Catherine looked across at the Bay Tree again, partly by way of overture to her answer but mostly so that Laura didn’t see the smile that crept across her face. She was still getting used to the girl’s idiosyncrasies, one of which was undoubtedly her Edinburgh accent, which tended to rise in tone at the end of every sentence, as though it was a question rather than a statement. This effect was cemented by her further habit of adding ‘eh?’ at the end of certain remarks, as though requiring affirmation.

Upon reflection, Catherine had realised that Glaswegians often did the same thing, adding ‘know?’ at the end of half their utterances, but her relative unfamiliarity with Laura’s accent made her invitation to agreement sound all the more genuine, albeit she couldn’t decide if it was needy or merely polite.

Maybe it wasn’t just unfamiliarity, however. Aside from the fact that the Glaswegian ‘know?’ was most definitely not the offer of an opportunity to dissent, there were other aspects of Laura’s manner that tended to give the impression she was permanently apologising for herself. It was to be expected, perhaps, Catherine thought. New city, new force, new bosses. She’d be treading very lightly for a while yet. It just didn’t quite tally with the reports of a headstrong and spiky young DI that Catherine had both heard and read ahead of her arrival.

‘I ask because I remember what this place used to be like, and I was feeling for the folk in those two semis opposite. They used to look across the street to a homey wee cottage that looked like something out of a seven-year-old girl’s painting. Now every time they open their venetian blinds, they get confronted with twenty or thirty folk stuffing their faces.’

Catherine was referring to the Bay Tree’s twenty-first-century makeover, expanding it all the way to what was once the bounds of its front garden by means of a huge all-glass extension running the full breadth of the premises. The renovation job was rumoured to have cost close to seven figures, but had paid off by transforming a glorified tea parlour into a glitzy restaurant and bar, ideally situated to sell Thornton Bridge’s aspirational new denizens an expensive but satisfying helping of lifestyle. The only bustling middle-aged women to be found there these days were seated at rather than waiting the tables: all push-up bras and blonde dye-jobs, Botoxed to the max.

Catherine didn’t imagine they were doing high teas any more, but she wouldn’t know. She’d never been in and nor would she spend two bob in the place, for the simple reason that it belonged to Frankie Callahan, and that alone would make the food taste like ashes.

‘Is it a money-laundering front?’ Laura asked, glancing at the busy scene behind the glass.