“I’m sure that’s true, but all the same…”

But the woman was shaking her head in a resolute fashion.

“So you’re all sticking together, looking after your own?” Rebus’s tone had hardened. She frowned, took a step back and started to close the door on him.

“Has Gregor given you his new number, by any chance?”

The click of the door as it locked was his only reply. “Nice speaking to you,” he muttered, returning to Magrath’s cottage and hammering on the door.

The rain was falling again—huge sleety gobbets of the stuff, making slapping sounds as they hit his shoulders and back. He retreated to the Saab and sat there, waiting for the storm to pass. The sky was almost black, and he switched the wipers on. Hailstones now, bouncing off the surface of the road, coating it white. Rebus turned the engine on and put the car into reverse, backing seventy feet along the road until he was outside Kenny Magrath’s garden. Again, the house looked deserted. The upstairs blinds were closed and the octagonal conservatory had no lights on. The windscreen was steaming up, so he turned the fan to high and opened his window an inch. After a few minutes, the hail stopped. The sky remained leaden, but there wasn’t even rain, just a suffocating sense that a weight was being pressed down on the locality. Rebus sucked in lungfuls of air, and wiped sweat from his forehead and neck. He took a cigarette from the packet and realized his hands were trembling. He pressed them together, as if that might help. His heart was pounding, too.

“Not yet,” he said to his chest and the organs within. “Not just yet, eh?”

He drove up the lane and took a left towards Kenny Magrath’s front door. No van. The place definitely felt empty. Another short drive to the lock-up. Still no van. Maybe he worked Saturdays. Or he’d persuaded his wife they needed some time away—with brother Gregor in tow. A chance to check and recheck their stories. Hell, maybe they were just out shopping, a regular jaunt to Inverness or Dingwall. Photographs of both brothers had appeared in the media, but only for a day. They probably had little fear of being recognized outside their immediate community.

Rebus sat there drumming his fingers. He wondered what kind of weekend others were enjoying. Was Siobhan buying food, or off to watch Hibs? Was Daniel Cowan being measured for a suit for his new job? Did Gillian Dempsey have a family dinner planned, maybe with nephew Raymond on the guest list? Supermarkets would be thronged, cinemas preparing to entertain the masses. Lunchtime trade picking up in bars and restaurants, crosswords tackled, walking boots thrown into the backs of estate cars. Skiing and boating and golf. Swimming and indoor games. Kids with homework, adults with chores—queues at the car wash and petrol station. Everyone going about their business. Maybe the Edderton team had been granted enough of a budget to keep covering weekend shifts. But shifts comprising what, exactly? More interviews, paperwork and briefings? To no end other than a slightly swollen pay packet…