‘We’re not covering for him. Look around you.’ Soames made a sweeping motion with one arm. ‘Piss-poor place for a game of hide and seek.’
‘Did your search team find anything?’ Skiladz interrupted.
‘No,’ Clarke admitted.
‘Because there’s nothing to find. You’re wasting time and effort and I don’t think the girl ever made it this far — not on foot.’
‘And that means you’ve fucked over an innocent man,’ Soames added. Then, with a glance towards Clarke: ‘Pardon my French.’
‘We’re wasting our time here,’ Clarke told Rebus.
‘Isn’t that what Stefan just said?’ Soames commented.
But Clarke was already heading back to the car.
26
James Page had been busy.
Esson’s e-fits of the missing women had been released to a few favoured media outlets. TV liked them, and that evening’s Scottish news would carry them. The public had also started suggesting locations for the photo sent from Annette McKie’s phone. Some had even submitted their own photos to back up their hunches. Page had made space on a wall of the CID room, and Esson had pinned them up. More were arriving all the time. Page led Clarke and Rebus into his office.
‘Is he a serious suspect?’ was Page’s first question.
‘I’m not sure,’ Clarke admitted.
‘The fact that he ran. .’
‘He’s the type who acts without thinking.’
‘A wanderer,’ Rebus added. ‘Never seems to stay anywhere for long.’
‘Do we have any idea where he would go?’
‘Aberdeen or thereabouts,’ Clarke speculated.
‘Worth letting Grampian Police know they should keep an eye out?’
‘Wouldn’t do any harm.’
Page glanced at his watch. ‘I’m briefing the Chief in an hour. Is there anything more substantial I can give him?’
‘Everybody’s working flat out.’
‘Thus far without a result. And the longer that situation persists. .’
‘If Annette got a lift,’ Rebus said, ‘it would be in a vehicle heading north. Any of the suggestions or photos from that stretch of the A9?’
‘Between Pitlochry and Inverness, you mean?’ Page checked his computer screen. ‘Not that I can see,’ he concluded.
‘A nice big wall map is what we need,’ Rebus told him. ‘That, and plenty of drawing pins. .’
Throughout the rest of the day, people phoned and e-mailed their thoughts and suppositions. Some had no firm ideas, but just wanted to say the team were doing a grand job. At which point they’d be thanked and gently nudged off the line with the explanation that other callers were waiting.
Rebus had driven home and returned with his own map, sticking it to the wall with Blu-Tack.
‘I see you’ve already highlighted the A9,’ Esson commented. ‘That was fast work.’
Yes, and there were pinholes, too, near Auchterarder, Strathpeffer and Aviemore.
‘Okay,’ Esson said, taking a sip of hot water before beginning to recite the list: ‘Appin, Taynuilt, Salen, Kendal, Inveruglas, Lochgair, Inchnadamph. .’
‘Slow down,’ Rebus complained. ‘I don’t know where half these places are. And you made that last one up.’
‘I’ve been to Inchnadamph,’ Ronnie Ogilvie piped up, his hand smothering the mouthpiece of his phone.
‘John’s got a point, though,’ Clarke said. ‘Let’s pinpoint them on Google Maps, and when we know where they are, we flag them up on the wall.’ She looked around the room. ‘Everyone happy with that?’
There were nods of assent.
‘Divvy the list up, Christine,’ Clarke told Esson. She saw that Rebus was studying the photos submitted by the public, comparing them with the one from McKie’s phone. ‘Any of them take your fancy?’
‘A couple.’ He tapped them with his finger. Clarke had to agree.
‘Where are they from?’ she asked.
‘One’s the A838 south of Durness.’
‘That’s way up in the north-west, isn’t it?’
Rebus showed her on the map. ‘Miles from anywhere.’
‘What about the other?’
‘The A836. Little place called Edderton.’
‘Where’s that?’
Rebus shrugged, so Clarke went to her computer and let it do the work. Two minutes later she had her answer.
‘The Dornoch Firth,’ she said. ‘Not more than a couple of miles off the A9, just north of Tain.’
‘Where they make Glenmorangie?’ Rebus asked.
‘You’d know better than me.’
Rebus traced the A9 north from Inverness. It cut across the Black Isle and skirted the Cromarty Firth, heading inland again until it reached the Dornoch Firth, hugging the coast from there until Wick. Tain was marked, and so was the A836. Not many major roads up that way, and thousands upon thousands of inland acres of wilderness.
‘We’ve got plenty more contenders,’ Clarke cautioned, as Ogilvie’s telephone rang again. ‘So let’s just keep at it.’
27
By the end of the day, they felt numb. Ogilvie said he was willing to stay another hour by himself, manning the phone. Clarke shook her head.
‘We all need a break. I’ve asked one of the uniforms to take over until nine. After that, the switchboard will make a note of numbers and say we’ll call them back in the morning. Good work, though, everybody — I mean it.’
These would normally have been Page’s words, but he was at Fettes HQ, attending yet another briefing. Clarke rubbed tension from her forehead as she walked over to the wall map. Rebus was standing in front of it, looking thoughtful.
‘There’ll be more to do tomorrow,’ he advised, ‘with a bit of luck.’
‘The e-fits of the three women? You really think we’ll get sightings?’
‘It would be nice to think so.’ He turned towards her. ‘So what do you make of it?’
She studied the map. ‘How many votes does that make for Edderton?’
‘Four and counting.’
‘Must be just about the whole population.’
Rebus managed a smile. ‘Three for Lochgair, but it’s way over on the west here.’ He tapped the map. ‘Next to Loch Fyne.’
‘And a couple for Durness,’ Clarke added. The map was studded with drawing pins, and a further cluster had been added to the wall beneath the map’s bottom edge.
‘Offerings from England?’ Clarke surmised.
‘And Wales and Northern Ireland.’
She puffed out her cheeks and expelled a blast of air. ‘Isn’t this the sort of thing profilers are supposed to be good at?’
‘Don’t start.’
‘I’m just saying.’ She gave a weary smile. Then, studying the map again: ‘You’re still thinking the A9?’
‘Or just off it.’
‘So that’s — what? — six suggested locations.’
‘Six and counting.’
She nodded slowly, glancing behind her to ensure no one else in the team was close enough to hear. All the same, she lowered her voice. ‘What if it doesn’t mean anything? We narrow it down, maybe even convince ourselves we’ve got the right spot. . what if it tells us nothing?’
‘Then we try something else.’
‘What, though?’
‘Have a bit of faith, Siobhan. If you can say at the end that you put in the hours and tried your damnedest. .’
‘I’m sure the family will send us a nice Thank You card.’
‘They might and they might not.’ Rebus placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Whatever you do tonight, make sure it’s a long way from this.’
She nodded her agreement. ‘Same goes for you,’ she told him.
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I might even have a nice wee drive out into the country. .’
A couple of city pubs first, though. There was a different face on the door at the Gimlet. He was on his phone and didn’t seem to sense any threat in Rebus. The pub itself was busy, same barmaid as on his previous visit. He gave her a wink of recognition but didn’t stay for a drink. His second watering hole of choice was even less gentrified. The Tytler sat in the middle of a housing scheme in the north of the city, half of which was due to be torn down. The Tytler’s clients looked similarly ready to have a demolition notice slapped on them. Again Rebus chose not to linger; a quick word with the monosyllabic barman and he was off again. A longer drive this time, heading west out of the city into the badlands of West Lothian. Broxburn, Bathgate, Blackburn and Whitburn. Tribal towns; ex-mining communities. Jo-Jo Binkie’s was the name above the door of a converted art deco cinema on a main street predominated by closed businesses and For Sale signs. Three hulking doormen gave him their best stare. They all bore armbands on their coats identifying them as SECURITY, and earpieces with a thin cord which disappeared into the space between neck and collar.