Even dogs in the wild Read Free

visitors.
    Nothing.
    Mrs Marischal had been persuaded to revisit the scene later
    on today. If anything had been taken, she was their best hope.
    Meanwhile, the team would have to look busy – it was expected
    that they would be busy. The current Lord Advocate wanted
    twice-daily updates, as did the First Minister. There would be
    media briefings at midday and four, briefings at which DCI
    James Page had to have something to share.
    The problem was: what?
    As she left, Clarke told the uniform outside to keep her wits
    about her.
    ‘It’s not true that the guilty always come back, but we might
    get lucky one time . . .’
    On her way to Fettes, she stopped at a shop and bought a
    couple of newspapers, checking at the counter that they
    contained decent-sized obituaries of the deceased. She doubted

    she would learn anything she hadn’t already read on a half-hour
    trawl of the internet, but they would bulk out the file.
    Because Lord Minton was who he was, it had been decided
    to locate the major incident team at Fettes rather than Gayfield
    Square. Fettes – aka‘the Big House’ – had been the
    headquarters of Lothian and Borders Police right up to April
    Fool’s Day 2013, when Scotland’s eight police regions
    vanished to be replaced by a single organisation called Police
    Scotland. In place of a chief constable, Edinburgh now had a
    chief superintendent called Jack Scoular, who was only a few
    years older than Clarke. Fettes was Scoular’s domain, a place
    where admin took precedence and meetings were held. No CID
    officers were stationed there, but it did boast half a corridor of
    vacated offices, which James Page had been offered. Two
    detective constables, Christine Esson and Ronnie Ogilvie, were
    busy pinning photos and maps to one bare wall.
    ‘We thought you’d like the desk by the window,’ Esson said.
    ‘It’s got the view if nothing else.’
    Yes, a view of two very different schools: Fettes College
    and Broughton High. Clarke took it in for all of three seconds
    before draping her coat over the back of her chair and sitting
    down. She placed the newspapers on the desk and concentrated
    on the reporting of Lord Minton’s demise. There was
    background stuff, and a few photographs dusted off from the
    archives. Cases he had prosecuted; royal garden parties; his first
    appearance in ermine.
    ‘Confirmed bachelor,’ Esson called out as she pushed
    another drawing pin home.
    ‘From which we deduce nothing,’ Clarke warned her. ‘And
    that photo’s squint.’

    ‘Not if you do this.’ Esson angled her head twenty degrees,
    then adjusted the photo anyway. It showed the body in situ ,
    crumpled on the carpet as if drunkenly asleep.
    ‘Where’s the boss?’ Clarke asked.
    ‘Howden Hall,’ Ogilvie answered.
    ‘Oh?’ Howden Hall was home to the city’s forensic lab.
    ‘He said if he wasn’t back in time, the press briefing’s all
    yours.’
    Clarke checked the time: she had another hour. ‘Typically
    generous of the man,’ she muttered, turning to the first of the
    obituaries.
    She had just finished them, and was offering them to Esson
    to be added to the wall, when Page arrived. He was with a
    detective sergeant called Charlie Sykes. Sykes was normally
    based at Leith CID. He was a year shy of his pension and about
    the same from a heart attack, the former rather than the latter
    informing practically every conversation Clarke had ever had
    with the man.
    ‘Quick update,’ Page began breathlessly, gathering his
    squad. ‘House-to-house is continuing and we’ve got a couple of
    officers checking any CCTV in the vicinity. Someone’s busy on
    a computer somewhere to see if there are any other cases,
    within the city and beyond, that match this one. We’ll need to
    keep interviewing the deceased’s network of friends and
    acquaintances, and someone is going to have to head to the
    vaults to look at Lord Minton’s professional life in detail . . .’
    Clarke glanced in Sykes’s