Darryl Christie stared at his faint reflection in the glass panels overhead. Light pollution again: no stars visible.
‘We miss you,’ he told his father.
‘
‘Yes.’
‘And Cal and Joe?’
‘They’re okay.’
There was silence for a moment. ‘Is Frank there tonight?’
‘Not since Annette went missing.’
‘His choice or your mum’s?’
‘I’m not sure.’
They spoke for a few more minutes, until Derek Christie reminded his son how much the call was costing.
‘I keep telling you,’ Darryl said, ‘it’s Frank’s tab.’
‘Even so. .’
And that was that — goodbyes and talk of the trip to Australia Darryl would someday make. Afterwards he swung his feet on to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. He had been lying to his father: he did have a phone paid for by Frank Hammell, but this wasn’t it. This belonged to Darryl, which was why he used it to send a text message to Cafferty. He reckoned the old boy would be sound asleep. Maybe it would wake him and maybe it wouldn’t. He punched it in anyway and hit ‘send’.
Proper spelling and punctuation — only the best for Mr Cafferty. Darryl switched to his other phone to send one final text. Afterwards he might manage a few hours’ sleep. A few hours seemed to be all he ever needed. By six or six thirty he’d be on his laptop, at the start of a new working day. He checked the wording of the message and made sure it was going to the right number, then pressed ‘send’ and lay back on his bed again, eyes open. He reached for the remote and used it to close the blinds around and above him. The system had cost a fortune — more than three times what he’d told his mother — even after Frank Hammell had negotiated a hefty discount. Darryl started to unbutton his shirt. Judging by the illuminated screen, a message had arrived already on one of his phones. .
Part Three
And looking from a low ridge
To loch waters in the west
Where darkened hills are dreaming. .
29
It was, as Rebus had explained to James Page, a no-brainer.
‘You’ve got the engine here, running beautifully. Me, I’m by way of a spare light bulb in the glove box. I’m the part you can afford to be without.’
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-coloured 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 signalled 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-litre bottle of Irn Bru. When he passed a turn-off 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’ centre in a building no bigger than a bothy. Sammy had kept saying how bored and cold she was.
The four p.m. news was on the car radio as Rebus entered Inverness. Traffic here was more congested still, and he made no friends by getting himself into the wrong lane then trying to get out of it again so he wasn’t forced into the city centre. He crossed the Kessock Bridge on to the Black Isle, then another bridge across the Cromarty Firth, where he had to salute another distillery — Glen Ord. He knew this route from the fold-out map, but had bought another map before leaving Edinburgh. There seemed to be four huge construction platforms in the water to the right. Rain was falling, and the windscreen wipers provided a hypnotic rhythm. It took a moment for him to realise what the sound reminded him of: waking up to the stylus still plying its course around an album’s run-out groove. Alness was fourteen miles south of Tain and boasted Dalmore distillery, while Tain itself had Glenmorangie. At the next roundabout he left the A9 for the A836, signposted towards Bonar Bridge, Ardgay and Edderton. He had a phone number for a local farmer and punched it into his mobile.
‘Five or ten minutes,’ he told the man, ending the call.
And five or ten minutes was all it took. The farmer’s name was Jim Mellon, and he was waiting with his venerable Land Rover. He signalled for Rebus to park by the side of the road.
‘We’ll take mine,’ he called out, having decided that the Saab might not be up to the task.
Rebus got out and locked the car, the farmer smiling at what he probably saw as a ‘townie precaution’. He was younger than Rebus had expected — clean-shaven, fair-haired and handsome.
‘I appreciate you doing this,’ Rebus said. ‘And thanks for taking the trouble to get in touch in the first place.’
‘You said on the phone I wasn’t alone?’
Rebus nodded his agreement. ‘A few others are of the same mind as you.’
‘Well, let’s see what you think.’ Mellon gestured towards the Land Rover. ‘Not allergic to dogs, are you?’
In the back of the vehicle sat a collie — Rebus guessed a sheep dog. Intelligent eyes, and not about to demean itself by looking for a pat from a stranger. The engine started with a roar and they headed up the narrow muddy road, past a sign warning them that if its lights were flashing, the snow gates ahead were closed.
‘How often do vehicles use this route?’ Rebus asked.
‘A few times a day,’ Mellon speculated. ‘Not much up here.’
‘It’s signposted to Aultnamain.’
‘Not much there either — but we’re not headed that far.’ He was turning on to a single-track road,
