‘Tell me about it, Mia,’ he sighed. ‘When she was in theatre those were the worst few hours of our lives. Her having such a rare blood group, that made it worse. Thank Christ, though, she’s making a complete recovery.’

  ‘That is such a relief. When it happened, so soon after Cameron’s death, I was as scared as you must have been. I’ve only ever had a baby in my life that one time, with Ignacio. It was a hard time for me, with one thing and another: that’s all the more reason why I intend to enjoy being a great-grandmother!’

  Thirteen

  ‘Where’s Sauce?’

  Arthur Dorward’s question, fired at her as he stepped out of the all-enveloping crime-scene tent, took Noele McClair by surprise. ‘He’s gone to speak to Mia McCullough,’ she replied, ‘to give her an update on what’s happening.’

  ‘Is he hoping she’ll be able to tell him who Mr Bones might be?’

  ‘No chance of that. From what I gather Mia’s a relative newcomer. She and Cameron McCullough were only married for a few years before he died.’

  The scientist frowned. ‘McCullough?’ he repeated. ‘Is that not Sauce’s wife’s name?’

  ‘That’s right. Did nobody brief you on the ownership of the place?’

  ‘You must be joking,’ he laughed. ‘We just get told to get our arses to the scenes as fast as we can. What’s the connection?’

  ‘The original Cameron, the dead one,’ she smiled briefly, ‘he was Sauce’s wife’s grandfather. His widow runs the estate now.’

  ‘Where does Sauce’s mother-in-law fit in?’

  ‘She doesn’t.’ In an instant her good humour vanished, and her expression darkened. ‘Inez Davis is out of circulation, for a good few years.’

  ‘Inez Davis?’ he repeated. ‘Wasn’t she convicted as an accessory to a murder a wee while back? And wasn’t the guy that was shot . . .’

  ‘. . . my ex-husband? Yes, Arthur, he was.’

  ‘You’re telling me that a DCI’s mother-in-law is a lifer?’ Dorward exclaimed. ‘Why didn’t the red-tops have a field day with that?’

  ‘Because the connection was never made,’ McClair replied, ‘in court or anywhere else.’

  ‘Did you ever think about picking up the phone?’ he wondered.

  ‘And do that to Sauce? Never. He might have lost his career even before it started because of that woman. It wouldn’t harm him now, but he’s the best of men and no way does he deserve that sort of personal publicity. Nor does his wife,’ she added.

  ‘No, that’s true. Anyway,’ the scientist continued. ‘Since you’re the senior officer present, it’s you I should brief. We’ve finished extracting the skeleton and we’re ready to send it to wherever it’s going. Where is that, by the way? Dundee?’

  ‘No, Edinburgh. Professor Grace wants it since she was first on the scene.’

  ‘And she can pull rank over just about anyone else in Scotland,’ he murmured with a half-smile. ‘Very good, Sarah can have him. She can’t have his fingertips, though. We definitely can’t find any of them.’ He paused. ‘However, we did uncover some clothing fragments in the ground. He appears to have been buried wearing socks and underpants, that’s all. British Home Stores Y-fronts, but there’s nothing on the label that’s going to tell us where or when they were bought. The socks were pretty much intact; his feet didn’t come up with the rest of him when the tree was blown over. Apart from that . . .’

  McClair’s ringtone cut across him. ‘Sorry, Arthur,’ she murmured, reaching inside her crime-scene suit for her phone.

  He shrugged. ‘I was done anyway. There’s little or nothing apart from that.’

  She looked at the screen, only to see ‘Number withheld’ displayed. Mildly curious she took the call.

  ‘Noele McClair.’

  ‘Inspector,’ a brisk and possibly irritated female voice replied. ‘This is DCI Karen Neville, Organised Crime and CT Division. I’ve just come back from my Sunday dog walk with my kids to find a couple of voicemails on my landline from a DC Benjamin. When I called her back she told me that she’s been tasked with tracking down a Spanish mobile number; tasked by you. Is that so?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, it is.’

  ‘Cut the ma’am, for fuck’s sake. My job involves gathering intelligence on gangsters and terrorists, Noele. I’m not a fucking resource base for CID.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Karen. I realised that I was dropping a big task on Tiggy, any day of the week, let alone Sunday. I thought, no I assumed, that your team would have international contacts that you use on a regular basis.’

  ‘We do,’ Neville conceded, ‘but if we use them too regularly they tend to get pissed off with us, especially our friends in Madrid or Barcelona. What’s this about anyway? You’re East of Scotland Serious Crimes, Sauce Haddock’s unit. What are you working on that has you chasing someone in Spain? Is it something we should have been told about? If so, ACC Payne might be having a word with ACC Stallings, and you don’t want that to happen.’

  ‘No, Karen,’ McClair replied, hesitantly, ‘it’s not job related . . . or maybe it is, I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on,’ her colleague said, ‘make your mind up.’

  She sighed. ‘Well, it’s this. I had a text this morning, out of the blue, from that number. It was a message of a personal nature, but with no signature or any other clue to the sender.’

  ‘What did it say?’ Neville asked. ‘Personal or not, tell me.’

  ‘It said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to end like that.” Maybe not verbatim but words to that effect.’

  ‘Tough shit, Noele. Sound like you’re being apologetically dumped. You must have an idea who the sender was, surely.’

  ‘Yes, I have. As a matter of fact there’s only one possibility, given the way my love-life’s been over the last couple of years, but there’s a big problem with that. The man in question . . . He’s missing, presumed dead.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Yes. Karen, are you familiar with an unsolved murder in Glasgow last year? Fuck it, why am I asking you that? I know you are. Your ex-husband was a suspect for a while.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Neville’s voice was a gasp.

  ‘The only active suspect,’ McClair continued, ‘was a man named Matthew Reid, a writer of mystery novels. Shortly afterwards he was connected to a string of unexplained sudden deaths involving elderly people in Gullane, where he lived. When officers went to interview him, they found his house had been wiped absolutely clean of any identifying materials. When they contacted his publisher, they found that he’d just delivered a manuscript. We suspect it tells the whole story of the affair, but we’ll have to go to court to force the publisher to hand it over.’

  ‘And knowing all this,’ her voice was hard ‘you weren’t aware of my personal connection with Matthew Reid, my dad’s best friend, my Uncle Matt?’

  ‘No . . . I mean yes,’ McClair admitted. ‘I was aware, but it didn’t influence my judgement. I still thought you were best placed to find the sender of the message.’

  ‘Hah!’ Neville laughed. ‘Of course, you bloody did. Why didn’t you just call me yourself instead of getting your kid to do the job?’

  ‘I was in a rush to get to a crime scene.’

  ‘That’s mince, Noele, pure mince. You still made a phone call. It could have been to me.

  ‘I didn’t like to,’ she admitted.

  ‘Why the hell not? You must have known I’d spark on it. Except. Wait a minute. The message. If it was Uncle Matt, what did he mean when he said he didn’t want it to end like that? Want what?’ She fell silent. ‘Noele, Sauce Haddock isn’t telling a soul, not even ACC Stallings, about where he managed to source Uncle Matt’s DNA. Are you trying not to tell me that it was you? Did you have it off with my septuagenarian uncle, and did he leave traces?’

  ‘I’m saying nothing,’ McClair replied, quietly, as if she was afraid of being overheard even though there was nobody within thirty feet of where she stood. ‘All I’m doing is asking if you can identify a mobile user. Are you up for it?’

  ‘Yes, I am, no problem. You might not be aware that Uncle Matt has a place in Spain. But you do realise that if I suspect it is him, whatever our personal situations might be, I’m going to have to tell Lottie Mann about the text, as the SIO in the Glasgow murder. I know for a fact she’s been looking for him over there already.’

  ‘And she’s going to want to know where the number came from,’ McClair sighed.

  ‘I’m afraid so. But don’t worry, Lottie’ll be discreet. Hey Noele,’ Neville added.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t ask this, him being my sort of uncle, but . . .’

  ‘No! You shouldn’t ask! But yes, he was. Quite memorable, in fact.’

  Fourteen

  The door swung open and an elderly man stepped into the small office that the Serious Crimes team had commandeered in the Black Shield Lodge management suite. His shoulders were so wide that for a moment he seemed to block out much of the light from the hall outside.

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’ he asked

  ‘‘That would be me, Detective Chief Inspector Haddock.’

  ‘Ronnie Sexton, estate manager.’ He laid down the briefcase he was carrying and extended a meaty hand. ‘You’ll be young Miss Cameron’s husband. I never knew she had married a police officer until Sir Robert told me earlier on. I haven’t seen her here in a few years now, and her grandfather didn’t talk about her as much as he used to, not after Mia came along.’ He gave Haddock an appraising look. ‘Now I think about it, I remember seeing you at the funeral, but I couldna’ go to the do afterwards, otherwise we might have met then.’

  Haddock rose from his swivel chair as he shook Sexton’s hand. Its grip might have been a crusher, but his own was powerful from thousands of balls hit on golf course practice ranges, the estate course among them. ‘Well,’ he responded, ‘we’re meeting now. You could have saved yourself the trip though. I’d asked my detective sergeant to make contact with you to take a formal statement. We need that for the record, for our investigation.’

  ‘Oh, she called me, but I thought it was just as well me coming to you, since I’ve found the records that Sir Robert asked me to look for, the order form and invoices for the planting of the wood, thirty years ago.’ He grinned. ‘Cameron used to call it “Cheeky’s Wood”, when she was growing up and playing around here. She spent far more time wi’ him than she ever did with her mother. The truth was that he and Mrs McCullough more or less brought her up. But you’ll know that, of course.’

  Haddock nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘But do you know why?’ Sexton asked, quietly. ‘Inez always was a bad lot. Maybe I shouldna’ be saying that to you, since she’s your mother-in-law, but it’s true. I know where she is now, by the way,’ he added. ‘The papers never made the connection when she appeared in the High Court, because she was charged as Inez Davis but Cameron told me. It just about broke him, you know. I’m sure it contributed to the stroke that killed him.’ He frowned. ‘I blame her aunt, you know, Cameron’s sister, that Goldie. She was well kent in Dundee as a vicious, evil bitch. Her man, Henry, he was as bad. And that guy Davis that Inez latched on to eventually, he was even worse. Cameron would never allow any of them near this place, you know. He knew them all for what they were.’ He paused for a second, looking Haddock in the eye. ‘Look, I know there were all those stories about Cameron, but I always thought that he was maybe a wee bit wary himself of Goldie and her crew.’

  ‘You seem to have liked him though,’ Haddock observed.

  ‘I did,’ he agreed, ‘for all the thirty years I knew him. How about you? Did you, or were you influenced by all the police chat . . . and don’t tell me you never heard it.’

  ‘No, I heard it all right. And I will admit to you . . . although I don’t know why on the basis of a two-minute acquaintanceship . . . that I did keep him at a distance for a while. As Cheeky and I became a couple that proved difficult, and finally impossible; when I did see more of him, I warmed to him, that I will admit too.’ He glanced down at the briefcase, breaking the moment. ‘Now, Mr Sexton, what have you brought for me? Let’s have a look at it, before I turn you over to DS Wright to be interviewed on the record for our investigation.’

  ‘Is it a murder inquiry then?’

  Haddock nodded as he frowned. ‘Until we find evidence that a man could bury himself alive under two or three feet of soil,’ he murmured, straight-faced, ‘it is indeed a murder inquiry.’

  Sexton picked up the briefcase and flicked open its two catches. He placed it on the desk that Haddock had been using and produced a thick folder, its green covering creased and buckled at the corners. ‘It’s all in there,’ he announced. ‘The plans and the detailed invoices for Cheeky’s Wood. It was planted by a company called OKW Forestry Services, a family firm based just south of Pitlochry. As far as I know they’re still there. They were for sure ten years ago when I called them in to give the estate woodland a bit of a sprucing up.’ Sexton smiled. ‘Not that we have a hell of a lot of spruce here; none at all in fact. Cheeky’s Wood is Douglas fir. The foresters wanted to plant London plane, to give the estate more of a parkland look. Cameron turned that down. It was him that insisted on Douglas fir. He’d seen it in America, he said, and liked the way it grew, straight and true. He said he wanted his granddaughter to grow up that way. I remember him saying that, standing in the middle of what was then a patch of uncultivated ground. It did too, straight and true, until it met up with Storm bloody Boromir.’

  ‘So did Cameron’s granddaughter,’ Haddock chuckled, ‘but she had the good sense to stay indoors last night.’

  Fifteen

  ‘How urgent is this enquiry, Inspector?’ the accented voice demanded. ‘You call this department of the Policía Nacional on a Sunday, and my people have to call me to find an English speaker, while I am on the road to Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. You hear what I am saying? I am going to El Derbi, the mighty Real Madrid against the lowly Atlético. It’s one of the two biggest matches of the year, it and El Classico. If you’re going to tell me that it can’t wait until tomorrow morning, I am not going to be a happy Capitan Torres.’

  Karen Neville laughed at his indignation. ‘Relax, Captain,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow morning will be fine. This isn’t a cross-border investigation and nobody is going to die if I don’t get a resolution today.’

  ‘That is good to know,’ the Spaniard sighed. ‘Who is he anyway, this man that you are after?’

  ‘He’s what we call a person of interest in a murder investigation.’

  ‘Does he have criminal connections in this country?’

  ‘No, I have no reason to believe that he has. I don’t even know for certain that he’s still alive. He’s missing, not officially presumed dead, but that’s the general assumption. If it’s not him, then we’d still like to know who he is. Understand?’

  ‘I am not even close to understanding, senora,’ Torres chuckled, ‘but tomorrow I will detail three officers to help you find out. Tonight, you can do me the courtesy of wishing good luck to Real Madrid.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Neville replied. ‘My daughter would kill me if she found out. Daniele is a Barcelona supporter.’

  ‘You see! That’s how desperate those Catalans are now. They are even having to rely on little girls to support them.’

  Sixteen

  Darkness was closing in and Haddock was back at his borrowed desk studying the folder that Ronnie Sexton had brought when he heard a light tap on the door. He turned in his chair and was about to call, ‘Come in,’ when his invitation was anticipated.

  He frowned as he looked at the woman who entered. She was of medium height with short grey-flecked brown hair, wearing a long grey skirt and a car coat, and she was instantly familiar. Not unnaturally, he realised, after a further second or two. She was his boss, although it was years since he had seen her out of uniform.

  ‘Afternoon, Sauce,’ Assistant Chief Constable Becky Stallings exclaimed. ‘What have you landed yourself in?’

  ‘It landed on me more like, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘I was out for a run with a couple of the boys and we came upon it.’ He neglected to mention that he had been left trailing in the wake of a twelve-year-old. ‘It’s under control. We’re doing everything we should to extract the remains. Obviously, the tricky part will be in identifying him.’

  ‘Who’s doing the identifying?’

  ‘Professor Grace.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Stallings murmured. ‘Lady Skinner no less. How did you get her up here from East Lothian? That’s where she and Bob live, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t. She was here as well. There was a party last night; it was a combined event really, a memorial dinner for Cameron McCullough and a twenty-first bash for his stepson, Ignacio. His mother, Mia, Cameron’s widow, she runs this place now, and she hosted it.’

  She nodded, pensively. ‘You didn’t explain all that in the voicemail you left for me. All you said was that you were on the scene.’

  ‘I thought that could wait, ma’am. My priority was having the site processed and the remains removed, in case the weather turned nasty again.’

  ‘That’s fair enough, Sauce. I’d have done the same.’ She paused, slipping off the short raincoat and taking a seat. ‘I know all about your family connection too,’ she added. ‘I did an internet search for Black Shield Lodge. Owned and operated as you said by the famous, or possibly infamous, Cameron McCullough, until his death late last year: he was your wife’s grandfather, if I remember correctly.’

  ‘You do, and she’s his heir.’ As I’m sure you remember too, he thought. He tapped the folder he had been studying. ‘He planted the wood when Cheeky was born. These are the records. The firm’s still in business; we’ll talk to them.’

  ‘With no great expectation though,’ Stallings observed. ‘Chances are that anyone who was involved in the job will be dead or retired by now. What I don’t get, Sauce, is the Skinner connection? Why were they here?’