Catherine couldn’t disagree. Callahan might be disconcertingly unreadable up close, but when she took a step back, there was definitely something to be gleaned from his demeanour, from his unread-ability itself. That impression of dispassionate, functionary cooperation, that very air of indifferent tolerance and unemotional disengagement: there was more to all of that than the manifestation of his stony and disciplined single-mindedness. He was a career criminal, someone who had been taking shit from the polis since he was in short trousers. They had turned up to question one of his main men and he knew either that Fleeting was totally covered or totally innocent. Both ways, the cops were facing the custard-pie treatment. That should have been a sweet wee interlude for him, yet never mind milk the moment, he didn’t let a smile of satisfaction cross his lips, didn’t ‘lay the smack down’, as she had recently overheard Duncan say to one of his toys, when the polis were there on a plate.

Why wouldn’t he?

Because he wanted them gone. He didn’t want to do anything that would draw out the visit or engage them unnecessarily. The only tiny hint of provocation had come when he had the assurance of knowing they were already out the door. Whether or not he was covering up McDiarmid’s murder, Frankie Callahan had something else in the pipeline, something far more important.

Something way above her pay grade.

Asylum

Jasmine was almost simperingly grateful for the sat-nav programme Jim had politely insisted upon installing on her phone, not least because her Glasgow geography was sketchy at best, especially outside her comfort zones of the West End and South Side. Understandably, her Northumberland geography was non-existent, and she very much doubted she’d have found this place with a road map. Even using her phone, she had driven past it twice, assuming the software was wonky or the triangulation off track.

The address said 14 Hexham Road, Tolheaton, a town or village that appeared to be a good couple of miles away yet. At the device’s insistence she had doubled back on herself, but twice failed to put her faith in the flashing dot that appeared to be sitting in the middle of a field off the north side of the road. On her third pass she saw the narrow gate, little more than a single car’s width, among overgrown hedgerows and a canopy of trees. There was indeed a rusted number attached to the weather-worn right-hand gatepost, identifying it as number fourteen. Number twelve was presumably not exactly a next-door neighbour in friendly cup-of-sugar-borrowing distance.