“We can try again. Maybe I’ll speak to him this time. Anyone else?”

“Bill tracked another child down through his NI number, Simon Battle – presently banged up in Barlinnie for GBH.”

“Good. He’s not going anywhere. Let’s have a word with him as well, eh?”

“What about investigating June’s death, sir?”

Corstorphine stared out of the window, seeking whatever inspiration he could find from the car park. Car park – didn’t they discover Richard III’s body under a car park? And the orphanage garden had been left as a public space.

“We better not proceed in any official way, Frankie. I’ve had my orders and if there’s any truth in that notebook then starting an investigation would be a red rag to a bull. What do you make of the reporters at the Courier?”

“I think they’re fairly straight, sir. They’ve helped our investigation along by passing on what Margo told them.”

Corstorphine stroked his chin, a habit left over from the days he used to sport a beard. “OK, we may be able to work with them. Let the reporters do some of the dirty work without anyone knowing we’re working together.” He thought for a second. “Right. I’m going to pay a social call on the laird, just to sound him out. You arrange for William Booth to come in at his earliest convenience for a chat. If he can be tied to the supply of animal bones, then he may have more than a coincidental connection to the murders – and he’d have a motive for both those deaths. I want you to organise a visit to Barlinnie as well. Let’s try for first thing tomorrow, eh? See what Mr Battle has to say about his time at the orphanage.”

Frankie asked the constables whether they’d been able to track down any more of the orphans, but they’d had no luck so far. Whatever the reason, the children who’d been to that orphanage were proving particularly elusive to find. She arranged a visit to Barlinnie for herself and Corstorphine at 11:15 Thursday, then persuaded William Booth that his attendance could either be voluntary or otherwise if he preferred. He was booked in for 7:30 Friday.

She looked at the crazy board. William Booth and John Ackerman shared space with Margo McDonald as ‘persons of interest’. How was Corstorphine going to handle the laird without insinuating that he knew he had been accused of child abuse? Sometimes it was the best career choice to stay at the level you were, something the constables and desk sergeant would all agree on. It was lunch time, good a time as any to see what the old clockmaker had made of the pile of bone fragments she’d dumped on him yesterday.