“I’m sure someone who’s been dead for 60 years can wait a day or two longer for justice, inspector

Mclean pulled the bags from his pocket and handed them to the jeweller.

Mr Tedder peered at the cufflinks through the plastic, then reached over to the nearby counter and switched on a large anglepoise lamp. “May I take them out?” he asked.

“By all means, only don’t get them muddled, please.”

“Unlikely, I think. They’re quite different.” “You mean they’re not a pair?”

Mr Tedder pulled a small eyeglass out of his pocket, wedged it in his eye and bent over the first cufflink, rolling it around in his fingers.

After a minute, he dropped it back in its bag and repeated the process with the other one.

“They’re a pair, all right,” he said finally. “But one’s been used regularly, the other’s almost as new.”

“So how do you know they’re a pair, sir?” DC Macbride asked.

“The hallmarks are the same on each one. Made by us, as it happens, in 1932. Exquisite craftsmanship, bespoke, you know.

“These would have been part of a set given to a young gentleman, along with matching shirt studs and possibly a signet ring.”

“Have you any idea who they might have been given to?” Mclean asked.

Ledgers

“Well now, let me see, 1932.” Mr Tedder reached up to a dusty shelf full of leather-bound ledgers, running his fingers along them until he found what he was looking for.

He pulled out a slim volume.

“Not a lot of people commissioning pieces in the early 1930s. The Depression, you know.”

He laid the ledger down on the counter, carefully opened it at the back and consulted an index written in neat copperplate writing, the ink slightly faded with age.

His finger scanned the lines far faster than Mclean could read the narrow, angular script. Then he stopped, flicked the pages back one by one until he found what he was looking for.

“Ah, yes. Here it is. Gold signet ring. Pair of gold cufflinks, set with brilliant round-cut rubies. Matching set of six shirt studs, also gold set with rubies.

“They were sold to a Mr Menzies Farquhar of

Sighthill. Oh yes, of course, Farquhar’s Bank. Well, they didn’t suffer much between the wars.

“If I remember correctly, they made a lot of money financing the rearmament.”

“So these belong to Menzies Farquhar?” Mclean picked up the cufflinks in their bags.

“Well, he bought them. But here it says there’s to be an inscription engraved on the presentation case: Albert Menzies Farquhar, on the reaching of his majority, August 13th 1932.”

Accuser

“I want a word with you, Mclean. In my office.” Mclean stopped in his tracks. Duguid had stepped out of Mcintyre’s room just as he and Constable Macbride had walked past. He turned slowly around to face his accuser.

“Is it urgent? Only I’ve got an important new lead on the ritual killing.”

“I’m sure someone who’s been dead for 60 years can wait a day or two longer for justice, inspector.” Duguid’s face was flushed red, never a good sign.

“Ah, but her killers aren’t getting any younger. I’d like to catch at least one of them before he dies.” “Nevertheless, this is important.”

“OK, sir.” Mclean turned back to Macbride, handing him the bagged cufflinks.

“Take these back to the incident room, constable. And see what you can dig up about Albert Farquhar. There should be a report about his death.”

Macbride took the bags and hurried off down the corridor. Mclean watched him go for just long enough to make his point, then followed Duguid to his office.

It was bigger by far than his own tiny space, with room for a couple of comfortable chairs and a low table. Duguid shut the door on the empty, quiet corridor, but didn’t sit down.

“I want to know the exact nature of your relationship with Jonas Carstairs,” he said.

“What do you mean?” The room seemed to shrink on him as Mclean stiffened, his back to the nowclosed door.

“You know damned well what I mean, Mclean. You were the first on the scene, you discovered the body. Why did Carstairs invite you round to his house?” “How do you know he did that, sir?”

Duguid picked up a piece of paper from his desk. “Because I have here a transcript of a phone conversation between the two of you. Made, I should add, just hours before his death.”

Mclean began to ask how Duguid had come by the transcript, then remembered that Carstairs’ call had been routed from the station through to DC Macbride’s airwave set. Of course it would have been recorded.

“If you’ve read the transcript, sir, then you’ll know that Carstairs wanted me to sign some papers regarding my late grandmother’s estate.

“He invited me around to supper I assume because he realised I’d have difficulty finding time to drop round the office during the day.”

“Does that seem normal behaviour for a solicitor? He could have just couriered the papers over here for you to sign.”

“Is it normal behaviour for the senior partner in a prestigious law firm to personally handle the execution of a will, sir?

“Would you expect him to attend the funeral? Mr Carstairs was an old friend of my grandmother. I suspect he saw it as his personal duty to make sure all her affairs were put in order.”

“And these messages that your grandmother entrusted.” Duguid read from the sheet. “What’s all that about?”

Circumstances

“Is this a formal interview, sir? Only if it is, shouldn’t we be taping it? And shouldn’t there be another officer present?”

“Of course it’s not a bloody formal interview, man! You’re not a suspect. I just want to know the circumstances of the discovery.”

Duguid’s face reddened.

“I don’t see how my grandmother’s last will and testament has anything to do with it.”

“You don’t? Well, perhaps you can explain why Carstairs changed his own will, just a couple of days ago.”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about, sir. I only met the man a week ago. I hardly knew him.”

Duguid put the transcript sheet down on his desk and picked up another piece of paper.

It was a photocopy of the front page of a legal document, the letters smudged by the fax machine. At the top of the sheet was the fax number and name of the sender: Carstairs Weddell Solicitors.

“Then why do you suppose he left the entirety of his personal wealth to you?”

More tomorrow.

Natural Causes by Fife farmer-turned-author James Oswald is the first in the Inspector Mclean series. It is published by Penguin, rrp, £7.99. Bury Them Deep, the latest in the series, is published by Headline in February, rrp £14.99.