She paused dramatically while he poured her more whisky, then, although he already knew what was coming, he waited, attentive for her next revelation.

“The odd twenty quid to keep a bank manager’s name out of the paper was only chicken feed,” she said. “That wouldn’t keep our Stella in designer frocks and fancy kitchens. So James got more ambitious and the racket with local businesses started.”

“When was that, Mary?” Ramsay asked, quiet and apologetic. “When did the local business racket first start?”

“Years ago,” she said. “Perhaps even before I started on the paper.”

“Tell me,” he said. “ How did it work?”

“Well,” she said, tantalising him, the perfect performer. “Of course I don’t know all the details …”

“But it’s your story, Mary. You know how it worked.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “ I know how it worked. James Laidlaw, the great investigative journalist, threatened to put people out of business if they didn’t pay him lots of money. That’s how it worked.”

“How could he do that, Mary? I need to know.”

“He snooped,” she said. “He was a bloody good reporter. He followed leads, listened to rumours. He found out all the things that people wanted to hide. And if they were clean as the driven snow, he started the rumours himself.”

“What about evidence?” Ramsay asked. “ You’ll need evidence for your story.”

“There are some people willing to talk,” Mary said. “ There’s May Smith in the cottage hospital. She’ll talk to you.”

“May Smith?” Ramsay said, although Hunter had been visiting her only hours before. “Who’s she, Mary?”

“She’s an old lady. She was a resident in the White Gates old people’s home. She liked it there. She was happy. But the place had to close because James ran a campaign about it in the Express. Relatives of the old folks who lived there took them away because they thought everything you read in the papers is true.”

“Why did he run the campaign, Mary?”

“Because the matron refused to pay him protection money.”

“Why didn’t she go to the police?”

“Would you have believed her?” Mary demanded. “After all the publicity there’s been about the ill treatment of old people in nursing homes? Or would you have thought she was making the whole thing up to protect her business?”

“Perhaps,” Ramsay said. “But we would have looked into the complaint.”

“And you would have found nothing!” she said. “ No witnesses, nothing. None of the other old people’s homes in the area would admit to paying up in case the same thing happened to them. James Laidlaw was a powerful man, and married to a Rutherford. They were frightened of him. They thought he was worth a fortune.”

She paused again, went to the window, and looked down on the street.