He felt guilty that Danny’s death had not upset him more. In quieter moments he certainly felt mournful at his passing, but the permanence of his absence had not yet registered with him. And while he was a little ashamed to admit it to himself, he also felt some relief that, in having come to Scotland, he had escaped the chronic grief of his family home.

‘I was chatting to a friend of yours the other day,’ Duggan said. ‘Karen Logue.’

Tony feigned ignorance. ‘Who’s she?’

‘The wee girl you pretended you lived on the wrong side of the city to so you could sit on the bus with her a while back.’

Tony blushed lightly; if Duggan knew that, he assumed that Karen had, too, which made him all the more annoyed that his journey had been in vain in the end.

‘She was asking about you,’ Duggan said.

Tony wanted to ask what she had said, but that it would sound infantile, begging to know what a girl thought of him. Instead he lifted his pint, supped a mouthful.

‘I’m going to a party at the weekend that she’ll be at, if you fancy coming along.’

Tony shrugged. ‘I might,’ he said.

‘You might like fuck,’ Duggan laughed. ‘You’ll be there like a rat up a drain pipe.’

Tony shared in his laughter, not disagreeing with him.

‘In return for that, I need to ask you a favour,’ Duggan said.

Tony straightened a little. Ever since the discussion about Danny, he’d been waiting to see what price Duggan hoped to extract from him for establishing a memorial to his brother. ‘I need you to get something for me from your school.’

Tony sipped his pint again, smaller sips this time, in a non-committal response to the request.

‘It’s nothing illegal,’ Duggan said quickly. ‘Nothing you’ll get into trouble for. I need a few thermometers.’

Tony put down his pint, wiped the stout from his lips. ‘Thermometers. Can you not just buy them?’

‘Easier if they come for free,’ Duggan said. ‘No one will notice a few going missing in a school; they must get broken all the time in the science labs.’

‘I don’t teach science,’ Tony said.

‘I’m not a match-maker either,’ Duggan said, ‘but I’ve set you up rightly this weekend.’

Tony sighed. The request was not what he’d been expecting. In fact, it seemed fairly simple.

‘I need four or five, if you can,’ Duggan said. ‘But they have to be mercury thermometers now; the alcohol ones are no good to me.’

‘What do you need them for?’

‘To take the fucking temperature,’ Duggan laughed. ‘What do you think I need them for?’

Tony joined half-heartedly in the joke. ‘No worries,’ he said, wondering not just how he was to manage to steal thermometers from his school, but for what purpose Duggan really needed them.

‘Don’t worry,’ the older man said. ‘No one will know you’d anything to do with it.’

Tony shook his head, as if the thought had not occurred to him, but he noticed Duggan’s expression darken, as if he had somehow failed a private test the man had set for him. And strangely, he found himself keen to prove himself to the older man.