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if you remember rightly, you weren’t exactly forthcoming with details about your own parents either, were you?’
    It was a low blow but she was right. Winter’s mother had died when she was hit trying to save him from a speeding car. He was only five and had been playing in the street when he shouldn’t have. He knew it was his fault, no matter what anyone said. His father followed suit less than four years later, dead from chronic liver failure and a broken heart. When they’d first met, Winter had let Rachel believe that his parents had both died in a car accident. He’d always reasoned that was preferable to telling her the truth – his unwavering belief that he had killed them both – and admitting it was the source of his unhealthy interest in death.
    ‘Yes, okay,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve apologised for that enough, don’t you think?’
    ‘I just thought you might understand why sometimes it’s difficult to tell other people about your parents.’
    ‘I do,’ Winter conceded, pulling her closer in. ‘So how bad is he?’
    ‘Bad enough. He doesn’t want to be a burden to anyone else but this Inchmahome case is eating away at him. It could even be the trigger for his condition.’
    ‘Trigger?’
    Rachel rubbed at her eyes and let a sigh slip wearily from her lips.
    ‘No one knows what causes Alzheimer’s. Beyond the fact that the principal factor is old age, no one knows why some people get it and others don’t. They think that smoking increases the chance of developing it. They think that high-blood pressure and high cholesterol levels are risk factors. They think that stress can cause it. They think but they don’t bloody know .’
    She was getting louder and losing the fight to control the anger that was rising inside. She exhaled noisily and continued.
    ‘There’s two proteins that they suspect gather in clumps in the brain and cause the problem. One is beta-amyloid and they’ve been talking about that for years. The other is tau protein and the research on it is relatively new. Either way, they think that stress can cause neuropathological changes that lead to the formation of the proteins. Prolonged stress over something like this bloody case could be enough to trigger it.’
    ‘It isn’t genetic then?’ Tony asked.
    Rachel fired him a glare that fizzled and faded almost as soon as it had flared.
    ‘Probably not. Well they don’t know but it doesn’t look like it. Less than ten per cent of cases are genetic. The problem is that they don’t know what causes the other ninety per cent.’
    ‘You’ve been doing your homework then?’
    She offered a sad smile.
    ‘Yeah, just a bit.’
    Rachel turned her eyes away from him and stared out of the window, gathering herself.
    ‘Either way, I have to give him some kind of peace and . . . And I don’t know how long I’ve got left while I might still be able to do that. The rate of deterioration seems to be rapid and he might not be able to take in what I tell him.’
    A silence settled on them again. They both stared out of the window, watching the mist that was forming round the rim of the lake, seeing it rise and close in on the island. Neither of them could take their eyes off it.
    ‘So,’ Winter finally said quietly. ‘This Laurence Paton, your dad’s main suspect, where does he live now?’
    An oddly cold look passed over Rachel’s face.
    ‘He lives in Stirling and teaches English at the High School. He and his wife stay in a mid-terrace house just walking distance from the city centre.’
    Winter looked at her thoughtfully, taking in her words.
    ‘Okay. I understand how you would know where he lives and works. But how do you know what kind of house it is?’
    Rachel hesitated, seemingly deliberating. In the end she held his stare, admitting no need to feel any guilt.
    ‘I know because I’ve been to his house. And I’ll be going back.’

CHAPTER 8
    In the summer, Callander bustled with tourists and its main street was thick