‘Lucky you.’
‘I seem to remember the road trip was your choice.’
‘It was.’
‘And you wanted to do it alone.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘Just wondering if you maybe had another navigator in mind.’
‘Nina Hazlitt, you mean?’
‘Did I say that?’
‘Nice to be held in such low esteem.’
‘You really are on your own there?’
Rebus looked up and down the empty street. ‘I really am,’ he said.
‘She mentioned you by name in one of the interviews she gave. Surprised your ears weren’t burning.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Apparently you’re one of the very few “persons in authority” to take her seriously.’
‘I’m a person in authority?’
‘Don’t believe everything you hear. Besides, it’ll probably count against you with James.’
‘Because he’s not the one getting the plaudits?’
‘We’re all working hard, John. Nobody likes it when one figure gets picked out.’
‘Understood.’ He ended the call with a promise to send her his photos from Edderton. He did so while he still had a signal, noting that his phone’s battery was getting low. Back at the car he started the ignition and headed down a narrow lane, which widened as it passed a caravan site and a coastguard station. The wind off the firth buffeted the Saab, the track ahead covered in a shifting, swirling layer of sand. He found himself in an empty car park, a steep grassy slope behind him. There were steps down to the beach, and the moon revealed the tide line. From what little he could see, the beach stretched for hundreds of yards. Rocky outcrops jutted from the sand. The waves had that insistent pulse to them, never quite the same twice. He felt utterly alone in the world. No traffic sounds; no other humans; nothing but clouds visible in the sky overhead. Only his car to remind him what century this was — that and his phone, which rang obligingly. It was Nina Hazlitt.
‘Hello?’ he said, answering.
‘Reception’s terrible.’
‘It’s the wind, I think. I’m heading back to the car.’
‘Are you on top of a mountain or something?’
‘At the coast, actually.’ He climbed the steps, opened the driver’s-side door and got in. ‘Is that better?’ he asked.
‘Weather sounds foul up there.’
‘We’re used to it. What can I do for you, Nina?’
‘Nothing, really. I just wanted a chat.’
‘I’ll warn you — I’ve not much battery left.’
She paused, as if seeking the right gambit. ‘How are you getting on with the book?’ she offered.
‘Really interesting.’
‘You’re just saying that. .’
‘The Burry Man versus the Green Man, selkies versus mermaids. . I remember the selkie in that film
‘Wasn’t she a mermaid?’
‘Maybe she was.’
‘Sounds like you
‘Told you.’ He peered out towards the swell of the sea. Dolphins? Not tonight. And selkies, shape-changers? Not in a million years.
‘Is there any. . progress?’
‘A bit,’ he conceded.
‘Do you have to keep it secret from me?’
‘It’s more to do with Annette McKie.’ Rebus thought for a moment. ‘Did you get a chance to ask Sally’s friends?’
‘None of them remembers anyone out of the ordinary visiting the Friends Reunited page.’
‘It was always a long shot.’
‘Long shots seem to be my speciality.’
‘Mine, too. I’m a long way from giving up on this.’
‘I hope that’s true, John.’
‘But it might help if you didn’t mention my name to the media.’
‘Oh?’
‘Doesn’t go down well with the other troops.’
‘I didn’t realise.’ She paused again. ‘I seem to keep letting you down, don’t I?’
‘You weren’t to know.’
The call lasted a few more minutes. It seemed to him that despite the presence of her brother in her life, the woman was lonely. Friends had probably fallen away as her range of interests had narrowed. He was relieved when his phone beeped, telling him the battery was about to give out.
‘Any second now, my phone’s going to die,’ he explained to her.
‘In other words, you’re fobbing me off.’ Her tone had stiffened.
‘Nothing like that, Nina.’ But she’d already hung up on him. He exhaled noisily and began to reverse out of his parking spot, but then stopped again and reached for the road map. Durness was on the A838, which ran along Scotland’s jagged northern coastline. To get there, all he had to do was follow the A836, the same road that ran through Edderton. How long that journey might take was another matter. His phone summoned up just enough life for an incoming text from Siobhan Clarke:
He headed back into the centre of Dornoch and saw that the hotel opposite the cathedral was brightly lit and inviting. There would be beer there, and a good range of malt whiskies. Hot food, too, if he was lucky. He had filled his wallet before setting out, knowing a night away was probable, so he parked the Saab directly outside the hotel’s front door and got his bag from the back seat.
31
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, realising how much each litre 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
