‘No worries. I’ve got dry clothes at the club.’ Sean glanced at the window as another blast of wind and rain rattled the glass. ‘Though if it carries on like this, I might bunk down in the back office afterwards.’

Rhona tried not to look too pleased by that, although she had been planning to suggest he go home to his own flat tonight anyway.

Sean was observing her, a small smile playing on his lips. ‘You’re done with me for tonight, I take it?’

Rhona smiled her answer.

‘Then I’ll be gone.’

She followed him into the hall and watched as he dressed for the weather. He gave her a hug and reminded her to call him.

‘Of course,’ Rhona promised, though not saying exactly when that might be.

He opened the door to the shriek of the wind in the stairwell.

‘The garden door hasn’t been shut properly,’ Rhona said.

‘I’ll bolt it as I go out,’ Sean promised.

She watched as his tall figure headed down the stairs, perturbed that she was glad to have the flat to herself again. But hadn’t it always been like this? Even from that first night, when they’d met at DI Bill Wilson’s fiftieth birthday party at the jazz club, and she’d taken Sean home with her.

There had been a few times since then when their on-off relationship had appeared to be at an end, but then the positives would persuade them back together again. She was pretty sure Sean didn’t spend much time fretting about where he stood with her. She, on the other hand, probably analysed it too much.

As the shriek stopped, signalling that the back door had been shut and bolted, Rhona headed inside and, fetching her wine, took it and her phone through to the sitting room, where the gas fire was dancing in the draught from the chimney.

Sitting on the couch, feet up, Tom the cat on her knee, she pulled up Magnus’s number.

His voice, when he answered, was rich in its Orkney heritage. When in Glasgow he usually modified it, dropping the descriptive phrases so reminiscent of his native isles.

‘Describe the wind for me,’ she said after his welcome greeting.

‘Well, here in Orphir we might call it a skreevar. Across on Hoy it would likely be called a katrizper. The UK weather forecasters are referring to it as Birka, which is, as you know, the name of a female Viking. So not a bad choice.’

‘What’s Scapa Flow like?’ Rhona said.

‘Pretty angry,’ Magnus said. ‘Throwing her wrath at the back o’ the hoose as we speak. How’s my favourite city faring?’

Through the sitting-room window, Rhona could just make out the thrashing trees of Kelvingrove Park via the nearby street lights. ‘You know Glasgow. Nothing much daunts her.’

‘So no flying roof tiles as yet?’

‘Not around here anyway.’