He looked like he might have been in the place since it was built, someone who fitted into his job and his environment so comfortably that she expected that anyone familiar with the place would find it hard to imagine one without the other. He was one of those distinguished old guys who are impossible to picture as young men, and probably wasn’t much different then; he had a grace about his manner and a lightness on his feet that must have endured for many decades.

He disappeared off to the archives and re-emerged about ten minutes later bearing a couple of slightly yellowed pages. He was about to place them down on the desktop when he suddenly looked unsure of himself, a searching expression on his features.

‘You’re the second party to be making this inquiry of late,’ he said. ‘I just had a wee bit déjà vu and remembered I had looked out these same pages for another chap, maybe just a week and a half ago.’

She and Fallan shared a look. Jim.

‘It was the Victoria, wasn’t it?’ he confirmed.

‘Yes.’

‘Aye. Sunday the twenty-first of August 1983. Definitely the same. Eight births: three girls and five boys.’

Jasmine got out a sheet of paper and began writing down the names of the boys and their registered parents, ordered alphabetically. It was another list to work through, like the one still folded up in her pocket detailing the office phone calls. That felt like an ancient artefact by now, the first step she had taken on this journey. This new list, however, would be what guided her to the end. This list contained the answer she was looking for, via one of these names.

Before she had finished copying them out, Fallan put a finger down decisively on the last one.

‘Him,’ he said.

‘How do you know?’

‘Trust me, I know. You don’t work for Tony McGill for years without that name becoming familiar. I’d admit the name isn’t entirely exotic for these parts, so it could be a coincidence, but I seriously doubt it.’

‘It’s not,’ Jasmine realised, pulling out the call log and unfolding it.

It was near the top of the outgoing numbers, and therefore among the last calls made.

‘I assumed it was just another firm Jim did work for,’ she said. ‘Jim must have called him up after seeing his name on this list.’

‘He wouldn’t have broached it over the phone,’ Fallan reasoned. ‘Not something like this. He must have made an appointment to see him. That’s why he told Anne Ramsay he’d have news for her after the …’