Ian Rankin - Standing in another's man grave

Rebus studied the landscape. ‘Could be just about anywhere. Have you released it to the media?’

‘It’s been mentioned in dispatches, but we didn’t think it meant anything.’

‘Someone out there is bound to recognise it. Grazing land — farmer will know it if no one else does. Could the woods be Forestry Commission?’ He looked up and saw she was smiling. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘It’s just that I had the exact same thought.’

‘That’s because you learned from the best.’ Her smile started to slide. ‘Just joking,’ he assured her. ‘Great minds and all that.’ He peered at the photo again. ‘Who did she send it to?’

‘A friend from school.’

‘Best friend?’

‘Just a friend.’

‘Did she usually send them photos?’

‘No.’

Rebus looked at Clarke. ‘Same thing with Zoe Beddows — sent to someone she knew, but no more than that. And no message — same as this time, right?’

‘Right,’ Clarke agreed. ‘But meaning what, exactly?’

‘Sent in a panic,’ Rebus speculated. ‘Maybe a cry for help, and any recipient would have to do.’

‘Or?’ Clarke knew there was more. Their eyes met again.

‘You know as well as I do.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Sent by the abductor — a sort of calling card.’

‘Bit of work to be done before we can say that.’

‘But that doesn’t stop us thinking it.’

Rebus waited a while before speaking. ‘So do you want my help on this or not?’

‘Maybe for a time.’

‘Then you’ll get Physical Graffiti to tell my boss?’

‘You’re going to run out of Led Zeppelin titles sooner or later.’

‘But it’ll be fun while it lasts,’ Rebus said with a smile.

‘This is all working out for you, isn’t it? Means you don’t have to explain to Cowan about the files. Plus you can keep in touch with Nina Hazlitt.’

‘What makes you think I’d do that?’

‘Because she’s your type.’

‘Oh aye? What type do I go for, then?’

‘Confused, needy, damaged. .’

‘I’m not sure that’s exactly fair, Siobhan.’

‘Then why have you gone all defensive?’

She was looking at his arms, so he looked too. They were folded squarely across his chest.

The file on Zoe Beddows had a home address and telephone number for her friend Alasdair Blunt. When Rebus called, he got an answering machine. Man’s voice; Scottish, with a good education: Alasdair and Lesley are otherwise engaged. Leave a message or try Alasdair’s mobile . Rebus made a note of the number, ended the call and punched it in. It rang and rang. He looked around the walls of his living room. Clarke had asked him to scoop up all the files and take them to Gayfield Square.

‘Sure you’ve got the space?’ he’d countered.

‘We’ll find some.’

No one was answering. Rebus stared out of the window, down on to the street. A parking warden was checking residents’ permits and pay-and-display tickets. Rebus had left his Saab on a single yellow line. He watched as the warden glowered through the windscreen at the POLICE OFFICIAL BUSINESS sign. The man looked up and down the street. His jacket was several sizes too big for him, as was the peaked cap. He lifted his machine and started to process the infringement. Rebus sighed and turned away from the window, ending the call. He was starting to phone Blunt’s answering machine again, this time to leave a message, when his mobile trembled. Incoming: number blocked.

‘Hello?’ Rebus decided this was as much information as the caller needed.

‘You just phoned me.’

‘Alasdair Blunt?’

‘That’s right. Who am I speaking to?’

‘My name’s Rebus, sir. I’m calling from Lothian and Borders Police.’

‘Oh yes. .?’

‘It’s concerning Zoe Beddows.’

‘Has she turned up?’

‘I just need to confirm a few details about the picture she sent you from her phone.’

‘You mean the case is still open?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘Isn’t that what her family and friends would want?’

Blunt seemed to consider this, and his tone softened. ‘Yes, of course. Sorry, rough day.’

‘What is it you do, Mr Blunt?’

‘I’m in sales. Though not for much longer if things don’t pick up.’

‘Might help if you answered your phone — I could have been a new client.’

‘Then you’d have called me on my other mobile, the one I use for business. That’s why I was busy when you rang.’

‘Understood.’

Blunt exhaled noisily. ‘So how can I help?’

‘I’ve been looking through the records and there doesn’t appear to be a copy of the photograph Ms Beddows sent you.’

‘That’s because it got deleted.’

Rebus rested his weight on the arm of his sofa. ‘That’s a pity. There was no message? Just a picture?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Showing what exactly?’

Blunt seemed to struggle to remember. ‘Hills. . sky. . a sort of track off to one side.’

‘Trees?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You didn’t recognise the spot?’

Blunt hesitated. ‘No,’ he said eventually.

‘You don’t sound sure.’

‘I’m positive.’

Rebus stayed silent for a moment, inviting Blunt to continue.

‘Are we done?’ the man asked.

‘Not quite. What time of day did you receive the photo?’

‘Sometime in the evening.’

‘Can you be more precise?’

‘Nine, ten o’clock, something like that.’

‘And when do you think the picture was taken?’

‘I’ve really no idea.’

‘Was it bright sunlight, or maybe the sky was growing dark. .?’

‘The quality wasn’t great.’ Blunt paused. ‘Twilight, I suppose.’

Same as with Annette McKie, Rebus noted. Then: ‘Can I ask, how did you know Ms Beddows?’

‘She cut my hair.’

‘But you were friends?’

‘She cut my hair,’ Blunt repeated. Rebus thought for a moment. How many hairdressers kept their clients’ contact details on their mobile? How many forwarded them photographs. .?

‘Which of your phones was the photo sent to, Mr Blunt?’

‘What does it matter?’

‘Was it your wife who saw it when it arrived? Asked you who Zoe was? Then maybe deleted it?’

‘This has got nothing to do with anything.’ Blunt was sounding irritated again.

‘But is that what happened? You’d been spending a bit of time with Zoe? Maybe in your car — a wee drive to a farm track somewhere. .?’

‘I wasn’t sure at first,’ Blunt said quietly. ‘I don’t think the photo meant anything to us. It wasn’t anywhere we’d been. .’

‘Did any of this come out at the time?’

‘Some.’

Rebus was looking at the Zoe Beddows file. Incomplete. Like most cases. You were a cop, at the end of another long day you wrote up only the stuff you thought was important.

‘There’s not an easy way to put this, Mr Blunt, but were you ever a suspect?’

‘Only in my wife’s eyes.’

‘But you got through it, you and Lesley?’

‘Lesley came later. After Judith had walked out on me.’ Blunt paused. ‘Zoe had quite a lot of “friends”, you know. We’d stopped seeing one another several months before she went missing.’

‘And there’s nothing else you can tell me about the photo?’

‘Only that it ended my marriage.’

‘Sure that wasn’t your doing, Mr Blunt?’

The line went dead. Rebus considered calling Blunt back, but decided against it. He would almost certainly refuse to answer. Instead, he walked over to the Zoe Beddows file, its contents splayed across the dining table. He knew he would have to read it again, every single line of it. He was fairly confident there was nothing about Zoe and her ‘friends’. If any more of them had been interviewed, their relationship to the MisPer had not been flagged up. Laziness, or a sense of propriety on the part of the investigators? They would have known what the media would have done with it: created a story; distorted the facts; sold the public another version. In the process, Zoe Beddows would have become slightly less mourned. Rebus had seen it a dozen times or more. Prostitutes were ‘asking for it’, ‘putting themselves in danger’; anyone with a chaotic lifestyle could be pitied less than the newspaper’s mass of readers, the ones with families and steady jobs, the ones who feasted on those same vicarious details.