“I don’t know,” she responded sulkily. “Maybe Oscar found it in the heather and stored it in the dry.”

“What else have you found, Margo? You seem to know a lot more about Oscar and events in this town than you told us.”

“I just remembered some things, that’s all. None of this is your business. I don’t have to tell you anything.” She spat the last words out defiantly, her low regard for the police evident in her expression.

Corstorphine nodded tiredly. “That’s right, Margo, you don’t have to tell us anything. However, if you have any interest in helping us find Oscar’s murderer before he selects his next victim, I suggest you come to me first.” He shared a meaningful look with her. “So far, it’s people connected to Oscar that have been killed. You don’t want to become another body on the list.”

Corstorphine drove back to the station, the image of Margo’s shocked awareness that she could be in danger fresh in his memory. “That really wasn’t kind, James.” His wife’s disapproving voice sounded in his ears. He decided to ignore it.

XXII WEDNESDAY 16:12

XXII
WEDNESDAY 16:12

They sat in the interview room: Frankie and Corstorphine on one side and John Ackerman with his solicitor on the other. Frankie started the voice recorder whilst John Ackerman sat back in his chair, trying hard to look disinterested, but Corstorphine had caught the slight air of panic as he was brought back into the station.

“You know why we’re here again, John?” Corstorphine opened the questioning with a leading comment, calculated to ramp up the stress at the start.

“No idea. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Have you seen Mr Anthony McCallum recently?” Corstorphine countered.

“Have you something to charge my client with, Detective Inspector? Otherwise we are just going to walk out of here.” The solicitor made a show of closing his file and replacing his pen in his jacket pocket.

“Run the footage, Frankie.” DC McKenzie pushed play on her laptop, swinging the screen around so both John Ackerman and his solicitor could see footage of him walking around the outside of the laird’s house, followed by inside camera views before the final shots of him leaving the house, his jacket a lot bulkier than it had been. The solicitor rolled his eyes and painstakingly removed his pen once more, opening his file and writing in small, neat script.

“That’s not me!” Even the solicitor forgot to keep a poker face, incredulity writ large across his bespectacled features.

“Fingerprints.” Corstorphine said just the one word, as if this alone was sufficient for a conviction.

Frankie passed over a set of prints, clearly photographed on the broken window pane where Ackerman’s fingers had picked out slivers of glass before entering. She passed over another set of official prints, clearly identified as Ackerman’s for comparison.