But what wasn’t true was that the examiners did the job as well as he did. They did it more cheaply and, as far as the bean counters were concerned, more efficiently. They didn’t do it as well though. It was his job. They were proficient photographers, he was an expert. He was a specialist.

They had to be chemists and biologists, detectives and administrators, more than jacks of all trades. They had to keep up with scientific developments that were changing daily as more and more tools became available to them. Tools that they had to master immediately before those tools were out of date and replaced by something better. They had to do all that while he had the luxury of concentrating on one thing and doing it right.

His self-congratulations were interrupted by the door opening behind him and Baxter storming through it. Two Soups was a man who did not get his name by dining on soup. He weighed in at a very round twenty-stone-plus on a frame that didn’t seem engineered for it. He was only five foot seven with incongruously slim legs. Winter always thought of him as a dancing hippo, albeit one with a thick salt-and-pepper beard and a permanently crotchety nature.

Baxter fell heavily into the chair behind his desk, throwing a folder onto the wooden surface as he did so. Winter wasn’t overly happy to see that it contained prints from the Molendinar crime scene.

Two Soups sat there and stared at him, clearly enjoying the moment. Men of little joy take what pleasure they can in being a pain in the arse to others. Power is of no use to them if it can’t be abused.

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

Baxter bristled and reddened, the fury of the righteously indignant rising within him. ‘These.’ He dismissively waved a hand at the folder. ‘What have you got to say about these?’

Taking a breath to stop himself from biting back, Winter reached for the folder, took the prints out and let them fan onto the desk. The half-eaten victim of the burn looked back up at them and the blistered, festering cut to his throat smiled blackly. Winter again got a flash of familiarity.

He counted to ten. Then did so again. ‘The photographs. What about them?’

Baxter shook his head slowly, a schoolteacher having to admonish a particularly stupid child. ‘These . . . these are the work of a specialist, are they?’ He spat out the word as if it were poisoning him.

When Winter did nothing except set his face harder, Baxter smirked and carried on. ‘They are not exactly good, are they? Badly lit. Poorly structured. Oddly angled. Am I really expected to serve these up to the Procurator Fiscal and have him present them as evidence in court?’

‘Badly lit?

‘They are dark.’

‘It was in a tunnel. Without daylight.’

Two Soups sneered and waved his hand at another print. ‘And that. What is that supposed to be?’

It was a head-on shot of the victim, catching the man’s full thousand-yard stare into the void. A stare that went all the further for the lack of eyes. The composition was less than square, a slight tilt from left to right as it framed the man’s face. Baxter twisted his head as he looked down at it, exaggerating the effect. ‘You think that is . . . adequate?’

Winter made a tight smile. He wasn’t going to give Two Soups the satisfaction of getting angry. Inside though . . . inside he was ripping Baxter’s head off and shoving it up his arse.

‘That is not only adequate, it is a minor masterpiece of composition. There was no way to get to the other side of the victim to face him and take a frontal shot. There was no room to do so. If you’d been down there yourself . . .’ Winter paused and made a show of looking at Baxter’s girth. ‘If you could have gone down there yourself, you’d have seen that.’

A muscle twitched and tightened on the jowls beneath Baxter’s beard. Winter continued.

‘I had to reach through and over the dead guy’s arms and position my camera in front of him to get a face-on shot in situ. It was like trying to take a selfie on a smartphone.’

‘A what?’

‘A smartphone. It’s like a step up from a digital watch but you can talk to people on it.’

Two Soups looked a heartbeat away from combustion, his face flushing furiously. ‘I know what a smartphone is. What is a selfie? There’s no such word. Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’m talking about these poor excuses for photographs. They are not fit for purpose.’

Winter slowly pushed the prints apart with the tips of his fingers, saying nothing but spreading them across the desk so that each was visible.

‘Do you see that? That is where the initial incision was made. We can see that not only by the angle of entry but by the clarity of the photograph. By the fact that it is entirely central to the frame. You can blow that up a hundred times and you will still have quality. You will still have adequacy. And see here? How these two photographs in conjunction show the precise body position in relation to the tunnel and how these use what light there is to show the gap round the body and how this clearly shows the decomposition in situ yet avoids the inherent danger of the flash over-illuminating the face? That is why I’m employed as a specialist. The scene examiners are very, very good at what they do. But this is what I do.’

Baxter squirmed uncomfortably in his seat and his face flushed but none of that translated into any words that might have conceded the merit of what Winter had said. Instead he pulled himself upright and scowled.

‘That is indeed the case at present, Mr Winter.’

A thin smile danced across Baxter’s fat lips. He was not a man who readily displayed any kind of good humour and Winter couldn’t fail to notice or be bothered by it.

‘At present? What’s that supposed to mean?’

Baxter sneered. ‘Just what it says. Things change. Even you must be aware that various departments have seen adjustment since the unification to Police Scotland. The review of all services is continuing.’

He let the reply sink in, staring into Winter’s eyes with a glee that dared a response. Winter fought the urge to rise to the bait.

‘That sounds like a very general remark.’

‘Does it? You may take it any way you wish, Mr Winter. Although however you take it will not stop the process. The winds of change will be blowing. I have already heard the rustle in the trees.’

Winter could feel his pulse racing as he tried to take it all in at the same time as he longed to punch Baxter in the face. He needed to know but he wouldn’t give the fat bastard the satisfaction of asking him.

‘Well whatever, Mr Baxter. You keep blowing Russell in the trees if that’s what floats your boat. I’ve got photographs to take. Excuse me.’

‘For now, Winter,’ he heard Baxter shout as he pushed through the door to get away. ‘You’ve got photographs to take for now!’

Chapter 6

Saturday evening

The outside of Clober Nursing Home was possibly the most depressing sight Narey had ever seen. It wasn’t the drab exterior walls, pebble-dashed in rainstorm grey, or the anonymous uniformity of the curtained windows. It wasn’t even the miserable little sign that apologetically declared its name to the world. It was the knowledge that her dad was inside.

He had Alzheimer’s. The cruellest, meanest little bastard of a disease that she knew. It had robbed her of him, and him of a meaningful, dignified life. It had mercilessly attacked a man who hadn’t deserved it, picking away at his being like a raven at a corpse. It had condemned him to this soulless shithole of a care home.