“I met with the reporter, a French woman called Josephine Sables. She knows about the church bell timbers being sawn through. It’s going to be in tomorrow’s paper.”

Corstorphine took the folded sheet of A3 as if he was handling something poisonous, opening it out to reveal the story. “Shit! Who’s been feeding her the information?”

“I don’t know, sir. Could be one of the team, or it could be the fire crew – or even the building surveyors. Either way, the cat’s out of the bag. She’s asked for exclusive information in return for finding out what June Stevens was working on.”

“Has she now?” Corstorphine shook his head in frustration, he should have gone to the paper himself. “What did you tell her?”

“I didn’t. Thought I’d run it past you first.” Frankie decided to get all of the bad news out of the way at once. “She mentioned that the nationals will take note of two murders happening in the same small town this close together.”

Corstorphine sighed heavily, placing the A3 sheet face down on his desk as if he could hide the story for a while longer. “I guess it was unavoidable, a snared gamekeeper and a minister killed by his own church bell. We’ll have to tighten up our act, Frankie. The Assistant Chief is going to be all over this as soon as the national press get wind. We’ve tomorrow at best to make some progress, after that we’ll be tripping over bloody reporters and film crews.”

Frankie hesitated, unsure whether the reporter’s strange question had any bearing on the case. “One other thing she said, sir.”

Corstorphine paused, wearing what Frankie termed his impatient face.

“She asked whether Oscar died with an erection, whether he’d ejaculated as he died.”

The detective’s eyebrow responded accordingly. “What sort of bloody question is that?”

“I don’t know, sir, couldn’t see why she wanted to know.” Frankie walked over to her desk to cover her embarrassment. She had the remnants of a Scottish Presbyterian upbringing still flowing in her veins and the subject material was difficult for her to discuss.

“French, you say?”

“Yes, sir, certainly sounded French.”

“Well, that explains that!” He said this dismissively, closing the conversation down, much to Frankie’s relief, and grabbed his car keys, thinking furiously. Time was closing in on their investigation and they still hadn’t had the results from the belfry. “I’m going to pay a visit to Brian Rankin, go over some of the details in the June Stevens suicide just in case there’s a connection. You chase up the forensics report on the church. I hope to God we find something tangible to report, otherwise it’s going to get bloody uncomfortable here.”

Frankie watched him leave, feeling the unvoiced reprimand in the set of his shoulders as he turned away from her. The newspaper hadn’t been handled well, she knew the leak of information had infuriated him, but what could she do once the journalists had the story? She sat at her desk and keyed in the number for the Inverness forensics team.