fternoons in the Caf¨¦ Virginia were subdued affairs. Solo coffee drinkers flicked through newspapers, bar staff cleared lunchtime debris and cleaned tables, Horse sang "Breathe Me" and Rory wrote copy. Lindsay was online, browsing the newspaper archives, trying to get up to speed with her native land in the third millennium. There was, she thought, something very soothing about it all. She could hardly believe how quickly her general sense of malaise at being back in Scotland had fled. If nothing else, it told her how much she needed work to give her a sense of purpose. Now, if only Sophie would give up this madness, she would be entirely content.

The calm was shattered by a new arrival. His voice carried from the front bar right through to the back booth. "I'm looking for Rory McLaren," the thunder said. Lindsay looked up to see the husband from the previous evening's police press conference waving a twenty-pound note under Annie's nose.

"Through the back, corner booth," she said, trousering the twenty without missing a beat in her stocking of the fridge.

The man mountain looked around suspiciously as he wove a path through the tables towards their corner. Why, Lindsay wondered, did straight people always think they were about to be propositioned as soon as they entered a gay establishment? Had they even looked in a mirror lately?

He stopped at the table, his eyes swivelling from one to the other. "Rory McLaren?" he asked, almost hesitant.

Rory finally looked up and said wearily, "Tam Gourlay. As in," she slipped into mimicry of a semi-hysterical radio advert, " 'Gourlay's Garage, your first choice for previously owned vehicles." "

"Very funny," Gourlay growled.

"The expos¨¦ I did on the tricks of the second-hand car trade, right?"

"Hey, nobody was happier than me to see you closing down the toerags and the cowboys," he protested.

"So what do you want with me, Mr Gourlay? Come to shop some more of your dodgy colleagues?" Rory looked back at her screen, giving off boredom like musk.

"There's somebody I want you to meet."

Rory flicked him a glance, amused and questioning.

"I've got a taxi waiting outside."

She snorted. "And that's the pitch, is it? Go off in a taxi with a strange man who associates with a bunch of people I've put out of business. Very tempting."

"I thought youse investigative reporters were supposed to be fearless?"

"Fearless isn't the same as stupid."

"Rory?" Lindsay thought she'd better intervene before Gourlay burst a blood vessel. Rory raised her eyebrows. "I don't think Mr Gourlay is here because of cowboy car dealers. I think the person he wants you to meet is his wife. Her wee boy got snatched by his natural father yesterday. Tug-of-love kidnap."

"Right," Rory said, instantly grasping the tabloid shorthand. She looked up at Gourlay, her smile apologetic. "I'm sorry for your trouble. But I don't do stories like that. I think it's a private eye you need."

Gourlay shook his big head. "Christ. I don't just want the boy found, I want the world to know about this cover-up. It's a scandal, that's what it is. But you? You're as bad as the fucking polis. Because Bruno Cavadino's a diplomat, nobody wants to know."

"A diplomat?" Lindsay interrupted, her interest pricked.

"Aye. So all we're getting is, 'There's bugger all we can do, dinnae rock the boat, be a good boy.' And all the time my wife's going off her head with worry. Who knows where the fuck the boy is now? And, apart from us, it seems like nobody cares either." His frustration was obvious.

"Rory, let's go and have a wee chat with Mrs Gourlay. This diplomatic angle, it's interesting. Could be a good piece in it," Lindsay said, sounding more casual than she felt.

Rory sighed. "Oh, all right. It's not like we're snowed under with work."

Lindsay smiled up at Gourlay. "Give us a minute to get sorted here, we'll meet you outside." She extended a hand which was enveloped in a meaty paw. "I'm Lindsay Gordon, by the way. Rory and I work together."

"Thanks," he said gruffly, then turned and walked out.

"I can't believe you think this is worth pursuing," Rory grumbled as she closed her computer down. "Tug of love, ten a penny. Hague Convention doesn't work, so what's new?"

Packing up her laptop, Lindsay said, "Abuse of diplomatic immunity. You can always get a good head of moral indignation going on that one. And this is a wee bit tastier than cultural attach¨¦s not paying their parking tickets. Look, if you don't want to come, I'll handle it."

"No, you're all right. I've done more or less all I was going to do this afternoon anyway. I might as well come along for the ride."

She doesn't quite trust me yet, Lindsay thought ruefully as she followed Rory out into the street. Tam Gourlay was leaning against a black cab, waiting for them. As they headed west past George Square, Gourlay leaned forward and frowned at Rory.

"So how come you ended up with a man's name?"

"My mother's sentimental. I was conceived in a field just north of Aberdeen."

Both Gourlay and Lindsay smiled. "Aurora Borealis. Helluva mouthful for a wee lassie," he said, reaching for his cigarettes and lighting up.

"Hey," the cab driver protested. "Can you no' read? It says no smoking."

"I've got to smoke," Gourlay said. "I've got a doctor's line. See, if I don't smoke, I lose the place and rip the heads off taxi drivers. OK, pal?"

"It's true," Lindsay confirmed. "I've seen him. We've had him on tablets, patches, the lot. It's only the fags that keep him stable."

The taxi driver shook his head in mock disgust. "See Glasgow and die, right enough."

The living room of Tam and Bernie Gourlay's flat spoke of an unpretentious comfort. It felt lived in, with a child's toys piled into a couple of boxes in one corner, shelves that contained a mixture of popular women's fiction and sports videos, Monet's Water Lilies on the walls. When they arrived, Bernie was sitting by the bay window in the late afternoon dusk. Gourlay switched the light on as he entered, but Bernie didn't react. She continued to stare out of the window, smoking with an air of desperation.

"Bernie?" he said. "Bernie, this is Lindsay and Rory. They're going to help us find Jack. They're journalists."

At the word "journalist", Bernie's head jerked sharply towards them. "I'm sorry," she said coldly, her flat Belfast accent as strong as the day she'd left. "He's been wasting your time. Everybody's written the story already."

Rory shrugged and looked at Lindsay, who kept her expression blank. "This is our best chance," Gourlay protested. "The polis willnae help, they wankers at the Foreign Office willnae help. We need somebody in our corner that knows what they're doing. Somebody that'll no' let them get away wi' it."

"No, Tam. I said no, and I meant it. A few stories in the papers won't bother Bruno. You don't know what you're getting into here." Her red-rimmed eyes stared unblinking at him, but her hands were trembling.

"This is Glasgow, no' bloody Sicily. Christ, Bernie. I don't understand you. Do you no' want the boy back, or what?"

"Of course I do." For a moment, her façade wavered and Lindsay could see naked fear in Bernie's eyes. "But what can they do to help? We've already held a bloody press conference, for all the good that did us."

"Listen, this pair, they investigate things. They expose scandals. It's what they do. And this diplomatic immunity bullshit, that's a scandal if ever there was one."

Seeing Rory edging towards the door, Bernie said triumphantly, "See for yourself. She knows it's a waste of time. Go on, darlin', away back to the pub."

Rory shrugged. "I already told your husband what you needed was a private eye. But he insisted."

This time, there was no mistaking the look of panic in Bernie's eyes. "A private eye?" she gasped.

"They're good at finding missing persons," Rory said gently. "They've got a lot of experience. I could give you a couple of names if you like?"

Bernie's eyes widened and her mouth opened. But no words came. Lindsay watched Bernie, assessing her. Something was off key. Bernie Gourlay wasn't behaving like a desperate mother who'd move heaven and earth to get her child back. Intrigued, Lindsay said, "Of course, a private eye will want to keep everything under wraps. Personally, I think publicity's your best chance of finding out where your son is. And that's the first step to getting him back."

Bernie snatched at the chance. "You know, I think you might be right," she gabbled. "All right. I'll talk to you. But don't you ever forget, Tam Gourlay, it was you that set this ball rolling."

Gourlay looked baffled but clearly wasn't about to question her surrender. "I'll make a pot of tea," he said, backing out of the room. Rory had the good sense to settle herself in an armchair and try to blend into the background.

"So, Bernie, what exactly does Bruno do for the Italian Foreign Office?" Lindsay asked.

"He's a commercial attach¨¦."

"And where's he stationed now?"

"The last I heard, he was in Belgrade."

"Not exactly a place you'd want your six-year-old son to be, I imagine."

Bernie said nothing. But Lindsay wasn't giving in so easily. "How would Bruno get him out of the country?"

"Jack has two passports. I've got his British one and Bruno's got his Italian one."

"Convenient for Bruno. So, how did you two meet?"

"I'd not long come over from Ireland. I was working as a waitress in a hotel in town. Bruno used to come in a few times a week. He asked me out, and we just clicked. We were married two months later." Bernie lit another cigarette.

"So what went wrong?"

"Italian men don't want wives. They want servants. Just because I was a waitress when I met him, it doesn't mean I wanted to wait on him hand, foot and finger for the rest of my days. Besides, I don't think I was smart enough to make the right sort of embassy wife." There was no mistaking the bitterness now. "So I left him. Jack was only a year old."

"That must have been tough," Lindsay sympathized.

"What would you know about tough?" Bernie demanded contemptuously. "Yes, it was tough. I hooked up with one of the women I used to work with at the hotel. I minded her kids in the evenings when she was working, and she looked after Jack during the day so I could get a job. And that's when my luck turned. Tam advertised for a receptionist, and I answered the ad. I thought I'd finally fallen on my feet. It should have occurred to me that Bruno would hate the idea of another man bringing up his son."

"So Bruno tried to get custody of Jack?" Lindsay asked.

"He tried, and he failed. I thought he'd given up the idea, but clearly I was wrong." Bernie bit her lip. Now her distress was clearer than at any time since they'd arrived. Taking advantage of it, Lindsay continued to probe for more background details on Bruno, managing to extract from Bernie that he had originally come from the Val d'Eisa area of Tuscany. But whenever she tried to get Bernie to talk about Jack, she clammed up. After half an hour, Lindsay had to concede defeat. She wasn't going to get any further with Bernie Gourlay. She promised to do everything in her power to track down Jack's whereabouts, then she and Rory made their escape.

"That was seriously weird," Rory said as they walked down the street, the red sandstone tenements stained the colour of dried blood by the early evening gloom. "You'd think she'd be desperate for help. But it was like she couldn't get us out of there fast enough."

"Yeah, I know. There's something not kosher there. Maybe our Bruno is a wee bit more dodgy than a commercial attach¨¦. Maybe he's a spook. Or maybe he has connections." Lindsay glanced at her watch.

"What? You mean, as in, 'Respect the family'?" Rory said in a terrible impersonation of Marlon Brando.

Lindsay winced. "I know, I know, you can be Italian without being a Mafioso. But I'm curious, all the same."

"Maybe there's another reason why she's ambivalent about Jack coming home," Rory said slowly.

"How do you mean?"

"Maybe it's not all happy families in Kinghorn Drive. Maybe Tam's abusing the boy?"

Lindsay turned the idea over in her mind and dismissed it. "He's not the type," she said decisively.

"Suddenly there's a type?" Rory demanded.

"Of course not, I'm not that naïve. But Tam Gourlay is possibly the least sleazy guy I've met in years. Besides, abusers don't do anything to draw attention to their relationship to their victims, and Tam's hardly trying to hush things up."

Rory shrugged. "It would explain what we've just seen."

"I don't buy it. My gut says no." They walked on in silence for a few yards, approaching the corner where their routes home would naturally separate.

"Hey, you know what?" Rory said suddenly, bright as fresh paint.

"What?"

"This is your very first proper story. We should go out and celebrate. A bottle of champagne, a nice dinner. What do you say?" If she'd had a tail, she'd have been wagging it in supplication.

It was tempting. An evening with Rory would have seemed like an attractive option at the best of times. And, whatever this was, it wasn't the best of times. Almost anything would have sounded more fun than another evening discussing conception. But giving in to temptation wasn't the most sensible way to fix things between her and Sophie. "I'd love to, Rory, but I need to get back."

They'd reached the corner. "Fine," Rory said, her nonchalance obviously forced. "Another time, maybe. When you've cleared it with Sophie."

Before Lindsay could protest that she didn't need to clear her social engagements with her girlfriend, Rory had swung off down the street. Oh well, Lindsay thought as she trudged up the hill towards home. At least she had a story of her own to get her teeth into.

Michael Conroy waited for the cover of darkness before he made his latest reconnaissance of the street where Bernadette Dooley lived with her husband. Jesus, Joseph and Mary, but the husband was a big fucker. Michael feared no man, but he liked the odds to be weighted in his favour, preferably with serious hardware. Whatever it was that Bernadette had taken from Patrick, he'd be happy if it could be recovered without a direct confrontation with the big man.

Patrick had gone very quiet when he'd reported back about Bernadette getting her name all over the papers. Michael knew his boss well enough to read the silence, to realize that Patrick was seriously unhappy, not least because Michael's direct warning had proved unproductive. He figured Patrick had maybe been planning to use threats against the boy as further leverage, so his disappearance would be a helluva spoke in your man's wheel.

All the same, it was some coincidence, the lad getting snatched just when Patrick took an interest in the mother. But coincidences happened. Michael knew that. A couple of his best friends had done long stretches inside because of coincidence. It didn't worry him.

At least, it didn't worry him nearly as much as Patrick's instructions to keep Bernadette under close surveillance. Kinghorn Drive, where she lived with the big fucker, was a quiet residential street. The kind of place where, even if there wasn't an official Neighbourhood Watch, there was bound to be some nosy old bitch twitching the nets day in, day out. If they tried keeping watch from a car, one of the local busybodies would be on to the police within the hour.

Where the hell else could they watch from? There wasn't a single vantage point anywhere in the street that would avoid suspicion.

The answer came on his third pass along Kinghorn Drive. A couple of doors down from the Gourlays' flat, on the opposite side of the street, a second-floor flat had a poster in the window announcing it was for sale. Peering up through the dark, Michael could make out the absence of curtains, a sure sign of vacant possession. He'd pulled a stunt like this once before with an empty flat.

Tomorrow morning, he'd present himself at the estate agent's, clean and shaved. A film maker looking for a location. Willing to pay top dollar for the use of an empty flat for a couple of weeks. An empty flat like that one he'd noticed on Kinghorn Drive. Surely the owner would be happy to make a few bob at no inconvenience to himself? It wasn't as if there would be any obstacle to potential viewing. At an hour's notice from the agent, the film crew could be up and away, as if they'd never been there.

Michael walked briskly back to the pub where he'd left Kevin supping Guinness. With a bit of luck, he'd be able to satisfy Patrick without taking any risks. In Michael's book, that made it a very good day indeed.