‘I’m just back from a crime scene on board an abandoned cruise ship that ran aground off Orkney in the storm. The MV Orlova is apparently owned by a company with that name.’

McNab looked surprised by this development, Cleverly not so much – or else, Rhona thought, he was pretending not to be. His next request suggested that might be the case.

‘I’d like to take a look at the fire scene now. Speak to the old man.’

‘Okay,’ McNab said. ‘We’re not far from there.’

He threw Rhona a wide-eyed look as Cleverly quickly stuffed his forensic suit in the bin provided and prepared to leave.

When it was obvious that Cleverly was ready, McNab said, ‘Thank you, Dr MacLeod. I’ll maybe see you later?’

Cleverly, jolted into action by this, reiterated his own curt thanks.

‘No problem,’ Rhona said, thinking, as the two men left, that there was definitely a problem, she just wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. She stepped back into the post-mortem room.

Noting her re-entry, Sissons stopped what he was doing to remark, ‘The Met seem very interested in our fire case, do they not, Dr MacLeod?’

Aware, from long experience, that this was not a question to which she was required to give an answer, Rhona waited.

‘So much so that they sent DI Cleverly on a flying visit to Glasgow.’

The pathologist started up the drill and shouted above the whine.

‘Next thing we know, there will be a request, or perhaps even a demand, that the victim’s remains, plus the scene-of-crime evidence, be transported south.’

The scream of the drill almost buried his final remark, but not quite.

‘You mark my words, Dr MacLeod. You mark my words.’

21

‘How far?’ Cleverly said as they exited the hospital grounds.

‘Ten minutes from the Death Star to the locus,’ McNab said.

‘The Death Star.’ Cleverly pretended a smile. ‘Is that what’s known as Glasgow humour?’

‘We were told to call it the Queen Elizabeth,’ McNab said. ‘That was the joke. So Glasgow folk took it into their own hands.’

Cleverly looked as though he might come back on that, then changed his mind. ‘Tell me about the eye witness.’

‘In his seventies. Lives . . . alone.’ McNab had been about to mention the cat, then realized that Lucifer might prove a nice surprise. He could only hope so.

He expected a few more barbed comments about Glasgow as they made their way across Govan, and found himself slightly disappointed when they didn’t materialize. Maybe he was reading Cleverly wrong, he thought. Holding his past misdemeanours against him. After all, he’d screwed up plenty himself over the years.

Drawing up outside the flats, McNab imagined he could still smell the residue of the fire, maybe even the female victim, before he reminded himself he’d just left her company fifteen or so minutes ago.

Leading Cleverly to Jimmy’s door, he gave a couple of knocks.