‘This looks like a cushy job,’ he said. ‘Can anyone apply?’
Milne smiled. ‘You’ll have to hurry, who knows how long the oil will last?’
‘A while yet surely?’
Milne shrugged. ‘It’s down to the economics of retrieval. Companies are beginning to look west — Atlantic oil. And oil from west of Shetland is being landed at Flotta.’
‘On Orkney,’ the woman explained.
‘They won the contract from us,’ Milne went on. ‘Five or ten years from now, the profit margin may be bigger out there.’
‘And they’ll mothball the North Sea?’
All three nodded, like a single beast.
‘Have you talked to Briony?’ the woman asked suddenly.
‘Who’s Briony?’
‘Jake’s... I don’t know, she’s not his wife, is she?’ She looked to Milne.
‘Just a girlfriend, I think.’
‘Where does she live?’ Rebus asked.
‘Jake and her share a house,’ Milne said. ‘In Brae. She works at the swimming pool.’
Rebus turned to Walt. ‘How far is it?’
‘Six or seven miles.’
‘Take me.’
They tried the baths first, but she wasn’t on shift, so they tracked down her house. Brae looked to be suffering a crisis of identity, like it had suddenly plopped into being and didn’t know what to make of itself. The houses were new but anonymous; there was obviously money around, but it couldn’t buy everything. It couldn’t turn Brae back into the village it had been in the days before Sullom Voe.
They found the house. Rebus told Walt to wait in the car. A woman in her early twenties answered his knock. She was wearing jogging bottoms and a white singlet, her feet bare.
‘Briony?’ Rebus asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry, I don’t know your last name. Can I come in?’
‘No. Who are you?’
‘I’m Detective Inspector John Rebus.’ Rebus showed his warrant card. ‘I’m here about Allan Mitchison.’
‘Mitch? What about him?’
There were a lot of answers to that question. Rebus picked one. ‘He’s dead.’ Then he watched the colour drain from her face. She clung on to the door as if for support, but she still wasn’t letting him in.
‘Would you like to sit down?’ Rebus hinted.
‘What happened to him?’
‘We’re not sure, that’s why I want to talk to Jake.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘Could be an accident. I’m trying to fill in some background.’
‘Jake isn’t here.’
‘I know, I’ve been trying to reach him.’
‘Somebody from personnel keeps phoning.’
‘On my behalf.’
She nodded slowly. ‘Well, he’s still not here.’ She hadn’t taken her hand off the jamb.
‘Can I get a message to him?’
‘I don’t know where he is.’ As she spoke, the colour started to return to her cheeks. ‘Poor Mitch.’
‘You’ve no idea where Jake is?’
‘He sometimes goes off on a walk. He doesn’t know himself where he’ll end up.’
‘He doesn’t phone you?’
‘He needs his space. So do I, but I find mine when I swim. Jake walks.’
‘He’s due back tomorrow though, or the day after?’
She shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
Rebus reached into a pocket, wrote on a page of his notebook, tore it out. He held it out to her. ‘It has a couple of phone numbers. Will you tell him to call me?’
‘Sure.’
‘Thanks.’ She was staring dully at the piece of paper, her eyes just short of tears. ‘Briony, is there anything you can tell me about Mitch? Anything that might help?’
She looked up from the card to him.
‘No,’ she said. Then, slowly, she closed the door on his face. In that final glimpse of her before the door separated them, Rebus had found her eyes, and seen something there. Not just bewilderment or grief.
Something more like fear. And behind it, a degree of calculation.
It struck him that he was hungry, and gasping for coffee. So they ate in the Sullom Voe canteen. It was a clean white space with potted plants and no smoking signs. Walt was rattling on about how Shetland remained more Norse than Scots; nearly all the place names were Norwegian. To Rebus, it was like the edge of the world, and he liked that. He told Walt about the man on the plane, the one in sheepskin.
‘Oh, that sounds like Mike Sutcliffe.’
Rebus asked to be taken to him.
Mike Sutcliffe had changed out of his sheepskin and was dressed in crisp work clothes. They finally found him in heated conversation beside the ballast water tanks. Two underlings were listening to him complain that they could be replaced by gibbons and nobody would notice. He pointed up at the tanks, then out towards the jetties. There was a tanker moored at one of them, it couldn’t have been any bigger than half a dozen football pitches. Sutcliffe saw Rebus and lost the thread of his argument. He dismissed the workers and began to move away, only he had to get past Rebus first.
Rebus had a smile ready. ‘Mr Sutcliffe, did you get me that map?’
‘What map?’ Sutcliffe kept walking.
‘You said you might have an idea where I could find Jake Harley.’
‘Did I?’
Rebus was almost having to jog to keep up with him. He wasn’t wearing the smile any more. ‘Yes,’ he said coldly, ‘you did.’
Sutcliffe stopped so suddenly, Rebus ended up in front of him. ‘Look, Inspector, I’m up to my gonads in thistles right now. I don’t have time for this.’
And he walked, his eyes not meeting Rebus’s. Rebus marched alongside, keeping silent. He kept it up for a hundred yards, then stopped. Sutcliffe kept going, looking like he might walk right along the jetty and across the water if he had to.
Rebus went back to where Walt was standing. He took his time, thoughtful. The bum’s rush and then some. What or who had changed Sutcliffe’s mind? Rebus pictured an old white-haired man in kilt and sporran. The picture seemed to fit.
Walt took Rebus back to his office in the main admin building. He showed Rebus where the phone was, and said he’d be back with two coffees. Rebus closed the office door, and sat down behind the desk. He was surrounded by oil platforms, tankers, pipelines, and Sullom Voe itself — huge framed photos on the walls; PR literature stacked high; a scale model of a super tanker on the desk. Rebus got an outside line and telephoned Edinburgh, weighing up diplomacy against bullshit and deciding it might save time to just tell the truth.
Mairie Henderson was at home.
‘Mairie, John Rebus.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ she said.
‘You’re not working?’
‘Haven’t you heard of the portable office? Fax-modem and a telephone, that’s all you need. Listen, you owe me.’
‘How so?’ Rebus tried to sound aggrieved.
‘All that work I did for you, and no story at the end of it. That’s not exactly quid pro quo, is it? And journalists have longer memories than elephants.’
‘I gave you Sir Iain’s resignation.’
‘A full ninety minutes before every other hack knew. And it wasn’t exactly the crime of the century to begin with. I know you held back on me.’
‘Mairie, I’m hurt.’
‘Good. Now tell me this is purely a social call.’
‘Absolutely. So how are you keeping?’
A sigh. ‘What do you want?’
Rebus swung ninety degrees in the chair. It was a comfortable chair, good enough to sleep in. ‘I need some digging.’
‘I am completely and utterly surprised.’
‘The name’s Weir. He calls himself Major Weir, but the rank may be spurious.’