‘A placenta?’ Benjamin repeated.

  The DS nodded. ‘He didn’t know what it was, but he knew enough to call the police. A thirteen-year-old girl had a baby and the mother tried to conceal the birth.’

  ‘In this day and age? Why?’

  ‘My guess would be incest,’ she suggested. ‘The game the whole family can play.’

  ‘The friend,’ the DI persisted. ‘Alexander Smyth with a Y, you said. Did you confirm that he’s dead?’

  ‘No,’ Wright admitted, ‘but I will. I had a look at number seventy-seven, where Jackie said he lived. The window frames are the same as his; that suggests it’s a tenancy too. The landlord’s likely to be a housing association, so I’ll start with them.’

  ‘Yes please, Jackie.’ McClair drew a breath. ‘While you’re doing that,’ she added, ‘Naomi Trott’s post-mortem report says that she probably had a child at some point. If she did, it’ll be registered . . . unlike her death, obviously.’ She turned to Benjamin. ‘Tiggy, I need you to get on to the Registrar General’s office and ask for a search of births registered in the Dundee area, looking for someone called Naomi as the mother. I want all the details; date and place of birth, the name of the child, and most important, who the father was. Beyond that find out everything you can about her, where she went to school, where she worked, who her friends were, everything. Got it?’

  The young DC smiled, pleased with the responsibility she was being given. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘The good news,’ McClair continued, with emphasis, ‘is that we now have a pretty accurate timeframe. Until now our understanding of when Samuel and Naomi were murdered was approximate. Thanks to Jackie’s friend Eck, we know at least that Samuel Trott was alive when Moses was released from that prison sentence. We can put an exact date on that, compare it with the timing of the tree planting and we’ll know that he, and let’s assume his sister, were buried within that period. Tiggy, while you’re building a profile for Naomi and her possible child, I’ll do the same for her brother.’ She looked at her colleagues. ‘Good?’

  ‘Good,’ they replied in unison.

  McClair was reaching for her phone, which had been charging, when it sounded. She freed the cable, put it to her ear and accepted the call. ‘Yes?’

  A quick short gasp made Wright turn to look at her. As she did, she saw the DI’s eyes widen for a few moment, then crease into a frown. ‘Absolutely,’ she heard her say, ‘but I won’t be alone when I do.’

  Fifty-Two

  Sauce Haddock stood silent, thinking of times gone by and of unfulfilled potential, reading again the name on the stone. ‘Samuel Pye. Beloved husband and father.’ His friend, his boss, his mentor, whose place he had taken after his diagnosis of motor neurone disease, and whose path to higher rank he trod. Since the funeral he had visited Pye’s grave at least once a month. Usually he would take flowers but he had seen none that morning that were worthy. For a few more moments he looked down, then, whispering, ‘So long, Luke,’ he pulled his coat tight around his body and turned to walk away. He was distracted, still lost in the past, and so as he neared his parked car it took him completely by surprise when he realised that he was being watched. ‘What the . . .’ he exclaimed, involuntarily.

  ‘Sorry, Sauce,’ Noele McClair said. ‘We didn’t mean to startle you. The office told us you were here, and we thought it was better to come to you rather than wait at Fettes.’

  Haddock looked back at her and at her companion. The hood on her overcoat was pulled up and it took him a few puzzled seconds to recognise ACC Becky Stallings. ‘Ma’am,’ he murmured. ‘Noele. Why the ambush? Am I in trouble?’

  ‘Not at all, DCI Haddock,’ Stallings replied. She looked around. ‘Can we talk in that waiting room over there? It’s empty and there might even be some heating in it.’

  He shrugged. ‘Lead on.’

  The room was for mourners attending funerals in the crematorium that was close to the cemetery, somewhere to shelter when its schedule overran. On a normal winter day it might have been full, but the DCI had noticed a sign earlier saying that all cremations had been postponed due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’. An unpaid gas bill? he had wondered idly.

  As Stallings had hoped, there was a radiant electric heater mounted on the wall. She pulled the cord that switched it on, and stood close by. ‘DI McClair,’ she said, ‘perhaps you’d like to explain.’

  Cheers for that! McClair thought, ironically. ‘DCI Haddock,’ she began.

  He raised a hand. ‘Stop!’ he demanded. ‘Why the formality, Noele? This is sounding more and more like a disciplinary. Am I being accused of something? If so, this isn’t a proper place, or a proper procedure.’

  ‘It isn’t, Sauce,’ his colleague assured him. ‘The ACC’s only here because I asked her to be. This is a personal matter for you, although it’s something that’s come up in the course of our inquiry.’

  ‘Your inquiry, Noele,’ he reminded her. ‘I was stood down, remember. Okay,’ he conceded, ‘there was no real choice. Go on with whatever it is.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, gratefully. ‘You know that the skeleton Jazz found on Sunday wasn’t the only one buried in those woods.’

  ‘Yes, I do. You found a second.’

  ‘We did. We now believe we’ve identified both of them, thanks to DNA comparison. They’re the son and daughter of a man named Moses Trott, a career criminal from Dundee. Their names are, or rather they were, Samuel and Naomi. Samuel was the one under the tree,’ she added. ‘Sarah Grace’s autopsies established that they both met violent deaths, twenty-nine years ago. We don’t know the circumstances and we don’t know how they came to be there, but they’re definitely Moses Trott’s offspring.

  ‘Has he been interviewed?’ Haddock asked.

  ‘Yes, but that was a disaster, Sauce. We found him in a care home with advanced dementia. When we told him the bodies of his son and daughter had been found, he started to scream and had to be restrained and sedated. The home doesn’t want him any longer. He’s old, but he’s loud, violent and disruptive. He’s his probation officer’s problem from now on. He’s a lifer on licence. When I called the PO this morning, she said that could mean he winds up in the State Mental Hospital at Carstairs. But,’ she continued, ‘none of that’s what we came to tell you. The search for matches from the skeletons didn’t stop with Trott. The samples were run through every accessible database. There are a few, but one that’s kept in Edinburgh of samples taken for clinical and therapeutic reasons gave us a second match with both Samuel and Naomi. Arthur Dorward called me himself this morning to tell me about it. When he did, I called the ACC and we came to Edinburgh to find you.’

  ‘That’s kind of both of you,’ he snapped, testily. ‘Now, would you stop being so fucking hesitant and tell me what the fuck this is!’

  McClair was about to answer, but Stallings, pulling rank or simply seeking to justify her presence, intervened. ‘The match, DCI Haddock, is with Samantha Abigail McCullough Haddock. I believe she’s your daughter.’

  Fifty-Three

  Verona Lyon had not been hard to find. A simple Facebook search had located her in under a minute, one of two among the social media site’s billions of users. The other included little or no personal information but Lottie Mann’s quarry was effusive in her profile and active in her posts. It told the DCI almost everything she wanted to know about her other than her age and her exact address, although she was happy to list her home town as Bellshill, a Lanarkshire community that Mann remembered from her days as a PC in the defunct Strathclyde force. It was a place that had been driven by the processing of steel made in Motherwell, and in Gartcosh, an old steel mill that had become the site of the modern crime campus. When that industry had collapsed, the county had faced multiple deprivation, but gradually its economy had been reshaped, with grudgingly acknowledged government help. There was still unemployment, but job opportunities existed and these were more varied than ever before. Bellshill was no prettier than it had been when Mann was a regular visitor but the buildings in its centre were solid stone, red and light grey sandstone. She looked around as she parked her car in Main Street; some of the businesses had changed since she was a regular visitor but a few of them had been there for a century and more.

  Verona Lyon’s home faced one of those, the Sceptre Bar, a popular place that was one of the town’s unofficial social centres. Mann opened the unsecured street entrance and climbed a stone stair to reach a landing shared with the dentist whose brass plate was outside. She pressed Lyon’s Ring doorbell and held her police ID close to the camera.

  The woman who opened the door was instantly recognisable from her social-media profile. The detective wondered if she applied her full makeup before or after she made breakfast. ‘DCI Mann,’ she exclaimed, as if she was interviewing a radio guest, ‘how exciting. Come on in. I love a mystery.’

  It was obvious at once to her visitor that Lyon lived alone. There seemed to be nothing in the entrance hallway that did not fit her image and certainly nothing that indicated any male presence. They passed an open door on the left that revealed a narrow room housing a long dining table with four high-backed chairs on either side. A step beyond, on the right another room was on view, with a single chair facing a small Ikea desk. Behind it, Mann noted a low sideboard with a vase of fresh flowers behind.

  Verona Lyon read her curiosity. ‘For the telly,’ she said. ‘I’m a regular participant on a chat show for a satellite TV channel. Four participants, each in a different location. Mine used to be a studio in Glasgow, then come the pandemic we all stayed at home and did it online. The producers liked that because it cut their overheads, so we’ve never gone back to the studio. The lilies? I picked that up from an academic who’s never off the news. She has a vase behind her and you never see the same flowers two days running. Her florist must be a happy bunny; I know mine is.’

  They carried on into a bay-windowed sitting room to the left of the staircase. Mann noted that it overlooked the Sceptre, and wondered whether Lyon enjoyed the view from time to time. She doubted that she fitted the customer profile.

  ‘Take your coat off and have a seat.’ The woman pointed to one of two armchairs on either side of a log-effect gas fire. ‘Let’s get down to business,’ she said as Mann sank into soft upholstery, putting her at an immediate psychological disadvantage, ‘and leave the obligatory coffee until we’re done.’

  The detective found herself liking the direct approach. ‘Suits me.’ She shifted in the chair, sitting as upright as it allowed, then produced a small recorder.

  ‘Okay?’ she asked. The other woman nodded,

  ‘I didn’t say why I wanted to see you, Ms Lyon,’ Mann began, ‘because I didn’t want to alarm or upset you unnecessarily. ‘I’m in charge of a Serious Crimes Unit based in Glasgow. We’re investigating a homicide that happened in Glasgow a few months ago. I’ll spare you the brutal details, but the victim’s name was Calder Bryant. We have fairly good reason to believe that he was killed by mistake. We also had a suspect, or at least person of interest. He disappeared soon after the murder was discovered. For a while we thought this man might have committed suicide, until his body was discovered in a chest freezer in a location in Spain. His name hasn’t been disclosed to the media yet, but I can tell you: it was Matthew Reid.’

  ‘No!’

  Verona Lyon’s hands flew to her face, her eyes expressing a mix of shock and disbelief. Suddenly her make-up revealed a pattern of tiny lines in her forehead.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Mann said, quietly.

  ‘How did he die?’ Lyon asked, her voice tremulous.

  ‘I don’t know yet. The post-mortem examination won’t be done until tomorrow, at least.’

  ‘Was it . . . No, silly question, of course it was if he was in a freezer. Oh,’ she moaned, ‘poor Matthew, the poor love. Who would do a thing like that to such a nice man?’ She frowned at Mann. ‘And who in their right mind would accuse him of murder?’

  ‘He was never accused as such,’ the detective corrected her. ‘He was a person of interest; you can take that term literally. It implies nothing more. Ms Lyon, I’m here because I’ve been told that you and Matthew Reid had a relationship at one time. Is that true?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, it is. I’m not sure that it ever really ended. Matthew was never interested in anything permanent, any more than I am after a disastrous early experience. All I got out of my first and only marriage was this house,’ she added. ‘Terry, the footballer that I’m sure you’ve heard about, we were good for a while, until he was signed by an Italian club. After him there was nobody regular, until I met Matthew, when he was a guest on the show I presented on Channel Four. He and I were together for three years . . . “exclusive” is how I’d describe it . . . then we drifted apart. When his writing career was at its highest, he was churning out so many books that he spent almost two years in Spain. I’m afraid that exclusivity went by the board after half of that time, on my part at least. I can’t speak for him. We saw each other when he came back, but it was sporadic. The last time we were together was on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Vegas. He said he needed to go there to check out locations and invited me along. We saw the Bellagio Fountains at night and the Grand Canyon during the day. We had good fun, but we weren’t even bothering to have sex by then. We didn’t need to.’ She glanced at Mann as if for approval. ‘Can you understand that?’

  The detective nodded. ‘Funnily enough I can. It’s like that with me and my Dan. We do, but it’s not at the heart of our relationship. He’s a few years older than me, but that’s got nothing to do with it. There would have been an age difference between you and Matthew too, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lyon admitted, ‘but not as much as people thought. I’m fifty-four,’ she said. ‘Matthew’s biog wasn’t specific but it suggested he was twenty years older. I believed that too, until I saw his passport when we went to Vegas. It was only ten years. I asked him why. He just grinned and said that some stupid publicist had made a mistake on the press release for his first novel. By the time it was noticed it was embedded, so he just lived with it.’ She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter now, does it?’ she sighed. ‘Not that it ever did.’

  ‘There’s no reason why it should. Did Matthew ever talk about his early life?’ Mann asked.

  ‘He told me that he grew up in Hong Kong, then Ireland. That publicist should really have been a novelist; in the same release, he awarded him an honours degree from Dublin. It wasn’t true, but nobody showed it to Matthew so it stuck. In reality he started freelance journalism straight from school, and did some spare-time college courses in creative writing. I think he taught too.’

  Mann was surprised. ‘He did? What makes you think so?’

  ‘He made a remark about a character in one of his books, a villain. He said he was based “on some wanker of a curate in the staff room”, and I just took it that he meant a school. I asked him, but he said it was just a fill-in tutoring job. That was him. He really downplayed everything. Self-deprecation was one of his specialties. It was as if he thought that his early life had meant nothing and was only worth forgetting. In fact, he even said that one night, when we’d had a few drinks.’ Her voice faltered; her eyes glistened.

  Mann paused for a few moments, until she was back in the present. ‘When was the last time you heard from him?’ she asked.

  ‘A few months ago. Late October, I think it was. He phoned me out of the blue. We’d spoken a few times early in the pandemic, but not for a while. He asked me how I was. I said I was fine, asked him the same. He said he was good, and he sounded it. Then he surprised me. “I think I’m in love,” he said. “It’s only the second time it’s ever happened, so I can’t be certain, but yes, I think I am.” I asked what her name was. He said he’d tell me when he was sure enough for me to meet her, but he did volunteer one thing about her. He said she was a cop.’

  Fifty-Four

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be sharing this with you, Karen,’ Mann said, ‘but what the hell.’

  ‘He thought he was in love? With a cop?’ Neville exclaimed.

  ‘According to Verona Lyon, and there’s absolutely no reason for her to be making that up. From what you’ve told me, Reid didn’t come across as the romantic sort.’

  ‘Uncle Matt?’ she chuckled. ‘He wasn’t. He was never one to get carried away about anything in life. I went to a couple of his events at book festivals. The audience liked him because he was so laid back. Have you mentioned this to Noele McClair?’

  Mann shook her head. ‘Certainly not. I can see no reason to do that. Can you?’

  ‘It might make her feel better about things,’ Neville suggested.

  ‘My impression is that she’s doing her best to forget it ever happened. She’s had the most tragic love life of any woman I’ve ever encountered. No, Karen, I’m more interested in the implications of what he said, and the way that Verona said he sounded. She said he seemed happier than she had heard him in years. Beyond that, he went out of his way to tell her about it. Her: the woman to whom he’d been closest . . . apart from you, but your relationship was different. Then the very next day he’s gone, everything about him has been wiped from his home and we find his car parked beside the biggest reservoir in East Lothian. We decide the probability is that he’s in it. Karen, that doesn’t square with the happy man who sought out his old girlfriend to tell her that he reckoned he’d finally met the right woman. That man wasn’t planning to go anywhere, but he did.’

  Neville nodded, picking up the narrative. ‘Yes, and not only that, months later, people start getting texts, seemingly proving that that his suicide was faked. Tails start being chased, here and in Spain. Somebody is taking the piss and we’re meant to believe it’s part of his plan . . . until Bob Skinner gets a text, goes looking for him and finds his body in a freezer. Now Matthew’s the subject of a Spanish murder inquiry.’