In time, she came to respect her senior officers for it. They could easily have used his son’s difficulties to embarrass and undermine Wilson, or even just for plain old payback, but they didn’t, and when Catherine thought about why, she came to understand that, like it or not, they were all part of the same process.

People would ask how Ruaraidh Wilson could possibly defend certain individuals, and the methods by which he did so were often so infuriating that they could start to comprise a strong argument for vigilantism. However, as a cop, he made you raise your game. If you got a conviction against him after he had worked his voodoo, you were not going to lose one wink of sleep dwelling on the possibility that you didn’t get the right man. Thus a lawyer like Wilson was crucial to ensuring that justice was done. At least that was what Catherine kept telling herself: it was what sometimes stopped her getting out of bed, driving across town and burning down his house in the middle of the night.

Her colleagues must have got some kind of reciprocation from their sensitivity during Dom’s wild years, right enough. Wilson had access to a lot of very privileged information, and his ability to negotiate secret deals was legendary. The case against one villain might collapse, then a few months later, another would fall right into the police’s hands. Nobody would ever be able to join the dots, however. Like a great magician, the point when you thought you had worked out how he had done it was the point when you were furthest from the truth, exactly where he wanted you.

‘See, you say “mysterious”, but I always interpret that word as “suspicious”. Enlighten me.’

‘Don’t waste your ire on it, Catherine,’ he told her between drags, cigarettes being the only vice he allowed himself these days. ‘It won’t do any good. It wasn’t even your case, so keep your powder dry for when it is.’

‘That’s just it, though. I’ve got a dead drug dealer in Gallowhaugh and Gary Fleeting’s well in the frame for it. Even if it wasn’t him, his boss Frankie Callahan is thigh-deep in something right now, I’m sure of it.’

‘I think we can both agree we’d be happier putting Fleeting away for murder than Class A possession. Maybe it’s a case of “what’s for you will no’ go by you”.’

‘Aye, and maybe there’s something going by me right now, as in over my head. I want to know what I’m missing before I start putting a murder case together.’

‘I’m pretty sure if you had put this case together, it would have flown,’ Dominic said. He wasn’t trying to sound patronising or sycophantic, but he didn’t sound convincing either. He was trying to lead her off the scent.