Ava dismissed that. ‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with here, you can’t imagine their reach and influence.’ She fell silent and Rhona realized there was something more she wanted to say. The real reason for her request that Rhona come here.

‘Why are you telling me all this?’

‘If the story of a possible survivor is leaked from Glasgow, anyone sent to kill her will look there. That takes the focus away from Orkney.’

‘Can I talk to Nadia?’ Rhona said.

‘That can’t happen. If Dougie finds out I’ve betrayed them, they’ll run. He’s threatened as much.’ Glancing at her watch, she rose. ‘They’ll be back soon. You have to go.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Rhona said.

‘I was planning to ask you to speak to DS McNab but—’ She came to a halt.

‘I can speak to his boss, DI Wilson,’ Rhona said.

‘Can he be trusted?’ Ava asked.

Rhona didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ve trusted him with my life before this.’

Ava nodded, relief showing in her face. ‘Now you have to go.’

‘What about Magnus?’ Rhona said as she donned her jacket. ‘I had to borrow his car so he knows I’m here.’

‘Tell him I wanted to write a piece about a forensic scientist who experienced PTSD after she was targeted by a stalker.’

‘I wouldn’t agree to that,’ Rhona said.

‘Exactly – despite all my efforts to persuade you, you said no,’ Ava said with a hint of a smile.

51

I am he and he is me.

In his drug-addled state, he thought himself back in Kelvingrove Art Gallery, standing in front of Dalí’s painting of Christ, hanging forward on the cross, his hands and feet free of nails.

Just like I hang here, half naked above . . . what?

His eyes snapped open and he saw that he was looking down not on a stretch of water, as in the painting, but on a pool of his own piss.

And I am no saviour, of myself or anyone else.

What had he told them during the beatings? His mind flitted with individual images of the people he might have betrayed, Mark and Ava in particular.

Did he talk about the coffee house, where Mark was holed up? What about Ava? Had he said where she was? What she was doing?

And what about Go Wild? Did he spill everything he knew about them?

No, he thought. I haven’t told them everything . . . not yet. Because if I had, I wouldn’t be hanging here and still breathing.

As whatever drug they’d injected began another retreat, the cold advanced its attack. The shivering would start again soon, knocking his teeth together, burning his extremities, clawing at his chest with long, sharp fingernails.