“When did she disappear?”

“New Year’s Eve 1999,” Hazlitt recited.

“No sign of her since?”

The woman lowered her head and gave it a shake.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rebus told her.

“I’ve not given up, though.” Hazlitt took a deep breath and met his gaze. “That’s something I can’t do till I know the truth.”

“I can appreciate that.”

Her eyes softened a little. “I’ve been told the exact same thing so many times…”

“I’m sure you have.” He turned his head towards the window. “Look, I was just headed outside for a cigarette—maybe you could do with one too?”

“How do you know I smoke?”

“I’ve seen what you keep in your handbag, Ms. Hazlitt,” he said, ushering her towards the door.

They wandered along the driveway towards the main road. She had turned down his offer of a Silk Cut, preferring her own menthols. When his cheap lighter refused to work, she’d fished in the bag for her Zippo.

“Don’t see many women with these,” he’d commented.

“It was my husband’s.”

“Was?”

“He only lasted a year after Sally vanished. Doctors decided it was an embolism. They don’t like putting ‘broken heart’ on death certificates.”

“Sally’s your only child?”

Hazlitt nodded. “She’d just turned eighteen. Six more months and she’d have finished school. University was next: she was going to study English. Tom was an English teacher…”

“Tom being your husband?”

She nodded. “House full of books; hardly surprising she caught the bug. When she was little, Tom used to read her a bedtime story. I walked in on them one night, expecting it to be a picture book of some kind, but it was Great Expectations.” The memory caused her to smile, creasing her face. Although more than half her cigarette remained, she flicked it onto the roadway. “Sally and a bunch of her friends had rented some sort of chalet not far from Aviemore. Our Christmas present had been her share of the outlay.”

“The Millennium,” Rebus commented. “I don’t suppose it was cheap.”

“It wasn’t. But it was supposed to be for four people and six of them squeezed in. That helped a bit.”

“Was she a skier?”

Hazlitt shook her head. “I know that’s what the town’s famous for, and at least two of the girls could ski, but Sally just wanted to hang out. They’d been in to Aviemore itself—got invites to a couple of parties. They all thought she must be at the other one. There hadn’t been a row or anything.”

“She’d been drinking?”

“I would assume so.” Hazlitt buttoned her thin jacket against the chill. “I’d expected a phone call at midnight, even though I knew the reception on her phone wasn’t great at the best of times. Next morning her friends guessed she’d hooked up with someone and was sleeping it off elsewhere.” She stopped abruptly and met his eyes. “Not that she was like that.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

“They’d split up that autumn. He was questioned at the time.”