Ava froze. Pax Graham stood up slowly, reaching for his jacket.

‘Oh, holy fuck! He was hiding in plain sight all the time, pretending to help us,’ Ava said. ‘It’s Rune Maclure. He gave us Vicki who took us to Bott …’

‘That’s not all,’ Tripp said. ‘I’ve got units on their way to Janet Monroe’s. We took surveillance off her place when we did the raid on Bott’s, believing we had the murderer.’

Ava felt sick and it was nothing to do with off coleslaw. She didn’t want to hear what Tripp was about to say.

‘I got a text from her sent half an hour ago, but I only just got around to checking my phone. All it said was 999.’

Sprinting before she had time to register the command to her legs, Ava was shouting instructions as she took the corridor to the stairs.

‘There’s a car waiting for us,’ Tripp yelled, only just keeping up.

‘I’ll drive,’ Graham shouted, overtaking them both and leaping down the stairs in front of them. ‘Tripp, you try to contact Janet. The chief can liaise with the other units.’

They concentrated their energy on making it to the car before Ava began a rushed radio briefing to squads providing backup, and an extended operation to attend at Maclure’s home and place of work, covering all bases.

There was one last thing she’d been meaning to do just before Tripp had run into her office, but it would have to wait. It was only a suspicion, but there was a possibility the woman on the care home video was someone from Callanach’s past. Someone with no direct grudge against either Bruce Jenson or Gilroy Western, but not without a motive. A woman who – once upon a time – would have done almost anything to get Callanach’s attention, positive or negative. Someone disturbed enough to have lied to the police in the past, to have self-harmed for revenge, and with plenty of experience in stalking.

For now it would have to wait. Janet Monroe’s life was in danger because Ava had followed the information given by the murderer himself. And that meant she was to blame for whatever happened next.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

17 March

The knocking came from a long way away. Then closer. Then Callanach woke. His clock flashed with the information that it was 11.42 p.m. He’d only been asleep half an hour, but that was enough to render him groggy and disoriented. By the time he was fully conscious, the knocking was more rapid and insistent.

‘Ava,’ Callanach said, the sure knowledge that it was her at the door both enervating and exciting.