“Yes, lass,” the inspector said. “The girl has always been greedy, as I told you, but this was the final straw for her uncle. We were the best of friends, you see, and he would not let her taint that with her schemes. He took all evidence of our friendship out of the visible eye in his house and told her we’d had a falling out.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Did that mean you hadn’t seen each other in a while?”
“Oh, child, no,” he said. “This isn’t some Victorian novel, you know. We just stopped getting together at his house and met at the pub or my place instead. We were fine friends up until the end.”
“But Ms. MacDonald, Maisie, said her uncle was ill,” Beattie asked. “Another lie?”
“Yes, I expect she told you that her uncle was her father and that he was sick to garner your sympathy so that you
