‘Only he wasn’t necessarily killed in Spain,’ Mann exclaimed. ‘Sauce is looking into a hypothesis that he didn’t leave East Lothian alive. If that’s right, calling Verona might well have been the last thing he ever did.’

  ‘If that was so, how did his body get from Gullane to that fucking freezer?’ Neville asked.

  ‘That’s what Sauce is asking. Not only how. When? Maybe the post-mortem will shed some light on that.’ She frowned. ‘I should really let Sarah Grace know about this before it begins.’ She paused. ‘But there’s something else, Karen, coming from my meeting with Lyon. How much do you know about Matthew’s early life, beyond what’s in his official bio? He kept his real age from you? Did he reveal anything else about himself? His earlier life, for example.’

  ‘I know he doesn’t really have an honours degree from Dublin. That was down to a creative publicist at Portador Mystery. But he really was brought up in Ireland, after his father left Hong Kong.’

  ‘Really? Can we be sure of anything about him?’

  ‘That much we can. He showed me a photo once, of his dad. He was standing outside a pub in Dublin.’

  ‘Did he ever say anything about having been a teacher in Ireland?’

  ‘Not that I can remember. Did that come from Verona Lyon?’

  ‘Yes. And now it’s going to John Cotter. The early life of Matthew Reid is going to be my wee sergeant’s new research project.’

  Fifty-Five

  ‘Hello, Noele,’ Cameron McCullough said, quietly, as her husband ushered his colleague into their living room. ‘Good to see you. We’ll need to keep the volume down though. Samantha’s just gone down for a nap. If she hears my voice she’ll be up and wanting more. Did you breastfeed with your Harry? Mine’s like one of those spoof containers that you can never quite fill up. I’m a constant production line; I’ve got tits like watermelons. Before, they were grapefruits.’

  McClair smiled. ‘I remember those days,’ she replied. ‘I was actually glad to get back to work. It let me justify switching him on to the bottle. I was huge too, but don’t worry. Before you know it, you’ll wonder where they went, although what’s left may be a little further south than before. You’re looking terrific on it, I have to say.’ She was sincere. Cheeky McCullough would have turned heads walking into any public place.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. I confess that when Sauce told me you were coming I stuck on a bit of lippy, and some eye shadow. I never go out without putting my eyes on.’ She glanced at Haddock. ‘Sauce, there’s a cafetiere ready in the kitchen and a couple of mugs. Get them, there’s a love, and while you’re at it, fetch me some fizzy water.’

  He nodded and obeyed.

  ‘Has he had a bad day?’ Cheeky asked. ‘He’s looking a bit po-faced.’

  ‘He’s probably bored, missing out on Black Shield Lodge,’ the DI suggested.

  ‘He said you want to give me a rundown on that because of my interest. I guess you’ll have been keeping Granny Mia informed too. She hates it when I call her that. Even more when I call her “Great-granny”, as she is, by marriage.’

  ‘That’s right,’ McClair said as Haddock returned carrying a tray. ‘How much has Sauce told you?’ she asked as he handed his wife a bottle of Highland Spring water and picked up the coffee pot.

  ‘Thanks, love. He told me the body count has doubled. How many more, do you think?’

  ‘Hopefully that’s the lot. The foresters have recommended to Mrs McCullough that they flatten the whole plantation. We can let them do that if we fence off the two burial sites. If there is anything else down there the foresters will be bound to disturb it as they take out the roots.’ She paused as Haddock handed her a mug, looking up at him. ‘Sauce, do you want to carry on?’ The question was rhetorical; they had agreed in advance that he would.

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured, settling on to the room’s only sofa beside his wife. ‘First bit of news is they’ve identified both sets of remains,’ he began. ‘Love, does the name Samuel Trott mean anything to you?’

  Cheeky frowned. ‘No, not a thing. Should it?’

  ‘Think hard now. Is it a name you might have heard Grandpa mention?’

  ‘No. Sauce, I remember just about everything my grandpa said to me from the age of eight onwards. He definitely did not mention anyone called Trott. Why are you asking?’

  ‘Because we believe that Samuel Trott was the male skeleton found in the woods. The other one, the female, she’s believed to be his sister, Naomi Trott. Can you remember Inez ever talking about someone of that name?’

  ‘My mother? Hell no. My mother rarely talked to me about anything. Whether she’s ever heard of them . . . you’ll need to ask her that yourself.’ She smiled grimly; the twist of her face made her less pretty. ‘You’ll have no trouble finding her.’

  ‘We intend to,’ McClair said. ‘We’re pretty confident that she did know Samuel Trott.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The skeletons were ID-ed through a DNA match to their father,’ Sauce told her. ‘He was a criminal and so his genetic profile is on the police database. But they looked in other places too and another match came up. Love, there’s a link to the Trott siblings and our daughter. Both of them, they were related to Samantha, and that means to you or me.’

  ‘What?’ Cheeky gasped, her mouth falling open.

  ‘You might not remember this,’ he explained, ‘because we were both a mess at the time, but when Samantha had her surgery the consultant asked if they could add her DNA profile to the database, for potential comparison with another kid who might suffer from the same condition in the future.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I do remember that.’

  ‘My DNA is on record,’ he continued, ‘for operational purposes that I don’t need to spell out. There’s no match, none at all, between me and the Trotts. That means that their relationship with Samantha runs through the McCullough line.’

  ‘Jesus, Sauce.’ Her face was pale beneath the make-up, her lipstick more vivid. ‘Are you saying that Samuel Trott was my father? Is that what this means?’

  ‘We’ll need you to give us a saliva sample to prove it,’ McClair said, ‘but that’s the way it’s looking.’

  Fifty-Six

  ‘Many years ago,’ Dr Pablo Martinez Mali told Sarah Grace, in the Barcelona hospital where they had met for the post-mortem examination of the thawed remains of Matthew Reid, ‘I studied in your city, under Professor Hutchinson.’

  She smiled as she took off the heavy coat that she had worn against the early morning chill. ‘Joe was my mentor,’ she said. ‘He’s still around. I lean on him for advice quite often. He was absolutely the greatest. I succeeded him in the Chair of Forensic Pathology, but there are times when it feels too big for me.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ the Spanish pathologist replied. ‘Not from what I’ve heard, or from what I’ve read. Your paper on long Covid morbidity was exceptional, ground-breaking. It’s a pleasure to have you here, Professor, and to meet you at last. Here,’ he said, ‘let me help you.’ He stepped behind her and tied the strings of her gown.

  ‘Thank you. I’m impressed by your facilities,’ she murmured as she looked through the ante-room window into the examination area. ‘Ours are becoming a little dated, even though our building isn’t very old.’

  He winked as he put on his mask. ‘We like to keep a step ahead of Madrid. We’re a proud people, we Catalans.’

  ‘I know. My husband and I have a place here.’

  ‘So I have heard. And, of course, your husband is the Presidente of our most important media company. How did that come to be, can I ask?’

  ‘He’s known the owner for almost thirty years. Senor Aislado was a young journalist in Edinburgh, where he was born, when Bob was a young cop. They met then and the friendship has grown. Bob’s been a director of the group for a while. When Xavi lost his wife to the pandemic and wanted to take time out from business, he asked Bob to stand in for him as executive chairman.’

  ‘Does your husband have a view on Catalan independence? I know that the Intermedia group is in favour.’

  ‘Bob’s for Scottish independence, and by extension, for yours. Does he think it’s likely? No, because he thinks that if there was a referendum tomorrow, the rules would be rigged as they were in Scotland, when expat Scots weren’t allowed to vote but other nationalities living in Scotland were. He believes it would be the same in Catalunya.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I agree with him,’ Dr Martinez said as he ushered Grace into the examination room. She glanced upwards as they entered. Facing the door was what appeared to be a high angled mirror. She realised in the absence of any other possibilities that it had to be one-way glass, the window of the viewing gallery, where she knew her husband would be positioned alongside the Spanish police and legal officials, in the observer role that he had agreed to undertake for his former colleagues in Scotland.

  She put him out of her mind and concentrated on the task in hand. She too was an observer, but in her mind that meant only that she would not be hands-on. The body lay on the table; it was, literally deathly white, with a bluish tinge. Sarah had always perceived Matthew Reid as a fit man when she had encountered him in Gullane. His nakedness seemed to confirm that impression. There was a little spare flesh around his waist, but his limbs were well muscled. She walked round him, looking for signs of violence, but seeing none. He seemed to be completely unmarked. His eyes were narrow slits, and his mouth was slightly opened.

  ‘Back at room temperature?’ she asked.

  He colleague nodded. ‘Yes, I am happy that we can begin.’

  ‘Has he been identified formally, to the satisfaction of the judge?’

  Martinez nodded. ‘Yes, that was done this morning, by someone from his publisher, a man who knew him professionally.’ He picked up a scalpel. Above him, on the ceiling, extraction fans began to whirr.

  Grace stood close enough to see what was going on but without infringing Martinez’s personal space. To her surprise she winced as he made the Y incision. She had in the past performed autopsies on people she had known but those had been rare occasions. She wondered whether Bob was having the same reaction.

  Her colleague had been at work for five minutes when he stepped back from the open chest cavity and turned to face her. ‘I can tell you now, Professor,’ he said, his voice muffled by his mask, ‘that there is no chance of determining a date of death, far less a time. The freezing process has made that completely impossible. As for the cause, I can see nothing obvious. All the organs are in perfect condition, the arterial structure is sound, the prostate is not overly enlarged. There is no petechial haemorrhaging, or other signs of asphyxia. This is the body of the healthiest sixty-four-year-old dead man that I have ever seen. Please, step up and see for yourself.’

  ‘Sixty-four?’ Grace exclaimed. ‘Don’t you mean seventy-four?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Martinez replied. ‘That’s what he was, according to his passport. I have all his records here. Personal, health, everything.’

  She accepted his invitation and stood over the empty chest cavity, then examined the organs that had been removed. Nothing that she saw contradicted her colleague’s perception. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘There is no obvious cause. We only know one thing for certain. He’s dead, therefore something killed him.’

  ‘Adult sudden death syndrome?’ Martinez suggested. ‘It happens.’

  ‘In younger people than this,’ she countered. ‘Doctor, we should examine him for hypodermic puncture wounds, but before that I suggest you draw blood and send it for analysis.’

  ‘I agree. Go ahead.’ He handed her a large syringe. ‘Take a sample.’

  She nodded, found an artery, inserted the wide needle and began to withdraw the plunger. ‘Fuck!’ she cried out as she saw what was emerging. ‘Pablo, look at this, because I don’t believe what I’m seeing. He’s been embalmed.’

  Fifty-Seven

  ‘I know, John, it’s a tall order. I’m asking you to build a picture of the early life of a man in another country forty years ago. Still, it’s all in a day’s work for a clever little bugger like you. Soon as you can please.’

  ‘Why do I feel like a dustbin?’ DS John Cotter asked himself, aloud, as soon as Mann had left the CID squad room. A detective constable he had thought was out of earshot threw him a quick glance then looked away again.

  When the little Englishman had been drafted into west of Scotland Serious Crimes, he had believed that his career was on the rise. In recent months he had found himself feeling that it had plateaued, at best. He had realised on his first day as Dan Provan’s replacement that a smile from the detective chief inspector had to be earned. He used their frequency as a performance benchmark. Lately they had been few and far between. He suspected that the pivotal point might have been an encounter the previous autumn with Sir Andrew Martin, a former chief constable of the national force, who had been a person of passing interest in a murder inquiry. Cotter had taken an instant dislike to the man and had made no secret of it: a mistake, he now suspected. Mann might not have been a founder member of the Martin Fan Club herself, but she had a respect for the rank he had attained.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he whispered, then turned his attention to the summary she had left with him.

  Matthew Reid was known to have been a freelance journalist; as such his by-line might have appeared in Irish newspapers. If some could be found they might lead to contemporaries who were still at work. But suppose one or two could be found, he asked himself, would they even remember him? And if they did, what would the faded memories of ageing, probable piss-artists be likely to add to the knowledge base of his subject?

  Next to nothing, he decided, moving on to the next section of Mann’s briefing document. There, a phrase jumped up and grabbed him. ‘Some wanker of a curate in the staff room.’ That, Cotter decided, was a thread to be followed. He pulled his keyboard close and keyed in a search subject. ‘Catholic schools Ireland late twentieth century’.

  Fifty-Eight

  ‘The Spanish intend to make a formal announcement of Reid’s death at midday,’ Bob Skinner told the Zoom meeting. ‘You’d better make sure, Becky, that your press office is ready for what’s going to follow. So far, the media don’t know of his connection to the Bryant inquiry, and they know nothing at all about the three suspicious deaths in Gullane last year.’

  ‘Why should they come to us for comment at all?’ John Cotter was pleased to have been included in the group. He welcomed any break from his Irish quest, which seemed futile after less than an hour.

  Skinner glowered at the DS’s face on the computer screen in Pablo Martinez’s office, which he had made available for him and for Sarah to brief the Scottish investigators. ‘Are you serious, Sergeant?’ he barked. ‘The only statement that you’ve made about Matthew is that he’s missing and the place where his car was found points to him having committed suicide. It wasn’t top of the news cycle at the time, because frankly he didn’t rate that, but now that he’s turned up in an ice box two thousand kilometres away, for a day or two Matthew Reid’s going to be the most famous crime novelist on the planet. The media will be knocking your doors down, son.’

  ‘Do you have any thoughts on how we should handle it, sir?’ ACC Stallings asked him.

  ‘Carefully.’ He paused. ‘You’re in operational command, I’m only here because I was asked to observe and report back on any Spanish criminal inquiry.’

  ‘How are they playing that, Gaffer?’ Haddock asked.

  ‘Imagine, Sauce, if you will,’ he replied, ‘the longest bargepole in the world. That’s what they’re trying not to touch it with. They’re not saying it, but they don’t give a fuck, because Matthew was a British citizen not a Spanish public figure. All they’re going to say is that he’s been found dead in his house in Spain. Christ, they weren’t going to mention the freezer until I put my Intermedia hat on and told them to think again on that one. There will be some interest in Catalunya for a day or two, but that’ll be it. Probably none at all in Madrid or anywhere else in Spain.’

  ‘How can they get away with that?’ Mann protested. ‘It’s a homicide and it’s under their jurisdiction.’

  ‘Actually, it’s not, Chief Inspector,’ Sarah Grace said. ‘So far, the only crime that’s been committed in Spain is concealing a death . . . assuming that’s against the law here. Analysis of blood and tissue samples may change this but as it stands there’s no evidence that Matthew was unlawfully killed. There’s no evidence that he didn’t die naturally. There were no physical injuries, anywhere. Doctor Martinez and I went over every inch of the body looking for puncture marks but we couldn’t find any. My best guess is that he was injected with something, but the body was too degraded for the site still to be visible, in spite of the embalming process.’

  ‘The what?’ DCC McGuire exclaimed. He had intended to keep a low profile, but the unexpected detail was too much for him.

  ‘Embalming, Mario,’ she repeated. ‘Most of the blood had been replaced with embalming fluid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I imagine so that the body could be transported over a distance . . . in this case about fourteen hundred miles . . . without the smell of decomposition, which I imagine you’ve all experienced in your police careers, drawing unwanted attention.’

  On screen Haddock leaned forward. ‘So the body wasn’t frozen when it was moved?’

  ‘I think not, Sauce. Logistically, that would have been pretty difficult.’

  ‘But how could that be done?’ Mann asked.

  Grace shrugged. ‘Not difficult,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t a full mortician job, but anyone with a little relevant experience, and a pump, could have done it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere with enough space. If Matthew died in his own home, it could have been done there.’