Meanwhile Frankie was searching through dense woodland. The track showed evidence that a vehicle had been along it, but whether it had been the laird’s Land Rover and whether it was a recent track, she couldn’t say. Each time she came to a fork, she followed the path displaying the deeper tyre tracks, tying blue and white police tape onto conifer branches as she went. At one point she stopped, imagining she’d heard a vehicle. She listened intently for any sound that might percolate through the dense woodland, realising that her own breathing was all she could hear. No birds, no animals, not even insects disturbed the perfect quiet. She shivered, feeling suddenly uneasy. Conifer plantations were like graveyards, sucking up all heat and light and leaving nothing for the living. She checked her watch. 19:08. They’d been searching for hours. At best there was one hour of daylight left. Reluctantly she turned back on herself and walked as quickly as she could back to the track where Corstorphine had left her. Frankie keyed the short-wave radio. “This is DC McKenzie. I’m starting to head back to our rendezvous, sir. Nothing found along here. Over.”

Corstorphine responded after a short while. “OK, Frankie, I’ll just have to find somewhere I can back up and turn around. Drawn a blank here too. PC Lamb, anything to report? Over.”

PC Lamb was about to answer in the negative when he thought he could see the outline of a building through the dense trees. He picked up pace, eventually entering a small clearing where a single-storey white building stood, with bars on the windows. The laird’s Land Rover was parked outside.

“PC Lamb here. I’ve found his Land Rover, sir, next to a small building. I’ll just take a look. Over,” he added eventually.

“Don’t touch anything. Let us know if he’s alright. Over.” Corstorphine had a brief moment when he thought that his pessimistic temperament was going to be proven wrong. He drove back down the mountain track, waiting impatiently for Lamb to respond.

Lamb shouted out to see if anyone was there. The silence that returned his call was sufficient warning for him to proceed cautiously, checking the trees for snares, the ground for traps. In this overtly cautious manner he approached the window, already suspecting that the spatters he saw covering the glass were blood. He reached into his belt, retrieved his high-powered flashlight and looked in on a scene of utter carnage.

“Fuck, fuck!” He looked around guiltily in case anyone had heard his involuntary outburst and was relieved to find he was still on his own. He walked around the building until he found a door and tried the handle, issuing a silent prayer of thanks when he found it was locked.

“Sir. I’ve found him. Over.”