After forty minutes, he was free to leave. He went outside and smoked a cigarette. He was in the car park to the side of the building, the fence and locked gate separating him from what remained of the press pack. At one point he noticed Fox watching from one of the upper windows. One sarcastic wave from Rebus later, Fox was gone.

Could the crash really connect to the Justice Minister’s death, and could Alice Bell be the glue? He was debating this when his phone announced an incoming text. It was from Christine Esson, telling him she had news.

“You’re a naughty man,” she said when he called her.

“How so?”

“Something tells me you already knew there was a connection.”

“Between Alice Bell and Rory? Actually, I’d no idea.”

“He’s her uncle. Alice’s mum died six years back—cancer, by the look of it. Then her father was in a car smash.”

“A car smash?”

“I know—bit of a coincidence. That was over three years ago, and he died from his injuries.”

“Where did it happen?”

“A81, near Port of Menteith.”

“I’m no further forward.”

“Sounds like it should be on the coast, but it’s actually west of Stirling, towards Loch Katrine.”

“Geography your strong point at school?”

“Ten seconds on Google,” she corrected him.

“So it’s right that her family came from Stirling?”

“Rory was born there. Left school at sixteen and moved west soon after. No actual criminal record, though he’s sailed close to the wind more than once.”

“Does Alice have money?”

“Her dad didn’t leave a lot—he worked as a butcher. He was traveling to see one of his suppliers. Van coming the other way tried an overtaking maneuver on a bend and went straight into him.”

“Making Alice an orphan at sixteen. Anything else on Uncle Rory?”

He listened, but she hadn’t found out much more than he’d been told by Laura Smith. He thanked her anyway and ended the call. He was wondering how close Alice was to her uncle. Maybe he slipped her some money now and then to help with her university bills. Could she have been in Jessica’s car the night of the crash? She’d shown no injuries of any kind, no whiplash. Was she the kind who would panic and flee the scene? Again, Rebus doubted it—she would have stayed with her friend, phoned for an ambulance. Unless there was something the authorities couldn’t be allowed to see. He remembered the car boot—closed when the first officer on the scene had taken his photographs, but open the following morning as the car was winched aboard the flatbed truck…