They were looking again at Davie McGlashan’s post-mortem results and maybe, just maybe, there would be something they’d missed. Maxwell had drawn up a list of Jennifer Cairns’ charity commitments, including a breast cancer support group, a homeless charity and an arts foundation. Narey had lined up a phone call with someone who was supposedly the UK’s leading urbexer. Others were trying, so far in vain, to find a link between Hepburn and Cairns. It was buzzing.

She was looking at her computer screen when she became aware of Fraser Toshney standing up and waving at her, his hand clutching a pen. He had a phone in his other hand, clamped firmly to his ear. Toshney was manning one of the hotlines and had been fending off well-meaning nutters all morning. This time, he seemed to have something more interesting.

She pushed out of her chair and walked over, just catching the tail end of the conversation.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to give your name, sir? You might be eligible for a Crimestoppers reward and . . .’

He stopped to listen. ‘It would really help us if . . .’

He looked at her and shrugged. ‘He’s gone and wouldn’t leave a name. Said he wasn’t interested in a reward and didn’t want to get involved.’

She just looked at him. ‘Well? I’m assuming this is something worth me getting out of my chair for.’

‘Yes, boss. Definitely. Well, if this guy’s telling the truth. He says he’s got a name for the person that found Euan Hepburn in the Molendinar.

‘This guy says he was in Oran Mor last night and overheard some people talking. One of them was a guy named Remy Feeks. He spelled the name out for me. He says this guy was talking a lot about the body in the tunnel, knew a lot about it. He said, and get this, that this Remy Feeks said he went urbexing. We haven’t said anything public at all about urbexing, boss.’

‘I know that, Fraser. Go on.’

‘The guy that phoned said Feeks seemed really interested in the Molendinar and said he’d been in there. He was asking lots of questions about it.’

‘Did he give an address or a description?’

‘No address but said, from what he heard, he lives in the East End and works in a Tesco. He said this Feeks sounded scared. He specifically said’ - Toshney checked his notes - ‘that he didn’t sound scared of getting caught. More like scared that he’d be next. He said the guy was maybe twenty-six or so with fair hair and freckles. Skinny guy about five feet ten.’

Narey glanced down at the scribbled note. ‘Good work, Fraser. Go and get that typed up into something legible then get your coat. We’re going to the East End.’

Chapter 39

They were driving out to the East End to see the only Feeks listed in the Glasgow phone book. The phone call might have been genuine or it might have been another crazy or just an attempt to get someone into trouble. There was only one way to find out.

Adelaide Street was like an oasis in reverse. Its short row of grey sandstone buildings was isolated among green swathes of wasteland where other tenements used to stand. Now the remaining homes, weathered and shabby, stood like the last couple of teeth in an old man’s mouth.

This part of the Calton used to be home to hundreds of families but they and their houses were all long since gone. The buildings, the single-ends and rows of closes, had been demolished and the infertile scrubland was the only reminder of where they had stood. Many of the buildings had become unfit for habitation by twentieth-century standards, lacking the little luxuries like inside toilets and heating. All that hung on were the better-class and later-built tenements that had sprung up in a 1920s overhaul. They were better then but they weren’t all that now.

According to both the phone book and the electoral register, Archibald Feeks was the only person in the city with that surname and seemed to be an obvious enough place to start. If he wasn’t the right Feeks then he was likely to know who the other one was. Narey and Maxwell parked up in front of the downbeat row and stood for a moment to take it in.

There was only a handful of flats in the block whose windows weren’t either boarded up or smashed in. Most were shattered, open to the wind and rain and to anything or anyone else who fancied crawling in. Take away the lack of curtains in a couple of those whose glass had thus far escaped the sticks and stones that broke their bones, and that left just three that might still be lived in.

They pushed open the scruffy door to Number 2 and walked inside, finding the air thick with the smell of neglect and the stairs as steep as the climb out of poverty. The landing outside 2f was different though. It was swept clean and a neat little green mat sat outside a door that, unlike the others, had been painted while the present Queen was on the throne.

Narey knocked and they waited. Finally, a shadow appeared and they watched a head duck to the spy hole. The person on the other side of the door must have been wondering whether they liked what they saw as the door catch still didn’t budge. Finally, the door swung open about six inches.

‘Can I help you?’

The man was probably in his mid-sixties but his skin was about ten years older, with the dull mustard glow of a lifelong smoker’s. His brown eyes were bright but tired and his hair curled back grey on his forehead. He was looking at them as if he feared they were there bearing bad tidings by the stretcherload. This was a man used to hearing bad news.

‘Mr Feeks?’

He huffed and the door moved an inch or two nearer to them and the lock. ‘I said I wasn’t going to talk to you people any more. I told them you’d be wasting your time coming to my door.’

Narey held up her warrant card. ‘I don’t think it was our people that you talked to, Mr Feeks. Police. I’m Detective Inspector Narey and this is DC Toshney. May we come in?’

His face turned to confusion and then the habitual worry turned even deeper. The door edged back towards him. ‘What’s wrong? Is it Remy? Has something happened?’

Well, that answered one question: they’d come to the right place.

‘It would be easier if we could speak inside, Mr Feeks.’

That didn’t do much for his optimism but it did get them in. The man pulled the door back and grimly waved them inside. Once he’d shut the door behind them, he led them to a busy but well-ordered sitting room where he turned off the television and showed them both into a chair.

‘So has something happened?’

‘Not as far as we know, Mr Feeks. I take it Remy is your son? We’d like to speak to him. Do you know where he is?’

‘Is he in some kind of trouble? Sorry, but I think there’s been a mistake. Remy’s never been in trouble in his puff. What’s this all about?’

‘We just need to speak to him, Mr Feeks. There’s nothing to worry about but we think there’s something he may be able to help us with. Do you know where he is?’

The man leaned forward, eyes narrowed. ‘He doesn’t live here. Something he may be able to help you with? What does that mean exactly? If that’s like helping the police with their inquiries then I don’t much like the sound of it. I’m sorry but I’m not saying anything until I know what’s going on.’

Feeks was getting louder as he got more worried by the situation and he finished his statement by exploding into a coughing fit that didn’t sound like it was being fuelled by much in the way of breath. He was reaching deep into his lungs and only producing a rasp.