When the working day was over, Rebus had decided to take the file home with him rather than leave it where Cowan might find it. In his flat, he had emptied its contents onto the dining table in his living room. Soon after, he’d realized that it made sense not to haul it back and forth to Fettes; he found some drawing pins in a cupboard, and began pinning the photos and newspaper cuttings to the wall above the table.

By the end of that week, Brigid Young’s photograph had been joined by those of Zoe Beddows and Sally Hazlitt, and the paperwork took up not just the table, but sections of the floor and sofa. He could see Nina Hazlitt in her daughter’s face: same bone structure, same eyes. Her file included pictures of the search that had taken place in the days after her disappearance: dozens of volunteers scouring the hillsides, along with a mountain rescue helicopter. He’d bought a fold-out map of Scotland and added it to the wall, highlighting with a thick red marker the route of the A9, from Stirling to Auchterarder, Auchterarder to Perth, and from there through Pitlochry and Aviemore to Inverness and beyond, ending on the north coast at Scrabster, just outside Thurso—nothing there except the ferry that would take you to Orkney.

Rebus was sitting in his flat, smoking and thinking, when he heard someone thumping on his door. He rubbed at his eyebrows, trying to erase a headache that was gathering between them, walked into the hall and opened the door.

“When’s that escalator getting fixed?” A thick-built, shaven-headed man his own age was standing there, breathing heavily. Rebus peered past him at the two flights of stairs he had just climbed.

“Hell are you doing here?” he asked.

“You forgetting what day it is? I was starting to get worried about you.”

Rebus checked his watch. It was almost eight in the evening. There was this arrangement they had—a drink once a fortnight. “Lost track of time,” he said, hoping it didn’t sound too much like an apology.

“I tried phoning you.”

“Must be on silent,” Rebus explained.

“You’re not lying dead on the living room carpet, that’s the main thing.”

Cafferty was smiling, though his smiles had more threat to them than most men’s scowls.

“I’ll get my coat,” Rebus told him. “Just wait there.”

He retraced his steps to the living room and stubbed out the cigarette. His phone was under a pile of papers—switched to silent as he had suspected. One missed call. His coat was on the sofa and he started to shrug his way into it. These regular drinks had begun soon after Cafferty’s release from hospital. He’d been told that he’d flatlined at one point and that Rebus had brought him back. Not the whole truth, as Rebus had stressed. All the same, Cafferty had insisted on a drink as a way of saying thanks, then had arranged for the same thing to happen a fortnight later, and a fortnight after that.