Jazz bounced carefully along the rough track; he avoided the puddles as best he could, being unsure of their depth and having no wish to ruin his new Nike Revolution running shoes. That said, if he did, he was fairly sure that his dad would buy him a replacement pair with Sauce’s fifty quid. He was twenty yards behind his older half-brother. He admired Nacho’s tenacity in hanging on to Sauce, who was clearly at another level. In fact, he was proud of him, but that he would keep to himself.

  He glanced to his right as he ran. The field had been ravaged by Storm Boromir; he knew from something that Mia had said over dinner that the estate reared wild boar and guessed that it might be there. Although there was no livestock to be seen, several pens had been overturned. On his left, the forest still creaked in places. It had suffered major damage; many trees had been felled by the wind or by the uprooting of their neighbours. He and Mark, his adopted brother, had been in there on Friday afternoon, before the storm. He knew the difference between a wild wood, like the one beyond Muirfield Golf Course where he and his dad walked Sunny, the Labrador they had adopted after its owner’s unexpected departure, and one that had been commercially planted.

  As Jazz looked ahead, he saw Sauce disappear as the track took a sharp leftward curve, and possibly as he picked up the pace to shake Nacho loose. Enough of that, he thought, lengthening his own stride.

  Ignacio had given up his pursuit; he was reconciled to finishing behind a guy who was, after all, professionally fit. He was not reconciled to finishing behind a boy who would not become a teenager for another few weeks. ‘Oh shit,’ he sighed, as Jazz cruised past him. ‘I should have known.’ Their father was famously not a gambling man, but he had laid his money on the table. ‘Go get him!’ he croaked.

  ‘Save your breath,’ James Andrew replied, without breaking his lengthened stride.

  Sauce’s smile began to fade as his ears began to register a steady rhythmic stride pattern behind him. It disappeared as the sound grew ever closer. He was far from spent, but he knew that he was done.

  ‘Anything over three miles,’ Jazz said, easily, as he drew alongside him, ‘I beat my dad these days. And he’d still beat you.’

  The boy passed him, opening a gap that seemed to lengthen with every stride. Sauce realised that he had been guilty of something that he would never have done in a professional situation. He had taken James Andrew Skinner for granted. He had thought of him as a child, even though his voice had broken, and he was already equal in height with his mother. By the time he was sixteen he would probably be as tall as the Gaffer himself. As Jazz disappeared out of sight around the next curve in the track he eased back, allowing Nacho to catch him, both men maintaining a simple jogging pace.

  ‘He’ll be showered and halfway through his fucking breakfast by the time we get back there,’ Sauce muttered.

  ‘Whatever he eats, I will switch to that,’ Nacho gasped as they began the curve that brought Black Shield Lodge back into view, a little over a mile in the distance.

  ‘What the . . .’ Sauce gasped. A hundred yards ahead of them, Jazz was standing, his back to them, as he gazed into the wood. ‘Is he taking the piss?’

  The boy looked over his shoulder, beckoning to them, urgently. Each of them found renewed energy and ran towards him.

  ‘Are you okay, Jazz?’ Nacho asked, anxiously.

  The boy nodded, looking once more into the forest.

  ‘Then what is wrong?’

  ‘That is,’ he replied.

  Both men followed the direction of his finger. It was pointing at a tree that was lying on its side, one of many that had been felled by Storm Boromir. Its roots had been shallow and had been ripped right out of the ground. Entangled among them was an alien object, a collection of straight lines and curves intermingled into a familiar form.

  ‘What is it?’ Nacho asked.

  It was Sauce Haddock who answered. The sweat that soaked his running gear was beginning to chill, but for all the discomfort he had switched into full detective chief inspector mode. ‘It’s a human skeleton,’ he replied. ‘From the way the roots are wound through it, it’s possible that it and the tree were planted at the same time.’ He frowned. ‘Guys, I need you to get back to the hotel right now. Nacho, get my office number from Cheeky and call it. Tell whoever is on duty, from memory I think it’s DC Benjamin, that I’m here, and that we have a suspicious death. Tell her also that I want a full forensic team on site as soon as possible, and meantime I want local uniforms here to secure the scene. Oh yes, and you should say that I’m going to need a forester as well.’

  Four

  ‘Do you think Mia’s going to keep managing this place herself?’ Sarah Grace Skinner asked. She glanced around the public dining room of Black Shield Lodge. There were a few breakfasting guests, and a full complement of waiters, but the majority were family members.

  Her husband frowned as he spread ginger preserve on a slice of toast. ‘Of course, she is,’ he said. ‘Cameron’s will provided for it. Why shouldn’t she? Cheeky’s company might be the legal owner, but she has a baby, plus she’s still with her accountancy firm.’

  ‘What does Mia know about running a hotel?’

  ‘What do I know about the hands-on side of running a modern media empire? Not much more than sweet fuck all, but I do know how to oversee the management of an operation at the top level, and how to ensure that all the component parts are running efficiently, that supply and distribution is working and that profit targets are being met. I doubt that Grandpa McCullough could have gone into the kitchen himself and knocked up the six-egg soufflé that was served as a starter last night . . . another reason why I didn’t go running with the lads, by the way . . . but he knew a manager who knew a chef who could. Mia’s no fool. She’s been running the radio station for a while; the app that she introduced has global listeners and attracts chunky advertising, making it very profitable. Between you and me it would be a nice fit for Intermedia’s UK division, but she doesn’t want to sell.’

  ‘You’ve asked her?’

  He smiled. ‘Of course, I have. I’d look like a prat if I let the opposition snaffle it from right under my nose, would I not? No, she’s emotionally attached to it, she says . . . just as she is to Black Shield Lodge. She told me that she thought this place was the love of Cameron’s life.’

  ‘And she wasn’t jealous of that?’ Sarah asked.

  Bob grinned. ‘I asked her that too. She said she would have been if it had been a busty blonde female, but she was quite happy to live in a menage à trois with a country house hotel.’

  Sarah frowned, glancing across at the table where Seonaid was breakfasting with Cheeky, Trish the children’s carer and the two babies. Mark, their middle son, and Pilar were at another, by a window. ‘I suppose,’ she murmured, ‘that Mia’s in the same place as Xavi. And yet . . .’

  ‘She hides her grief so well,’ he suggested, ‘that you wonder whether it’s there at all. Is that what you were going to say?’

  ‘Not quite, but she doesn’t let it show.’

  ‘How do you know? We’re here for her son’s twenty-first. She’s not going to put a damper on that. Look, make no mistake,’ her husband told her, ‘Mia loved Cameron, and his sudden death came as a huge shock . . . as it did to all of us. But it’s not in her nature to let that show. It isn’t her first unexpected bereavement. She came from a real lowlife family, remember; her brothers both met bad ends, and as for her mother . . . well, we won’t go there. My God, she’s the only survivor. Mia Watson grew up tougher than you can imagine, but even back when we had our very brief fling she was an expert at concealing her background. As Mia Sparkles, her radio persona, she had a massive fan base among teenage kids back on that Edinburgh station that most people have forgotten about. Alex was one of them. None of them had a clue that her brother used to push hard drugs for her uncle in their high school. The station’s ownership certainly didn’t. But if she hadn’t got out of the city, as I told her she needed to, all that would have come out and it really would have destroyed her.’

  ‘What if it came out now?’

  ‘It might,’ Bob said. ‘She told me she’s thinking about doing a book, with an editor, a ghost writer.’

  ‘Not Matthew Reid, I hope!’ Sarah exclaimed.

  ‘He really would be a ghost writer, give that he’s probably at the bottom of the Whiteadder reservoir.’

  ‘Probably, but not certainly,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Best that he is. If he does show up somewhere he could be facing a murder charge in Glasgow, now that Lottie Mann and her team can place his DNA at the crime scene.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she conceded. ‘Arthur Dorward and his forensic team were sure he’d eradicated all traces of himself from his house and car. How did they finally come up with his DNA profile?’

  Bob’s thick eyebrows rose. ‘That is something Sauce Haddock will not tell even me. Nor will McIlhenney, the Chief, or Mario McGuire.’

  ‘If it’s so secret, would it be usable as evidence in court?’

  ‘Ultimately that would be up to a judge to decide, but only if Matthew was still alive and they caught him.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Sarah asked. ‘Is he really dead? Or was his presumed suicide an elaborate hoax and will he turn up one day wanting his dog back?’

  ‘If he does, he’s not having him!’ Bob shook his head. ‘I’m as sure as everyone else that he’s dead, which only means that I lean in that direction, but we’ll never know that for sure until his body surfaces or is hooked by an angler. This too: Matthew Reid was a crime writer for fuck’s sake, one of the best. If he couldn’t come up with an untraceable exit route, nobody can. If he is still alive, I’m sure we’ll find out. If you really force me to think about it, the more I come back to this notion that Matthew might have seen himself as a Moriarty figure.’

  ‘And who’s Sherlock Holmes?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  Her riposte was forestalled by the sudden opening of the dining-room door. As both of his parents turned towards the source of the disturbance, Ignacio and Jazz burst into the room and headed for Cheeky’s table, leaving a trail of wet and muddy footprints in their wake. She and Bob watched as Nacho spoke to her, their interest fuelled further by his tone, although they were too far away to make out his words.

  Abruptly, Cheeky pushed back her chair and headed for the door, followed by Skinner’s older son. Jazz would have followed them had his father not called out to him to wait.

  ‘It’s okay, Dad,’ the boy replied. ‘Your fifty quid’s safe. I doubt that Sauce will pay out, though. We didn’t complete the course.’

  Five

  ‘I’m sorry to be harping on about this, Karen,’ Lottie Mann said. ‘The investigation may have run into a brick wall with the disappearance of our only suspect but the investigation is still open. You’re a DCI like me, so I’m sure you’ll understand.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Karen Neville confirmed. ‘I’m sorry we’re having to do this on a Sunday morning, but my working hours have been varied lately, since our priorities changed from jihadists to Russians. Ask me whatever you like but I doubt that I’ll be able to knock your wall down.’ She pointed at the device that lay on her desk. ‘Switch that on, though, and let’s see what you get.’

  Mann nodded. She picked up the recorder, pressed a button to activate it and then checked the sound level. ‘Chief Inspector Neville, as you know my West of Scotland Serious Crimes team is investigating the murder of a man named Calder Bryant in Glasgow, last year. His body was found in the flat in Candleriggs of his half-brother, Clyde Houseman, with whom you’re in a relationship.’

  ‘Correction,’ Neville exclaimed, pointlessly holding up a hand. ‘I was in a relationship with Clyde, although it was very informal. We fancied each other and we did something about it, but it was never going to be serious. I’ve seen him a couple of times after Calder’s murder, but the thing ended completely when he was moved out of Scotland by his boss.’

  ‘Correction noted,’ Mann conceded. ‘But you are aware of our principal line of enquiry?’

  ‘Yes. Your theory is that Calder Bryant was mistaken for Clyde and killed in an attempt to frame my former husband, Sir Andrew Martin, and that Matthew Reid, the man I know as Uncle Matt, was responsible.’

  ‘Do you find that theory credible?’

  ‘Whether I do or not, it’s the best you’ve got. As I understand it your evidence seems to suggest that either he did it or Andy did. You found both their DNA at the crime scene, but Andy was able to explain his presence there, and also he could give himself an alibi.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mann agreed, ‘but Reid couldn’t have known that would happen. Our theory is that he obtained material from your house that he planted in the flat after killing Bryant.’

  ‘If he was an accountant,’ Neville challenged, ‘rather than a writer of mystery novels, would you have come up with that theory?’

  ‘I like to think so. Why, Karen? Are you having doubts about Reid’s guilt?

  She frowned. ‘I’ve always had doubts.’ Then she grinned suddenly. ‘The fact is, I’ve never believed he was guilty,’ she admitted. ‘Calder Bryant was a serving Royal Marine sergeant. The idea of him being overcome by a seventy-plus man, albeit a fit one . . . well? Don’t you wonder?’

  ‘If he used a taser,’ Mann countered, ‘I can see how it could have happened.’ She reached out and paused the recorder. ‘But like you, yes, I’m wondering.’ Restarting the device, she continued. ‘I’d like to go over your relationship with Matthew Reid again, to see if there’s anything there that we haven’t considered before that might help us trace him. You called him Uncle Matt, although he wasn’t really your uncle.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Neville confirmed. ‘He was my father’s best friend from their schooldays in Ireland, where Dad was brought up. As such he’s part of my earliest memories. He visited us a lot, and I found out early on that he was always a good bet for a banknote. The fact was I got more pocket money out of Uncle Matt than I ever did from my parents . . . They spent all their spare cash on fags. Benson and fucking Hedges should pay me a dividend,’ she chuckled, but with bitterness in her tone. ‘Uncle Matt was there for me and my mother after Dad died, then when Mum went a couple of years later, I suppose he became a virtual parent. He helped me out big time when Gareth, my shit of an older brother, sold my home out from under me after our mother went. I’d just graduated and was a probationer constable, with hardly a bean to my name. I might have wound up homeless, living in bedsits and the like, but Uncle Matt looked after me. He found me a flat, stood guarantor for my mortgage. He even paid off my student loan; that made a hell of a difference at the time, I can tell you.’

  Lottie Mann nodded. ‘Karen,’ she began, only to hesitate. ‘There’s no delicate way of asking this,’ she continued when she was ready. ‘Was there ever any hint of him being more than an uncle, or wanting to be?’

  Neville stared at her. ‘Absolutely none at all!’ she insisted. ‘Uncle Matt treated me like a niece, almost like a daughter. There was never any hint either, that he might not have it that way.’ She paused for a second. ‘I can see what you’re doing though,’ she said. ‘You’re looking for sexual jealousy as a motive. Granted, I suppose I would if I was running the investigation. Well, you can rule it out. There was none.’

  ‘And yet you’ve said yourself that he resented Andy Martin,’ Mann observed.

  ‘Resented probably isn’t the right word. Uncle Matt thought from the start that I was making a mistake with Andy. If he was still out there somewhere, I wonder how he’d react when he heard that we’re getting ready to do it again.’

  ‘Yes, when’s the big day?’

  ‘We’re talking about the end of June. We’re in the process of testing out the relationship for a few months before making it official.’

  ‘Good luck if and when it happens. Dan and me, we’ve got no such plans. He doesn’t see the need, and to be honest neither do I. Anyway,’ she said, ‘back to Matthew Reid.’

  ‘Yes. Uncle Matt warned me at the very beginning that Andy still had the hots for Alex Skinner. And as you know, I’m sure, he was right about that . . . although I do accept they’ve cooled off for good. Look, Lottie, I’m not suggesting for a moment that Uncle Matt was asexual, or gay. There was always a lady in the background, often more than one, but they were always of his own generation. He went for women his own age, and he never seemed to have any trouble pulling them. He told me once there was a level of gratitude that he appreciated. That was probably the only risqué thing he ever said to me.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t always stick to that policy,’ Mann muttered.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Neville asked.

  Her colleague winced. ‘Nothing,’ she said, quickly, pausing the recorder once again. ‘Forget I said it.’

  ‘Come on, Lottie,’ Neville exclaimed. ‘You can’t chuck a grenade and ignore the explosion.’

  ‘Okay,’ Mann sighed, ‘but keep this to yourself. The DNA sample that Sauce Haddock came up with; he told me that it came from a sexual partner. Her name’s a state secret, more or less, but Sauce did hint that it was somebody younger. I asked, joking like, if Reid might have left a mystery child behind him. He took me seriously and said no, that he assumed the woman was on the pill . . . and I don’t think he meant HRT. Any ideas, Karen?’

  ‘None at all,’ she replied. ‘Uncle Matt didn’t mention a new girlfriend to me, not within the last couple of years, that I promise you. Sauce gave you no clue at all?’

  ‘None.’

  Neville’s eyes narrowed. ‘Wait a minute? How would this woman know to come forward? Uncle Matt was never identified as a suspect in the Bryant murder. And as for those suspicious deaths in Gullane, there’s still doubt that they were actually homicides.’

  ‘Who says that she did come forward?’ Mann countered. ‘Maybe Sauce’s team found her in the course of their inquiries.’