‘Sam? It’s Dad. Just ringing to see if everything’s all right. Speak later.’

He ran his hand against the wall, felt the cold, knobbly surface of the stones against his fingertips. He wondered what Sam was doing now. A month in Edinburgh, that’s all it had been. Freshers’ Week. Some intense socialising, everyone out to impress. Then down to work. Had he found a girlfriend? New mates? Too much beer? He didn’t know. He knew nothing about Sam’s life anymore.

Then an idea. He called the data desk.

‘Hi, it’s Joe. Quick one. There’s a young woman, name of Lisa Cullen. I’ll send you a photo. Can you try to find her on the DVLA database, check for vehicle ownership? We’re looking for a BMW.’

9

The white leather sofa didn’t feel quite so comfortable this time.

He sat, hands clasped in front of him, and watched her body as it shook.

‘Here’s your phone. Shall I make some tea?’

She tried to speak. There was a crackle of phlegm in her throat, bubbles of watery snot around her nostrils. She was shaking so badly that when she tried to raise her cigarette to her lips it missed her face.

He got up, left her phone on the arm of her sofa and told her he’d be back in a minute. The pain she was suffering was predictable, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch. With each harrowing whelp that echoed around the room, he thought automatically about Sam, and how the loss of his only son would destroy him completely. Yet at the same time, her pain gave him strength. It made him want to find the killer. And that, he admitted to himself in a moment of shame, was a good feeling.

No time for soul-searching, though. Something wasn’t right about all this. She reports her son missing, says he hadn’t paid his rent, that he’d been using her phone, her car… He had to know more about the victim, and it had to be now. Shaw’s death was already being written off as a black on black. There’d be no alarm bells sounding at CID. Or with the general public. Who cares about a dead drug dealer? No, this had to be now.

He made his way along the short passageway to the back of the house, preparing for the worst. The kitchen is where people leave the most obvious clues about themselves, a shiny slug-trail of personality traits, enough for any half-decent detective to form a good idea about the individual in question.

The kitchen was bright and tidy. The fittings were a little worn, but everything looked clean. Matching mugs neatly arranged on hooks, gleaming chrome toaster and kettle. And dominating everything a monster Zanussi fridge freezer. Not a mark on it.