He turned back into the room. The ghosts were faint, but visible. People he’d hurt and been hurt by, people who’d died painful, unnecessary deaths. Not for much longer. A couple more weeks and maybe he’d be free of them. He knew the phone wasn’t going to ring, nor was Ellen Wylie about to pay him a visit. They understood one another well enough to render any such contact unnecessary. Maybe one day in the future they’d sit down and talk about it. Then again, maybe she’d never speak to him again. He’d stolen the moment from her, and she had stood there and let him. Defeat once again snatched from the jaws of victory. He wondered if she’d stay in Steve Holly’s pocket … wondered just how deep and dark that pocket might be.

He walked through to the kitchen, poured Siobhan’s and the rest of his tea down the sink. An inch of malt into a clean glass and a bottle of IPA from the cupboard. Back in the living room, he sat in his chair, took pen and notebook from his pocket, and jotted down the latest clue as best he could remember it …

Jean Burchill’s morning had consisted of a series of meetings, including one heated debate on funding levels which threatened to turn violent, with one curator walking out, slamming the door after him, and another almost bursting into tears.

By lunchtime, she felt exhausted, the stuffiness of her office contributing to a thumping head. Steve Holly had left two more messages for her, and she just knew that if she sat at her desk with a sandwich, the phone would ring again. Instead, she headed outside, joining the throng of workers released from captivity for the time it took to queue at the baker’s for a filled roll or pie. The Scots had an unenviable record for heart disease and tooth decay, both the result of the national diet: saturated fats, salt and sugar. She’d wondered what it was that made Scottish people reach for the comfort foods, the chocolate, chips and fizzy drinks: was it the climate? Or could the answer lie deeper, within the nation’s character? Jean decided to buck the trend, purchased some fruit and a carton of orange juice. She was heading into town down the Bridges. It was all cheap clothes shops and takeaways, with queues of buses and lorries waiting to crawl through the traffic lights at the Tron kirk. A few beggars sat in doorways, staring at the passing parade of feet. Jean paused at the lights and looked left and right along the High Street, imagining the place in the days before Princes Street: vendors hawking their wares; ill-lit howffs where business was done; the tollbooth and the gates which were closed at nightfall, locking the city into itself … She wondered if someone from the 1770s, somehow transported to the present, would find this part of the city so very different. The lights, the cars might shock them, but not the feel of the place.