Corstorphine watched him as he drove his 4x4 away through the trees, wondering what it must have been like for the laird locked in the cold store. Monday was the last time he had shown up on the CCTV at his house, and Margo had said he’d been at her cottage some time Monday morning. Could he have been there for four days? Frankie stood in the open doorway to the cold store, waiting for him to come back to the scene.

“How long can you live without water, Frankie?”

She thought for a second before replying. “I think it’s something like three days, sir. Probably less if you have nothing to eat except salted crisps.”

She’d come to the same conclusion as he had. The crisps had been deliberately left in the building to hasten the onset of death. That wouldn’t have been a pleasant way to go, at least Oscar and the minister had died quickly. Could the murderer have deliberately chosen a painful and lingering death for the laird? And the hourglass, the red sand almost completely run through to the lower container. Had the laird made the connection between the hourglass and the time he had left to live?

“There’s an inscription on the hourglass, sir.”

“What have we got?”

He entered the cold store again, crouching down to read the words carved into the side of the mahogany base – Suffer The Little Children. There was no doubt about the motive now.

“Lamb, can you stay here until forensics have completed their job?”

“Sir,” he acknowledged.

“Good man. Get a lift back to town with them when they’re ready to go. We’ll arrange for an ambulance to collect the body.” Corstorphine looked doubtfully back at the track. “We may have to ask the mountain rescue team to fetch him. Frankie, you come back with me, we need to talk.” He took another roll of police tape from the back of the Land Rover. “Here, seal the place up when you’re done.”

Corstorphine turned the police Land Rover around, headlights casting a xenon beam deep into the trees until they found the track, police tape fluorescing silver in the distance and indicating which path to take through the labyrinth forest.

“We might have saved him if we’d only gone looking for him yesterday.” Corstorphine’s voice was bitter with self-recrimination. “Now one of the few people who knew what was going on at the orphanage is dead.”

“It’s not your fault, sir. Nobody could have known he was locked in that building. It was a piece of luck that Lamb found him at all.”

“Fuck!” He hit the steering wheel with the flat of his hand, then had to grab the wheel in both hands to avoid driving straight into the trees. Frankie sat in silence. There was nothing she could think of saying that would be of any comfort.