Standing in another's man grave

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.