“Resisting arrest after a fight with your girlfriend?” Clarke commented. “No, Mr. Robertson—attempted rape of a woman you’d only just met.”

“It wasn’t like that—we were both smashed. She was keen enough at the start…”

Clarke held up a photograph, taken at the victim’s hospital bedside.

“Cuts, bruises, abrasions and a black eye. You’re not telling me she was keen on that?”

“Things got a bit…” He shifted in his chair. He was the same man as in the mug shot Clarke had shown Rebus, but something in him had changed. Life had roughed him up a bit. Maybe prison, where he would have been segregated with the other sex offenders. Maybe just the passage of time. He had been handsome, but was rapidly losing those looks.

“Where did you grow up?” Clarke asked, pretending to sift her notes for the details. Quick change of tack: classic interview technique. Robertson was going to be kept on his toes. Rebus had never seen Clarke lead an interview before. Lightheart had, having spent the previous day with her, and Rebus hoped the man knew there was nothing to be gained from interrupting.

“Nairn,” Robertson told her.

“Not too far from Inverness?” she checked.

“Far enough,” he said.

“What road is that?”

He looked quizzical. “The A96.”

“You were born in 1978?”

“That’s right.”

“In Nairn?”

“Correct.”

Clarke made show of studying her notes again. Robertson ran his tongue over his lips, dry-mouthed.

“Do you remember the Millennium, Mr. Robertson?”

Lightheart failed to hide his surprise at the question, half turning his head in Clarke’s direction.

“Eh?” Robertson asked.

“Hogmanay 1999—everybody remembers where they were.”

Robertson had to think. “Aberdeen probably. With mates.”

“‘Probably’?”

“I’m sure it was Aberdeen.”

Clarke wrote this down. She was still writing as she threw out her next question. “Any partners since you got out of jail?”

“Women, you mean?”

She looked up at him. “Or men.”

He gave a snort. “No thanks.”

“Women, then,” she conceded.

“There’ve been a few.” He ran his hands down either side of his face, making a rasping sound of palm against stubble. There were homemade asterisk tattoos on his knuckles.

“And now there’s this barmaid in Pitlochry?”

“Gina, yes.”

“She knows you’ve done jail time?”

“I told her.”

“Same story you told us?” Clarke was staring at him across the table. “Maybe I should just check that…”

“Look, I’ve already said—I never saw that girl!”

“Let’s try and keep calm,” Lightheart advised.

“So, 2008, you were living in the northeast?” Clarke asked into the silence.

“What?”

“The attempted rape—it took place at the back of a nightclub in Aberdeen.”

“So?”

“So you were living there?”

“Sort of.”

Clarke read from her notes: “‘Sleeping on friends’ floors’—you were unemployed at the time?”

“That’s right.”

“But looking for work?”

“Yes.”

“Traveling about a bit?”

“What is all this?” Robertson looked at all three of them in turn. “What are you trying to do here?”

“How well do you know the A9, Mr. Robertson?”