‘Do you fancy being transferred to Perth? And I don’t mean Perth Western Australia.’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I’d take a transfer to any Perth rather than that one. What’s the job? Who’s the subject? And where is he? There’s a lot of space in Australia.’

  ‘Most of it empty,’ Skinner pointed out. ‘The man you’re after will be fifty years old, plus or minus one or two. He’ll have been in Australia for thirty years, so I imagine he’ll be a citizen by now. Start looking for him in Melbourne, searching amongst flooring contractors.’

  ‘When I find him,’ she asked, ‘as I will because I am damn good, sir, what do you want me to do? Approach him?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Don’t do that. Identify him and report back to me, directly. You get a pen and I’ll give you his name.’ He watched her as she wrote. ‘Okay Roi,’ he said when she was finished, ‘go to it and I’ll tell you when there’s a story to be written.’

  He closed the meeting. Her image vanished in an instant, impressed only on his brain. He had liked her, and was sure that he would hear from her before long, unless fate had intervened and the quarry was no longer alive.

  One mission accomplished, he moved on to the next. He picked up his phone and called Mia McCullough.

  ‘I had a message to call you,’ he said as she answered. ‘Sorry, I’ve been busy all day talking to people from Intermedia in Italy and in Boston. Would you believe that we stream European football matches in America? The rights are up for renewal and we want to keep them. What’s the matter? What’s the fuss?’

  ‘You haven’t heard about Inez?’ she exclaimed, excited.

  ‘What about Inez?’ he asked, puzzled. ‘I’ve been out of the country for a week.’

  ‘She’s dead, Bob.’ Mia said. ‘The silly cow’s topped herself in prison.’

  ‘Jeez,’ he murmured. ‘Bet that’s the job Sarah’s doing right now. Why would she do that, Mia?’ he asked. ‘Did she leave a note?’

  ‘The police are hardly going to tell me that, are they? A big female DS turned up at the radio station to let me know. I asked her that very question, but she didn’t know that sort of detail. If Inez acted true to form she won’t have left a note. It wasn’t her style to do anything helpful. My best guess is that it was about what Sauce told me, about Inez not being Cheeky’s mother at all.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he hissed.

  ‘Hasn’t Sarah told you about the DNA from the second skeleton?’

  ‘Sarah’s been in Spain since last Thursday, Mia. The lab doesn’t always report back to her. Profile matching’s between them and the police, usually. What’s there to tell?’

  ‘That the skeleton was Cheeky’s real mother. Her name was Naomi Trott.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Skinner whispered as he considered the implications of what he had been told. ‘Mia,’ he said, after a while, ‘there’s something I’d like you to do for me.’

  He had barely come out of the call when a Zoom invitation appeared in his email. It was from Roi Symonds. Intrigued, he accepted, watching his computer screen as the connection was made and the Australian journalist appeared.

  ‘I’m so good that sometimes I even surprise myself,’ she declared. ‘I have a contact in the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce. He knows a man called Sammy Trott, aged about fifty, born in the UK and came here, within your timeframe. He’s a bit more than your average flooring contractor. He owns a company called Ocean Road Profiles; it’s the biggest in the city. I’ll email you his address. He lives in an area called Taylor’s Creek. My mate says it’s up-market, as you’d expect.’ She paused. ‘You will let me know how things develop, boss, yes?’

  ‘If they do, I will,’ he promised, and he ended the meeting.

  Skinner sat silent for few minutes, considering his options. Finally he made a decision. He picked up his phone from his desk and called a very private number.

  ‘Okay,’ Chief Constable Neil McIlhenney sighed as he took the call. ‘There’s football on Sky tonight, and you never call me when there’s football on. So, what the fuck is it?’

  ‘I have been trying to back off, mate, honest,’ he told his friend, ‘but through no fault of my own I am right in the middle of this thing. Now, it’s at a stage where you need to be involved. Are you sitting comfortably?’ he asked. ‘Then I’ll begin. How much do you know about the Black Shield Lodge inquiry?’

  ‘Everything, I hope,’ the chief replied. ‘I asked to be fully briefed. Why? What are you going to tell me?’

  ‘You think a man called Sammy Trott was under that tree, yes?’

  ‘That’s how it’s looking. Come on Bob, I can sense you building up for the big finish.’

  ‘He wasn’t. He’s in Australia waiting, although he doesn’t know it, for you to arrest him on suspicion of murder.’

  ‘Seriously? Scratch that,’ McIlhenney said quickly. ‘I know you’re fucking serious. Tell me how you know and who told you.’

  ‘Grandpa McCullough told me. It was just before Inez was implicated in the murders of Coats and Montell. I finally got round to challenging him about what happened to Cheeky’s father. He said then that it was Trott. He claimed that he told him Inez was having an abortion and packed him off to Australia. I believed him, Neil. I couldn’t see why he would lie about it so I never questioned it.’

  ‘Does Haddock know this?’

  ‘He was there when McCullough came out with the name, but I doubt that he heard it. I sent him off to count the teaspoons after that. I made Grandpa promise that he was going to tell Cheeky about her parentage, but it seems that he lied to me about that too, like he lied to me about Inez’s abortion.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ McIlhenney asked. ‘What do you suggest that I do?’

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you that, Neil. I’m going to give you Trott’s address in Melbourne, you’re going to put on your big chief hat. Then you’re going to find a sheriff to grant a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of two thirty-year-old murders and you’re going to ask your opposite number in the Victoria state police to hold him pending extradition. You can get all that done and have him lifted before he’s finished breakfast,’ he checked his watch, ‘which should be in around two hours, if he lives a normal life. There are no surfing beaches that I know of in Melbourne.’

  ‘Bob,’ McIlhenney sounded bemused, ‘how did you . . .’

  ‘My new job,’ Skinner replied. ‘It means I can get things done faster than you can. By the way, Neil,’ he added, ‘there’s one other thing you should do. It’ll have McGuire spitting feathers that he didn’t think of it first. As a convicted prisoner, Inez Davis’s DNA will be on the database. You should find it and compare it with Cheeky’s.’

  ‘Okay but what will that tell us?’

  ‘If I’m right, it’ll tell us, and her, who her father really was.’

  Eighty-Three

  The day was only just beginning, but DI Noele McClair was tired, physically and mentally. She had dropped off Harry, scrubbed, fed and ready for school, with her mother, then joined the morning tailback on the Edinburgh bypass that was a frustrating part of the ninety-mile drive to Dundee. ‘Two more days,’ she told herself, ‘then I ask Stallings for a relief team.’

  Her emotional fatigue was self-inflicted. She had followed John Cotter’s suggestion that she speak with Verona Lyon. Initially the woman had reacted cautiously to her call, but as she came to accept that it was personal rather than professional, she had begun to open up.

  ‘So you’re the cop,’ she had mused.

  ‘A cop. What do you mean?’

  ‘No, the,’ she stressed the word, ‘cop, the one that Matthew thought he was falling in love with.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘He did, a few days before he disappeared. He was scared of the notion, I think. I knew him for quite a few years. It was intense between us for a while, then it became . . . comfortable. He’d give me advice, when I asked for it. I’d give him reassurance whether he asked for it or not. That’s what he was looking for when he told me about you: reassurance. Matthew had hardly any experience of being in love, and certainly none in his later years. People were attracted to him; I could see that at the book-festival events I went to. And yet at the same time they weren’t; it was really Septimus Armour that most of them were seeing.

  ‘And did you? Reassure him?’

  ‘I did my best. He thought he was being daft, imagining that someone your age would have the slightest interest in him. I told him he’d never know unless he asked you, that he should stop hiding behind fucking Septimus and take a step into the real world. I’m intrigued now. Did he?’

  ‘Yes, he did, and there was something. It wasn’t Septimus that I went to bed with.’

  ‘How did you feel about him?’

  ‘Safe. That’s all I’ll ever know.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Verona had said. ‘Me too. I’m sorry. I wish you’d had time to love him. He deserved it.’

  McClair arrived at the office at nine forty. Wright and Benjamin had travelled up together; coming from Edinburgh, they had been on time. As she stepped into the small, stuffy office, she sensed a buzz.

  ‘Progress of sorts,’ the DS declared. ‘We’ve found a birth registration for a Tony Hughes, fifty-five years ago. As you said Tony, not Anthony, which makes him unique in the timeframe I’ve been trawling. The bad news is, he’s got a dad; he isn’t Trott’s son. The parents are listed as Mark Hughes, occupation electrician, and Mavis Reilly, of Broughty Ferry.

  ‘However,’ Benjamin continued, ‘the DWP has no record of Hughes for the last thirty years. There have been no National Insurance contributions in his name, nor has he paid income tax. He hasn’t been economically active, but he hasn’t died either.’

  ‘How about the parents?’ McClair asked. ‘Is either one of them still alive . . . or even both?’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am. The father died twenty-five years ago in an industrial accident at a power station in England. Mavis went fifteen years later: breast cancer.’

  ‘We have got something else, though,’ Wright said. ‘Prison records go back a long way. The stretch that Moses Trott completed around the time of the burials was done in Perth Prison. I spoke to the senior prison officer there, a Mr Gavins. He’s an old-timer and was actually working there when Trott was inside. The prison still has a file on him; it shows that he only ever had two visitors, Samuel Trott, on one occasion and T. Hughes, monthly. That’s all, but Mr Gavins actually remembers Moses; a sullen, unpleasant bastard, he said. He must really have made a mark, because he told me about being on duty when he was discharged. He opened the gate for him and said, “I hope I never see you again.” That was his usual goodbye line. Moses glared at him . . . he said he can still remember those mad angry eyes . . . and said, “You will, yah count –” that’s not actually the word he used – “be sure of it.” Gavins took it as a threat. He watched his back for a few weeks after that, he told me. That morning, when Trott went outside he was met. A younger man was waiting for him in the car park. He did see Trott again, by the way. He was held on remand in Perth for three months, after killing his neighbour. That time, he had no visitors at all.’

  ‘Hardly a surprise,’ McClair murmured. ‘He had run out of family by that time.’

  Eighty-Four

  ‘I’m an old man,’ the Reverend Seamus Corbett said. ‘Please forgive me.’

  His call had taken Cotter by surprise. It had broken into a morning of fruitless pursuit of fifty-four-year-old David Murphy. The detective sergeant had found his birth certificate, the son of Michael and Marjory Murphy, of County Cork, a farming couple. His parents had been doubly unfortunate, Michael having died under an overturned tractor when David was eleven, three years before Marjory’s heart surgery had led to her son’s temporary care placement at Almondside. Neither the boy nor his mother had inherited the farm after Michael’s death. Instead it appeared to have passed to an uncle, according to papers submitted to the hearing. School records showed that David had completed his education in Cork, with exceptional grades, but after that there was nothing. The trail was cold, for both mother and son.

  And then his landline phone had rung and the old minister had been put through.

  ‘Sergeant Cotter, my apologies. There’s something I forgot completely when we spoke. It’s probably not relevant, but I should tell you anyway. I’m an old man. Please forgive me.’

  ‘No apologies necessary,’ the DS assured him. ‘You’re telling me now. What is it?’

  ‘It was a few months ago,’ Corbett continued, ‘last October, maybe into November. I was down near Rosslare visiting a parishioner in a care home, lovely lady she was, she passed away in December. I was leaving and trying to re-join the road back to Wexford, when I was held up. There was an accident at the crossroad, blocking it so none of us could move; we were stuck, all of us. So there was I sitting there, listening to an old Val Doonican CD, when I happened to look up at a vehicle across from me. It was one of those mobile home things, a big fella, one of those Winnie-somethings or the like. I was admiring it and then I saw the driver. I thought I was seeing things, so I blinked hard to be sure and then I looked again. Second time around I was just as sure. It was David Murphy, sure as God made little green clovers and called them shamrocks. I know what you’re going to say that after our conversation my mind started playing tricks with me, but this was before we spoke and after decades of having mostly forgotten about him. It was David, I was certain of it then and I’m certain of it now. After all those years he still had that shock of hair.’

  The DS made a conscious effort to contain his elation. ‘Seamus,’ he began, ‘can you remember anything else about the vehicle?’

  ‘Only that it was big, big enough even to have a little motorcycle on the back,’ I saw that when the hold-up got easier and we moved forward a wee bit.’

  ‘What about the number plates?’ Cotter asked. ‘Were they British?’

  ‘No, I’d have remembered that if they had been. They were Irish all right. I hope that helps, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘and even if it doesn’t, no harm done, eh. It tells me the boy got over his experience and went on to have a good life. He must have if he can afford a monster like that. Heading south for the winter has always seemed like a good idea to me.’

  ‘Heading south?’ the DS repeated.

  ‘Where else on that road? It takes you straight to the Rosslare ferry. Anyway, I’ll be leaving you, Sergeant. Good hunting.’

  Beaming, Cotter snatched up his phone, and called Sauce Haddock. ‘Sir,’ he said as his call was picked up, ‘this is a long shot, but it’s possible I might have found Matthew Reid’s killer.’

  Eighty-Five

  ‘DC Benjamin? This is Deborah Haynes from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I’ve managed to trace the person you’re after, Naomi Trott.’

  ‘Excellent,’ the young DC exclaimed. Noele McClair, who was seated a few feet away, smiled at the enthusiasm with which she greeted every caller.

  ‘Her last known employer was the Juniper Casino, number twenty-one Watkin Street, Dundee, but it was a long time ago. A P45 was issued to her thirty years ago; no subsequent activity’s been recorded under her tax reference number, or her National Insurance number. I checked that with the DWP,’ she added. ‘Usually that would mean she emigrated.’

  Or was murdered, Benjamin thought. ‘Is there an address on her file?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s also Watkin Street, number thirty-one, flat three. It must have been an easy commute.’

  ‘Lucky her,’ the DC said. ‘Thanks, Ms Haynes.’

  ‘I hope it helps. Why are you after her?’

  ‘We’re not,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘We’re after the people who killed her. Ma’am,’ she called out as she hung up, ‘Naomi worked in a casino. I’ll ask one of the locals if they can tell me anything about it.’

  McClair shook her head. ‘They’re all youngsters. Leave that one with me, I have a better idea.’ She went to her phone, to her list of recent calls and pressed the number for Rod Greatorix. She expected to go straight to voicemail and so she was surprised when he answered the call.

  ‘Yes, Noele,’ he said. ‘Before you ask, there’s thunder and lightning here so we’ve all been forced off the course. How are you doing? Have you got a result?’

  ‘No, but we’re moving forward. My bright young DC,’ she spoke loudly enough for Benjamin to hear, ‘has found out that Naomi worked in a casino. It was in Watkin Street, and she seems to have lived in a flat above it.’

  ‘I remember it,’ Greatorix declared. ‘It was still there last time I was home, but it’s part of a national group now. The business was sold twenty-odd years ago. Only the business, mind, the owner kept the property.’

  ‘Who is the owner?’

  Sometimes, she reflected, it was possible to hear a smile. ‘You’ll have a feel for the city by now, Noele, so I’ll give you one guess.’

  Eighty-Six

  McGuire was seated at his desk, wondering why Stirling, the home of a festival of mystery fiction, was the only Scottish city with a rising crime rate when his door was swung open unceremoniously. There was only one person who could do that without consequence.

  ‘Come through here, buddy,’ Neil McIlhenney boomed. ‘You’ve got to see this. Bring your coffee.’

  Intrigued, the DCC followed his friend to his office, carrying his newly filled mug. The chief constable swung his iMac screen round, grabbing the mouse and mat.

  ‘You’re up to speed, I assume, with what Bob told me about Samuel Trott, a supposed victim in the Black Shield Lodge inquiry, that he’s not dead but living in Australia?’

  ‘Yes, I read your email. In fact it fucking woke me,’ McGuire grumbled. ‘You could have kept it until this morning, Neil, rather than send it at ten past eleven.’

  McIlhenney beamed. ‘How times have changed. One half of the Glimmer Twins tucked up and asleep before midnight.’