Ian Rankin: Standing in another's man grave

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.

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.