‘And it couldn’t wait till morning?’

‘Not when Quizmaster suddenly decides we’re against the clock.’ Hood picked up the first map-book and flicked to the index.

Siobhan studied him over the top of her glass. Yes, she was thinking, but you didn’t know there was a time element until you got here. She was also still shaken by the way he’d e-mailed her by phone. She wondered just how mobile Quizmaster was. She’d given him her name, and the city where she worked. These days, how hard would it be for him to get an address? Five minutes on the Net would probably do it.

Hood didn’t seem to notice that she was still staring at him. Maybe he’s closer than you think, girl, Siobhan thought to herself.

After half an hour, she put on some music, a Mogwai EP, about as laid-back as the band ever got. She asked Hood if he wanted coffee. He was sitting on the floor, back against the sofa, legs stretched out. He had spread an Ordnance Survey map across his thighs and was studying one of the squares. He looked up at her and blinked, as though the lighting in the room was new to him.

‘Cheers,’ he said.

When she came back with the mugs, she told him about Ranald Marr. The look on his face changed to a scowl.

‘Keeping it a secret, were you?’

‘I thought it could wait till morning.’ Her answer didn’t seem to satisfy him, and he took his coffee from her with only a grunt of thanks. Siobhan could feel her anger rising again. This was her place, her home. What was he doing here anyway? Work was for the office, not her living room. How come he didn’t phone and tell her to go to his place? The more she thought about it, the more she realised that she really didn’t know Grant at all. She’d worked with him before; they’d been to parties, gone out drinking and for that one meal. She didn’t think he’d ever had a girlfriend. At St Leonard’s a few of the CID called him Go-Go Gadget, a reference to some TV cartoon. He was both a useful officer and a figure of amusement at the same time.

He wasn’t like her. He was nothing like her at all. And yet here she was sharing her free time with him. Here she was letting him turn that free time into yet more work.

She picked up another of the map books, Handy Road Atlas Scotland. The first page, square B4 was the Isle of Man. This really annoyed her for some reason: the Isle of Man wasn’t even in Scotland! The next page, B4 was in the Yorkshire Dales.

‘Bloody hell,’ she said out loud.

‘What is it?’