Ava laughed. Ailsa, a friend of her parents from years back, would never cease to refer to her as a child no matter how old she got or what rank she was.

‘I’ll take a break soon, I promise. We’ve finally appointed a new detective inspector, so that should ease things a bit. We’ll head out to Tantallon now. Anything in particular we should be searching for?’

‘It’s a needle in a haystack, but I’d like to get a look at the missing fingernails. They might just be harbouring a few cells that’ll paint a fuller picture,’ Ailsa said.

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Ava warned. ‘It hasn’t been treated as an active crime scene by forensics. What do you say, Luc? Are you up for a night-time stroll along the castle walls?’

‘Perfect end to a perfect holiday,’ Callanach smiled. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

Chapter Four

4 March

Stopping off at the police station, Ava and Callanach grabbed wet-weather gear, more substantial flashlights than were in the boots of their cars, and notified the control room of their plans. By the time they’d driven the thirty-odd miles east from the city centre towards North Berwick, taking the winding lanes from the main road to the tip of the coast with due respect for the rain and wind, it was just past midnight.

They sat quietly in Luc’s car, having bypassed the car park at the end of the lane in preference for parking directly outside the entry booth-cum-gift shop. Looking across at the vast curtain wall that had once shielded the inner grounds of the castle from marauders, they listened to the increasingly thunderous rain.

‘I came here for a weekend to do an archery course as a child,’ Ava smiled. ‘By the end of the first day, I thought I’d fallen in love with the instructor.’

‘What happened?’ Luc asked.

‘Oh, you know, like most crushes you have when you’re ten and your instructor’s twenty-five, it ended when he patted me on the head and said I’d tried really hard, then his bleach blonde girlfriend turned up in her miniskirt and my heart broke into a thousand pieces.’

‘Are you over it yet?’

‘Well, I still feel butterflies in my stomach when I see a man holding a longbow but other than that, I think I’m through the worst. Do you believe in ghosts?’ she asked.

‘No. It’s simple statistics. How many people have inhabited this earth and died? Surely we’d be overrun with restless spirits if that was the case.’

‘Cynic,’ she replied. ‘I thought Frenchmen were supposed to be romantic.’

‘Is that what you brought me here for? Romance? I’m not sure looking for a recently deceased man’s nails in a wall qualifies as a date.’