Ramage’s office was on the editorial floor, one level below the newsroom. Because no one but the board and admin staff came to editorial during Farquarson’s reign, the corridor always seemed to have the heavy scent of lemon in it, as if the cleaners had just been and no one had passed through to stir up the air. But doors were opened into some of the rooms now and boxes piled up along walls where people were laying claim to the space. It felt like the emergence of a new class in a new regime, splitting off from the old journalistic camaraderie and boxing themselves away from everyone else.

Ramage’s name was on a door that she remembered from a scary incident a long time ago. Standing looking at it now made her feel sick and frightened. She knocked, waited for the call, and then opened the door to the conference room, the biggest on the floor.

Ramage was sitting a mile away, watching the door from behind a massive dark oak desk. The desk was built like a small castle: solid, square, and elaborately ornamented with carvings of apples, finials, oyster shells, all topped with a lush green leather top. It shamed the nasty industrial carpet and navy blue Hessian walls. All he had in front of him was a telephone, a leatherbound notebook, and a gold fountain pen. His chair was red leather, mounted on an oak frame that tipped back. He wore a crisp blue shirt and black suspenders, tipped back in his seat, tapping his teeth with the pen, and looking her up and down.

“I’m Meehan, calls car night shift.” She didn’t like him looking at her. She’d have been rude if he wasn’t sacking people all over the place.

“What do you want?”

“I’m on a story, Strathclyde police’re claiming the Vhari Burnett murderer was a guy who committed suicide the other night. I saw the guy at the Burnett door and it wasn’t him. The police saw him too but they’re sitting on the evidence.”

She saw an excited flicker in his eyes but he sat forward and blinked, hiding it from her.

“Thing is, the story isn’t ready yet, it’s my word against theirs and I need to get some other evidence before I run with it.”

“Good. Good story, it’s got legs. Burnett was a good-looking bird, it’ll keep going.”

She couldn’t disguise her lip curl and he saw it.

“Meehan, don’t give me any women’s lib shit.” Ramage hissed the word. “I haven’t got time for that crap.”

“No, Boss.” She spoke so flatly, eyes half-closed, that they both heard her telling him that she hated him.

“I had a girl working for me in the last place. She had bigger tits than you but I like girls on the floor, gives the place a different atmosphere. I’m a definite fan of the female species.” He smiled a toothy smile that never got anywhere near his eyes. Paddy smiled back, matching his warmth, and considered stabbing him in the face with his letter opener.

Both of the drivers involved in the crash stood sullenly on the steep motorway grass verge, arms crossed, twenty feet apart, ignoring each other while the police and firemen and ambulance men chatted around the fused cars. The whole west carriageway was shut down, a cordon farther back keeping the few midnight motorists waiting until all the debris could be safely picked off the road.

The driver of the Mini Metro said it was an unfortunate mistake; according to the Ford Anglia it was an act of vicious stupidity. The two cars moving along the motorway at two thirty a.m. had made contact in the middle lane after the Metro, realizing that he was about to miss the off-ramp for his exit, slid across from the inside lane without looking or indicating. The cars had somehow locked flanks and waltzed across all three carriageways, failing to turn over because they were stuck together.

When the police arrived the men were jammed in their cars, side by side, screaming abuse at each other. They didn’t shut up until the firemen threatened to piss off and leave them like that. Once they’d been cut out and the ambulance service had the chance to examine them, neither man was found to have a bruise or a mark on him. Both cars were write-offs.

It was a nice call to be on. There were no fights to break up, no one had died, and the emergency service lingered on the empty carriageway in a moment of unexpected bonhomie, like a town fair held on a frozen river.

Half an hour ago Billy had gone to find a phone box to ask the office to send the photographer out. Frankie Miles had turned up with a ton weight of photographic equipment in a shoulder bag and then realized he didn’t have a News chitty for the return taxi ride. He couldn’t walk far with the heavy bag and wouldn’t find a roving black cab at this time of night without walking to a rank anyway. Billy and Paddy offered to run him back, so now he and Billy were standing by the car, smoking silently as they rested their bums on the warm bonnet and waited for her.

Paddy was finishing up her notes, checking the junction number on the overhead sign, when she noticed the funny officer from Thillingly’s drowning holding forth to a crowd of uniformed officers. Remembering Dub, she walked over and joined them, momentarily distracting his audience and causing him to mistime an important line. She held up her hands and waited for him to finish his story.

“So I go, ‘That woman’s had more miscarriages than the Argentine judiciary.’”

The men laughed dutifully and drifted off.

“Thanks very much; you just ruined my story.”

“I didn’t know you were in full flow. I wanted to ask you something. The river death the other night, is it definitely murder?”

“Well, yeah, that’s how they’re dealing with it.”

“Was there some physical evidence, then? Was the torn cheek a wound from something?”

“Nah, they found a bit of stick in there from the river. But the guy was functioning fine on the actual day, his wife said. He left a note in his car, didn’t say why really, just blah blah can’t go on.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“A Golf GTI, top spec.” He nodded approvingly. “Nice.”

“Right, right.” Paddy glanced down the road. “Ever heard of a thug called Lafferty?”

“Bobby Lafferty?”

She wasn’t sure of his first name but repeated Sullivan’s description: “Big guy? Broad shoulders, bald head?”

“Aye. I arrested him for drunk driving a few years ago. He was so pissed he was in the backseat looking for the steering wheel.”

She laughed loud, pleasing him enough to prompt another story.

“I was lucky he was too pissed to fight me. He bit someone on the eye, ye know. Blinded the guy. He’ll do anyone, his relatives, his school pals, anyone.”

Paddy watched him, an obsequious smile on her face, privately observing. Lafferty was a known criminal and Vhari Burnett was a prosecutor. There had to be a link between them. She might have been prosecuting him for something, something that would cause him to attack her.

“He kicked his dog to death. His own dog. Can you imagine the mentality of the man? Threw it out the window, from twenty up.” His eyes were shining and if she blocked out the words he could be talking about a great sportsman or a war hero.

“Anything recent? Has he been charged with anything?”

“Nothing I’ve heard of. Doesn’t mean anything, though. They’re always up to something. Animals, these people, animals.” He nodded at her to concur but she was thinking about Lafferty and Thillingly and Burnett and she missed her cue by a half beat.

“Aye,” she said. “Aye, right enough.”

He looked wary. “You don’t know Lafferty, do you?”

“Like you, I also believe violent people to be animals.” The grammar was all wrong. She was talking like a bad robot. She giggled, looking away down the black glistening road to the three-car police cordon. “Oh, dear. Have you ever done continuous night shift for months on end?”