“I can check the records, but I believe the last was eight months. There’s no set schedule. You see, there are so few places for it to be reprocessed, and transport is quite a procedure. The spent rods have to travel in special containers, and can only be taken aboard a special ship.”

“Who owns the ship?”

Grant frowned, but pulled over the keyboard to her computer. Punching a few keys, she brought up an address book.

“BNFL. British Nuclear Fuels plc. The amount of material is very small, you understand; it’s the way it has to be transported that complicates things. Sellafield is typically where it would be sent.”

“What happened to the man who held Mr. Mackay’s job before his arrival?”

“Matthew Franklin transferred to UKAE—the energy commission.”

“Hard worker?”

“I couldn’t say. I came on with Mr. Mackay.”

Gorrie paused, considering how to proceed. The secretary pushed a piece of hair up at the side of her head behind her ear, her whole body heaving with a sigh. She seemed a good sort, slightly bewildered by the job and loss of her boss, he thought. She had a round, attractive face, but in five years, maybe less, her looks would muddle into a sort of plainness as her hips rounded and her legs grew thick. Gorrie thought of his own wife, which made him sympathetic toward the girl.

“Do you know who Ewie Cameron is?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Did Mr. Mackay speak of any government official?”

Another shake.

“Would he have?”

“The plant manager would generally handle any important matter, I believe,” said Miss Grant.

Mackay had not kept an appointment book, and a look back at the department phone records did not turn up Cameron’s number, nor any besides Cardha Duff’s that seemed extraordinary. The secretary’s sighs grew as she showed Gorrie through the forms and papers Mackay had been working on before he died. To Gorrie, nothing was amiss—or everything was; he couldn’t tell.

“Specialty Transport,” he said finally, “does the name mean anything?”

“Trucking firm that handles the spent fuel and some of the items that are bulky,” said the secretary.

“Are there reports here that pertain to it?”

“The traffic file,” she said, going to the files and thumbing through.

Gorrie took the folder and opened it on the desk. Four sheets sat at the top of the folder, out of order; they had been photocopied from other reports, which themselves were copies of thicker filings. The pages documented pickup times, routes, transmittals; all had blanks in the areas for “Incidents” and “Comments.”

“They record when the waste was picked up and when it was transferred to the next shipper,” said the secretary. “The main copies are filed with the commission.”

“UKAE.”

“Yes.”

“Why would Mr. Mackay be looking through them?” Gorrie asked.