The detectives were following up on a report from the divers. They had found nothing of significance in two days of searching both sides of the river. They had covered a half-mile upstream down to where the body had been found, and fifty yards beyond. No point going below that. Dead bodies may drift but they don’t swim. There was plenty of junk and detritus, but most of it was clearly old. Too old, rotted or weathered to have found its way into the water in the last few days. No netting or mesh, no recently discarded clothing or footwear. The weir was clear, the flow only a trickle with the recent lack of rain. There were no industrial water intakes or other fast-water sources nearby that could be implicated in the injuries found on the victim. In the entire two days, the only thing of interest wasn’t in the water, but above it. The team leader had emailed a photograph to Gillard.

Gillard and Rainy crouched on the aluminium walkway that ran along the top of the weir to Ash Island and stared at the pattern. It was diamond shaped, with a 2 cm by 1 cm gauge.

‘It’s not this,’ Gillard said. ‘Wrong size, and too rigid.’

‘It couldn’t be wrapped around him either,’ she said.

‘There are no factories or workshops nearby with the kind of equipment that could have been used on our victim. Uniforms have done a thorough trawl.’

‘It doesn’t have to be local, does it?’

‘No. If he was chucked out of the car, he could have been killed anywhere.’

‘Aye, but in that case why ditch him, here, on Midsummer’s Night of all times. He’s bound to be seen.’

‘Okay, it was worth a try. Now to take a look at the body. Maybe that will clear some of the fog surrounding this case.’

For Rainy Macintosh a trip to the mortuary was like a reprise of her previous job. As a junior doctor in Glasgow she had on occasion escorted those unfortunates who had died either in theatre or on the ward and passed them over to the technicians who would allot them space in the huge chilled storage unit. She and a colleague would agree the cause of death and write up the death certificate. That was usually the end of the story from her perspective, although she had often to talk to bereaved families. But now, visiting the dead was the start of a process, and one with a very different end in mind. To find out how this person had died, and if it was accident or an act of malevolence.