Whoever owned that house when she was killed knew about the murder?

Fairbairn hesitated for a moment, playing with his fingers much less skilfully than Grumpy Bob. Finally he wiped his palms on his expensive trousers. “But I dare say I could let you know. After all, we work in close partnership with all the police forces in Scotland.” “I’ll make it easier for you. Do the names Secure Home, Lothian Alarm Systems and Subsisto Raptor mean anything to you?”

Fairbairn’s look of alarm increased. “I . . . Er, that is, yes, inspector. We monitor Edinburgh installations for all three of those companies.”

“How long have you had this arrangement with them, Mr Fairbairn?” Constable MacBride flipped over a page in his notebook and licked the tip of his pencil. The lad had been watching too many cop shows, McLean thought, but the effect was amusing to watch.

“Oh, let me see. We actually bought out Lothian just a couple of months ago, but we’d been running their back-operations for them for about five years.

A leak

“Secure Home would have started using us the year before last. Subsisto Raptor came on board about 18 months ago. I can dig out the exact dates if you want. These are your similar incidents, I take it?” “They are indeed, Mr Fairbairn.”

“I hope you’re not trying to imply –”

“I’m not implying anything, Mr Fairbairn. Merely investigating a line of enquiry. I don’t think your company is systematically trying to rip-off its customers. That would be stupid. But there’s a leak somewhere in your system and I aim to find it.”

“Of course, inspector. I’d expect nothing less. But please realise, our reputation is everything. If it got out that our system was failing, we’d be out of business within the year.”

“You know that’s not really in my interests, Mr Fairbairn. Companies like yours make our job a lot easier. But I will catch whoever’s doing this.”

“I’m missing something, constable.”

“Sir?”

“Something obvious. Something I should have seen from the start.”

“Well, Fairbairn’s not telling us everything, that’s for sure.”

“What? Oh, no. Sorry. I was thinking about the dead girl.”

They were driving up Leith Walk, headed back to the station. Away from the coast and blocked in by the tall buildings on either side, the growing heat of the day made the car oppressive.

McLean had the window open, but their progress was too slow to create a meaningful breeze, the traffic brought to a standstill by something up ahead.

“Take the next left.” McLean pointed to a narrow side street.

“But the station’s up ahead, sir.”

“I don’t want to go back there just yet. I want to have another look at that basement.”

“In Sighthill?”

“We’ll get there a lot quicker if you stop asking damn fool questions.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” MacBride pulled the car into the bus lane, crept forward and took the turning. McLean regretted snapping at him, unsure why he was suddenly bad tempered.

“What do we know about this girl?”

“Um, what do you mean, sir?”

“Well, think about it. She’s young, poor, dressed in her best. What was she doing when she was killed?” “Going to a party?”

“Hold that thought. A party. Now let’s assume the party was in the house where we found her. What does that suggest?”

Missing

Silence as they negotiated the warren of roads around Holyrood Palace. “That whoever owned that house when she was killed knew about the murder?” “And who owned the house?”

“It belonged to Farquhar’s Bank. The title deeds showed that they acquired it in 1920, and kept it until they were bought out by Mid-Eastern Finance 18 months ago.”

“OK, let me rephrase that. Who lived in the house? For that matter, who ran Farquhar’s Bank before it was sold?”

“I’m not sure, sir. Someone called Farquhar?” McLean sighed. There was definitely something he was missing.

“We need to talk to Mid-East Finance. They must have some staff from the old bank on their payroll. Or at least have records of who worked there. See if you can set something up when we get back to the station.”

“You want to go back there now, sir?”

“No. I want to go and look at the house again. Sooner or later I’m going to have to let McAllister get on with his work. I know SOC have wiped the place clean. But I need to see it for myself one more time.”

A deserted building greeted their arrival, the Portakabins locked. Heavy plywood boards filled the ground-floor windows and a solid hasp and padlock denied entry through the door. McLean told MacBride to get on the phone for a key, then set off around the grounds to see what he could find.

Unusually for a house of this type, the ornamental tower was at the back. From the number of broken slates and flaked-off plasterwork lying in the overgrown garden, McLean guessed no one had lived in the house for many years.

Brambles twined their way up the damp walls towards the broken first-storey windows, and what must once have been a lawn was dotted with substantial saplings from a nearby sycamore.

The garden was surrounded by a high stone wall topped with broken glass set in crumbling mortar.

Rotting

A well-worn path led to a small, arched gateway. The old wooden door lay in the undergrowth, rotting, the gap it left now filled with more thick plywood.

Tommy McAllister was obviously less welcoming of Sighthill’s addicts and vandals than Farquhar’s Bank.

It took only 10 minutes for a car to arrive with keys; the young constable who had guarded the site the night the body had been uncovered.

“You going to be finished with this place soon, sir? Only I’ve had that Tommy McAllister on the phone three times a day, bending my ear about paying workmen to do nothing.”

She unlocked the padlock and pocketed the key. “I’ll bear that in mind, constable, but I’m not conducting this investigation for Mr McAllister’s convenience.”

“Aye, I know that, sir. But you don’t have to listen to him, do you.”

“Well if he complains, tell him to come to me,” McLean said.

“I’ll do that, sir. And I’ll leave you to lock up after you’re done.” The constable turned away, heading back to her squad car. McLean shook his head and stepped into the old house, realising as he did that he still didn’t know her name.

Police tape barred entry to the basement, but when he stepped under it and went down the stone stairs, McLean was certain someone had been in and cleared up.

The plaster debris around the hole that revealed the hidden chamber was all gone, only clean-swept flagstones now.

It was possible that SOC had tidied before they left, but that would have been a first.

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.