When the phone rang, Sean was the one who got up and answered it.

‘It’s for you,’ he said. ‘A man. Didn’t give his name.’ Sean’s face betrayed nothing.

She took the receiver and Sean left the room. From the bedroom she heard a trickle of notes.

‘Hello?’

‘Rhona? It’s Edward. Edward Stewart.’ The repetition was unnecessary. As if Rhona wouldn’t know that voice anywhere, at any time.

There was the sound of a throat being cleared.

‘Would it be possible to speak to you about some business?’

‘No.’

‘Rhona, this is difficult for me . . .’

Things were always difficult for him, never for anyone else.

‘Fuck off, Edward,’ she said and began to put the phone down.

‘Rhona, wait, please. It’s important.’

There was something in his voice that stopped her.

‘Could we meet?’ he was asking.

Rhona heard herself agree.

‘Tomorrow. Half ten?’

Edward was confident again as he said good-bye. He’s got what he wanted, she thought. What sort of business could he possibly want to discuss? Business, as in his law firm, or business as in the by-election he’s hoping to win next month? And why now, she asked herself. We haven’t spoken in three years, and then only across a bench in court. He hadn’t been pleased when her evidence put his client away. Edward didn’t like losing.

Sean was still playing his saxophone but now he’d moved to a tune that Rhona had come to think of as theirs. The tune he’d been playing, he said, when he fell in love with her.

She knew he meant it now as a peace offering.

Sean wouldn’t ask her who the man on the phone was. He wouldn’t ask her if she’d slept with him in the past or was sleeping with him in the present. He wouldn’t ask because it wouldn’t make any difference to the way he felt about her.

Rhona only wished she could feel the same.

Praise for the Rhona MacLeod series

‘Forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod has become one of the most satisfying characters in modern crime fiction – honourable, inquisitive and yet plagued by doubts and, sometimes, fears . . . As ever, the landscape is stunningly evoked and MacLeod’s decency and humanity shine through on every page’

Daily Mail

‘Lin Anderson is one of Scotland’s national treasures . . . her writing is unique, bringing warmth and depth to even the seediest parts of Glasgow. Rhona MacLeod is a complex and compelling heroine who just gets better with every outing’

Stuart MacBride

‘Vivid and atmospheric . . . enthralling’

Guardian

‘The bleak landscape is beautifully described, giving this popular series a new lease of life’

Sunday Times

‘Greenock-born Anderson’s work is sharper than a pathologist’s scalpel. One of the best Scottish crime series since Rebus’

Daily Record

‘Inventive, compelling, genuinely scary and beautifully written, as always’

Denzil Meyrick

‘Hugely imaginative and exciting’

James Grieve (Emeritus Professor of Forensic Pathology)

The Innocent Dead

Lin Anderson is a Scottish author and screenwriter known for her bestselling crime series featuring forensic scientist Dr Rhona MacLeod. Four of her novels have been longlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year, with Follow the Dead being a 2018 finalist. Her short film River Child won both a Scottish BAFTA for Best Fiction and the Celtic Film Festival’s Best Drama Award and has now been viewed more than one million times on YouTube. Lin is also the co-founder of the international crime-writing festival Bloody Scotland, which takes place annually in Stirling.