And Page had agreed, despite Clarke’s protestations, which was why Rebus had filled his Saab with petrol and hit the road north again. Perth with its roundabouts, then Pitlochry and the roadworks, and on to House of Bruar, where he stopped for lunch. His parking bay was right outside the menswear shop, and he glanced at the window display, deciding that he was still not ready for strawberry-colored cords. A sign at the Drumochter Summit informed him he was 1,516 feet above sea level. The mountains either side of him looked forbidding, yet hill walkers had set out for the day—their cars parked in lay-bys—or else were returning to their vehicles, cheeks ruddy, breath visible in the air. At Aviemore, he signaled right, deciding on a detour through the town. There wasn’t much to it, but it was bustling. Loch Garten was signposted. He recalled taking his daughter there thirty years before. The RSPB had built a hide, complete with telescopes and binoculars, but there had been no sign of the famous ospreys—just an empty nest. How old would Sammy have been? Five or six. A family driving holiday. These days he had to call her Samantha, on those rare occasions when he called her at all. She preferred sending her father texts, rather than actually engaging in a conversation. Rebus couldn’t blame her, not when the conversations—his fault—almost always ended up in another petty disagreement. He had told Nina Hazlitt that he couldn’t know what she’d been going through, but more than once he had almost lost Sammy.

He had to wait at the T-junction before he could rejoin the A9, losing count of the number of lorries and vans he was now going to be tailing, some of which he was sure he had overtaken on a stretch of dual carriageway many miles back. He had to remind himself that he was in no rush. He had plenty of CDs with him, and a box of chewing gum purchased at the petrol station. A spare packet of cigarettes and a half-liter bottle of Irn-Bru. When he passed a turnoff to the Tomatin distillery, he gave it a little salute, having done the same for Dalwhinnie fifty miles or so back. Despite Inverness being only ten miles away now, and the road mostly dualled, it seemed to take an age to reach its outskirts. Culloden battlefield was nearby—another site they’d visited on that holiday. It had been a bleak place with a small visitors’ center in a building no bigger than a bothy. Sammy had kept saying how bored and cold she was.