Free The Third Sin by Aline Templeton

are trying to establish is whether anyone knew where Kane was over the past two years.’
    ‘If he was a dealer he’d have contacts,’ Macdonald said. ‘Easy enough for him to disappear.’
    Hepburn picked up on that. ‘With friends like that, they could be behind his death as well, if he put a foot wrong. If a cosh was used it’s a pointer in that direction – not the sort of thing you get on the shelves at Homebase, is it?’
    ‘Good point,’ Fleming agreed. ‘DI Harris has run checks but only locally. It would be instructive to find out if any of the Cyrenaics knew where he got supplies from – it could be Glasgow, say—’
    ‘Or Edinburgh.’ MacNee bristled, as usual, at any slight on his native city. ‘Plenty of big boys in Edinburgh too.’
    Fleming stifled a smile. ‘Of course. So that’ll be our first line of attack – though they may not know—’
    ‘Or won’t tell.’ Campbell’s remark was, as usual, to the point.
    ‘Could be afraid to incriminate themselves,’ Macdonald said. ‘When it comes to drugs, what most people do is distance themselves as far as possible. “I didn’t know anything about it, just took a puff occasionally on someone else’s joint.” You can write the script.’
    Hepburn looked sceptical. ‘One of their mates died from drugs – you could probably find one or two people who held that against Kane. Might be happy enough to give us chapter and verse.’
    ‘Didn’t do it at the time, did they?’ Macdonald pointed out, but Hepburn was ready to argue.
    ‘Too dangerous then. You said it yourself – they’d try to show they’d nothing to do with it. Now they’ll know we won’t try to prosecute for possession for private use and might be more ready to talk.’
    ‘If you say so.’ Macdonald crossed his arms, a shut look on his face.
    Fleming sensed MacNee moving impatiently in his seat and saidhastily, ‘Either of those may be true. It’s also possible that some of them won’t be happy that he’s been killed. To us he was a drug dealer, scum, but they could have seen him as a friend.’
    ‘Or it could have been one of them killed him,’ Campbell said.
    ‘A friend of Julia’s, say.’ Hepburn picked up on the idea. ‘But how did they get to him? And what brought him back to the area?’
    ‘Business?’ Macdonald joined in. ‘For all we know, he may have still been operating in the drugs trade quite close by—’
    ‘And if someone who wanted revenge for Julia discovered that, they could have seized their opportunity, arranged a meeting—’
    ‘They were friends, after all, he wouldn’t necessarily suspect anything. You could get him in a car, say you were taking him to the pub or something—’
    ‘Right! That would work.’
    Fleming exchanged a sidelong glance with MacNee as Macdonald and Hepburn went on tossing the idea around. She didn’t think it would prove to be as simple as that but it was the first amicable exchange they’d had in a long time and she was happy to let it run.
    At last, the speculation petered out as they came up against the practical problem of taking it forward and Fleming took over.
    ‘We’ve got several theories running now – good. Anyway, this is the current position. Jen Wilson and Logie and Kendra Stewart are still living locally. Logie wasn’t there that night but he ran the pub where the Cyrenaics met. Skye Falconer disappeared immediately after Connell Kane staged his suicide—’
    ‘Is there a connection?’ Hepburn asked.
    ‘Could be. She’s still on the record as missing but as she was an adult and there were no suspicious circumstances it wasn’t followed up. Her father Donald lives in Ballinbreck and by now she may have turned up without him bothering to tell us.
    ‘Will Stewart was a police sergeant and of course was kicked out.No record of him after that. The last of the group, the youngest, works for a merchant bank so we can trace him through them – Randall Lindsay—’
    Hepburn sat bolt