‘Kept behind the front desk for emergencies,’ she explained. He unlocked the Saab and placed it inside the windscreen. ‘And for that,’ she added, ‘you’re treating me to a baked potato . . .’
Not just any baked potato either, but one filled with cottage cheese and pineapple. There were sticky Formica-topped tables and plastic cutlery, along with paper cups for the tea, the drawstring hanging over the side of each.
‘Classy,’ Rebus said, fishing out his tea bag and depositing it on the smallest, thinnest paper napkin he’d ever seen.
‘You not eating?’ Clarke asked, making a professional job of cutting through the skin of her potato.
‘Way too busy for that, Siobhan.’
‘Still enjoying the life of an archaeologist?’
‘There are worse jobs at sea.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘What about you? Promotion suiting you?’
‘Workload’s no respecter of rank.’
‘Well earned, all the same.’
She wasn’t about to deny it. Instead she took a sip of tea and scooped up a forkful of cottage cheese. Rebus tried to remember how many years they’d worked together – not that long really, in the scheme of things. Didn’t see nearly so much of one another these days. She had a ‘friend’ who lived in Newcastle. Weekends she was often down there. And then there were the times when she’d called or texted him and he’d made some excuse not to make a meeting, never quite sure why, even as he sent the message back.
‘You can’t put it off for ever, you know,’ she said now, waving the emptied fork at him.
‘What?’
‘The favour you’re about to ask.’
‘What favour is that, then? Can’t an old pal just drop by for a catch-up?’
She stared him out, chewing her food slowly.
‘Okay then,’ he admitted. ‘It’s someone who came to see you first thing this morning.’
‘Sally Hazlitt?’
‘Sally’s the daughter,’ he corrected her. ‘Nina’s the one you talked to.’
‘After which she came running straight to you? How did she know?’
‘Know what?’
‘That we used to be colleagues.’
He’d thought for a second that she was about to say ‘close’. But she hadn’t; she’d opted for ‘colleagues’ instead, just as earlier she had used the word ‘civilians’.
‘She didn’t. A guy called Magrath used to run SCRU and she was looking for him.’
‘A sympathetic shoulder?’ Clarke guessed.
‘The woman’s daughter hasn’t been seen in a dozen years.’
Clarke looked around the cramped café to make sure no one was eavesdropping, then lowered her voice anyway. ‘We both know she should have put it behind her a long time back. Maybe that’s not possible any more, but it’s therapy she needs rather than us.’
There was silence between them for a moment. Clarke seemed to have lost interest in what remained of her meal. Rebus nodded towards the plate.
‘Two ninety-five that cost me,’ he complained. Then: ‘She seemed to think you brushed her off too readily.’
‘Forgive me if I’m not always sweetness and light at eight thirty in the morning.’
‘But you did listen to her?’
‘Of course.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
Rebus let the silence lie for a few seconds. People were hurrying past on the pavement outside. He didn’t suppose there was one of them without a story to tell, but finding a sympathetic ear wasn’t always easy.
‘So how’s the investigation?’ he asked eventually.
‘Which one?’
‘The kid who’s gone missing. I’m assuming that’s how she ended up speaking to you . . .’
‘She told the front desk she had information.’ Clarke reached into her jacket and produced a notebook, flipped it open to the relevant page. ‘Sally Hazlitt,’ she intoned, ‘Brigid Young, Zoe Beddows. Aviemore, Strathpeffer, Auchterarder. 1999, 2002, 2008.’ She snapped the book shut again. ‘You know as well as I do it’s thin stuff.’
‘Unlike the skin of that potato,’ Rebus offered. ‘And yes, I agree, it’s thin stuff – as it stands. So tell me about the latest instalment.’
Clarke shook her head. ‘Not if you’re going to think of it in that way.’
‘All right, it’s not an “instalment”. It’s a MisPer.’
‘Of three days’ standing, which means there’s still a decent chance she’ll wander home and ask what all the fuss is.’ Clarke got up and walked over to the counter, returning moments later with an early copy of the Evening News. The photo was on page five. It showed a scowling girl of fifteen with long black hair and a fringe almost covering her eyes.
‘Annette McKie,’ Clarke continued, ‘known to her friends as “Zelda” – from the computer game.’ She saw the look on Rebus’s face. ‘People play games on computers these days; they don’t have to go to the pub and put money in a machine.’
‘There’s always been a nasty streak in you,’ he muttered, going back to his reading.
‘She was taking the bus to Inverness for a party,’ Clarke went on. ‘Invited by someone she met online. We’ve checked and it pans out. But she told the driver she was feeling sick, so he stopped by a petrol station in Pitlochry and let her off. There was another bus in a couple of hours, but she told him she’d probably hitch.’
‘Never arrived in Inverness,’ Rebus said, looking at the photo again. Sulky: was that a suitable description? But to his eyes it seemed overly posed. She was copying a look and a style, without quite living it. ‘Home life?’ he asked.
‘Not the best. She had a record of truancy, took a few drugs. Parents split up. Dad’s in Australia, mum lives in Lochend with Annette’s three brothers.’
Rebus knew Lochend: far from the bonniest neighbourhood in the city, but the Edinburgh address explained Clarke’s involvement. He finished reading the report but left the paper open on the table. ‘Nothing from her mobile phone?’
‘Just a photo she sent to someone she knows.’
‘What sort of photo?’
‘Hills . . . fields. Probably the outskirts of Pitlochry. Clarke was staring at him. ‘There’s really not a lot for you to do here, John,’ she said, not unsympathetically.
‘Who said I wanted to do anything?’
‘You’re forgetting: I know you.’
‘Maybe I’ve changed.’
‘Maybe you have. But in that case, someone needs to quash the rumour I’ve been hearing.’
‘And what rumour is that?’
‘That you’ve applied to return to the fold.’
He stared at her. ‘Who’d want a crock like me?’
‘A very good question.’ She pushed her plate away from her. ‘I need to be getting back.’
‘Aren’t you impressed?’
‘By what?’
‘That I didn’t drag you into the first pub we passed.’
‘As it happens, we didn’t pass any pubs.’
‘That must be the answer,’ Rebus said, nodding to himself.
Back at Gayfield Square, he opened the Saab and made to hand her the sign.
‘Keep it,’ she told him. ‘Might come in handy.’ Then she surprised him with a hug and a final peck on the cheek before disappearing into the station. Rebus got into the car and placed the sign on the passenger seat, staring at it.
POLICE OFFICIAL BUSINESS
Was that grammatically correct? What was wrong with OFFICIAL POLICE BUSINESS? Or just POLICE? He kept looking at that word. He had given so much of his life to it, but with each passing year he wondered just what it meant and how he fitted. There’s really not a lot for you to do here . . . His phone was letting him know it had a message for him.
Is it just me or is this turning into a world record attempt for slowest cigarette ever smoked?
Cowan again. Rebus decided against answering. Instead he took a business card from
his pocket. He had swapped it with Nina Hazlitt for one of his own. On one side were the details for DI Gregor Magrath; on the other was a scribbled telephone number, with Hazlitt’s name beneath it. He placed it on the seat next to him, tucked under the plastic sign, and started the engine.
3
It took the best part of a week for the first batch of files to arrive. Rebus had spent a whole day trying to find the right people to talk to in the right departments of Central Scotland Constabulary and Northern Constabulary. Central covered the garden centre near Auchterarder, though at first Rebus had been told he’d need to talk to Tayside Police instead. Northern covered both Aviemore and Strathpeffer, but these involved different divisions, meaning calls to Inverness and Dingwall.
It was all about to get simpler – allegedly. There were plans to merge the eight regions into a single force, but this had been no help to Rebus as he felt the telephone receiver generate heat under his grip.
Bliss and Robison had asked what he was up to and he’d treated them to a drink in the cafeteria while he explained.
‘And we’re not telling the boss?’ Robison had asked.
‘Not unless we have to,’ Rebus had replied.
After all, one folder looked much like any other, didn’t it? The first to arrive had been dispatched from Inverness. It smelled slightly of damp and there was a faint bloom on its outer covering. It was the file on Brigid Young. Rebus spent half an hour on it and rapidly concluded that there was a lot of padding. Having no leads, the local cops had interviewed everyone within reach, adding nothing except pages of meandering transcript. The photos from the scene shed almost as little light. Young had driven a white Porsche with cream upholstery. Her shoulder bag hadn’t been found and neither had the key fob. Her briefcase had been left on the passenger seat. No diary, but there was one at her place of work in Inverness. She’d had one meeting in Culbokie and been on her way to another at a hotel on the shore of Loch Garve. She hadn’t used her phone to call anyone about the puncture or let the client at the hotel know she’d been held up, for the simple reason that she’d left it behind at her previous meeting. The folder included some family photographs and newspaper clippings. Rebus would have called her handsome rather than pretty: a strong square jaw and a no-nonsense way of looking at the camera, as if the photo was just another task to be ticked off her list. There was a note to say that the briefcase, together with everything else in the car, had eventually been returned to the family, along with the Porsche itself. No husband: she’d lived alone in a house on the River Ness. Mother resided locally, in the same house as Brigid’s sister. The file had been added to sporadically since 2002. There had been an appeal for information on the first anniversary of the disappearance, plus a reconstruction on a local TV news programme, neither producing any new leads. The most recent update consisted of a rumour that Brigid Young’s business had been in trouble, leading to the theory that she could have done a runner.
When the working day was over, Rebus had decided to take the file home with him rather than leave it where Cowan might find it. In his flat, he had emptied its contents on to the dining table in his living room. Soon after, he’d realised that it made sense not to haul it back and forth to Fettes; he found some drawing pins in a cupboard, and began pinning the photos and newspaper cuttings to the wall above the table.
By the end of that week, Brigid Young’s photograph had been joined by those of Zoe Beddows and Sally Hazlitt, and the paperwork took up not just the table, but sections of the floor and sofa. He could see Nina Hazlitt in her daughter’s face: same bone structure, same eyes. Her file included pictures of the search that had taken place in the days after her disappearance: dozens of volunteers scouring the hillsides, along with a mountain rescue helicopter. He’d bought a fold-out map of Scotland and added it to the wall, highlighting with a thick red marker the route of the A9, from Stirling to Auchterarder, Auchterarder to Perth, and from there through Pitlochry and Aviemore to Inverness and beyond, ending on the north coast at Scrabster, just outside Thurso – nothing there except the ferry that would take you to Orkney.
Rebus was sitting in his flat, smoking and thinking, when he heard someone thumping on his door. He rubbed at his eyebrows, trying to erase a headache that was gathering between them, walked into the hall and opened the door.
‘When’s that escalator getting fixed?’ A thick-built, shaven-headed man his own age was standing there, breathing heavily. Rebus peered past him at the two flights of stairs he had just climbed.
‘Hell are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘You forgetting what day it is? I was starting to get worried about you.’
Rebus checked his watch. It was almost eight in the evening. There was this arrangement they had – a drink once a fortnight. ‘Lost track of time,’ he said, hoping it didn’t sound too much like an apology.
‘I tried phoning you.’
‘Must be on silent,’ Rebus explained.
‘You’re not lying dead on the living room carpet, that’s the main thing.’
Cafferty was smiling, though his smiles had more threat to them than most men’s scowls.
‘I’ll get my coat,’ Rebus told him. ‘Just wait there.’
He retraced his steps to the living room and stubbed out the cigarette. His phone was under a pile of papers – switched to silent as he had suspected. One missed call. His coat was on the sofa and he started to shrug his way into it. These regular drinks had begun soon after Cafferty’s release from hospital. He’d been told that he’d flatlined at one point and that Rebus had brought him back. Not the whole truth, as Rebus had stressed. All the same, Cafferty had insisted on a drink as a way of saying thanks, then had arranged for the same thing to happen a fortnight later, and a fortnight after that.
Cafferty had once run Edinburgh – the worst of the city, at least. Drugs and prostitution and protection. These days he took either a back seat or no seat at all: Rebus wasn’t sure. He knew only what Cafferty chose to tell him, and could never bring himself to trust the half of it.
‘What’s all this?’ Cafferty asked from the living room doorway. He was gesturing towards the display on the wall, his eyes taking in the files on the table and floor.
‘I told you to wait outside.’
‘Bringing the job home with you – never a good sign.’ Cafferty, hands in pockets, entered the room. Rebus just needed his keys and lighter . . . Where the hell were they?
‘Out,’ he commanded.
But Cafferty was studying the map. ‘The A9 – good road, that.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘Used it myself, back in the day.’
Rebus had located keys and lighter both. ‘That’s us,’ he said. Cafferty was, however, in no hurry.
‘Still playing the old records, eh? Might want to . . .’ He nodded towards where the needle had reached the run-out groove of a Rory Gallagher album. Rebus lifted the tone arm and switched off the hi-fi.
‘Happy now?’ he asked.
‘Taxi’s downstairs,’ Cafferty replied. ‘These some of your cold cases, then?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Not that you know of.’ Cafferty gave Rebus that smile again. ‘All women, though, judging by the pictures. Never my style . . .’
Rebus stared at him. ‘What did you use the A9 for exactly?’
Cafferty shrugged. ‘Fly-tipping, you might call it.’
‘You mean getting rid of the bodies?’
‘Ever driven the A9? Moorland and forest, logging tracks leading to the middle of nowhere.’ Cafferty paused. ‘Beautiful scenery, mind.’
‘Some women have gone missing down the years – you wouldn’t know anything about that?’
Cafferty shook his head slowly. ‘I could ask around, though – if you want me to.’
There was silence in the room for a moment. ‘I’ll think about it,’ Rebus said eventually. Then: ‘If you did me a favour, would that be us square?’
Cafferty made to
place a hand on Rebus’s shoulder, but Rebus shied away.
‘Let’s get that drink,’ he said, ushering his visitor back towards the landing.
4
It was ten thirty by the time he returned to his flat. He filled the kettle and made a mug of tea, then returned to the living room, switching on just the one lamp and the stereo. Van Morrison: Astral Weeks. His downstairs neighbour was old and deaf. Upstairs was a group of students who never made much noise except for the occasional party. Through the living room wall . . . well, he’d no idea who lived there. He’d never needed to know. The area of Edinburgh he called home – Marchmont – had a shifting population. A lot of the flats were rentals, most of them short lets. Cafferty had made this point in the pub. Everybody used to look out for everybody else . . . Say you did end up on that floor of yours, how long would it be before anyone came calling?
Rebus had argued that it had been no better in the old days. He’d been inside plenty of flats and houses, the inhabitant dead in bed or in their favourite chair. Flies and odour, plus bills piling up behind the door. Maybe someone had thought to knock, but they hadn’t done much more than that.
Everybody used to look out for everybody else . . .
‘I bet you used lookouts, too, didn’t you, Cafferty?’ Rebus muttered to himself. ‘When you were burying the bodies . . .’ He was staring at the map as he sipped his tea. He had driven the A9 infrequently. It was a frustrating road, only some of it dualled. Lots of tourists, many of them hauling caravans, with regular bends and blind summits making passing difficult. Lorries and delivery vans, struggling up the inclines. Inverness was just over a hundred miles north of Perth, but it could take two and a half, maybe three hours to drive. And when you got there, to cap it all, you were in Inverness. One radio DJ Rebus listened to called the place Dolphinsludge. There were certainly a few hardy dolphins in the Moray Firth, and Rebus didn’t doubt that sludge figured too.
Aviemore . . . Strathpeffer . . . Auchterarder . . . and now Pitlochry. He’d ended up telling Cafferty some of the story, adding the caveat about coincidence being a strong possibility. Cafferty had given a thoughtful pout, swirling the whisky in his glass. The pub had been quiet – funny how people tended to finish their drinks and move on whenever Cafferty entered an establishment. The barman hadn’t just removed the empties from their chosen table but given it a bit of a wipe, too.