He suddenly recalled walking in unexpectedly on Joanne earlier, when she’d been at her laptop. She’d undoubtedly been surprised, maybe even displeased to see him, but had managed to cover it. Might she have been checking online to see if the discovery of the body had already made the news?

As he parked, he chastised himself for doubting her again. After all, he’d been the one to screw up today, not Joanne.

The double front doors of the hall being firmly closed, he made for the back entrance. A uniform he didn’t know was at the door and checked his name off a list.

Glancing into the main hall, he saw the rows of seats set out just as they’d been on the night of the council meeting to discuss the Party House reopening. This time, however, the seats were occupied by males only, all local.

Some concerned faces glanced out at him and he wondered if he was meant to join them, before the police officer motioned him into the smaller of the two back rooms.

‘DI Snyder wants to see you right away.’

Why me? he thought, his stomach turning over.

The wee back room was normally used for meetings between Malcolm and folk who wanted to discuss problems that the community council might help with. He’d had a few meetings in here with Malcolm himself, which generally ended up in the pub, where the problem was usually solved.

On entering that familiar place, he found Snyder and a woman detective, he assumed, seated together behind a table, a single seat for an interviewee in front.

They were talking about something, and Snyder was laughing at whatever the woman had last said. It was strange to hear Snyder laugh, he thought. Especially since the detective was, in his eyes at least, already the devil incarnate.

Suddenly spotting Greg standing hesitant in the doorway, Snyder resumed his police officer expression and beckoned him in.

‘Mr Taylor. This is Detective Sergeant Reid.’

Now that she was in full rather than side view, Greg registered an attractive woman, more than likely younger than him, with cropped blonde hair and steady brown eyes. As she mutually studied him, his first thought was that if she was already a detective sergeant in her mid-twenties, she was good at her job. So double trouble now on the interviewing front.

Snyder’s voice brought him back to the task in hand.

‘First, I’d like to check a few details with you?’

Greg nodded, as though he had a choice in the matter.

‘Your name is Greg Taylor. You are head keeper on the Blackrig Estate and currently live at Beanach, about a mile outside Blackrig?’

Greg nodded again. ‘Yes.’

‘I’d like you to repeat your story regarding the discovery of human remains in the grounds of Ard Choille.’