Moira was the first person to slag off Abercorn in an effort to make her feel better, but in truth Catherine now understood why they had made their decision, and it burned all the more because she knew they were right. She did hate these people, and her feelings could influence her judgement and have a deleterious effect upon her professional patience. When she had scum like Paddy Steel in her sights, she found it very hard to pull back and look at the whole battlefield.

Abercorn’s patience, by contrast, seemed limitless; so much so that he wasn’t perceived to be in any great hurry to actually prosecute any criminals, hence the derision that tended to accompany any mention of him or his unit.

He tapped on the glass gently and gave an almost apologetic wave by way of announcing his arrival. Huffs and tantrums must have been contra-indicated by his profiling of forty-one-year-old mothers-of-two.

As usual, he looked like he had spent ten minutes in the toilets preening himself before strolling up and attempting to look nonchalant. There was not a hair out of place on his sculpted coif and he was slickly dressed, his suit immaculately turned out and guaranteed bobble-free. Some might say smartly dressed, even suavely, but for Catherine, slick was the apposite term, the others lacking the necessary connotations of oil. She would admit she could imagine other females finding him good-looking, though maybe not other female cops. Abercorn reminded her a bit of Don Draper in Mad Men: attractive in a classical way, but the wrong side of polished for her taste. Not enough rough edges: all surface, no feeling.

‘Sorry to interrupt your lunch. I heard about James McDiarmid and just wanted to offer any information or insight I might be able to provide.’

Which translated as ‘I’m over here seeking to hoover up any information or insight your investigation might provide me.’

Actually, it might not even mean that. Abercorn was even harder to read than Sunderland, but the one thing you could be sure about was that there was always an agenda. The guy couldn’t ask you the time without there being a subtext in play.

‘I appreciate it,’ she said, trying not to sound too sugary. ‘Any kind of background will be welcome on this one. The door-to-doors are under way, but right now we’ve little more than a body and all the colourful context of the late Mr McDiarmid’s lifestyle.’

‘Now that is a broad canvas, isn’t it?’

‘Very. I spoke to Paddy Steel. He’s claiming he has no idea what it was about and that it came right out of the blue.’

Abercorn pursed his lips.