He was awake early and first into the breakfast room. A fry-up, two glasses of orange juice and a couple of cups of coffee dealt with a head thickened by one whisky too many. There had been a slight frost overnight, and a milky sun was doing its best to penetrate thin layers of cloud. The citizens of Dornoch were readying for the day’s business or returning home with their newspapers of choice. Rebus dumped his overnight bag in the Saab, scraped the frost from the windscreen with his credit card and started the engine.

The A836 started off as a two-lane road, busy with local traffic but few tourists. Heavily laden logging lorries squeezed past Rebus’s car as they headed south. He refilled the fuel tank at the first petrol station he saw, unsure when there might be another. The attendant didn’t seem to know either.

“Depends which roads you’re taking.”

“True enough,” Rebus responded, unable to fault the young man’s logic. Then, realizing how much each liter was costing, he requested a receipt. Back in the car, he looked at the map book again. The peaks all had Gaelic names, none of which he’d heard of: Cnoc a Ghiubhais; Meall an Fhuarain; Cnoc an Daimh Mor. There was a whisky called anCnoc, so “Cnoc” had to mean something. Maybe next time he would take the trouble to read the label on the bottle. After the village of Lairg, the road narrowed to a single lane with passing places and the terrain became more desolate. Cloud covered the tops of peaks whose steep slopes were dusted with snow. He passed conifer plantations and the remains of such plantations, stumps like tombstones in a vast cemetery. The sky was leaden, and weathered signs warned of lambs on the road. At Altnaharra, the hotel was open all year round. He saw that a few cars had parked up, walkers and climbers prepping for the rigors ahead. He pulled over and sat for a few minutes with his windows down, overhearing snatches of conversation and watching as they set out for the day. Some had Ordnance Survey maps strung around their necks, protected from the elements by clear plastic pouches. Their backpacks bulged with provisions and waterproofs, and most carried a long pole—and sometimes two—to help take the strain. He waited until the last one had clambered over the stile and had their back to him before he lit a cigarette, blowing smoke into the crisp, unpolluted air.