The pub was well lit and filled with conversation rather than music. A pint of beer and a gin, lime and soda. Rebus, feeling reckless, even threw in salted peanuts and a bag of crisps.

“How are you feeling?” Clarke asked as they clinked glasses.

“I’m all right.”

“I meant with all the driving you’ve been doing.”

“You offering to apply the Deep Heat?”

“No.” She smiled and took a sip.

“It’s weird up there,” Rebus said. “Beautiful and bleak and eerie, all at the same time.” He swallowed a mouthful of beer. “One particular stretch south of Durness—I doubt it’s changed since the time of Sir Walter Scott.”

“You should have taken a navigator.”

“I really did think you were needed here.”

“And I know that’s not the whole truth.” She paused, inviting him to comment, but he opened the crisp bag instead.

“What about Edderton?” she asked eventually.

“Farming and tourism, I’d say. A distillery an easy commute away. Plus some rigs in the Cromarty Firth.”

“Dornoch?”

“Nice wee place. Good-looking beach. No sign of Madonna.” He wiped foam from around his mouth. “Everything seemed so…normal.” He shrugged. “Just normal.” His phone went and he checked the screen. “Nina Hazlitt,” he informed Clarke.

“You going to answer?” She watched him shake his head. “Why not?”

“Because I’d probably lie to her, tell her there’s no news.”

“Why not the truth?”

“Because I want to be a hundred percent sure—maybe a hundred and ten.”

They waited until the phone had stopped. It sounded once more to tell Rebus he had voicemail.

“If Sally is alive,” Clarke said, “what do you think her story is?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“What was her place like in Inverness?”

“Pretty anonymous. I think she moves around a lot, never stays anywhere long.”

“Maybe it’s like the song says—she hasn’t found what she’s looking for.”

“Who has?” Rebus said, lifting the pint to his mouth again.

“You’re not doing too badly,” Clarke commented, causing him to raise an eyebrow.

“This case,” she explained. “It’s put a spring in your step.”

“I’m a regular Fred Astaire all right.”

“You know it’s true, though…”

He managed to lock his eyes onto hers. “I don’t think it is. The job’s changed, Siobhan. Everything’s…” He struggled to find the words. “It’s like with Christine Esson. Ninety percent of the stuff she does is beyond me. The way she thinks is beyond me.”

“You’re vinyl, we’re digital?” Clarke offered.

“Contacts used to be the way you got things done. The only network that mattered was the one out there on the street.” He nodded towards the pub window, thinking that Frank Hammell had said much the same to him that night in Jo-Jo Binkie’s, after Darryl Christie had gone.