Lawrence had brought her after-hours to the hotel’s small security office. He’d shown her the footage. It was definitely Alex. The time stamp was two a.m. Six cases, from the storeroom, through the hallway across to the mews hostel. Not once. On three separate dates.

It wasn’t the first time. Four months earlier, Olivia had been approached by the bar manager. Several bottles of their most expensive whisky had gone missing. It was literally top shelf, and locked away too, in a glass cabinet made especially to display their range.

‘It wasn’t broken into,’ her manager said. ‘There are only two keys. I have one. Alex has the other.’

She’d called him into her office. Expected him to deny it. Instead he sat back and smiled. ‘My family hotel. My family whisky. Surely I don’t have to ask permission to take what is already mine, Olivia?’

‘It’s a family business, Alex. It’s not a family pantry. And you’re not taking boxes of cornflakes. Each bottle you took was worth nearly two hundred pounds.’

‘I have good taste, don’t I? Wouldn’t my father be proud of me?’

‘You are putting me, and the bar manager, in a difficult position. We’ll be keeping an eye on stock levels from now on. Especially of those rare whiskies.’

‘I’m sure the ignorant tourists who come here wouldn’t know a fine drop from a supermarket brand, Olivia, as you well know. Why waste our good stuff on them?’

‘What are you doing with it?’

‘I have it for breakfast. Poured over the cornflakes I also steal. Whoops. Loose lips sink ships. I shouldn’t have mentioned them, should I?’

She’d raised it with Deirdre. In her usual cool, official way, Deirdre had outlined their options. Threaten him with prosecution. Report him to the police. Neither was possible, as Alex well knew. A court case? One of the Montgomery heirs prosecuted? Edgar would never know about it, but Olivia still couldn’t let it happen. Deirdre had advised caution, a slow gathering of further evidence, but also to let Alex know they knew what he was doing.

For a while it seemed to have worked. Or perhaps he’d been so busy with the hostel that it hadn’t occurred to him to steal anything. Until lately.

‘How much?’ she asked Lawrence now.

Lawrence listed it, reading from a printout. More than £5000 worth. ‘It will be hard to prove what he’s doing with it. My guess is he’s selling it on, either to hostel guests, or others in Edinburgh.’

‘He knows about the cameras. What do you think he’s doing? Waiting for us to confront him?’

Lawrence stayed silent. Diplomatic as ever. But that would match Alex’s personality – to brazen it out until he was cornered, and then fight back against it if he was. Was he doing this for sport?

‘I’ll try to talk about it with him. And Rory? Please don’t tell me he’s selling the hotel linen on eBay?’

Lawrence smiled. ‘If he is, he’s better at covering his tracks. No, Rory is doing well. His time-keeping is still a problem, but our guests love him. He’s asked for more days off than usual recently, to go to craft fairs for his puzzle business. I’ve agreed each time. Did you want me to run that by you first?’