His solution in the early hours had been to send the photograph he’d taken to Ollie in IT and ask him to check if they had the guy on file. That small mean gesture had resulted in a couple of hours of tortured sleep before he’d had to rise again and come to work.

The gang was moving into the meeting room when he got back from the coffee machine, and McNab joined Janice there.

‘Have you heard the news?’ she said as he came alongside her.

‘What news?’

‘Rhona and Chrissy headed off to Orkney early this morning. An abandoned ship was driven onto the cliffs at Yesnaby and three bodies were discovered aboard.’

‘They get all the fun jobs,’ McNab said, although he didn’t mean it. The emptier parts of Scotland held no appeal for him, and his memories of being blown about on the island of Sanday were only now thankfully beginning to fade.

The place fell silent as their boss, DI Bill Wilson, appeared. Having drawn their attention to the photos of the scene on the board, together with the names of key witnesses who’d been interviewed, he now addressed the team.

‘We’ve spoken to everyone who was in the surrounding buildings that night. Most folk reported that they were in bed asleep, or lying worrying whether their roofs were coming off.

‘No one,’ he continued, ‘except Jimmy Donaldson, an elderly man in the ground-floor flat, claims to have seen the girl alone out there immediately before the fire. The first thing mentioned was the sudden roar of the flames that had drawn folk to the window.’

DI Wilson confirmed that a handbag containing identification had been found at the locus, and that they now had an address for an Olivia Newton Richardson in North London.

Despite the boss’s correct rendering of the victim’s possible name, McNab was still hearing Newton Mearns in his head. A sideways glance at Janice indicated she did not want him to voice it.

The boss continued. ‘We have passed the information to the Met and asked them to make enquiries regarding this person. They have designated an officer to be our liaison on the enquiry.’ He looked into the audience. ‘DS McNab.’

McNab didn’t register that he was the one being called until Janice nudged him.

‘Yes, sir?’ He stood to attention.

‘You will be our contact here for that, so confirm with IT what they have on Ms Richardson, then give DI Cleverly a call and get him up to date on where we are.’

‘Yes . . . sir,’ McNab managed to say in return.

Janice gave him one of her piercing looks as the boss began doling out other tasks.

‘What?’ McNab said, obviously failing to temper the emotion he’d experienced at the name of his contact in the Met.

‘What’s wrong with DI Cleverly?’ she said.