All of them together, with one final image of a woman. He looked closer. She was about his age. Pretty. Wearing a T-shirt, her hair long and loose over her shoulders. No jewellery. No makeup. Looking directly into the camera.

So there had been a press conference. It didn’t matter. He could be tracked but neither stopped nor contained. He was free from the burden of the breakable mortal body. Pain was meaningless, and sooner or later his cells would turn to no more than biological soup and seep back into the earth. Fergus was unafraid.

He walked on towards the fruit section, intending to buy apples and oranges for his family. Their bodies needed sustaining even if his did not. Selecting decent fruit from the largely bruised pile, he glanced back at aisle number 4. He couldn’t see the headlines, but he could still picture the woman’s face, cheekbones prominent in the black-and-white picture, her eyes large and sad. He wanted to go back and look again.

That was what they wanted, of course. Instead, he wandered off to find rice and noodles. Clean carbohydrates that were long-life and simple to cook. Placing several packs in his basket, he wondered what her name was. Why not just circulate his description if they were trying to catch him? The woman had been saying something to the camera when her photo was taken. Fergus wanted to know what that was. He made it as far from the newspapers as the freezer section before turning back. Dropping his half-full basket, he grabbed a copy of The Scotsman and walked out into the car park.

In a well-sheltered parking spot between a giant clothes recycling bin and a billboard advertising the latest must-have toy, Fergus pulled his mobile from the glovebox. He rarely touched it. It wasn’t as if he had anyone to call, but it was handy to keep charged for emergencies. Now, he typed in the words ‘Constance Woolwine’ and ‘Edinburgh’, keeping his eyes on her face in the paper as he waited for the results of his search.

The video had been uploaded the night before by a local news outlet. Fergus leaned the driver’s seat back and got comfortable, volume on max, and pressed Play.

She was sitting on a stool, one foot resting on the floor, the other leg bent to allow her heel to rest on the edge of a crossbar between the stool legs. Black jeans hugged limbs made for running, a copper-buckled leather belt cinched her waist, and her pale skin glowed in the harsh lights required for the cameras. She kept her hands folded loosely in her lap as she looked into camera and began to speak.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘My name’s Constance Woolwine. Connie to my family.’ She gave a small smile.

Fergus pulled the screen a little closer. She reminded him of someone.