Dental records were en route for all seven RHs on her list but she knew they were unlikely to match. None of the seven seemed a fit to the man in the tunnel but their names still worked for her, giving her a beat to work to, the rhythm of the lost.

She left the room and wandered the corridor for a bit, following her thoughts and staring idly into one of the smaller rooms used to counsel bereaved families. It was a halfway house between the living and the dead, all pastel colours and adjustable lighting. Would there be anyone to come and see the remains of the Molendinar Man? Anyone to say yes, that’s my son, my husband?

She turned and retraced her steps, feeling suddenly anxious to be with the evidence bags, to hold the clothes again and see the man that wore them, her thoughts coming together and a puzzle falling into place.

What did the clothing tell her? A mismatch of sizes and quality. The victim was either a man who just didn’t care much about what he wore or didn’t have much choice. She knew plenty of men who didn’t give much thought to their wardrobe, Tony for one, but they generally at least wore clothes that fitted them.

The cagoule with the cut-off label had to be second-hand. It looked it too. The rest was cheap but functional. All except the shoes. They’d been bought new and the man hadn’t skimped on the price.

Clothing worn, definitely seen better days. Maybe worn for longer than the time in the tunnel. A fleece and a cagoule? It wasn’t that cold yet, not unless you were outside a lot. Good shoes that fitted him but not the pattern.

They’d wondered about him being a farmer, a postman or a road sweeper but there were plenty of reasons other than a job for someone to spend a lot of time outside. Perhaps the lack of a job.

She had an idea but the torches, all three of them, didn’t fit in any way that made sense. Still, at least it was a place to start.

With a final crashing note, the song in her head stopped. Goodbye Henaghan, Hendry, Hegde, Hughes, Hillman, Handoo and Haynes. The man in the tunnel wasn’t an RH at all.

Second-hand clothes, worn and dirty. Good footwear an essential. No one to know he’d gone missing. No employer or loved one to call the police. No one can miss you if they don’t know you’re there to begin with.

She picked up the evidence bag with the little wooden key ring in it, staring at the initials and seeing them for what they really were. She signed the bag out and slipped it into her coat pocket, switched off the last of the lights and left the building.

The initials didn’t stand for a person’s name at all. It was a place. And she was sure she knew where.

When she phoned the operations room the next morning, she couldn’t help but sigh inside when it was Fraser Toshney, one of the DCs, who answered. She guessed he’d have to do.

‘Fraser, meet me in the car park in about ten minutes. Never mind why. We’re going to do some visiting. We’re going to start at the Rosewood Hotel.’

‘The down-and-outs’ place? Really?’ He didn’t sound best pleased.

‘Yes, really. And after that maybe every shop doorway between here and Dumbarton. And, Fraser? Take that moaning look off your face. Don’t think I can’t see it.’

‘Yes, Boss.’

Chapter 8

Sunday morning

Remy was off work. He’d managed less than half a day collecting trolleys at the store before declaring himself sick. And he was, just not in any way he could explain to them.

He’d probably always known that his hobby would get him into trouble one day. Going in places he shouldn’t. Climbing up things he shouldn’t. That’s why the word shouldn’t had been in there. And that’s why he’d always done it.

Now he was paying the price. His old man had always said that nothing was free in this world. There was an old coffee table in his dad’s front room that he’d ‘got free’ by collecting Kensitas Club coupons that came with his cigarettes and then exchanged at the shop in Cambridge Street. Of course, it wasn’t free at all and he paid for it by acquiring progressive lung disease. Not much of a deal really.

Remy wasn’t exactly what you’d call a rebel. No marching to ban the bomb even though he thought they should, no protest against globalization or Starbucks or Nestlé or Disney. He was more of a quiet rebel, a personal rebel, making his protest against the world by ignoring No Entry signs. He didn’t need them to tell him what was good for him or bad for him or whether an old building might fall on his head. It was his head.

Maybe loving buildings was his problem. Or loving Glasgow. Or being a bit weird. People might have thought he was odd if they knew he explored derelict hospitals, old schools or abandoned factories but what the hell would they think if they knew he had found that fucking body?

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Every time he closed his eyes it was there, its face staring back at his. Those empty eye sockets. The chewed cheeks. That poor bugger killed down there and left to rot. Stuck in that tunnel forever if he hadn’t been down there to find him. Now the cops would be examining every bit of him.

Two years on and off, Remy and Gabby had been going exploring together. Two years in which they’d become best friends but not boyfriend and girlfriend. He was a boy, she was a girl. They were friends. That was it.

They’d trawled the muddy old railway tunnels that ran under London Road where they danced on the rusting remains of an ancient car. They managed to get into the former Woolworths building on Argyle Street and wandered through the basement, the boiler room and the upper floors. They’d roamed the disused Gray Dunn biscuit factory in Kinning Park, searching its spooky warren of floors.

They explored the shell of St Columba’s Episcopal Church at midnight, having their own mass as a full moon streamed through the remaining stained-glass windows. They got into the former Transport Museum where they walked the cobbled street and sat in the Black Maria and imagined they were chasing themselves. They had an impromptu picnic on the rubble behind the façade of the old Woodilee Hospital at Lenzie.

They’d even climbed onto the roof of Glasgow University, clinging on for dear life and trying not to giggle as they looked down on the inner quadrangle and the chapel. They couldn’t believe the little walkways, doors and balconies that were up there. It was a bird’s-eye view of Hogwarts.

It hadn’t all been urbexing. They’d go out for drinks, as friends did. She’d been round at his dad’s flat a couple of times, one Christmas Eve and once for his old man’s birthday. He even got an invite to her sister’s wedding as her plus-one on the strict understanding that everyone would know that he wasn’t with her.

So they stuck to old buildings and a platonic relationship that killed him a little. The year before they’d climbed the Finnieston Crane on his birthday, both with a bottle of beer tucked in their backpacks, and then sat high above the Clyde to toast him being twenty-six. A couple of weeks after that they’d nearly got caught ‘swimming’ in the empty pool of the old Govanhill public baths.

They did all that and much more and yet he never had got round to asking her if maybe, you know, one day, they might actually go out on what normal people might consider to be a date. In a normal place. He knew why he hadn’t asked. In the back of his head he was scared that if he did then she’d say no and it would all be over.