‘It might be that whoever was in the car was at the party,’ Gillard said, looking through the printouts. ‘Gary Tilling is clean. He runs a laptop repair business from home, and perhaps you don’t know this, but he has helped us on a few occasions over child pornography that he has spotted on customers’ machines. He’s mildly autistic, as you may have gathered.’

‘I thought it was something like that,’ Wickens said.

Gillard sat in his office with DC Macintosh. Spread out over the desk were all the photographs that had been taken of the body by CSI as it was recovered, and by Dr Delahaye while conducting the post-mortem. ‘Okay, Rainy,’ Gillard said. ‘Seeing as you are a former medic, I’d like to pick your brain. We know that a lot of force was exerted on this man, something that stopped him breathing. We also know that there are deep impressions on him all over, like he was caught in a net. But Delahaye is insistent he didn’t drown.’

‘But why was he naked if he wasn’t in the water?’

‘It’s a great question. Along with, why wasn’t the net or mesh found wrapped around the body?’

‘Someone tore it off?’ She was tapping a biro against her teeth.

‘Absolutely. And that could only have happened before he was chucked in.’

‘So it proves the poor wee bastard was dead before he hit the river, right?’

‘Proves is a strong word at this stage. Delahaye has been at pains to stress how many ways there are of dying in water aside from drowning. But yes, unless the netting is found in the river, we’re going to assume he was already dead. That would accord with the splash, heard by so many, and the vehicle on the bridge.’

Rainy was now sucking the biro. Gillard could see a fleck of ink on her lip where the top seemed to be leaking. He had heard on the grapevine that Rainy’s partner Ross had stayed in Glasgow when she moved down to join the police training scheme at Hendon two years ago. She had brought her fourteen-year-old son Ewan with her. He didn’t know exactly whether the relationship was in crisis or not, but either way it must be tough for her. She was a real asset, one he wanted to nurture. Far too many female officers dropped out early in their career.

‘I can’t think of it being an accident,’ she said.

‘Neither can I. But let’s concentrate on what we can see in front of us. I quite liked the idea that this was a net, but there’s a problem.’

‘Something fishy?’ she asked, grinning. There was a smear of ink on her incisor. Gillard pointed it out, and she laid down the leaking pen and got a tissue from her bag.