Everybody used to look out for everybody else…

“I bet you used lookouts, too, didn’t you, Cafferty?” Rebus muttered to himself. “When you were burying the bodies…” He was staring at the map as he sipped his tea. He had driven the A9 infrequently. It was a frustrating road, only some of it dualled. Lots of tourists, many of them hauling caravans, with regular bends and blind summits making passing difficult. Lorries and delivery vans, struggling up the inclines. Inverness was just over a hundred miles north of Perth, but it could take two and a half, maybe three hours to drive. And when you got there, to cap it all, you were in Inverness. One radio DJ Rebus listened to called the place Dolphinsludge. There were certainly a few hardy dolphins in the Moray Firth, and Rebus didn’t doubt that sludge figured too.

Aviemore…Strathpeffer…Auchterarder…and now Pitlochry. He’d ended up telling Cafferty some of the story, adding the caveat about coincidence being a strong possibility. Cafferty had given a thoughtful pout, swirling the whisky in his glass. The pub had been quiet—funny how people tended to finish their drinks and move on whenever Cafferty entered an establishment. The barman hadn’t just removed the empties from their chosen table but given it a bit of a wipe, too.

And the first two rounds had been on the house.

“I doubt I can help much,” Cafferty had admitted.

“I didn’t say I was asking for help.”

“All the same…If it was villains going AWOL, people who might well have fallen out with people they shouldn’t have…”

“Far as I can tell, these were just ordinary women—civilians, you might call them.”

Cafferty had begun to outline the sorts of punishment he felt might be deserved, should a single culprit come to light, and had ended by asking Rebus how he felt whenever people got less than they deserved—less of a jail sentence; less of a punishment.

“Not part of my remit.”

“All the same…Think of the number of times you saw me walk free from court, or not even make it that far.”

“It rankled,” Rebus had admitted.

“Rankled?”

“As in: pissed me off. Royally pissed me off. And made me that bit more determined it wasn’t going to happen next time.”

“Yet here we are, sitting enjoying a drink.” Cafferty had clinked his glass against Rebus’s.

Rebus hadn’t said what he was thinking: give me half a chance, I’d still put you away. Instead, he had finished his whisky and risen to fetch another.

Side one of Astral Weeks had finished, and what was left of the tea had grown cold. He sat down and took out his phone and the card Nina Hazlitt had given him, punching in her number.

“Hello?” It was a man’s voice. Rebus hesitated. “Hello?” A little louder this time.

“Sorry,” Rebus said. “Is this the right number? I was looking for Nina Hazlitt.”

“Hang on, she’s here.” Rebus listened as the phone was handed over. He could hear a TV playing in the background.