‘How’s Ruaraidh?’ Catherine asked, a sensitive question, she appreciated, but for all that a good distraction from Dominic’s anxiety over the coming rendezvous. She chose her phrasing carefully, too, avoiding the words dad and father, as their status was now more than a little ambiguous.

‘He’s on holiday,’ Dominic replied. ‘Took off to Malaysia with this woman he’s been seeing. Everybody assumes he’s hiding from the press, but I think he’s hiding from me. The weird thing is, I don’t actually feel angry with him. I mean, like, I actually feel less anger with him than ever before, and I’m not quite sure why. Maybe I’m still just numb from shock, but that’s not how it feels.’

‘I was there when he was initially confronted about it,’ she told him. ‘And the one thing there’s no ambiguity about is the depth of his feelings for you.’

‘Yeah. I think the reason I’m not angry is I kind of feel sorry for him. I can’t decide whether he did a good thing for bad reasons or a bad thing for good reasons. And without getting too anthropic about it, his decisions made me who I am and I can’t change it. It’s a serious head-fuck. Been over and over it in my mind, but I haven’t reached any conclusions.’

‘What about the PF’s office: have they?’

‘Oh, the one thing that’s for sure is that he’ll walk away clean. I’m staying out of it, though. Recused. Thinking of taking a holiday myself. I’m glad to be clear of what’s going on just now anyway. Someone will be able to write a PhD one day about the horse-trading that’s going on with regard to who’s getting prosecuted for what on this one.’

‘Deals within deals and compromises within compromises,’ Catherine suggested.

‘You’ve no idea. The big balancing act is between bringing an acceptable form of resolution while keeping certain cans of worms closed. Everybody’s got an agenda. You guys never got the drugs, did you?’

‘Not a chance,’ Catherine admitted. ‘Disappeared untraceably into Tony McGill’s gossamer web, probably within hours of the station job.’

‘Yeah. Cairns, Raeside and McDade aren’t helping to hang him either, which surprised me. I’d have thought they’d stake everything on deflecting as much blame as they can his way.’

‘Scary gig being a polisman in prison,’ Catherine said. ‘They’ll have a lot of enemies, so they’ll need allies on the inside. It’s in their interests more than ever that Tony McGill enjoys an Indian summer to his criminal career.’

Laura brought the vehicle to a halt outside the Ramsays’ house. Catherine imagined she could detect Dominic’s anxiety levels surging in response to the finality of the engine being switched off. He seemed in no immediate rush to get out of the car.