For two days, whenever they arrived at their next location, Clio would take her musicians straight to the venue. Neil thought it would be interesting for his article to sit in there, but Danny had suggested it might make Clio nervous.

‘At some point,’ Neil told Danny, on the morning of the third day, ‘I’m going to need some time just the two of us. Me and her. This piece is nothing without the interview – I can’t just turn in an extended gig review, you know. And I’m only here till Sunday.’

Danny’s body language was big, expansive. His hands patted the air between them, soothed it.

‘It’s cool, it’s cool, amigo. I know that. Let me have a word with her and see what we can sort out, eh?’

Onstage, though. When she was onstage, he felt like he was working. It was the only time his mind could focus on the article, push ideas around. It was fascinating, watching her night after night, the way she tried to take the temperature of the audience and adjust herself around them; the way she didn’t always succeed.

The night after Ullapool had been Oban. The big upstairs function suite of a pub, bar and clientele both built in. Danny took the stage, asked for a very warm Ochil Bar welcome for An Evening With the beautiful, the mind-blowingly talented … and she stepped in front of the mic and just stood there. No shy smile, no hello Oban. The band around her totally still, and then Donald began knocking out a slow, sturdy heartbeat, bare knuckles on the wood of his fiddle.

Her voice, then. More ragged than usual – the after-effects of the long, slow toke she’d taken of the boys’ joint in the bus, maybe, her eyes daring Neil to comment.

‘Is there for honest Poverty

That hings his head, an’ a’ that;

The coward slave – we pass him by,

We dare be poor for a’ that!’

Sean joined her on the chorus, a honey tenor harmony.

‘For a’ that, an’ a’ that.

Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,

The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,

The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.’

A couple of bearded older blokes in the row in front of Neil picked up the beat and it spread slowly through the crowd, their feet moving as one. The room crackled. Lee met the thump with the bass drum, allowing Donald to raise his arms, draw single notes off the fiddle into the air.

‘For a’ that, and a’ that,

Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that;

The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,

Is king o’ men for a’ that.’