He was back at Whicher’s. Now that the initial fuss about the bodies had died down, they had rooms available, but Rebus wasn’t sure he would be staying. Instead, he sat in the lounge, plugged in his phone for a recharge, and ordered a helping of steak pie and chips, along with a pot of tea.
During a trip to the toilets, he had a wash and studied himself in the mirror. He looked like a man who had slept in his car. At reception, they handed him a pack containing toothbrush, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream, and he returned to the toilets for a patch-up job.
With his belly full and another pot of tea on its way, he felt more human. There were plenty of papers to help him bide his time, plus the hotel’s copy of Cracking the Code. He’d asked for the TV to be tuned to a news channel, but with the sound muted.
‘No trouble at all, sir,’ he’d been told by the waiter in the tartan waistcoat.
A couple of hours passed with no word from Dempsey. Rebus checked that his phone was still getting a healthy signal. When it did eventually ring, caller ID told him it was Siobhan Clarke on the line. Rebus answered.
‘Dempsey’s just been having a word with James Page,’ she told him. ‘She’s wondering if you’re back in Edinburgh yet.’
‘And?’
‘And James spoke to DS Cowan at SCRU, but he hasn’t seen you either.’
‘Funny, that.’
‘You’re still in Inverness?’
‘Of course I am.’ He told her about the CCTV — Kenny Magrath stopping to refuel at the petrol station no more than five minutes after Annette McKie had left it on foot — then about Kenny and Gregor Magrath being taken in for questioning. ‘Did Dempsey tell Page whether the interviews had finished?’
‘No idea,’ Clarke confessed.
‘You and him not best buddies?’
‘Leave it, John.’
‘Pity — I really liked the guy.’
‘You don’t take a telling, do you?’
Rebus smiled to himself. ‘Dempsey was supposed to be updating me,’ he went on to explain. ‘That’s why I’m still here.’
‘You really think this is it, don’t you?’
‘Hope springs eternal.’
‘Well, I’m not sure Dempsey sounded like a woman on the verge of a breakthrough.’
Rebus had another caller. Number blocked. He told Clarke he’d phone her back.
‘Rebus?’ Gillian Dempsey said.
‘Any news?’
‘They’ve been questioned and released.’
‘And?’
‘And there’s not much else to say. Kenny Magrath’s work premises and van have been gone over — stuff’s been sent to the lab but the team didn’t sound hopeful. Same goes for both houses.’
‘What about the Land Rover?’
Dempsey paused. ‘That was your idea, was it? Well, our friendly sheriff signed an extra warrant, but again it looks clean.’
‘Clean or cleaned?’
‘Somebody may have cleaned it in recent memory,’ she admitted. ‘But not with the thoroughness you’re implying. Besides, we know it was the van in Pitlochry rather than another vehicle, don’t we?’
‘What does he say about the stop for petrol?’
‘He was on his way back from visiting his son in Glasgow and his tank was low.’
‘You don’t think that’s quite a coincidence?’
‘As it happens, I do, and so did he — he told his wife as much when Annette McKie became news, asked her if he should maybe come forward. She reasoned there wasn’t much point if he hadn’t seen anything.’
‘Funny she didn’t mention that to me.’ Rebus closed his eyes and rubbed his hand across them.
‘You think she’s covering for him?’
‘Sometimes that’s what families do.’
‘Well,’ Dempsey went on, ‘unless the lab finds something, we’re at a bit of a dead end, aren’t we?’
‘Did you look at him in the interview room? I mean, really look him in the eye?’
‘I did more than that. I had a psychologist watching the camera feed. They didn’t see anything that rang alarm bells. This is a family man, Rebus. Two grown-up kids and a doting wife. Neighbours full of praise and not so much as a speeding ticket to his name.’
‘Will you at least do a bit more digging? Check where he was when the other victims were snatched. .’
‘I’ve asked him. He’s going to have to go back through his paperwork to find out.’
‘Shouldn’t that be your job?’
‘We’ve sent an officer to the house to fetch it all,’ she said coldly. ‘But as of this moment, we’re still at that same dead end.’ She paused. ‘Incidentally, can I ask where you are? Doesn’t sound like you’re driving.’
‘I’m not. I stopped at House of Bruar for a break.’
‘You’re heading back to Edinburgh, then?’
‘Just as you ordered.’ Rebus rattled the cup in its saucer, so she could hear it. ‘But you’ll let me know if there’s any news?’
‘Of course. Oh, and by the way — giving that impromptu statement to my nephew? Not your brightest move, despite the manifest competition. .’
She hung up on him, and he set the phone down on the table next to the teapot. He was the only person in the lounge. The papers had been gone through from cover to cover, and the TV was still showing footage of some football manager’s fall from grace. It seemed as if the story was on a fifteen-minute loop, same pictures each and every time, and nothing about Edderton, not even on the ticker tape of breaking news along the bottom of the screen.
‘What the hell do I do now?’ Rebus asked himself. The answer came to him. ‘Cigarette,’ he said, rising to his feet.
Forty minutes later, he was seated in the lounge again, staring into space, his mind swirling with thoughts, when he saw a face he knew: Gavin Arnold, in full uniform, cap tucked beneath one arm.
‘What are you doing here?’ Rebus asked him.
‘Looking for you, at DCS Dempsey’s behest. This was second on my list.’
‘After?’
‘The Lochinver.’
‘Want to sit down?’
Arnold shook his head, looming over Rebus.
‘I told her I was at House of Bruar,’ Rebus went on.
‘Seems she wasn’t taken in. My orders are to escort you to the A9 and stick with you as far as Daviot.’
‘I’m being run out of town by the sheriff?’
‘That you are, Hopalong.’
‘I didn’t grass you up, Gavin.’
‘I know that. But if she set her mind to it, it wouldn’t take her five minutes to work out I’m the one who got you that visitor’s pass.’
‘Well, we’d better get you into her good books pronto, then.’ Rebus rose to his feet and reached for his jacket. ‘But if you should happen to hear anything on the grapevine. .’
‘You’d be grateful for a tip-off?’ Arnold guessed with a smile. ‘Tell me, is it possible for anyone to come to know you without them always feeling they’re slipping their neck into a noose?’
‘You’d have to ask my legion of friends.’
‘Do you need to settle up?’ Arnold nodded towards the teapot.
‘Already done,’ Rebus assured him.
‘We’re ready for the off, then.’
Rebus stopped in front of him, their faces mere inches apart. ‘Kenny Magrath did it, Gavin. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.’
‘Then we’ll catch him,’ Arnold said.
‘Will we, though? We don’t always, you know.’
As they passed the reception desk, Rebus thought of Sally Hazlitt and the alternative identity she’d created, far from friends and family, spending her life always in motion, never quite able to trust or settle or drop her guard.
Arnold’s patrol car stayed on Rebus’s tail until the Daviot signpost, then dropped back, flashing its headlights a couple of times as if to say a final, defining farewell.