocking on the glass. It’s Detective Inspector Rick Grover. McAvoy buzzes down the window. Looks up into a face he doesn’t know well, but which isn’t supposed to look like this. He’s pale as milk, and the spray of burst capillaries across his usually tanned cheeks betray the fact he has thrown up everything he’s eaten, and more. There’s no smile in his greeting. He can barely manage to get his words out.