There was a long silence. The dashboard lit up his profile against the night, the muscles in his jaw tight and hard. At last, he spoke. "Forgive me, but I don't think you've entirely thought this through, Bel."

"What have I missed?" She felt the old clutch of fear that news editors had always induced with their questioning of her copy.

"You talked about a significant amount of blood on the kitchen floor. You thought someone who lost that much blood would probably be dead. That means there's a body somewhere, and now the police are looking, they'll probably find it. And when they find it, they'll be looking for a killer-"

"And Gabriel was there the night before they all disappeared. You think Gabriel will come under suspicion," Bel said, suddenly getting it. "And if he is your grandson, you want him out of the picture."

"You got there, Bel," he said. "More than that, I don't want the Italian police fitting him up because they can't find the real killer. If he's not around, the temptation is less, especially since there will be other, more attractive suspects on the ground. The Italian private eyes won't just be looking for Gabriel Porteous."

Oh my God, he's going to have someone else fitted up. Just as an insurance policy. Bel felt nauseous. "You mean, you're going to find a scapegoat?"

Grant gave her an odd look. "What an extraordinary suggestion. I'm just going to make sure the Italian police get all the help they deserve." His smile was grim. "We're all citizens of Europe now, Bel."

Thursday, 5th July 2007; Kirkcaldy

Karen had conducted interviews in strange places before, but Ravenscraig Castle would probably have made the top five. When she'd asked Fergus Sinclair to meet her, he'd suggested the venue.

"That way, my wife can take the kids round the castle and down to the shore," he said. "This is our summer holiday. I don't see why we have to be cooped up just because you want to talk to me."

"The weather" would have been as good an answer as any. Karen was sitting on the remains of a wall with her anorak collar turned up against a sharp breeze coming off the sea; Phil sat next to her huddled into his leather jacket. "This better be worth it," he said. "I'm not sure whether it's rheumatism or piles I'm getting here, but I know it's not good for me."

"He's probably used to it. Working on a hunting estate like he does." Karen squinted up at the sky. The cloud was high and thin, but she'd still have put money on rain by lunchtime. "You know that, back in the Middle Ages, this was the St. Clair family seat?"

"That's why this part of Kirkcaldy's called Sinclairtown, Karen." Phil rolled his eyes. "You think he's trying to intimidate us?"

She laughed. "If I can survive Brodie Grant, I can survive a descendant of the St. Clairs of Ravenscraig. Do you think this is him?"

A tall, rangy man walked through the castle gatehouse followed by a woman almost as tall as him and a pair of small sturdy boys, each with a shock of bright blond hair like their mother. The lads looked around them and then they were off, running and jumping, clambering and exploring. The woman turned her face upwards and the man planted a kiss on her forehead, then patted her back as she turned to chase the boys. He looked around and caught sight of the two cops. He raised a hand in greeting and came towards them with quick, long strides.

As he approached, Karen studied a face she'd seen only in twenty-two-year-old photos. He'd aged well, though his face was weathered, the web of fine white lines round his sharp blue eyes a testament to time spent in the sun and the wind. His face was lean, the cheeks hollow, the outline of the bones clear beneath the skin. His light brown hair hung in a fine fringe, making him look almost medieval. He wore a soft plaid shirt tucked into moleskin trousers, lightweight walking boots on his feet. She stood up and nodded hello. "You must be Fergus Sinclair," she said, extending a hand. "I'm DI Karen Pirie and this is DS Phil Parhatka."

He took her hand in one of those tight grips that always made her want to slap the other's face with her free hand. "I appreciate you meeting me here," he said. "I didn't want my parents subjected to the bad old memories again." His Fife accent was almost completely gone. If she'd been pressed, Karen might even have placed him as a German with exceptionally good English.

"No problem," she lied. "You know why we've reopened the case?"

He sat down on a piece of masonry at right angles to Karen and Phil. "My dad said it was something to do with the ransom poster. Another copy's turned up?"

"That's right. In a ruined villa in Tuscany." Karen waited. He said nothing.

"Not that far from where you live," Phil said.

Sinclair raised his eyebrows. "It's hardly on my doorstep."

"About seven hours' driving, according to the Internet."

"If you say so. I'd have said more like eight or nine. But either way, I'm not sure what you're implying."

"I'm not implying anything, sir. Just setting the location in context for you," Phil said. "The people who were squatting the villa were a group of puppeteers. They called themselves BurEst. The leaders were a couple of Germans called Matthias and Ursula. Ever come across them?"

"Christ," Sinclair said, exasperated. "That's a bit like asking a Scotsman if he ever ran across your auntie from London. I don't think I've ever been to a puppet show. Not even with the kids. And I don't know anyone called Matthias. The only Ursula I know works in my local bank, and I doubt very much she's into puppets in her spare time." He turned to Karen. "I thought you wanted to talk about Cat."

"We do. I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to know why we were reopening the case," she said earnestly, slipping easily into the Good Cop role. "I suppose you've put it all behind you now. What with having a wife and kids."

He dropped his hands between his knees, interlocking his fingers. "I'll never put it behind me. I still loved her when she died. Even though she'd sent me packing, there wasn't a day went by that I didn't think of her. I wrote so many letters. Sent none of them." He closed his eyes. "But even if I could put Cat behind me, I'll never be able to do the same with Adam." He blinked hard and caught Karen's eye. "He's my son. Cat kept me from him when he was tiny, but the kidnappers have kept him from me for twenty-two and a half years."

"You think he's still alive?" Karen asked gently.

"I know the chances are that he was dead within hours of his mother. But I'm a parent. I can't help hoping that somewhere he's walking around in the world. Having a decent life. That's how I like to think of him."

"You were always sure he was your son," Karen said. "Even though Cat wouldn't acknowledge you as the father, you never wavered."

He twisted his hands together. "Why would I waver? Look, I know my relationship with Cat was on the skids by the time she got pregnant. We'd split up and got back together half a dozen times. We were hardly seeing each other at all. But we did spend the night together almost exactly nine months before Adam was born. When we were having our... difficulties, I asked her if there was someone else, but she swore there wasn't. And God knows she had no reason to lie. If anything, she'd have been better off saying she was seeing someone else. I'd have had to accept it was over then. So there wasn't anybody else in the frame." He unclenched his hands and splayed his fingers. "He even had my colouring. I knew he was mine the first time I clapped eyes on him."

"You must have been angry when Cat refused to admit Adam was yours," Karen said.

"I was furious," he said. "I wanted to go to court, to do all the tests."

"So why didn't you?" Phil said.

Sinclair stared down at the ground. "My mum talked me out of it. Brodie Grant hated the idea of me and Cat being together. Considering he came from dirt poverty in Kelty, he had some pretty high and mighty ideas about who was a fit partner for his daughter. And it certainly wasn't a ghillie's son. He was practically dancing a jig when we split up." He sighed. "My mum said if I fought Cat over Adam, Grant would take it out on her and my dad. They live in a tied cottage. Grant once promised my dad they could stay there for the rest of their lives. They've worked all their days for low wages. They've got no other provision for their old age. So I bit the bullet for their sakes. And I took myself off where I didn't have to face Cat or her father every day."

"I know you were asked this at the time, but did you ever consider taking revenge on these people who had wrecked your life?" Karen asked.

Sinclair's face screwed up as if he was in pain. "If I'd had any notion of how to take revenge, I would have. But I didn't have a clue and I didn't have any resources. I was twenty-five years old, I was working as a junior keeper on a hunting estate in Austria. I worked long hours, I spent my spare time learning the language and drinking. Trying to forget what I'd left behind. Believe me, Inspector, the idea of kidnapping Cat and Adam never crossed my mind. I just don't have that kind of mind. Would it have crossed yours?"

Karen shrugged. "I don't know. Happily I've never been put in that position. I do know that if I'd been treated like you were I'd have wanted to get my own back."

Sinclair's sideways nod conceded her point. "Here's what I know. My mum always used to say that living well is the best revenge. And that's what I've tried to do. I'm lucky to have a job I love in a beautiful part of the world. I can shoot and fish and climb and ski. I've got a good marriage and two bright, healthy boys. I don't envy any man, least of all Brodie Grant. That man took everything I valued away from me. Him and his daughter, they hurt me. No getting away from it. But I've rebuilt my life and it's a good one. I've got history that's left me with scars, but those three"-he pointed to where his wife and sons were scrambling up a grassy bank-"those three make up for a hell of a lot."

It was a pretty speech, but Karen wasn't entirely convinced by it. "I think I'd resent him more, in your shoes."

"Then it's just as well you're not. Resentment isn't a healthy emotion, Inspector. It'll eat you away like cancer." He looked her straight in the eye. "There are those who believe there's a direct connection between the two. Me, I don't want to die of cancer."

"My colleagues interviewed you after Cat died. I expect you remember that quite well?"

His face twisted, and suddenly Karen saw a glimmer of the fires that Fergus Sinclair kept well banked down. "Being treated as a suspect in the death of the woman you love? That's not something you forget very easily," he said, his voice tight with contained anger.

"Asking someone for an alibi isn't necessarily treating them as a suspect," Phil said. She could tell he'd taken a dislike to Sinclair and hoped it wouldn't derail the interview. "We have to exclude people from our inquiries so we don't waste time investigating the innocent. Sometimes alibi evidence is the quickest way to take someone out of the picture."

"Maybe so," Sinclair said, his chin jutting forward defensively. "It didn't feel like that at the time. It felt like your people were putting a hell of a lot of effort into proving I wasn't where I said I was."

Time for the oil on the water, Karen thought. "Is there anything that has occurred to you since then that might be helpful?"

He shook his head. "What could I know that would be helpful? I've never been remotely interested in politics, never mind anarchist splinter groups. The people I mix with don't want a revolution." He gave a self-congratulatory little smile. "Unless maybe it's a revolution in ski design."

"To tell you the truth, we don't think it was an anarchist group," Karen said. "We have pretty good intelligence on the kind of people who believe in direct action in the furtherance of their political ambitions. And the Anarchist Covenant of Scotland was never heard from before or since."

"Well, they weren't going to draw attention to themselves afterwards, were they? Not with charges of murder and kidnap hanging over their heads."

"Not under that name, no. But they walked away with a million pounds in cash and diamonds. That would be over three million in today's money. If they were dedicated political animals, you'd expect to see chunks of that money turning up in the coffers of radical groups with similar aims. My predecessors on this case asked MI5 for a watching brief. In the five years after Cat's murder, it never happened. None of the groups of fringe nutters suddenly came into money. So we don't think the kidnappers were really a bunch of political activists. We think they were likely closer to home."

Sinclair's expression said it all. "And that's why I'm here." He couldn't keep the sneer off his face.

"Not for the reason you think," Karen said. "You're not here because I suspect you." She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "We never managed to put you anywhere near the kidnap or the ransom scene. Your bank accounts never showed any unaccountable funds. Yes, I know, you're pissed off to hear we checked your bank accounts. Don't be. Not if you really care about Cat or Adam. You should be pleased that we've been doing our job the best we can all these years. And that it's pretty much put you in the clear."

"In spite of the poison Brodie Grant has tried to plant about me."

Karen shook her head. "You might be pleasantly surprised on that score. But anyway, here's the point. You're here because you are the only person who really knew Cat. She was too like her father; I suspect they might have ended up best pals, but they were still in the fighting phase. Her mother's dead. She didn't seem to have close female friends. So that leaves you as my only way in to Cat's life. And I think that's where the secret of her death lies." She pinned Sinclair with the directness of her gaze. "So what's it going to be, Fergus? Are you going to help me?"

Sunday, 14th August 1983; Newton of Wemyss

Catriona Maclennan Grant spun round on one toe, arms outstretched. "Mine, all mine," she said in mock wicked witch tones. Suddenly she stopped, staggering slightly with dizziness. "What do you think, Fergus? Isn't it just perfect?"

Fergus Sinclair surveyed the dingy room. The gatehouse on the Wemyss estate was nothing like the plain but spotless cottage he'd grown up in. It was even further removed from Rotheswell Castle. It wasn't even as appealing as the student houses he'd lived in. Having stood empty for a couple of years, it held no sense of its previous occupants. But even so, he found it hard to feel enthusiastic about it. It wasn't how he'd imagined them setting up home together. "It'll be fine once we've gone through it with a bucket of paint," he said.

"Of course it will," Cat said. "I want to keep it simple. Bright but simple. Apricot in here, I think." She headed for the door. "Lemon for the hall, stairs, and landing. Sunshine yellow in the kitchen. I'm going to use the other downstairs room as an office, so something neutral." She ran up the stairs, and leaned over the banister, smiling down at him. "Blue for my bedroom. A nice Swedish sort of blue."

Sinclair laughed at her enthusiasm. "Don't I get a say?"

Cat's smile faded. "Why would you get a say, Fergus? It's not your house."

The words slammed into him like a physical blow. "What do you mean? I thought we were going to live together?"

Cat dropped on to the top step and sat there, knees tight together, arms folded round herself. "Why did you think that? I never said anything about that."

The ground beneath his feet seemed not to be stable. Sinclair clutched at the newel post for support. "It's what we always talked about. We'd finish our training and move in together. Me keepering, you doing the glasswork. It's what we planned, Cat." He stared up at her, willing her to admit he was right.

And so she did, but not in a way that made him feel any better. "Fergus, we were hardly more than children then. It's like when you're little and your big cousin says he's going to marry you when you're older. You mean it all when you say it, but then you outgrow the promise."

"No," he protested, starting up the stairs. "No, we weren't children. We knew what we were saying. I still love you as much as I ever did. Every promise I've made to you-I still want to keep them." He pushed himself down next to her, forcing her to shift right up against the wall. He put his arm round her shoulders. But still she kept her arms wrapped round her body.

"Fergus, I want to live by myself," Cat said, staring down to where he'd been a moment before as if she was still speaking directly to him. "This is the first time I've had my own work space and my own living space. My head is bursting with ideas for things I want to make. And for how I want to live."

"I won't interfere with your ideas," Sinclair insisted. "You can have everything just the way you want it."

"But you'll be here, Fergus. When I go to bed at night, when I wake up in the morning. I'll have to think about things like what we're going to eat and when we're going to eat it."

"I'll do the cooking," he said. He could feed himself; how hard could it be to feed both of them? "We can do this on your terms."

"I'll still have to think about mealtimes and things happening at set times, not when it feels natural or right for my creative rhythms. I'll have to think about your washing, when you need to be in the bathroom. What you're going to watch on the TV." Cat was rocking to and fro now, the natural anxiety she'd always worked to hide coming to the surface. "I don't want to have to deal with all that."

"But, Cat... "

"I'm an artist, Fergus. I'm not saying that like it's some precious state that sets me above everybody else. What I mean is that I'm kind of fucked up. I'm not good at being with people for extended periods of time."

"We seem to do OK together." He could hear the pleading in his voice and he wasn't ashamed. She was worth shaming himself for.

"But we don't actually spend huge chunks of time together, Fergus. Look at the last few years. I've been in Sweden, you've been in London. We've spent the occasional weekend together, but mostly we've seen each other at Rotheswell. We've hardly ever spent more than a couple of nights together. And that suits me fine."

"It doesn't suit me," he said gruffly. "I want to be with you all the time. Like I said, we can do it on your terms."

She slipped out from under his arm and dropped down a couple of steps, turning so she could look at him. "Can't you see how scary that is for me? Just hearing you say it makes me feel claustrophobic. You talk about doing it on my terms, but none of my terms include having someone under the same roof as me. Fergus, you mean so much to me. There isn't anyone else who makes me feel the way you do. Please, please don't spoil that by pushing me or guilt-tripping me into something I can't bear the thought of."

His face felt frozen, as if he was standing on top of Falkland Hill in a gale, the skin whipped hard against his bones, his eyes flayed to tears. "It's what people do when they love each other," he said.

Now she reached out her hand and put it on his knee. "It's one model for loving," she said. "It's the most common one. But part of the reason for that is economic, Fergus. People live together because it's cheaper than living apart. Two can live as cheaply as one. It doesn't mean it's the best way for everybody. Lots of people have relationships that don't conform to that pattern. And those other ways of doing it work just as well. You think me not wanting to live with you means I don't love you. But Fergus, it's the other way round. Living with you would destroy our relationship. I'd go crazy. I'd want to kill you. It's because I love you that I don't want to live with you."

He pushed her hand away and stood up. "You've spent too fucking long in Sweden," he shouted, feeling his throat tighten. "Listen to yourself. Models for loving. Conforming to patterns. That's not what love is. Love is... Love is... Cat, where does affection and kindness and helping each other find a place in your world?"

She stood up and leaned against the wall. "Same place they always have. Fergus, we've always been kind to each other. We've always cared for each other. Why do we need to change the shape of our relationship? Why risk all those beautiful things that work so well between us? Even sex. Everybody I know, once they start living together, the sex stops being so exciting. Two, three years down the line, they hardly ever fuck any more. But look at us." She sidestepped up so she was level with him. "We don't take each other for granted. So when we see each other, it's still electric." She stepped forward, one hand flat on his chest, the other cupped under his balls. In spite of himself, he felt the hardening rush of blood. "Come on, Fergus-fuck me," she whispered. "Here. Now."

And so she got her own way. As usual.

Thursday, 5th July 2007

"Like her father, she was very good at getting her own way. She was more subtle than him, but the end result was the same," Sinclair concluded.

For the first time since the Macaroon had briefed her, Karen felt she had a sense of who Catriona Maclennan Grant had been. A woman who knew her own mind. An artist with a vision she was determined to realize. A loner who took pleasure in company when she was in the mood for it. A lover who learned how to accept being pinned down only after she became a mother. A difficult woman but a brave one, Karen suspected. "Can you think of anybody whose life touched hers that might have wanted to

punish her?" she asked.

"Punish her for what?"

"You name it. Her talent. Her privilege. Her father."

He thought about it. "It's hard to imagine. The thing is, she'd just spent four years in Sweden. She just called herself Cat Grant. I don't think anybody over there had the faintest idea who Brodie Maclennan Grant is." He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. "She did summer school over here the first couple of years she was in Sweden. She hooked up with some of the people she knew from when she was at the Edinburgh College of Art."

Karen sat up straight. "I didn't know she was at the Edinburgh College of Art," she said. "There was nothing in the file about that. All it says is that she studied in Sweden."

Sinclair nodded. "Technically, that's right. But instead of doing the sixth year at her fancy private school in Edinburgh, she did a foundation course at the College of Art. It's probably not on the file because her old man didn't know about it. He absolutely didn't want her to be an artist. So it was a big secret between Cat and her mum. She'd go off every morning on the train and come home at more or less the usual time. But instead of going to school she went to the college. You really didn't know?"

"We really didn't know." Karen looked at Phil. "We need to start looking at the people who were on that foundation course."

"The good news is that there weren't many of them," Sinclair said. "Only ten or a dozen. Of course, she knew other students, but it was the ones on her course that she mainly hung out with."

"Can you remember who her pals were?"

Sinclair nodded. "There were five of them. They liked the same bands, they liked the same artists. They were always going on about modernism and its legacy." He rolled his eyes. "I used to feel like a complete hick from the sticks."

"Names? Details?" Phil putting the pressure on again. He reached for his notebook and flipped it open.

"There was a lassie from Montrose: Diana Macrae. Another from Peebles, what was her name... ? Something Italian... Demelza Gardner."

"Demelza's not Italian, it's Cornish," Phil said. Karen silenced him with a look.

"Whatever. It sounded Italian to me," Sinclair said. "There were two lads as well. A guy from Crieff or some arsey place in Perthshire like that: Toby Inglis. And finally, Jack Docherty. He was a working-class toe-rag from Glasgow. They were all nice middle-class kids and Jack was their performing monkey. He didn't seem to mind. He was one of those people who don't care what kind of attention they get as long as they get some."

"Did she stay in touch with any of them when she went to Sweden? "

Sinclair stood up, ignoring her, as his boys raced across the grass towards him. They threw themselves on him in an excited torrent of what Karen took to be German. Sinclair clung on to them, struggling forward a couple of steps with them hanging on like baby chimps. Then he dropped them, said something to them, ruffled their hair, and sent them off in pursuit of their mother, who had disappeared towards the steps down to the shore. "Sorry," he said, coming back and sitting down again. "They always like to be sure you know what you're missing. To answer your question- I don't really know. I vaguely remember Cat mentioning one or other of them a few times, but I didn't pay much attention. I had nothing in common with them. I never met any of them again after Cat left the college." He ran a hand over his jaw. "Looking back at it now, I think that, the older we got, the less Cat and I had in common. If she'd lived, we would never have got back together again."

"You might have found some common ground over Adam eventually," Karen said.

"I'd like to think so." He looked longingly at the gateway his boys had disappeared through. "Is there anything else? Only, I'd kind of like to get back to my life."

"Do you think there was anyone from her art college days who might have harboured ill feeling towards her?" Karen asked.

Sinclair shook his head. "Nothing she ever said would make me think that," he said. "She had a strong personality, but she was a hard person to dislike. I don't remember her ever complaining that she'd been given a hard time by anybody." He stood up again, smoothing down his trousers. "I have to say, I can't believe anyone who knew her would think they could get away with kidnapping her. She was far too good at getting her own way."

Glenrothes

The Mint stabbed the keyboard with his index fingers. He didn't know why they called that fast business "touch typing." Because you couldn't type without touching the keyboard. It was all touch typing, when you got down to it. He also wasn't sure why the boss kept lumbering him with the computer searches unless it was just pure sadism. Everybody thought young guys like him were totally at home in front of a computer, but for the Mint it was like a foreign country where he didn't even know the word for beer.

He'd have been much happier if she'd sent him off with the Hat to the College of Art to talk to real people and pore through yearbooks and physical records. He was better at that. And besides, DS Parhatka was a good laugh. There was nothing funny about trawling through the message boards and membership lists of www.bestdaysofourlives.com searching for the names the boss had dropped on his desk on a tatty page torn from a notebook.

This was so not what he'd joined up for. Where was the action? Where were the dramatic car chases and arrests? Instead of excitement, he got the boss and the Hat acting like they were some ancient comedy partnership, like French and Saunders. Or was it Flanders and Swann? He could never get them straight in his head.

He hadn't even had to monster anybody to get full access to the website. The woman he'd spoken to had fallen over herself to be helpful. "We've helped the police before, we're always happy to do what we can," she'd gabbled as soon as he'd made his request. Whoever she'd dealt with before had clearly left her in a state of shivering submission. He liked that in a source.

He checked the list of names again. Diana Macrae. Demelza Gardner. Toby Inglis. Jack Docherty. 1977¨C78 the year he was looking for. After a couple of false clicks, he finally made it to the membership list. Only one of them was there. Diana Macrae was now Diana Waddell, but it wasn't hard to figure that out. He clicked on Diana's profile.

I followed my foundation course at the College of Art with a degree from Glasgow School of Art, specializing in sculpture. After graduating, I started working in the field of art therapy for people with mental illness. I met Desmond, my husband, when we were both working in Dundee. We married in 1990 and we have two children. We live in Glenisla, which we all adore. I have started sculpting in wood again and have a contract with a local garden centre as well as a gallery in Dundee.

A gallery in Dundee, the Mint thought scornfully. Art? In Dundee. About as likely as peace in the Middle East. He skimmed through more rubbish about her husband and kids, then clicked through to her messages and e-mails from fellow ex-students. Why did these people bother? Their lives were as dull as an East Fife home game. After scrolling through a couple of dozen innocuous exchanges, he found a message from someone called Shannon. Do you ever hear from Jack Docherty? she asked.

Darling Jack! We swap Christmas cards. Her smugness penetrated the notoriously nuance-free e-mail. He's out in Western Australia now. He has his own gallery in Perth. He does a lot of work with Aboriginal ar tists. We have a couple of pieces from him, they're remarkable. He's ver y happy. He has an Aboriginal boyfriend. Quite a few years younger than him and very handsome, but he sounds like a sweetheart. Once our two are of f to uni, we're planning a trip out to visit.

Two birds with one stone, the Mint thought, scribbling the details down. He continued to the end of Diana's wittering correspondence, then decided he needed a break while he came up with his next move.

A cup of coffee later, he got back to his search. Neither Toby Inglis nor Demelza Gardner showed up anywhere on the College of Art area of the website. But thanks to the way his contact had rolled over, he was able to search the entire website. He typed in the woman's name and to his complete astonishment, he got a hit. He clicked on the result and discovered Gardner described as "totally my favourite teacher." The message was on the site of a high school in Norwich.

At least he had the sense to Google the school. And there was Demelza Gardner. Head of Art. God, this computer stuff was a piece of piss once you got the hang of it. He tried Toby Inglis's name in the search engine and again came up with a hit. The Mint followed the link to a forum where former pupils of a private school in Crieff could rabbit on to their hearts' content about their fabulous bloody lives. It took him a while to unravel the threads of correspondence, but at last he found what he was looking for.

Feeling rather pleased with himself, the Mint tore off the top sheet from his notepad and went off in search of DI Pirie.

It had, Karen thought, gone something like this. She had called Bel Richmond and invited her to come to CCRT for an interview as soon as possible. Preferably within the hour. Bel had refused. Karen had mentioned the small matter of police obstruction.

Then Bel had gone to Brodie Grant and complained that she didn't want to trot off to Glenrothes at Karen Pirie's beck and call. Then Grant had called the Macaroon and explained that Bel didn't want to be interviewed and DI Pirie had better stop threatening her. Then the Macaroon had summoned her and given her a hard time for upsetting Brodie Grant, and told her to lay off Bel Richmond.

Then Karen had called Bel Richmond again. In her sweetest voice, she had told Bel to present herself at CCRT at two o'clock. "If you're not here," she said, "there will be a squad car at Rotheswell ten minutes after that to arrest you for police obstruction." Then she'd put the phone down.

Now it was a minute to two and Dave Cruickshank had just called her to say Bel Richmond was in the building. "Get a uniform to take her up to Interview One and wait with her till I get there." Karen got herself a Diet Coke out of the fridge and sat down at her desk for five minutes. She took a last swig from her can, then headed down the hall to the interview room.

Bel was sitting at the table in the grey windowless room, looking furious. A red pack of Marlboros sat in front of her, a single cigarette lying next to it. Clearly she'd forgotten the Scots had banned smoking ahead of the English until the uniformed officer had reminded her.

Karen pulled a chair out and dropped into it. The foam cushion had been worn into its shape by other buttocks than hers, and she wriggled to get comfortable. Elbows on the table, she leaned forward. "Don't ever try to fuck with me again," she said, her voice conversational, her eyes like glittering granite.