Something more like fear. And behind it, a degree of calculation.

It struck him that he was hungry, and gasping for coffee. So they ate in the Sullom Voe canteen. It was a clean white space with potted plants and no smoking signs. Walt was rattling on about how Shetland remained more Norse than Scots; nearly all the place names were Norwegian. To Rebus, it was like the edge of the world, and he liked that. He told Walt about the man on the plane, the one in sheepskin.

‘Oh, that sounds like Mike Sutcliffe.’

Rebus asked to be taken to him.

Mike Sutcliffe had changed out of his sheepskin and was dressed in crisp work clothes. They finally found him in heated conversation beside the ballast water tanks. Two underlings were listening to him complain that they could be replaced by gibbons and nobody would notice. He pointed up at the tanks, then out towards the jetties. There was a tanker moored at one of them, it couldn’t have been any bigger than half a dozen football pitches. Sutcliffe saw Rebus and lost the thread of his argument. He dismissed the workers and began to move away, only he had to get past Rebus first.

Rebus had a smile ready. ‘Mr Sutcliffe, did you get me that map?’

‘What map?’ Sutcliffe kept walking.

‘You said you might have an idea where I could find Jake Harley.’

‘Did I?’

Rebus was almost having to jog to keep up with him. He wasn’t wearing the smile any more. ‘Yes,’ he said coldly, ‘you did.’

Sutcliffe stopped so suddenly, Rebus ended up in front of him. ‘Look, Inspector, I’m up to my gonads in thistles right now. I don’t have time for this.’

And he walked, his eyes not meeting Rebus’s. Rebus marched alongside, keeping silent. He kept it up for a hundred yards, then stopped. Sutcliffe kept going, looking like he might walk right along the jetty and across the water if he had to.

Rebus went back to where Walt was standing. He took his time, thoughtful. The bum’s rush and then some. What or who had changed Sutcliffe’s mind? Rebus pictured an old white-haired man in kilt and sporran. The picture seemed to fit.

Walt took Rebus back to his office in the main admin building. He showed Rebus where the phone was, and said he’d be back with two coffees. Rebus closed the office door, and sat down behind the desk. He was surrounded by oil platforms, tankers, pipelines, and Sullom Voe itself – huge framed photos on the walls; PR literature stacked high; a scale model of a super tanker on the desk. Rebus got an outside line and telephoned Edinburgh, weighing up diplomacy against bullshit and deciding it might save time to just tell the truth.

Mairie Henderson was at home.

‘Mairie, John Rebus.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ she said.

‘You’re not working?’

‘Haven’t you heard of the portable office? Fax-modem and a telephone, that’s all you need. Listen, you owe me.’