Clarke nodded her understanding, and Dempsey went on with the briefing. Afterwards, Clarke and Rebus sought out James Page.
‘We’re feeling a bit marooned here,’ Clarke informed him.
‘There’s plenty you can be doing,’ he snapped back, his eyes on Gillian Dempsey, making sure she didn’t leave him behind.
‘A bit of leadership might help.’
He directed a moment’s furious attention towards Clarke. ‘Would you prefer to be back in Edinburgh? That can always be arranged, you know.’
‘You’re acting like a groupie,’ she said. ‘Putting up with any old crap in exchange for proximity.’ She turned and stormed out of the room. Rebus lingered, meeting Page’s look.
‘Something to add?’ Page asked.
Rebus shook his head. ‘Just enjoying the moment,’ he explained with a smile.
Clarke wasn’t difficult to find. She was seated in her car, hands gripping the steering wheel, staring hard at the windscreen. Rebus got into the passenger seat and closed the door.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Just fine.’ But there was a tremor in her voice.
‘It’s not all his fault, you know.’
‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘In Edinburgh, I got used to being needed. Reached the point where I even started to believe I ran the show.’
‘And now you’re not even the drummer in the support band?’
Some of the tension melted from her face. ‘Did I really just call him a groupie?’
‘I believe you did.’
‘I’ll have to apologise for that.’ She exhaled loudly. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘Maybe we should take a look at some dolphins.’
‘You mean go for a drive?’
‘Weather’s starting to clear – there’s even a bit of blue up there.’ Rebus nodded towards the sky.
‘Maybe we could take your car.’
Rebus looked at her, and in explanation she lifted her hands from the steering wheel. They were shaking.
‘My car it is,’ he said.
50
They drove over the Kessock Bridge and took a right on to the Black Isle. Another right at Fortrose took them to Chanonry Point. The Moray Firth was ahead of them, a golf course laid out either side of the single-track road, busy despite the gusts of wind.
‘You ever played golf?’ Clarke asked from the Saab’s passenger seat.
‘Christ, no.’
‘You must have tried.’
‘What? Because I’m Scottish?’
‘I bet you have, though.’
Rebus thought back. ‘When I was a kid,’ he conceded. ‘Couldn’t get the hang of it.’
‘It’s an odd little country, this, isn’t it?’ Clarke was staring out of the window.
‘Not so much of the “little”.’
‘Don’t get all prickly. I just mean it’s hard to fathom sometimes. I’ve lived here most of my life and I still don’t understand the place.’
‘What’s to understand?’
‘Everything.’
There was a car coming from the opposite direction. Rebus pulled into a passing place and acknowledged the wave from the other driver. ‘People are just people,’ he said. ‘Good, bad and indifferent. It’s just that we tend to deal with the second group.’ They had reached a turning circle with some parking spaces beyond. Rebus stopped the car. The water looked choppy, the beach made up of pebbles, seaweed and shells. There were gulls overhead, hovering as best they could. Vehicles had been parked, but there were no signs of anyone in them. Then, far over to the left, just past a lighthouse, Rebus saw figures standing by the edge of the shore.
‘Looks like that’s where the action is,’ he said. ‘You game?’
Siobhan Clarke was already opening her door and getting out, but he called her back.
‘I’ve screwed things up between you and Page, haven’t I?’
‘Maybe.’
‘It’s because I don’t want you selling yourself short, settling for second best.’
‘You’re not my dad, John.’
‘I know that.’ He paused. ‘In fact, that’s something else I wanted to tell you . . .’
‘What?’
He looked out at the water. ‘That trip I took – there was a reason I didn’t want you along.’
‘Oh?’
‘I had a notion to visit Sammy.’
‘And did you?’
He gave a slow nod. ‘She wasn’t at home, though.’
‘Because you didn’t tell her you were coming?’
‘A slight oversight on my part. Thing is, Siobhan, I nearly lost her. Years back, before you joined CID. Some nutcase got his hands on her . . .’
‘So this is personal for you?’ She nodded her understanding. ‘Didn’t they teach you at college – you don’t get emotionally involved.’ She stared at him as he shrugged. ‘You’re a complicated sod, aren’t you?’
‘Who isn’t?’
‘I thought you said people are just people?’
‘And dolphins are just dolphins – so let’s see if we can nab one.’
They walked side by side, Rebus with his coat zipped to his throat, wishing he had a hat of some kind as protection from the horizontal wind. As they got closer, he saw that half a dozen people were all facing the same direction, almost like statues, albeit statues with cameras. Someone had even brought a tripod and a zoom lens, plus binoculars, a folding chair and a flask. The resident expert, Rebus guessed, so he asked if there’d been any sightings. The man nodded in the direction everyone was facing. ‘About thirty or forty feet into the firth,’ he said. Rebus turned and watched too. Clarke had wrapped her arms around herself, cheeks reddened, squinting towards the water.
‘Is that one?’ she asked, pointing.
‘Not yet,’ the man said.
She kept looking as the man offered some advice: ‘The harder you look, the more you start to see things – especially when you want to see them.’
‘True enough,’ Rebus agreed under his breath.
Siobhan’s mouth opened in a gasp as a sleek pale-blue shape emerged almost exactly where the man had said it would. After a moment the creature disappeared again, but there seemed to be a second dolphin just behind it. And then a third. There were laughs and whoops from the spectators.
‘Feeding time,’ the expert explained. ‘When the current’s right, they hang around here until their bellies are full.’
‘Did you see?’ Clarke was asking Rebus.
‘I saw,’ he said. But his attention had been caught by the opposite shore. There seemed to be battlements there.
‘Fort George,’ the man on the folding seat said, as if reading Rebus’s mind. Then he got busy with his camera as the dolphins broke the surface again. Clarke had taken out her phone and snapped a photo, but was disappointed with the result. She angled the screen towards Rebus. Too far away, and the dolphins themselves too similar in colour to the water around them.
‘Here,’ the man said, handing her his binoculars. She thanked him and pressed them to her eyes, adjusting the focus. Rebus stood with his hands in his pockets. A couple of the onlookers were tourists – tanned faces, brand-new mountain jackets, bought to ward off anything the Scottish climate threw at them. They were grinning whenever anyone made eye contact. One woman had brought her dog, and she was soon off again, rounding the point and tossing a ball for the collie to fetch. After a couple of minutes Rebus retreated to the lighthouse’s boundary wall, seeking enough shelter to get a cigarette lit. The show seemed to be over anyway. Clarke had handed back the binoculars and was being shown some of the photographer’s collection of shots. She caught up with Rebus and they started walking towards the car.
‘Fun?’ he asked her.
She nodded. ‘It’s good to be reminded there’s another world out there. Maybe we’d see seals, too, if we hung around long enough.’
‘Or selkies, even.’
‘Did you finish reading that book?’
/>
He shook his head, dodging a puddle in the car park. There was a cairn in front of the Saab and he went to take a look at it. A plaque told him it was the work of a local school and was dedicated to the Brahan Seer.
‘Now there’s a coincidence,’ Rebus said.
‘What?’
Rebus nodded towards the cairn. ‘He gets a mention in that book.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Supposedly prophesied stuff like oil rigs and the Caledonian Canal. But he might not even have existed.’
‘Like Sawney Bean, you mean?’
‘Exactly.’ Rebus unlocked the Saab. As they closed the doors after them, he turned the ignition and got the heating going.
‘Maybe we can just sit here for a minute,’ Clarke said.
‘Sure.’
She was wriggling the warmth back into her body. ‘And you can tell me a story.’
‘What kind of story?’
‘From your book.’
‘I didn’t finish it.’
‘Go on,’ she encouraged him.
Rebus stared out towards the water while he made up his mind. ‘There’s one about a selkie, actually,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s supposed to have happened in the south-west, on the coast outside Kirkcudbright. Young lad there saw a creature emerge from the water and it scared him, so he killed it, which brought bad luck to the surrounding area. The local landowner didn’t like that, but the villagers protected the boy.’
‘They knew he was responsible?’
Rebus nodded. ‘He’d owned up to his father. Anyway, the landowner decided the whole village had to be punished. He was going to starve them out. The boy saw only one answer to that – walked into the Solway Firth until the water closed over his head.’
‘The curse was lifted?’
Rebus nodded again. ‘But each night, his head rose above the water, staring towards land, eyes full of sadness. He’d become a selkie, and he knew that if he ever came ashore again, there might be another scared child waiting for him with a rock.’ Rebus paused. ‘The end.’
‘And the moral of the story is . . .?’
He thought for a moment before shrugging. ‘Does there need to be a moral?’
‘Actions have consequences,’ Clarke stated. ‘That’s what I take from it.’
‘Plus there’ll always be people who’ll cover up for the guilty,’ Rebus added, reaching into his pocket for his ringing phone.
‘Hazlitt?’ Clarke guessed.
‘No,’ Rebus said, checking the screen and then answering. ‘What can I do for you, Peter?’
It was Peter Bliss, calling from SCRU. ‘Just thought you’d want to know, that’s us being put out to pasture.’
‘The unit’s for the chop?’
‘Effective near-as-dammit immediately. You’ll want to start clearing your desk.’
‘SCRU’s being shut down,’ Rebus explained to Clarke. Then, to Bliss: ‘How’s Elaine taking it?’
‘She’s philosophical.’
‘And our Lord and Master?’
‘Seems pretty confident that he’s on the shortlist for the Crown Office job.’
‘A shortlist of one, if he has his way.’
Bliss chuckled at the truth of this. ‘So where are you anyway? Got somebody there?’
‘I’m with Siobhan Clarke. We’re up north.’
‘Thought as much. TV cameras don’t seem to be spotting you today, though.’
‘One bullet I’m happy to dodge.’ Rebus pointed through the windscreen, so that Clarke could share his sighting of another dolphin as it made its way towards the feeding grounds. ‘But as of right now,’ he told Bliss, ‘we’re actually sitting in my car watching a passing parade of dolphins.’
‘At Chanonry Point? Then you’re minutes away from where Gregor Magrath stays.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘Rosemarkie, it’s called.’
‘You’ve been there?’
‘Just the once. Cottage facing the beach. Only red door on the street, I seem to recall.’
‘Maybe we’ll drop by.’
‘Could you do that?’ Bliss paused. ‘I’m serious. Gregor’s always wanting to know what we’re up to at SCRU.’
‘And you want me to be the one to tell him it’s on its last legs?’
‘Bit nicer than a phone call,’ Bliss argued.
‘And saves you the grief,’ Rebus countered.
‘You’re a gentleman, John.’
‘Otherwise known as an easy touch.’
‘We’ll have a night out when you get back. Toast the old place before it shows us the door.’
‘Will Cowan be on the guest list?’
‘What do you think?’ Peter Bliss said, ending the call.
Clarke was on the lookout for more sea life.
‘Might find some further up the coast,’ Rebus suggested, starting the engine. ‘Along with a retired detective and a cup of tea . . .’
Rosemarkie was only five minutes away. A narrow main street, a church and a pub. Rebus lost sight of the coastline, and signalled right, turning down a narrow lane until he hit the seafront. A row of houses faced the water, bookended by a children’s park at one end and a restaurant at the other. The house with the red door was a cottage with dormer windows jutting out from its roof. There was an enclosed sun porch with enough space for a single armchair. The man seated there held a newspaper close to his eyes, peering hard at the print. There was a venerable olive-green Land Rover parked next to the house, and enough land for a foot-wide strip of weed-free garden. The man eventually realised that Rebus and Clarke weren’t passers-by. He put his paper down and opened the door. He had heft, but the years had given him a stoop and slowed his movements. He would be in his mid sixties, his hair silver but neatly trimmed, his eyes small but piercing.
‘Gregor Magrath?’ Rebus said.
‘That’s me.’
‘I’m John Rebus. This is Siobhan Clarke. Peter Bliss asked us to drop by.’
‘Peter? I was speaking to him just a few days back.’
‘Well, he says hello.’
‘Rebus?’ Magrath studied him. ‘I seem to know that name . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘Lothian and Borders CID?’
Rebus bowed his head in acknowledgement. ‘And Siobhan here is a serving DI.’
‘So what brings you north?’
‘Mind if we come in?’
‘The place is a bit of a guddle . . .’
‘I promise we won’t look.’
Magrath led them inside. Past the front door, they were immediately in a small, overheated living room, with a kitchenette beyond. There was a patterned three-piece suite, a TV, and shelves filled with books and knick-knacks, including mementoes from Magrath’s time on the force.
‘You live here on your own?’
‘Wife passed away many years back.’
‘I think I remember Peter telling me,’ Rebus said with a nod.
Clarke suggested that she make them a pot of tea. Magrath made to help her, but she told him she would manage. As she busied herself at the worktop, the two men sat down either side of the electric fire.
‘Bills must be grim,’ Rebus commented.
‘Place isn’t hard to heat. Good glazing helps.’ Magrath slapped his hands against his knees. ‘You were telling me why you’re so far from home . . .’
‘You must have seen it on the news,’ Rebus said, glancing towards the blank screen of the TV. ‘Or read about it, at least.’
‘The missing women?’ Magrath guessed.
‘Five of whom might just have turned up.’
Magrath nodded solemnly. ‘Bad business,’ he commented, before calling out to Clarke that the sugar was in a bowl next to the bread bin.
‘You’ve been living up here a while,’ Rebus said.
‘Ever since I retired.’
‘It’s a glorious location.’ Rebus had risen to his feet and crossed to the window.
‘It is that.’
‘Are you from here o
riginally?’
‘No. Just always had a soft spot for the place. And how’s Edinburgh these days? Any sign of those trams getting nearer?’
‘They’re still laying the tracks.’
‘Waste of bloody money. Council never seems to have had its wits about it.’
‘I work at SCRU,’ Rebus announced, turning away from the window again.
‘Maybe that’s why I know the name. Peter probably mentioned you.’
‘He probably did,’ Rebus said. ‘I’ve just got off the phone with him. He told me to let you know SCRU’s days are numbered.’
‘That Crown Office unit’s taking over?’ Magrath’s mouth twitched. ‘Doesn’t really surprise me.’
‘Shame to lose it, though.’
Magrath nodded slowly. ‘I always saw it as my legacy. It meant I’d made a difference.’
Clarke had found a tray and was bringing everything through from the kitchen. ‘Didn’t see any biscuits,’ she said.
‘If I get them in, I just eat the lot,’ Magrath explained.
When she glanced in Rebus’s direction, Magrath knew why. ‘Your colleague has broken the news,’ he told her.
They drank the tea in silence for a moment, then Magrath asked how Bliss was keeping.
‘Still breathing,’ Rebus answered.
‘And every one of them sounding like his last, eh?’
Rebus acknowledged the truth of this. ‘Tell me something,’ he said. ‘During your time in charge, how many cases did you manage to close?’
Magrath thought for a moment. ‘Just the two. Made progress on six more, but it never got as far as a prosecution.’ He leaned forward a little. ‘Actually, of those two, one fell into our lap – guy came forward to confess as soon as he heard we’d reopened the inquiry. I think it was a weight off his conscience.’
‘We could do with a few more consciences in the world,’ Clarke stated.
‘That we could, lass.’
‘Is that an old wooden truncheon?’ Rebus asked, gesturing towards the bookshelves.
‘From before your time, I’m sure.’
Rebus had walked over to the shelf in question. ‘Mind if I . . .?’ He picked it up and felt its heft. It was nicely weighted, with a leather wrist strap and grooves wide enough for his fingers. ‘We’re barely allowed handcuffs these days,’ he commented.