Half an hour later she pulled into the Daily Clarion’s car park and headed straight for the office library, pausing only to drop by the newsdesk and tell them where she was going. Their file on Lorna was not extensive but fairly comprehensive. Critical notices and a couple of profiles fleshed out what Lindsay already knew. She had jotted down one or two names without much hope that they might be worth talking to before she came across two clippings that seemed to provide more fertile ground. One consisted of a couple of paragraphs from the Daily Nation’s Sam Pepys’ Diary linking her name with Anthony Barrington of the Barrington Beer brewing empire. The other was a few paragraphs long and reported that Lorna had been cited in the Barrington divorce a few months later. “Caroline!” Lindsay breathed.

She went back to the counter and asked if they had anything on file on Anthony Barrington. The librarian vanished among the high metal banks of the computerized retrieval system that still hadn’t managed to render obsolete the thick envelopes of yellowing cuttings. He returned with a thin file and a current edition of Who’s Who. Lindsay started with the reference book:

Barrington, Anthony Giles, m. 1960 Marjory Maurice, m.diss.1982. 1 son 2 daughters. Educ. Marlborough, New Coll., Oxford. Managing Director and Chief executive Barrington Beers. Publ: Solo Climbs in the Pyrenees, The Long Way Home—an Eiger Route. Interests: mountaineering, sailing. Clubs: Alpinists, White’s. Address: Barrington House, Victoria Embankment, London.

“Interesting,” she mused. The file cuttings comprised the two she had already seen and a story about a climbing team he’d led reaching the Eiger summit by a new route. By no means a run-of-the-mill businessman. Lindsay could see why Caroline might have good reason to hate Lorna if she had caused the breakup of the girl’s family.

Lindsay had no time for further thought, because the tannoy announced at that moment that she was wanted at the newsdesk.

Duncan Morrison, the news editor of the Clarion, was the typical Glasgow newspaper hard man with the marshmallow center. Although he spent a lot of time winding Lindsay up about her views, she knew that he thought she was good at her job. He didn’t seem to mind that she argued with him in a way that none of his staff reporters would dare. As she approached the newsdesk, he threw a memo to her and said, “Get busy on that. A real tear-jerker there. Just the job for you. What it needs is a woman’s touch.”

Lindsay flicked quickly through the memo. It had come from a staff reporter who had spotted the story in a local paper and noted the bare bones on a memo to the news-desk, suggesting it be followed up. The story was about a woman who had given birth to twins after surgeons had told her she would never have a child.