Tuesday eyed the weapon with a frown. ‘He’s such a stickler for firearms safety. Tear a strip off anyone who left a live weapon lying around unguarded like that.’

‘So what does that tell you?’ Jeff asked.

‘That he left in a hell of a hurry without thinking twice,’ Tuesday replied. ‘Like nothing else mattered to him except his objective. You were right. He’s scared as hell. But of what?’

Jeff said nothing. He walked over to the shattered mirror and stared for a moment at his splintered reflection. Something cracked underfoot. He looked down and saw the bloody shards of glass on the rug. And something else, too. He bent down and picked up the item that had fallen to the floor, half hidden under the foot of the bed. He showed it to Tuesday: a four-by-six photo print with a crease down the middle.

Tuesday gazed at the picture. It showed their friend posing against a wintry mountain backdrop with his arm around the shoulders of a slim and attractive dark-haired woman. Both were smiling and looked happy. ‘I’m presuming this is Grace?’ Tuesday had never seen her before. Her face matched her voice.

‘I’d say you presume right, buddy.’

Tuesday ran a fingertip down the crease in the middle of the photo. ‘It looks like he’s been carrying it around folded inside his pocket, or his wallet. Strange that he’d leave it lying on the floor.’

Jeff’s expression was thoughtful. ‘I reckon he was looking at it when he punched the mirror. I reckon it’s the reason he did.’

‘Then this does have something to do with her, after all. Not a lovers’ tiff. Something else.’

‘Something a fuck of a lot more serious,’ Jeff agreed. ‘Why else would he have taken a weapon with him? She’s in danger. That’s what my gut tells me, anyhow.’

Tuesday raised an eyebrow. Dubious. ‘Didn’t sound like it, from her message. Sounded like she was perfectly okay, not a care in the world.’

‘A person can’t be in danger without knowing it?’ Jeff said.

‘I get that. But what kind of danger could she be in? She’s a rural police officer in what’s got to be the lowest crime area in the whole of the British Isles.’

‘How do you know it has to do with her?’ Jeff pointed out. ‘It could be to do with something else.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know, mate. Something to do with Ben himself. How’d he get involved in the first place? He must’ve found out about it somehow.’

Tuesday sat on the bed, trying to figure it out. ‘When he called from Inverness airport to say he was on his way home, he sounded perfectly normal, too.’