‘You’ve all worked a serious amount of overtime in the last month, so I’ll be trying to get you time off in lieu.’

No response to that.

‘Right, well, I’ll be preparing a full briefing on the Interpol case. Expect a package on each desk tomorrow with details. Thanks, everyone.’

She left the room in silence, hearing chairs scrape as people stood, followed by murmuring and then the sort of backslapping that she knew were the team’s goodbye to its most experienced detective inspector. The irony was overwhelming. Callanach’s arrival had been met with an ill-disguised coldness, now it was as if she’d separated her team from their nearest and dearest. He’d won them all over. Even – perhaps especially – Lively.

‘Who’d have thought it?’ she murmured to herself as she wandered back into her office.

‘Thought what?’ Callanach asked, directly behind her.

‘Holy mother of fuck!’ Ava shouted. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I thought you could hear me behind you,’ he smiled. ‘You must have been a million miles away.’

‘Burst eardrums, remember?’ Ava replied. ‘Have you said your farewells?’

‘Not all of them,’ Callanach said quietly, clicking her office door shut behind him. ‘Feels like you’ve been avoiding me since you phoned to say I was being seconded to France.’

‘Just busy. Wrapping up two simultaneous cases is a paperwork nightmare.’

She leaned against her desk. Callanach walked over and stood right in front of her, close enough that the tips of their shoes were touching. Ava looked sideways across the room and out of the window.

He reached up and gently stroked her cheek.

‘I’m so sorry you got hurt. This whole thing with Astrid, from start to finish, has damaged so many innocent people.’

Ava’s face was aflame. She took hold of his fingertips and put them back down by his side.

‘It’s over now. You can get on with living your life. Really living it. Wherever you feel most at home. No more ghosts. Bruce Jenson wasn’t your father. I know there’s still a question about Gilroy Western …’

‘I’m leaving that one alone, for now at least. When I got Jenson’s DNA test back, it made me realise I’m better off keeping hold of the memories of the man I always believed was my father. No point making things any harder than they already are.’

‘Sounds like you’re starting to come to terms with it all,’ she said.

‘Is that why you’re sending me back to France? To see if I settle there again? You didn’t need to do that. I already know where I belong. Scotland isn’t the place I ran away to any more. It’s where my friends are, where my life is happening. It’s where I want to be.’