Ross Macfarlane Kc

In a humorous conversation at Edinburgh’s Cumberland Bar, three older men discuss three women connected to a suspected death: detective Maddy Price, forensic examiner Katharine Livingstone and Rose Bryant, known as the “Lady in Red.” Price doubts DI McKee’s conclusion that Bryant’s death was suicide after noticing that a painting had recently been removed from the victim’s bedroom wall. Later, at St Giles Cathedral, prosecutor Wally Wood reflects on the cathedral’s stained glass and the biblical story of Jephthah’s daughter before praying for the murdered woman.

Retired investigator Wally Wood encounters Detective Inspector Bobby McKee outside the Edinburgh tenement where 83-year-old widow Rose Bryant fell to her death. McKee treats the death as an unusual possible suicide and pressures Wood to accompany him inside the crime scene, where a young detective is also investigating. Their hostile, sarcastic exchange draws Wood further into the mystery.

Retired advocate Wallace Wood meets forensic pathologist Katharine Livingstone and learns that the elderly woman who fell from a window at The Tron did not die simply of old age. Livingstone notes that the woman appeared to wait for a gap in the crowd before jumping, raising doubts about whether the death was a spontaneous suicide. The investigation leads Wood toward Detective Inspector Bobby McKee, a highly effective but notoriously unscrupulous officer known for coercing suspects into false confessions. The chapter ends with the suggestion that McKee will arrest someone regardless of whether they were involved.

Retired former High Court prosecutor Wally Wood struggles with restlessness and a sense that he has become useless after leaving the legal profession. Encouraged by his granddaughter Abbie to find a new purpose, he reflects on possible interests including literature, music and comic books. A nagging memory of a woman’s fatal fall draws him back toward the High Court, where he reconnects with police officer Gordon “Gordy” Hamilton and begins to confront the unresolved feeling that something is wrong.

Retired former High Court prosecutor Wally Wood awakens during surgery after a serious complication, then joins his friends at the Cumberland Bar. The next morning, while accompanying his granddaughter Abbie to her first day working at the Edinburgh Fringe, he witnesses an elderly woman fall from a building on the Royal Mile. Although the death appears to be suicide, Wood and his retired physician friend Charlie Holliday question whether the victim’s age, circumstances and the messy nature of the fall fit that explanation, setting up a mystery investigation.