“Why don’t you arrange that, then?” the team leader asked.

“Not my job,” Rebus explained, retreating to the Saab.

63

He was back at Whicher’s. Now that the initial fuss about the bodies had died down, they had rooms available, but Rebus wasn’t sure he would be staying. Instead, he sat in the lounge, plugged in his phone for a recharge, and ordered a helping of steak pie and chips, along with a pot of tea.

During a trip to the toilets, he had a wash and studied himself in the mirror. He looked like a man who had slept in his car. At reception, they handed him a pack containing toothbrush, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream, and he returned to the toilets for a patch-up job.

With his belly full and another pot of tea on its way, he felt more human. There were plenty of papers to help him bide his time, plus the hotel’s copy of Cracking the Code. He’d asked for the TV to be tuned to a news channel, but with the sound muted.

“No trouble at all, sir,” he’d been told by the waiter in the tartan waistcoat.

A couple of hours passed with no word from Dempsey. Rebus checked that his phone was still getting a healthy signal. When it did eventually ring, caller ID told him it was Siobhan Clarke on the line. Rebus answered.

“Dempsey’s just been having a word with James Page,” she told him. “She’s wondering if you’re back in Edinburgh yet.”

“And?”

“And James spoke to DS Cowan at SCRU, but he hasn’t seen you either.”

“Funny, that.”

“You’re still in Inverness?”

“Of course I am.” He told her about the CCTV—Kenny Magrath stopping to refuel at the petrol station no more than five minutes after Annette McKie had left it on foot—then about Kenny and Gregor Magrath being taken in for questioning. “Did Dempsey tell Page whether the interviews had finished?”

“No idea,” Clarke confessed.

“You and him not best buddies?”

“Leave it, John.”

“Pity—I really liked the guy.”

“You don’t take a telling, do you?”

Rebus smiled to himself. “Dempsey was supposed to be updating me,” he went on to explain. “That’s why I’m still here.”

“You really think this is it, don’t you?”

“Hope springs eternal.”

“Well, I’m not sure Dempsey sounded like a woman on the verge of a breakthrough.”

Rebus had another caller. Number blocked. He told Clarke he’d phone her back.

“Rebus?” Gillian Dempsey said.

“Any news?”

“They’ve been questioned and released.”

“And?”

“And there’s not much else to say. Kenny Magrath’s work premises and van have been gone over—stuff’s been sent to the lab but the team didn’t sound hopeful. Same goes for both houses.”

“What about the Land Rover?”

Dempsey paused. “That was your idea, was it? Well, our friendly sheriff signed an extra warrant, but again it looks clean.”

“Clean or cleaned?”

“Somebody may have cleaned it in recent memory,” she admitted. “But not with the thoroughness you’re implying. Besides, we know it was the van in Pitlochry rather than another vehicle, don’t we?”