Prosecutors have received a new expert report on soil from farmland where they believe a girl missing for nearly 60 years may be buried.
Cold case investigators believe 11-year-old Moira Anderson, who went missing in 1957, may be lying somewhere in rural Lanarkshire.
In one of Scotland's great mysteries, she vanished after being seen by bus driver and convicted paedophile Alexander Gartshore.
Prosecutors, in a rare move, last year said that Gartshore, who died aged 85 in 2006, would have been prosecuted for his disappearance had he still been alive. But they have still to find Moira's remains.
The Crown Office earlier this year asked soil scientists Lorna Dawson to help find the girl. Prof Dawson, from Aberdeen, has now submitted an initial report, which will be discussed next week. She was one of the experts who detailed soil samples during the successful repeat trial of serial killer Angus Sinclair for the World's End pub murders of Christine Eadie and Helen Scott.
As reported over the weekend, investigators are interested in looking at a site north of Coatbridge where a farm worker saw an empty bus blocking a lane on the February night when Moira vanished.
A Crown Office spokesman said: "Further meetings will be held in due course," he added.
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