It was one of four terraced houses in the block, narrow, with beige pebble-dashing. The garden, small and square, was a little overgrown, as if the last cut had been missed. A small wooden gate, sun-bleached and blistering, gave way to a short pathway leading to the front door. A red Ford Cortina was parked on the street outside, one side elevated because he had parked it up half on the pavement, the other side on the road.

‘Small house for a cop,’ Tony said.

‘Maybe he’s renting,’ Karen said. ‘If he got out on disability, he’d have got a decent payment for it.’

Tony looked out of the passenger window and could see shops down below the estate, separated from it by the main thoroughfare. A number of cars were already parked at the front of the shops.

‘We could park down there and watch up,’ he said.

They stopped in front of the shop units. In addition to a small supermarket, there was a hairdresser’s, a pharmacy and both Chinese and Indian takeaways. Tony offered to go and buy a bag of chips to eat in the car, giving them a pretext for staying in the parking area, he reasoned.

‘Maybe later,’ Karen said. ‘I’m OK for now.’

‘I am sorry about that thing with Kelly,’ Tony said after a few moments silence. ‘I was being a tube.’

‘You were,’ Karen agreed.

‘I was totally out of order.’

‘You were,’ she repeated.

‘Am I forgiven?’

‘I’ve not decided yet,’ she said, with a faint smile.

‘Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?’ Tony said, his voice just the right side of plaintive.

‘I’ll take half your Mars.’

‘I thought you didn’t like caramel!’

‘I’ve forgiven it. Besides, you don’t need it all. You’ll get fat.’

‘Don’t hold back now,’ Tony laughed, glad that she was teasing him.

‘You’ve a lot to make up for,’ Karen said, her smile fully alive now.

‘I could write you a poem.’

‘Not based on the evidence from earlier,’ she laughed.

They sat in companionable silence a moment. Suddenly, the front door of the house they were watching opened and a thin, slightly stooped man stepped down into the driveway. His movements were small and precise like a sparrow’s as he picked his way to the car, opening it and getting in without any hesitation.

‘He didn’t check under it,’ Tony noted.

They watched as his red Cortina pulled out of the driveway and headed up the street away from them.

‘Job done,’ Karen said, starting the car ignition and, after waiting until the cop’s car had a good head start, drove off.

‘Alice came back to me,’ Tony said, as they headed back into Glasgow. ‘At the end of the day.’