‘There is an alternative explanation,’ Janice reminded him. ‘The one you fed me when you got the call. They were tracked to the police station from Orkney and from here to the shopping precinct. And whoever wants to prevent the girl from talking picked them up from there.’

They all turned as the door opened and a voice said, ‘Excuse me, sir, we have a sighting of them from the CCTV footage if you’d like to take a look.’

The Sauchiehall Street entrance was the first location. The two women entered, then stood together for a moment. After which they began walking up the concourse, passing a couple of clothes shops without pausing to even look in the windows.

Stopping again a little further in, Ava took out her mobile and read the screen. After a further short exchange, they set off in a seemingly purposeful manner.

‘We lost them after that,’ the officer said. ‘But we haven’t looked through everything yet.’

‘Check all the exits and the car park cameras,’ McNab told him. ‘If that was a message coming in on her mobile, then they were possibly being given directions.’

‘Who would they be meeting?’ Janice said.

‘Ava’s never given up working on her story. If she got a lead, especially on Mark’s death, she would follow it.’

‘Can we pinpoint the last place she used her mobile?’ Janice said.

‘I bet when we do it’s there on the concourse.’ McNab pointed at the image of the two women currently on the screen. ‘She then either switched it off – or someone did it for her.’

76

‘What’s happening?’ Chrissy said as Rhona finished the call.

Rhona rarely learned something before Chrissy, and in this case she wished she hadn’t.

‘Ava and Nadia have gone missing,’ she said.

Chrissy’s expression turned swiftly from puzzlement to dismay.

‘How the hell did that happen?’

Rhona repeated what McNab had just told her. ‘He wanted to know what we talked about on the way from the police heliport, in case it threw any light on where they may have gone.’

‘He thinks they went AWOL by choice?’ Chrissy said.

‘He thinks it’s one possibility.’

‘And did Ava indicate she might be considering such a thing?’

Thinking back, the atmosphere in the car had been tense. Rhona had assumed the decision to come to Glasgow, plus the ongoing saga of Nadia’s appearance, then disappearance again with Dougie, had made the relationship between the two women strained.

And yet, in retrospect, Rhona began to wonder if that was the case.

‘The first thing Ava asked me when she got in the car was whether Mark’s warning about DI Cleverly had ever been properly pursued,’ Rhona said.

‘And?’ Chrissy urged her on.

‘I told her that Jack Winters, the undercover cop McNab had rescued, had vouched for Cleverly.’