She wanted to slap him, shake him, grab him and send them both falling off the rope without a safety net.

‘You’d be my man if you just told me what you knew rather than buggering about on your own. You’d be on my side.’

‘Of course I’m on your side. Always am, always will be.’

‘Christ, Tony, you don’t know what you’re doing or what you’re talking about. You say Hepburn and Cairns are connected but we don’t know they’re related to each other. All I know is that they’re connected to urbexing.’

‘Yes we do. I do.’

She stopped breathing for a second. It wasn’t just what he said, it was how he said it. Certainty.

‘What? How can you know that?’

‘I went into his flat.’

‘Hepburn’s flat? You broke in?’

‘Yes. Like I said, I had to.’

‘We searched the place. There was nothing to see.’

‘You didn’t look hard enough or in the right places. I knew what I was looking for.’

She didn’t like the sound of that on any grounds. ‘Which was what?’

‘Euan’s second camera. He used two. I figured whoever killed him had one of them. I wanted to see the other and I found it. It had photographs taken at the old Odeon.

She held her breath again and said nothing. She thought he could hear both their hearts beating over the silence in the room.

‘The Odeon? Photographs that he took at the Odeon?’

‘Yes.’

‘You think Euan Hepburn . . .’ She was trying to take it all in. ‘Are you telling me he killed Jennifer Cairns?’

‘Well . . .’ He paused, not quite sure where to go next. ‘Maybe you should take a look at the photographs.’

Chapter 51

Winter opened his laptop and brought up a file of images that he’d copied from the memory card on Hepburn’s camera. He set the laptop on the table in front of them and began to slowly scroll through what was there. Her eyes were wide.

He could see why the building had drawn Euan: a part of Glasgow history that was about to be demolished and a small window of time in which to do it. It was a perfect urbexing location, intriguing and forbidden and right in the heart of the city centre. The kind of site that would have had him itching to explore back in the day and the sort that Euan would have found irresistible.

Winter worked his way through a series of images showing the inside of the cinema, nothing particularly exciting but enough to let her see that that was indeed where it was. The call to the discovery of Jennifer Cairns’ body was all too fresh and left no doubt that the narrow corridors, steeply banked rooms and wide staircases in front of them were the Renfield Street site.

He moved on to what looked like an entry shot, a window that didn’t seem to have any merit but showed how Euan had got in.

Then back further through the timeline. A couple of exterior shots. One highlighting what might have been the other side of the same window, a few feet above a red-metal exterior door that itself sat at the top of a fire escape, perhaps round the rear of the building. Winter himself would have looked at that as a likely entrance. Places with nothing in them weren’t as secure as they might otherwise have been.

Back another frame. The same fire escape, the same door and unguarded window. But this time there was someone making their way down the stairs. Winter had checked the digital time stamp and knew this was just a few minutes before Euan had gone inside. He’d taken two photographs of this other person, one at the top of the stairs then another halfway down, then had entered the building once the mystery figure had left. The person walking down the stairs was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and jeans. The hood was up, covering their face.

His face. It was a man. A second look had made him sure of it and Rachel no doubt thought the same now. The width of the shoulders, the size. Euan had photographed this man leaving via the fire escape then had gone inside by the same route.

The photographs were all dated 10 September. Right on the money for the time they thought Jennifer Cairns was murdered.

He watched her rub at her cheekbone as she processed what she was seeing. Her eyebrows were knotted in concentration and he wondered if she was debating the same things he had.

‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll repeat my question while I try to make sense of this. Do you think Euan Hepburn killed Jennifer Cairns? And who is that in the hoodie?’

‘Well . . . first of all you’ll have noticed the date on these.’

‘Of course I have! It could be coincidental but let’s assume that it’s not. It’s when Jen Cairns was murdered.’

‘Yes. So there’s two potential scenarios here. Basically either that Euan was with this guy or he wasn’t. It could be that the other man was checking out a possible entry and then gave the thumbs-up and Euan went in too. If that’s what happened then yes, maybe he killed her or helped kill her.’

‘Or?’

‘Or Euan photographs him, just out of curiosity or his sense of mischief. Thinks, this guy’s been in there and I’ll be doing the same. Probably thinks nothing more of it. But maybe the other guy turned for one last look before he left and saw Euan go in, camera in hand?’

She was nodding. ‘If he saw Euan go in then maybe he’d be worried about what he might find in there. And he’d be scared that Euan had almost certainly seen him.’

‘And then it would have been easy enough to track Euan down. Wait for him to come out maybe. Or place a message on the forum asking about the Odeon, drawing out anyone with even the slightest temptation to brag about being inside. Euan would have come running. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself.’

‘This mystery man befriends him, goes urbexing with him. Persuades him to explore the Molendinar Burn. Then cuts his throat.’

‘Yes.’

She stared at the screen for a while longer. ‘Who’s the man in the hoodie?’

Winter didn’t reply but brought up an image from the black building at Gartnavel, the photograph showing the pale blue room and the wooden-panelled walls. The one showing the photographer and his companion reflected on the glass doors. The other person wore a dark hooded sweatshirt and jeans.

‘That’s all you have?’

‘It’s all there was. One, probably accidental, photograph. Dated ten days after the ones taken at the Odeon. And a few days before Euan was killed.’

‘So why do you think Hepburn wasn’t involved in killing Cairns? Seeing as he seemed to be there.’

‘A few things. First, I just don’t think Euan was capable of something like that, murdering a woman. Second, it doesn’t add up that he’d hide and photograph while his pal checked out the entry. That’s not what he would do. Third, there is no sign of him knowing this other guy until after the Odeon. But also, most of all—’

‘The killing hasn’t stopped.’

‘Yes. I’m sure this guy’ - he jabbed a finger at the laptop screen - ‘killed Jennifer Cairns then killed Euan to cover it up.’

She didn’t take her eyes off the screen, seeing the similarity between the hooded figure and the third man heading for the factory the night before. She finished off the picture. ‘And Remy Feeks stumbled across the body that hoodie guy thought would never be found. Then he - and you - went sticking his nose in. And Feeks got himself killed.’

There was recrimination in her voice. Anger and fear too. It could as easily have been him. She just looked at him for an age. He curled up inside under her gaze and felt her unpicking him at the seams.