‘Luc, I’m serious. My family decided I was married to the police years ago. These days they ask what’s wrong if I turn up at any of their houses. The squad looks at me with a mixture of suspicion and resignation when I walk into the incident room. Sooner or later, Natasha’s going to hook up with some gorgeous woman who’ll both make her laugh and put up with her terrible taste in music, and then she won’t have any use for me at all. And you …’ Callanach took her coat from her shoulders and threw it on the dining table. ‘I’m pretty sure one day soon you’ll sod off back to France. You’ll recover from the trauma you went through and know you can’t really be happy anywhere else. You’ll long for the sunshine and the vineyards, and you’ll pack your bags and leave me. What am I going to do without you?’

‘Ava, I’m not going anywhere. Here, I’ll prove it to you.’ He unwound the door key from his own keyring, took Ava’s from her coat pocket and slid it on there instead. ‘Have I convinced you now?’

‘Idiot,’ she laughed. ‘I don’t need your key.’

‘Keep it anyway. Unlike you, I actually know where my spare is. It’s not like you ever take no for an answer when you decide you’re coming round. Seriously, why would you think I’m going to leave?’

He took two glasses from a shelf and opened the bottle of Balvenie whisky he’d been saving for one of her visits.

‘Why would you stay? It’s cold. You hate the cold. And it rains so much, the Scots have evolved to be almost amphibious. Then there’s Bruce Jenson’s death. Just when you thought you’d left all the horrors of your past behind, it crops up again. I haven’t been the best of friends, either. I’ve interfered in your life …’

‘Trying to do what you thought was right,’ Callanach added.

‘I’ve cut you out of my life without explaining why …’

‘Trying to protect me,’ he said.

‘And I’ve been jealous rather than supportive. I’m ashamed of myself. Maybe if I’d been more grown-up about Selina, you two would still be together. She was good for you and I couldn’t bring myself to spend so much as a single evening with the two of you. I’m so sorry.’

Ava slumped back on the couch, frowning uncharacteristically. Callanach sat on the arm, swirling half an inch of whisky around the bottom of his glass.

‘Jealous?’ he asked. ‘Of what, exactly?’