‘He who controls the spice controls the universe,’ said Fallan.

This eighties movie reference elicited a tiny smile from Catherine, despite herself, but was evidently lost on everyone else, Jasmine in particular.

‘Those who did have a direct supply were able to steam in,’ said Abercorn. ‘Even if McGill hadn’t been in jail, he’d have been helpless to prevent his power base getting swept away. All his old stomping grounds – Gallowhaugh, Shawburn, Croftbank – he’s still got a name there but no real power.’

‘And who has?’ Fallan asked.

The answer literally gave Abercorn pause. He looked sharply at Catherine for a moment before they answered pretty much simultaneously.

‘Frankie Callahan.’

‘Old-school crooks, old-school polis,’ Fallan mused. ‘Old alliances enduring and old habits dying hard.’

‘Old habits such as covering their tracks and vanishing the evidence,’ said Catherine. ‘We know everything but we’ve got nothing. These guys are going to be very hard to take down.’

‘Then we get them to take themselves down,’ Fallan said gravely.

‘How?’ Catherine asked, with the cautious curiosity of someone who knows there’s an answer to her question but is less certain she’s going to like it.

‘Way I see it,’ Fallan replied, ‘you guys can’t go through most of your normal channels because you don’t know where you might be tripping over one of their connections. So that means you’re going to have to outsource this to Sharp Investigations: let Jasmine and me handle it.’

Catherine eyed him with admonishing scepticism.

‘This would need to give us something admissible,’ she warned him. ‘It’s not going to take Ruaraidh Wilson to blow us away in court if your plans involve somebody getting tied to a chair with Gerry Rafferty playing in the background.’

Fallan put on a look of hurt innocence that paradoxically made him look like the most demonic person Jasmine had ever seen. And that was before he told her what he had in mind.

‘Oh, no, it wouldn’t be just my talents that we’d need to make this fly.’

A One-Way Trip to the Campsies

Jasmine could hear footsteps in the corridor outside, and steadied her breathing in response, preparing for her cue. She had to pitch it just so. There were no rehearsals for this, no retakes, and there would be no second show to get it right.

She could display anxiety but not fear; the time to be scared would come later. Frantic anxiety, rather than despairing. Supplicant. Contrite. Helpless. Just like on the phone.