Henaghan. Hendry. Hegde. Hughes. Hillman. Handoo. Haynes. It became a verse in her head with a rhythm all of its own, singing to her as she worked her way through the clothing and meagre belongings of Henaghan, Hendry, Hegde, Hughes, Hillman, Handoo or Haynes.

The first evidence bag contained the navy-blue fleece. Size large. Department store label. Pretty cheap. It was streaked with damp and smelled of death and the tunnel. It was lined and elasticated with a zip all the way to the neck.

She didn’t like the new mortuary much. It was brand-spanking-new, state-of-the-art shiny, with every possible facility required to host mortuary and forensic services under one roof. But it lacked soul. Maybe that would come with time but for now it left her as cold as the stainless-steel tables with a bank of cameras pointing at each.

Everyone else had gone home for the night and she was alone with the evidence bags, the clothing and the seven. Henaghan. Hendry. Hegde. Hughes. Hillman. Handoo. Haynes.

Ravindra Hegde didn’t seem a likely name for a white man with reddish hair. Neither did Rohak Handoo. She wasn’t naïve enough to rule them out on that alone but both were also too short. The rumour was that Hegde had owed money to the wrong people and that he’d never be found. Handoo had had a bust-up with his in-laws but beyond that no one had said anything about where he might have gone.

Henaghan, Hendry, Hughes and Hillman. Henaghan, Hendry, Hughes and Hillman.

The two-tone blue nylon cagoule had survived better than the fleece. It was a good make, expensive. Large. The label at the neck had been snipped off. Odd thing to do with a designer brand. The part of the label that remained had the hint of lettering in black felt pen.

Robert Hillman from the Western Isles would be forty-nine now. He had learning difficulties and his elderly parents had started a poster campaign that was carried across the country. It was thought that maybe he’d fallen into a river or walked into a peat bog and never got out.

Henaghan, Hendry, Hughes and Haynes.

She missed the low red brick of the old City Mortuary near the High Court on the Saltmarket. Sure it was cramped, cold and outdated but it was the real thing. Bricks and mortar. Rough and ready. Memories and legends. The victims of Bible John and Peter Manuel had been laid out there. It had an atmosphere that you couldn’t miss. It had scared her witless the first time she was in there on her own. The new place couldn’t scare her if it tried. Its ghosts were all just children.

Reggie Haynes was of Jamaican parentage and his photographs showed he had a distinctive hooked nose. The age and height would have fitted but nothing else seemed to.

Henaghan, Hendry and Hughes. Henaghan, Hendry and Hughes.

She picked up the bag containing the dead man’s disintegrating shoes. The fact that they’d survived as well as they had was testament to their good quality. They were lightweight and flexible hiking boots, Gore-Tex lined with a tough rubber sole. Expensive. Size nine.

Robert Henaghan had dark hair and was just five foot seven. He’d said goodbye to his wife at breakfast and left to go to his office but never arrived. There had been debts and doubts but no one ever knew if he’d simply disappeared or if something had happened to him.

The white T-shirt was cheap and mass-produced. Medium. Shop’s own label.

She’d gathered her MIT squad together in Pitt Street and tasked them with brainstorming ideas of who the man was and why he’d been killed where he had. The suggestions had come thick and fast, some more helpful than others. Loner. Geologist. Local historian. Dealer looking for somewhere to hide his stash. Hermit. Schizophrenic. Potholer.

Did any of these tags apply to their man? Was Hendry a geologist, was Hughes or Haynes a hermit? Was Henaghan a risk taker? Did Hillman go willingly with his killer and, if so, why?

All the loose thoughts would be examined, every thread pulled until something unravelled. Hopefully. These would be hard yards. Nothing more than a methodical slog.

Ryan Hughes had been missing since he was seven years old in Swansea. God only knew what height he was or where he had been living. No one even knew if he’d reached eight. For a while, the broken faces of his parents had become familiar on television, then they too slowly disappeared from view.

Rico Giannandrea was on her MIT squad. Until a few months earlier, they’d both been DSs at Stewart Street and the situation would have been awkward if it had been anyone else. Not Rico though. If he had to ride shotgun then he’d be the best shotgun in town; there on time, full of bright ideas and positivity. He’d be that way as a DS until he wasn’t a DS any more.

It was Rico who had suggested they might be looking at someone reckless. A risk taker. Maybe someone who’d done something equally stupid before. Maybe something a profiler could work with.

Why the hell would anyone need three torches? Three of them tucked away inside the nylon backpack along with spare batteries. Had he intended to live down that tunnel for a month? The Swiss Army knife made sense if he had been hillwalking or camping but why three torches?

The mortuary was silent and cold. Not cold like the old place where it made you shiver on a summer’s day. Sterile cold, like the sluiced-down tables and floors you could eat your dinner off. All she could hear was the faint buzz of electricity and the names that danced through her head.

The squad was sure that the location meant that the killer knew Glasgow well. They guessed that maybe five per cent of people even knew the Molendinar Burn existed. Less than half of those would know you could get into it or where. She remembered scribbling on her whiteboard. Local. Knowledgeable.

Richard Hendry was already five foot eleven when he’d disappeared aged seventeen. Chances were he’d grown more than enough to be taller than the man in the tunnel. He’d been in his last year at school when he failed to return from a night out with friends. The search for him had gone viral, hitting every teenage Facebook page in the land, but he was never seen again.

Rico had been sure that killer and victim had gone into the tunnel together. The chances of the murderer stumbling across him there were minuscule. Yes, he could have followed him but it seemed much more likely they’d gone down there together. Narey had written on the whiteboard again. Killer known to victim?

No one knew how many people went missing in Scotland or the UK every year. The best guess was far too many. Some went missing but were never reported, others were reported out but never back in again. The ones old enough to be thought capable of looking after themselves, they could bugger off and go where they liked. More difficult these days of course when every transaction leaves a digital trail but still quite possible to do.

She had interviewed too many distraught parents whose grown-up baby had done a disappearing act and had to tell far too many of them that there was nothing she could do. Not until the kid was harmed or broke the law. If they ended up living under an underpass or begging for change in London then there was a good chance they’d disappear forever.

Henaghan, Hendry, Hegde, Hughes, Hillman, Handoo and Haynes. She wandered round in the room’s harsh white light and hummed the tune to herself as she walked and thought.

She’d already decided that an artist’s impression of this guy wasn’t going to cut it. They were going to need a facial reconstruction. She’d put in a call to a friend, Professor Kirsten Fairweather at the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University, to ask if her department would do a 3D reconstruct. Kirsten had been only too happy to help and was making arrangements to get the process started. It would, of course, take time, and until then there was no choice but to continue to do it old-school.