He’d decided not to give any forewarning of his visit. If Eleanor Jackson wasn’t in, he would simply wait for her.

Karen’s sister had left East Kilbride sometime after she’d married Eric, moving down the A726 to Strathaven. McNab found the stone villa where they’d apparently brought up two kids who no longer lived at home, according to Mrs Jackson.

The substantial property now looked way too big for a woman on her own, whose husband seemed to spend most of his time working abroad. McNab parked on the road outside, then gave Janice a call.

‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘Any word on Karen?’

‘We picked up her car on the cameras heading south through Glasgow – timing suggests that’s when she was making for her old address and her visit to Jean. We have nothing yet on where she went after that, either north or south.’

‘Make sure someone’s watching for her at Rowan Cottage. Let’s hope she heads home. Oh, and Janice, have someone at her husband’s grave. I have a feeling she may eventually go there.’

Noting a light had come on upstairs, McNab got out of the car, locked it and headed up the short drive. The villa with its garden looked a bit further up the scale than the police house Eleanor had been brought up in. Which suggested her husband’s truck tours on the continent were well paid. Of course, Eleanor might also work. McNab tried to recall if she’d mentioned that in their conversation and realized if she had, he hadn’t made a note of it, only being interested in what had happened forty-five years ago.

The doorbell produced chimes that weren’t answered, even though McNab was pretty sure they were loud enough to penetrate the entire house. The attached garage was closed and there wasn’t a car in the drive. But there was the light on upstairs.

McNab rang again and waited, impatient now. Finally, he opened the letter box and shouted through.

‘Police. Open the door!’

Eventually, he heard movement, a door opening, footsteps. Then a voice said, ‘Who is it?’

McNab repeated, ‘It’s the police. Detective Sergeant McNab.’

A moment’s silence, then the door was unlocked and opened a fraction. Mrs Jackson stared through the crack at him and his ID as though she’d never met him before.

‘May I come in, Mrs Jackson?’ McNab said.

‘Is it really necessary?’ Mrs Jackson used the irritated voice McNab had come to know.

‘Yes,’ McNab told her.

The door was grudgingly opened further and McNab allowed to enter. Mrs Jackson was dressed in slacks and a sweater. Out of the formal clothes she’d worn to the station, she looked younger, although no less cross.

‘You should have called before coming here,’ she told McNab as he followed her into a sitting room where she switched on a light.

‘I was nearby, in fact just up the road at your old home, speaking to Jean Barclay.’

She accepted his lie without surprise, which seemed odd. McNab had assumed she would ask why he should be doing such a thing, in the evening, like this.