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shoulder: ‘Let us know if you remember anything else about last night, will you?’
    Hurrying along the corridor they were overtaken by a young doctor. ‘Excuse me, officer,’ he said. ‘The old man who was attacked, Jock Webb – I’m afraid he’s been in here before.’ He paused to tap his forehead significantly. ‘Found wandering a couple of times, fell and hurt himself. Don’t take too much notice of what he’s been telling you about being attacked. He thinks he’s still in the boxing ring.’
    ‘You mean he’s imagined the whole thing, made it all up, getting us over here, wasting our time?’ said Gosse angrily.
    The doctor frowned. ‘Well, it could be true, sir. We just weren’t sure. When we examined him, he definitely had marks on his throat this time. Might be quite genuine, but I thought I should warn you. He doesn’t always know where he is. Likes the opportunity to remind folk of his days as a prizefighter—’
    Gosse snapped an abrupt thanks, and at the exit, he handed Faro the report the nurse had given him, complete with the man’s home address. ‘Look into it. Talk to the daughter.’
    Faro glanced at the notes, guessing that there would be little information forthcoming at Liberton Brae about an old man already having problems with his memory.
    Only the nine of diamonds in Webb’s pocket had a sinister ring of truth about it. Perhaps Gosse was right and its presence at the Pleasance murder, one card among a whole pack, was sheer coincidence. But Faro was now convinced, with the appearance of this one particular card, that the attack on Jock Webb must be linked to the woman in Fleshers Close.
    Faro said: ‘That playing card, sir. Like the others. What do you think?’
    At his side, Gosse growled: ‘I’m already thinking, Faro. And do you know what – I think he could be lying. Has it not occurred to you that we have maybe solved the crime of the murdered whore? He might well be our killer,’ he added in tones of excitement.
    Faro said: ‘Hardly likely, sir.’
    ‘You’re not seeing the obvious once again, are you?’ was the contemptuous response. ‘He could have attacked this man, who unexpectedly fought back, and he became the victim himself.’
    It did not seem even remotely feasible to Faro that an old man who, according to the young doctor, was showing all the symptoms of dementia, wandering about and already known to the Infirmary, could be the killer. When he said so, Gosse looked angry and said sharply: ‘That’s just it – an elaborate pretence. You don’t see into the minds of murderers as I do, Faro. Wait until you’ve had years of chasing criminals like I have before you lay down hard-and-fast rules of behaviour. They are up to doing anything to conceal their vile purposes – no character is too difficult for them to assume.’
    Faro listened, knowing further comment was useless. Allthis fitted so neatly into Gosse’s anxiety and determination to pin down the woman’s murderer as quickly as possible, stretching a point here and there if necessary, to put it mildly.
    At the Central Office, McIvor was waiting for them.
    Another death had been reported: a woman’s body was waiting in the mortuary.
    Gosse sighed as he and Faro parted company. ‘Just a suicide this time, thank God. Off the North Bridge.’
    The bridge above the railway station was a favourite place for desperate, unhappy people, particularly young females, betrayed by lovers and more than often pregnant, eager to leap into oblivion and put an end to their disgrace.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Faro set off for Liberton Brae armed with the old man’s address. A long line of smart villas facing each other across the steep street, owned or rented by Edinburgh’s lower middle class: artisans, shopkeepers or office workers. All houses alike, even to the lace curtains, the carefully kept gardens and well-painted doors and windows, an indication of the respectable, decent lives that a passer-by might expect of the