‘It was a male orderly. He was stood outside smoking while on duty, under the cover of a couple of trees in the garden. Smoking on the grounds is banned and during a shift it’s a sackable offence. It took a while for him to decide it would be better to get sacked than to withhold information from us, not that it’s very detailed. A female figure emerged through Bruce Jenson’s patio door and ran through the gardens to the road. No hair or eye colour as it was so dark. No description of clothing other than tight-fitting trousers and a coat, not bulky. Tallish, slim, her figure gave the gender away.’

Graham sighed. ‘Fits with the female DNA found in Western’s car. Can you get hold of Dennis Mulanney tonight and confirm the alibi?’

‘That would be my pleasure,’ Lively said drily. ‘What’re your next steps?’

‘Updating the DCI,’ Graham said. ‘Tomorrow, I’d like to talk to Gilroy Western’s daughter. I know we’ve established that his wife was in Spain when he died, but that doesn’t mean his daughter was.’

‘Strikes me you’re getting the better end of this deal,’ Lively said. ‘Privileges of bloody rank.’

Chapter Thirty

16 March

Lance Proudfoot had arrived at the scene of Janet Monroe’s dramatic non-suicide later than the other attending press vultures – he was under no illusion as to how they were thought of in the collective – after the story online sent multiple alerts pinging to his phone. In truth, he hadn’t wanted to go. The prospect of potentially seeing a body fall from so great a height was grisly, but it was news and that was what he did.

The most impressive aspect of it would inevitably prove to be how the woman in question got access to the roof space in the first place. In an area that no tourist was ever going to visit, not willingly anyway, where poverty was the norm, and where it was easier to get drugs than an appointment with a doctor, the roof of one of Edinburgh’s tallest buildings had long since been carefully secured.

Careful to keep his distance from the remaining press pack, Lance took up position further away from the base of the building between two rows of parked cars, assessing the scene from a distance. Much as he hated the thought of taking photos under such distressing circumstances, the professional in him inevitably won over. He focused on the tiny people at the top of the tower block, his high-powered lens offering a view of a distressed woman he very much hoped he wouldn’t see descending at speed past the faces peering at the crowd through the windows.