Rebus studied Sue Holloway. Her smile told him this was a game he was fated to lose, though it was incumbent on him to try.

“Manchester?” he offered eventually.

“Tell him, Sue,” Arnold said.

“You’re almost right, John,” Holloway obliged. “But I was born in Kirkcaldy.”

“Makes you a Fifer, then,” he said. “Same as me.”

“You’ve probably been back more regularly than I have.”

“Of late, only as far as the M90. But you grew up in Manchester, right?”

“Right,” she conceded. “And for that, you get a drink on the house. Are you sure you want to stick to lemonade?”

With fresh drinks in front of them, Rebus warned Gavin Arnold that the tale he was about to tell might take a while.

“As long as you like,” Arnold reassured him.

So Rebus laid out the whole story, finishing the lemonade and accepting yet another. Arnold’s darts team had drifted away, the bar only half full by the time Rebus finished. He ended by saying he would let Arnold mull it over while he stepped out for a cigarette. But Arnold followed him into the cold and stood there with him.

“So you think Mercer might be the Hazlitt lassie?”

“She might,” Rebus conceded, blowing smoke into the night air.

“And when those photos were published, she decided it was time to leave?”

“It’s a possibility.”

Arnold thought for a moment. “Could be a few clues in her personnel file.”

Rebus nodded. “You’re local, I’m not. Easier if you were the one to do the asking.”

Arnold looked at his watch. “Bit late now…”

“There must be a night manager at the hotel,” Rebus suggested.

“Even so…”

“I’d really appreciate it.”

“My one bloody night off,” Arnold muttered, but he was smiling as he said it.

“There’s a whisky on me afterward,” Rebus said by way of encouragement.

“That seals the deal,” he was told.

They took the Saab, and stopped at Arnold’s police station on Burnett Road long enough for him to change into his uniform.

“Looks better that way, more official,” he explained.

Then, with Arnold navigating, they headed to Whicher’s. The night porter had started his shift, but said there was nothing he could do. The office was locked until Dora Causley arrived in the morning.

“How do you contact her in an emergency?” Rebus asked.

The porter plucked a card from one of the pockets in his tartan waistcoat.

“Call the number,” Rebus commanded. Arnold was standing at his shoulder, saying nothing but looking stern and definitely not to be messed with. The porter did as he was told, his eyes on both men.

“It’s gone to voicemail,” he said eventually.

Rebus gestured for the receiver, took it, and told Causley she should call him “as a matter of urgency.” He recited his mobile number, then handed the receiver back and told the porter they’d wait.

“Bar still serving?”