The supplier had made inquiries of his own, but had passed the matter on to professional investigators Galt Linklater, in order to ensure that all evidence obtained was legal, above board and admissible in any court action. Galt Linklater had in turn subcontracted part of the job to Sharp Investigations, as they often did when their caseload exceeded their personnel.

Sharp Investigations was known less formally, to Jasmine at least, as Uncle Jim. He was an ex-cop, who had set up as a private investigator upon his retirement from the force. He’d been offered jobs with a few agencies, Galt Linklater among them, but for ‘reasons of professional experience’ that he was reluctant to elaborate upon, he preferred to be his own man. Sharp Investigations had thus always been a solo operation, and a successful one at that. How its scope and effectiveness might be improved by employing a nervous and clumsy young woman with no experience and even less natural aptitude was something Jasmine was still waiting to discover.

‘Foxtrot Five. Lights through to green no deviation Byres Road,’ she said. That was it. Why did these things come out right when she wasn’t thinking about them?

‘Delta Seven,’ Jim replied. ‘I am approaching the junction of Byres Road and Highburgh Road. Lights are red. I will be baulked.’

The fugitive businessman from Monday’s ghastliness had been named Pete Harper. He was from Kilwinning but had disappeared from his home six weeks before, and according to his landlord he had cancelled the direct debit that paid his rent. The supplier had provided a list of possible addresses where he might be lying low. Galt Linklater needed an establish: proof that he was living at a certain address, best obtained by doorstepping the guy with a hidden video camera recording the happy event.

This kind of job, Jim had explained to Jasmine, was precisely why he needed her on the firm.

‘Guy like this is going to be skittish at the best of times,’ he said. ‘So he’ll be hyper-suspicious of anybody asking questions while he’s doing his invisible. He’ll smell polis coming off me from a hundred yards out. Sees me through his window or the peephole in his front door and he’s not even going to answer the bell. That’s why Galt Linklater farmed it out: all their guys have ex-polis stamped on their foreheads. Fresh-faced young woman, on the other hand, different story.’

The logic was inarguably solid, but despite that, it just sounded to Jasmine all the more like he was taking pains to avoid admitting the real reason he’d taken her on.

‘Delta … I mean Foxtrot Five. Subject is indicating right right right on to Great George Street but is blocked by oncoming traffic.’

Shit. She should have said ‘offside indication, held due to oncoming traffic’. She was supposed to be practised at learning lines, for God’s sake.