Strike meets Margaret Bunyan in the Scottish town of Melrose at the Ship’s Inn pub. She is the mother of Donald Laing’s ex-wife, Rhona. 

Mrs. Bunyan is described as being “around sixty, small and fragile-looking, wearing metal-framed glasses … with tightly permed fair hair.” Strike’s purpose in meeting with her is to get information on her former son-in-law. She tells Strike quite a bit about Laing’s family life growing up in Melrose and his marriage to her daughter as well as some more recent history.

She is moved to tears when she talks about Rhona and the abuse that she endured from Laing. She also is profuse in her thanks to Strike for saving Rhona in Cyprus many years ago.