Standing in another's man grave

65

On Saturday morning, Rebus called Magrath again. This time, the phone did not ring. Instead, a different automated voice told him the number he had dialled had not been recognised and he should try again. He took more care the second time, but got the selfsame message.

‘Changed your number, Gregor?’ he asked quietly. Then he nodded to himself and went to take a shower.

By late lunchtime, he was parked on the seafront at Rosemarkie, directly opposite the cottage. He sounded his horn a few times, keeping watch on the windows for signs of life. All the curtains were closed. When he eventually went to check, brushing past the Land Rover, there was mail lying on the mat inside the porch. He went next door and the neighbour answered.

‘Remember me?’ Rebus asked. ‘I was here before.’

The elderly woman agreed that yes, Rebus was not a stranger.

‘Just wondering if you’ve seen hide or hair of Gregor.’

‘He was at the shop yesterday, collecting his paper.’

‘He’s all right, then? It’s just that he’s not answering his door and the place looks deserted.’

‘He’s had reporters turning up at all hours,’ the woman explained. ‘And the phone, too — I can hear it ringing and ringing.’ She paused, leaning in towards Rebus and lowering her voice. ‘You heard what happened?’

Rebus nodded, as he felt was expected.

‘Awful business, just awful. You never think these things will. . Well, you know what I mean.’

‘Plenty of talk in the village, I suppose.’

The woman tilted her head back. ‘You wouldn’t credit it.’

‘Is everybody agreed it’s beyond belief?’ Rebus was doing his best to sound like a local himself. He had relaxed his stance and was resting his weight against the door frame, arms folded — just two old cronies having a chinwag.

‘Beyond belief,’ the woman echoed.

‘No doubters?’ Rebus raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s just that there usually are.’

‘There’s hardly a family around here Kenny Magrath hasn’t helped out at one time or another.’

‘I’m sure that’s true, but all the same. .’

But the woman was shaking her head in a resolute fashion.

‘So you’re all sticking together, looking after your own?’ Rebus’s tone had hardened. She frowned, took a step back and started to close the door on him.

‘Has Gregor given you his new number, by any chance?’

The click of the door as it locked was his only reply. ‘Nice speaking to you,’ he muttered, returning to Magrath’s cottage and hammering on the door.

The rain was falling again — huge sleety gobbets of the stuff, making slapping sounds as they hit his shoulders and back. He retreated to the Saab and sat there, waiting for the storm to pass. The sky was almost black, and he switched the wipers on. Hailstones now, bouncing off the surface of the road, coating it white. Rebus turned the engine on and put the car into reverse, backing seventy feet along the road until he was outside Kenny Magrath’s garden. Again, the house looked deserted. The upstairs blinds were closed and the octagonal conservatory had no lights on. The windscreen was steaming up, so he turned the fan to high and opened his window an inch. After a few minutes, the hail stopped. The sky remained leaden, but there wasn’t even rain, just a suffocating sense that a weight was being pressed down on the locality. Rebus sucked in lungfuls of air, and wiped sweat from his forehead and neck. He took a cigarette from the packet and realised his hands were trembling. He pressed them together, as if that might help. His heart was pounding, too.

‘Not yet,’ he said to his chest and the organs within. ‘Not just yet, eh?’

He drove up the lane and took a left towards Kenny Magrath’s front door. No van. The place definitely felt empty. Another short drive to the lock-up. Still no van. Maybe he worked Saturdays. Or he’d persuaded his wife they needed some time away — with brother Gregor in tow. A chance to check and recheck their stories. Hell, maybe they were just out shopping, a regular jaunt to Inverness or Dingwall. Photographs of both brothers had appeared in the media, but only for a day. They probably had little fear of being recognised outside their immediate community.

Rebus sat there drumming his fingers. He wondered what kind of weekend others were enjoying. Was Siobhan buying food, or off to watch Hibs? Was Daniel Cowan being measured for a suit for his new job? Did Gillian Dempsey have a family dinner planned, maybe with nephew Raymond on the guest list? Supermarkets would be thronged, cinemas preparing to entertain the masses. Lunchtime trade picking up in bars and restaurants, crosswords tackled, walking boots thrown into the backs of estate cars. Skiing and boating and golf. Swimming and indoor games. Kids with homework, adults with chores — queues at the car wash and petrol station. Everyone going about their business. Maybe the Edderton team had been granted enough of a budget to keep covering weekend shifts. But shifts comprising what, exactly? More interviews, paperwork and briefings? To no end other than a slightly swollen pay packet. .

‘What the hell are you doing, John?’ he asked himself. Returning to Gregor Magrath’s cottage, he wrote out a note and pinned it under one of the Land Rover’s windscreen wipers.

All it said was: This has to end.

As he headed home, he noticed that the roadworks to the north of Pitlochry seemed to have finished. It wasn’t just that no one was working — one of the Portakabins was being loaded on to a flatbed truck, and the Portaloos had already gone. He wondered what would happen to the men — did they have new projects waiting for them? A never-ending process of digging up and resurfacing?

‘Join the club,’ he said aloud.

And what of Thomas Robertson? Rebus had phoned Aberdeen Royal Infirmary a few days back, but of course Robertson was no longer a patient. Maybe he was back at the Tummel Arms, explaining to Gina Andrews why he’d lied to her about his conviction. Or maybe he was on the road to somewhere else, no real end point in mind.

Rebus saw that he was down to a quarter-tank of fuel, so he pulled into Pitlochry itself and crawled through the bustling centre until he reached the petrol station. As he started filling up, a voice called to him.

‘What happened to the Audi?’

Rebus looked to the next pump along and recognised the rep he’d talked to when he’d been waiting for Clarke to ask her questions in the kiosk.

‘Small world,’ the man said with a smile

‘Cigarette break after?’ Rebus suggested. The man looked keen. They filled their tanks in silence, went into the kiosk to pay, and then met up on the pavement next to the main road. A coach party had arrived at the Bell’s distillery and was being led into the visitors’ centre. Rebus nodded towards the Saab. ‘In answer to your question, I’m more the classic-car type.’

The man exhaled a long stream of smoke. ‘Didn’t catch your line of work last time we met.’

‘I’m an ex-cop.’

‘So what do you do now?’

‘At the moment, I’m still getting used to it.’ Rebus flicked ash on to the ground. ‘You said you were in “solutions”.’

‘Posh term for sales,’ the man admitted.

‘You’re working today?’

‘Tomorrow as well, if anyone wants to see me. It’s tough out there, if you hadn’t noticed.’

‘I’d noticed. What does your wife say?’

The man shrugged. ‘We’ll open a bottle of wine tonight, try to make the most of it.’

‘Got kids?’

‘One daughter.’

‘Same as me, then.’

‘Laurie’s in her first year at high school.’

‘Mine fled the nest long back.’ Rebus paused, studying the tip of his cigarette. ‘I don’t see her much. .’ They watched the flow of traffic in and out of town. ‘I think you told me you drive hundreds of miles a week.’

‘Enough so I recognise faces and firms.’ He nodded towards a lorry. ‘Flowers from Holland. He’ll drop off as far north as Aberdeen before heading back to the ferry.’

‘I think I’ve seen him before, too,’ Rebus said, remembering the lay-by and the van driver with the busted cigarette lighter.

‘First year or two in the job,’ the salesman was saying, ‘I paid scant attention. In fact, probably no attention at all — far as I was concerned, it was all about me.’ He sucked on his cigarette and exhaled. ‘But then I’d find myself in the same cafes and petrol stops as people I’d seen before.’

‘And you’d strike up conversations?’

The salesman nodded. ‘Lonely old life otherwise, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose.’

‘And you get to know spots, like the snack van parked next to the sign saying “Welcome to the Highlands”. .’

‘The Slochd Summit,’ Rebus chipped in.

‘One thousand three hundred and twenty-eight feet above sea level,’ the rep recited.

‘Dewar’s World of Whisky. .’

‘Ten miles off the A9.’

The two men shared a smile.

‘I have to admit, though, I do like it. Not that I’d tell my wife that. Never feel quite at home when I’m stuck in an office, or even with my feet up in front of the telly.’ He looked at Rebus. ‘That probably sounds crazy.’

‘Not really. When you’re on the road, there’s always a destination, and you know you’re going to reach it one way or another.’

The salesman nodded. ‘That’s exactly right.’

They smoked in silence for a few moments, until the man coughed and cleared his throat.

‘That girl who got murdered near here. .’

‘Annette McKie?’

He nodded again, more solemnly. ‘Is that why you were here last time? I seem to remember your colleague asking questions in the kiosk.’ He watched as Rebus gave a twitch of agreement. ‘I’ve picked up hitch-hikers in the past, always warned them about the dangers of travelling on their own. You used to see more of them, but they’re still out there. I’ve made Laurie promise she won’t ever do it.’ He glanced up at Rebus. ‘I know what you’re thinking: we wrap them in cotton wool these days. I used to hitch lifts myself, back in the day — so did the missus — but it’s all different now.’

‘I suppose it is.’

‘You reckon you’ll ever catch the bastard?’

‘Hard to say.’

‘Even if you do, it’s kid gloves in jails these days, isn’t it?’ He had finished his cigarette and began to stub it out under the toe of his shoe. Rebus had been considering possible answers to the question, but the salesman didn’t seem to need one. ‘Better hit the trail,’ he was explaining. ‘Job like mine, if you’re not moving, you’re not earning.’ He gave a grin full of professionally whitened teeth. ‘And those solutions won’t sell themselves.’

The two men shook hands and returned to their vehicles. Rebus watched as the salesman drove off with a wave from his open window. He was heading north. Six- and seven-day weeks spent in a world that for him was permanent, for others fleeting, a place of lay-by sandwiches and pit stops for fuel, getting to know each road intimately, memorising short cuts, computing routes around snarl-ups, bumping into others whose routine was similar to his own, trading tips with them about the best fast food, the cheapest petrol, the cleanest facilities. Rebus had always thought of roads as simple, mute entities, but he knew differently now — they had individual identities and foibles. They pulsed with life. He stayed on the forecourt and pulled out his phone, punching in Samantha’s number.

‘It’s me,’ he said when she answered.

‘Hey, Dad.’

‘You okay to talk?’

‘Nothing planned except a lazy weekend.’

‘Lucky you. I just thought I’d call and see how you’re doing.’ He leaned back against the headrest, holding the phone close to his ear, content just to listen to her voice.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked. ‘It’s just. .’

‘What?’

‘Not like you to pick up the phone.’

‘That doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you, Samantha. I think about you a lot.’

‘I’m doing okay.’

‘I know you are.’

‘How about you? Any closer to catching that madman?’

‘People keep asking me that.’ He was remembering his words to the salesman: there’s always a destination, and you know you’re going to reach it one way or another. .

‘What do you tell them?’

‘You really think he’s a madman?’

‘Has to be.’

‘Sometimes it’s hard to tell.’

‘Gives me the creeps to think of him still out there. I’ve an appointment in Inverness in a few days with the IVF team. I’ve told Keith I’m not going without him.’

‘You’ll be fine.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘I suppose it is. Will you let me know how it goes at Raigmore?’

‘Of course.’

‘And maybe you and Keith should think about a weekend in Edinburgh. I could find you a hotel — my treat.’

‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’

‘Enough of your cheek, young lady.’

He heard her laughter ringing in his ears.