“Oh, yes. She was the local reporter for the Courier. Her name was June Stevens.”

“Get down to the paper, try and find out who leaked the story to them. Although it’s too bloody late now. And have a look at what June Stevens was working on before her death, just in case it’s pertinent somehow.”

“Yes, sir.” Frankie turned smartly on her heel and left him alone with his thoughts. What if her death wasn’t a suicide? Was the same murderer repeating his crime twenty years later?

“Hamish!” Corstorphine called to the desk sergeant, “Can you fetch me the case notes for that girl who committed suicide in 1997. June Stevens?”

“Certainly, sir. They’ll be locked in the storeroom filing cabinet, files that old. May take a while.”

“I’ll watch the front desk until one of the constables comes back. Then I want you to tell me everything you remember about the day she died.”

“Is there a connection to the present-day murders, sir?”

“I’m not sure, Hamish. Just something I need to explore.”

The sergeant returned after a while, a bulging file tied with blue ribbon under his arm. “This is the lot,” he announced. “The DI’s notebook is here as well – I put it in here when he retired. It was the only important case we ever had whilst he was in charge.”

“Thanks, Hamish. What do you remember about the case? Nothing official, just looking for background.”

Hamish looked relieved at the words ‘nothing official’ and sat down at Corstorphine’s bidding on the other side of the paper-strewn table.

“It was just an ordinary day, about this time of year. We had an emergency call alerting us to the discovery of a woman’s body found hanging in the glen, must have been around 10:00 a.m. as I’d just got back from the beat and was making myself a coffee.”

“Who made the call?”

“Anonymous, sir. Some hiker who didn’t want to be identified, probably. He had an Australian accent, I think. Whoever it was had used the public call box on the Inverness Road – it’s not there now, been taken away.”

“Was the phone dusted for prints?”

The desk sergeant looked surprised, as if this was the first time anyone had suggested checking the public phone for evidence. “No, sir. I think the DI said it wasn’t a worthwhile use of police resources because everyone and their dog would have used that phone some time or other.”

“It’s not a phone that would get that much use, stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

Hamish considered this for a good while, his eyes staring at a point over Corstorphine’s head. “I suppose not, sir. It was all a bit mad then, with the girl’s body and everything.”

“What can you tell me about the girl?”

“Oh, she was a bright thing. Worked as a reporter for the Courier – always sticking her nose into everything. The DI used to get quite angry with her, leaking stories he was trying to keep under wraps.” His eyes traversed to today’s copy of the paper, front page uppermost on the intervening desk.