Chrissy was a ketchup gal on pretty much everything. Even the haggis rolls she’d bought from the van at Kilt Rock on the island of Skye, before she’d abseiled down the cliff face and presented herself to Rhona at the bottom.

After the months of hiding out on Skye at her adopted parents’ former home, Rhona’s heart had lifted at the unexpected sight of Chrissy flourishing those haggis rolls. As a result, she’d heard herself laugh properly. Something that hadn’t happened in months.

Pouring out two mugs of, no doubt, strong coffee, Chrissy had plonked Rhona’s roll down before her with a smile.

‘Welcome back, partner!’

And in that moment, Rhona was glad to be back.

The daily walk through the park held its own memories, none more so than the body they’d discovered near the ancient yew tree. A glance in the direction of its gnarled trunk now no longer brought forth the heavy scent of yew needles mixed with death.

Should she require to walk through the dense undergrowth that surrounded it, Rhona now knew she could handle it. By far the worst symptom of her incarceration had been her panicked reaction to suffocating spaces. That had been her biggest obstacle in returning to work, because working in confined spaces was a necessary part of the job.

She thought of one of the participants she’d met during her stay at Castlebrae: a forensic pathologist who, after working on the terrible site of a major plane crash, had taken to writing her own name on every part of her body before she could climb on a plane.

Trauma took on many guises.

This morning, being crisp, sunny and dry, brought forth runners, walkers and cyclists to populate the paths of the park. In the distance, the red sandstone of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum glowed through the budding trees, watched over from the nearby hill by the Gothic magnificence of Glasgow University.

Crossing Kelvin Way, she made for the path that led up to the face of the university, which was already busy with students set on the same destination. At the top, Rhona stopped for a moment to take in her favourite view of the city of Glasgow which, along with the Palace of Kelvingrove, also included the golden dome of the nearby Sikh temple and the skeleton beauty of the giant Finnieston Crane, a memory of Glasgow’s great engineering past, and still in perfect working order.

When she arrived at the lab, she found Chrissy was there before her. A usual occurrence, broken only for a short while after the birth of Chrissy’s now toddler son, wee Michael, named after DS Michael McNab.

The familiar smell of coffee on entry was, however, not accompanied by the usual and much-anticipated filled rolls. Rhona found herself perturbed by this, since her brisk walk through the park had definitely given her an appetite.

Chrissy’s hair colour at present was a deep auburn. Rhona harboured a suspicion that she was attempting to replicate the DS Michael McNab look. Not the chin stubble, of course, but definitely the hair tone.