Back at the main desk, he put in a request for more papers: the Dunfermline Press, Glasgow Herald and Inverness Courier. Only the Herald was on microfilm, so he started with that. Nineteen eighty-two, the doll in the churchyard … Van Morrison had released Beautiful Vision early in ’82. Rebus found himself humming ‘Dweller on the Threshold’, then stopped when he remembered where he was. Nineteen eighty-two, he’d been a detective sergeant, working cases with another DS called Jack Morton. They’d been based at Great London Road, back before the station had caught fire. When the Herald film arrived, he spooled it and got to work, the days and weeks a blur across his screen. All the officers above him at Great London Road, they were either dead or retired. He hadn’t kept in touch with any of them. And now the Farmer was gone too. Soon, whether he liked it or not, it would be his turn. He didn’t think he’d go quietly. They’d have to pull him screaming and kicking …

The churchyard doll had been found in May. He started at the beginning of April. Problem was, Glasgow was a big city, more crime than a place like Perth. He wasn’t sure he’d know if and when he found something. And if it was a missing person, would it even make the paper? Thousands of people disappeared each year. Some of them left without being noticed: the homeless, the ones with no family or friends. This was a country where a corpse could sit in a chair by the fire until the smell alerted the neighbours.

By the time he’d searched April, he had no reported MisPers, but six deaths, two of them women. One was a stabbing after a party. A man, it was stated, was helping police with their inquiries. Rebus guessed the boyfriend. He was pretty sure that if he read on, he’d find the case coming to court. The second death was a drowning. A stretch of river Rebus had never heard of: White Cart Water, the body found by its banks on the southern border of Rosshall Park. The victim was Hazel Gibbs, aged twenty-two. Her husband had walked out, leaving her with two kids. Friends said she’d been depressed. She’d been seen out drinking the previous day, while the kids fended for themselves.

Rebus walked outside and got on his mobile, punching in the number for Bobby Hogan at Leith CID.

‘Bobby, it’s John. You know a bit about Glasgow, don’t you?’

‘A bit.’

‘Ever heard of White Cart Water?’

‘Can’t say I have.’

‘What about Rosshall Park?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Got any contacts out west?’

‘I could make a phone call.’