The memories were as filthy as any he had. Strange to relive them while the Mini moved past sweeping slopes of green, sparkling in the strengthening sun. This scenery was of a kind that was not familiar to Strike. The sweeping masses of granite, these rolling hills, had an alien grandeur in their bareness, in their calm spaciousness. He had spent much of his childhood perched on the coast, with the taste of salt in the air: this was a place of woodland and river, mysterious and secretive in a different way from St. Mawes, the little town with its long smuggling history, where colorful houses tumbled down to the beach.

As he passed a spectacular viaduct to his right, he thought about psychopaths, and how they were to be found everywhere, not only in run-down tenements and slums and squats, but even here, in this place of serene beauty. The likes of Laing resembled rats: you knew they were there, but you never gave them much thought until you came face to face with one.

A pair of miniature stone castles stood sentinel on either side of the road. As Strike drove into Donald Laing’s hometown, the sun broke through, dazzlingly bright.

16

So grab your rose and ringside seat,

We’re back home at Conry’s bar.

Blue Öyster Cult, “Before the Kiss”

Behind the glass door of a shop on the high street hung a tea towel. It was decorated with black line drawings of local landmarks, but what attracted Strike’s attention were a number of stylized yellow roses exactly like the tattoo he remembered on Donald Laing’s powerful forearm. He paused to read the verse in the middle:

It’s oor ain toon

It’s the best toon

That ever there be:

Here’s tae Melrose,

Gem o’ Scotland,

The toon o’ the free.

He had deposited the Mini in a car park beside the abbey, with its dark red arches rising against a pale blue sky. Beyond, to the south-east, was the triple peak of Eildon Hill, which Strike had noted on the map and which added drama and distinction to the skyline. After a bacon roll purchased at a nearby coffee shop and eaten at an outside table, followed by a cigarette and his second strong tea of the day, Strike had set out on foot in search of the Wynd, the home address Laing had given sixteen years previously when he joined the army and which Strike was not entirely sure how to pronounce. Was it “wind” as in breeze, or “wind” as in clock?

The small town looked prosperous in the sunshine as Strike strolled up the sloping high street to the central square, where a unicorn-topped pillar stood in a basin of flowers. A round stone in the pavement bore the town’s old Roman name, Trimontium, which Strike knew must refer to the triple-peaked hill nearby.

He seemed to have missed the Wynd, which according to the map on his phone led off the high street. He doubled back and found a narrow entrance in the walls to his right, only large enough for a pedestrian, which led to a dim inner courtyard. Laing’s old family home had a bright blue front door and was reached by a short flight of steps.