'She'd probably rather hear it from you.'

'You're right. I'll send her a text.'

'You could even call her.'

'She might be in bed.'

'Then again, she might nottake a risk for once.'

Fox smiled tiredly. 'No promises,' he said, ending the call. Back in bed, he lay on his back, hands clasped across his chest. His eyes remained open as he stared at the ceiling. Sleep, he knew, wasn't going to come any time soon, so he got up and, grabbing his phone, headed to the kitchen, filling the kettle and switching it on. He dropped a tea bag into a mug and eased himself on to a stool. Yes, he could call Siobhan, but it was late and he really didn't have any news. Would a text wake her up? He started composing one, then deleted it. When his tea was ready, he picked up the phone again. He had no messages, no unanswered calls. He tapped the photos icon and found a picture he'd taken of Siobhan with the low winter sun behind her, so that her face was mostly in shadow.

'Don't give up the day job, Malcolm,' he muttered to himself. He opened another photo and used his finger and thumb to enlarge it on the screen. It was Hamish Wright's itemised phone bill. Most of the calls were to other mobiles. One of Compston's team had added the details in the margin: wife, insurer, client, client, garage, nephew, client, ferry company, restaurant. But there were landline calls too: wife again, and an aunt in Dundee. Plus one 0131 numberEdinburgh. The Gifford Inn. And written next to it: staff never heard of him, reckon a wrong number. A wrong number on a Monday evening, one week prior to his disappearance, and lasting almost three minutes. The Gifford didn't mean anything to Fox, but he looked it upit was on St John's Road in Corstorphine. He had driven along St John's Road hundreds of times, but then he never really paid attention to pubsthough he'd lay money on John Rebus knowing the place.

Footwork still counts for something... Add it to gut instinct...

Take a risk...

Take a risk...

Take a risk...

'Well, Malcolm?' he challenged himself out loud. 'What about it?'

Half an hour later, he was back in bed, hands under his head, eyes adjusting to the dark as he turned things over in his mind.

Day Eight.

31.

Rebus held the box out towards Christine Esson. She was seated at her computer and looked wary.

'From the baker's,' he said, placing it on the desk. She opened it and peered inside.

'Jam doughnuts,' she said.

'My way of saying sorry.'

'For what?'

'Not telling you I'd found Paul Jeffries all on my own.'

Ronnie Ogilvie approached the desk and lifted out one of the pastries, holding it in his teeth as he headed back to his own chair. Esson glowered at him, but he seemed impervious.

'The other three are yours, if you're quick,' Rebus told her.

She closed the box and slipped it into her drawer. 'Thank you,' she said. Then she noticed he was holding out a slip of paper, expecting her to take it.

'Bryan Holroyd,' he explained. 'I've not got much for you to go onand I'm sorry about that, too. He was a teenager in the eighties, spent a bit of time at an assessment centre called Acorn House. It's been shut for years, but the fact he was there at all means he probably had a criminal record...'

'You think there'll be something in the archive? Doesn't stuff get expunged after a time?'

Rebus just shrugged. 'There may even be information on Acorn Houseit was a remand home before they changed the wording. But whatever you do, tread softly.'

'Oh?'

'Alarm bells may sound.'

'And they'd do that because...?'

'They probably won't.'

'Which doesn't answer my question.'

He gave the slip of paper a little wave. 'I brought doughnuts,' he reminded her.

After a further ten seconds of stand-off, she sighed and snatched the details from him. 'Which is more likely to trigger an alarmonline search or me traipsing to the records office?'

'Only one way to find out.' Rebus offered what he hoped was a winning smile. 'Siobhan not in yet?'

'As you can see.' Esson gestured towards the empty desk.

'Maybe she spent the night consoling Malcolm...'

'And why would I be doing that?'

The voice had come from the doorway. Clarke stepped into the office and lifted her laptop from her bag, placing it on her desk.

'His dad's still in hospital,' Rebus explained. 'I told him to phone you.'

'He didn't.'

'It was getting late, to be fair. Though you don't exactly look like you've had much in the way of beauty sleep.'

'Thanks for the vote of confidence.' She was shrugging out of her coat and unwinding a long red woollen scarf from around her neck.

Esson had brought the box back out. 'Doughnut?' she suggested.

'Just the job,' Clarke said, plucking one out with a nod of thanks. Esson took one herself before returning the box to its drawer.

'One spare,' Rebus hinted.

'For later,' she retorted.

'I've given Bryan Holroyd's name to Christine,' Rebus explained to Clarke. 'I reckon she's got more diplomacy than me.'

Clarke nodded. 'Though if it's the same groper in charge of the archive as when I last had cause to visit, diplomacy might have to take second place to pepper spray.'

'I can handle myself,' Esson assured her. 'Just need to handle the final doughnut first.'

'Thanks for rubbing it in,' Rebus muttered, heading for the door. He was halfway there when Esson called him back.

'Yes?' he said, sounding hopeful.

'Are you not going to ask me about Dave Ritter?'

'I was surmising you didn't have anything.'

'You'd be wrong.' She paused. 'Sort of wrong, anyway. The forces of law and order in Ullapool have never had dealings with him, nor is there any record of him living in Scotland at the current time.'

'Well, thanks for sharing.'

'There is, however, a man called David Ratner. Known all too well by the local constabulary.'

'In Ullapool?'

'In Ullapool,' she confirmed. Now it was her turn to hand a slip of paper out for Rebus to take. He digested the details as she went on. 'Arrests for minor offencesdrunk and disorderly, brawling in the street...'

'Might be him, then.'

'Might be.'

He stared at her. 'When were you going to tell me this?'

'It was on the tip of my tongue, until you produced yet another favour you wanted me to do.'

'What's this?' Clarke enquired, her mouth full of pastry, sprinkles of sugar on her lips.

'One of Cafferty's goons,' Rebus reminded her. 'The one we didn't manhandle in front of his carers.'

'He's living in the Highlands under an assumed name?'

'Could be.'

'You going to head up there?'

Rebus nodded thoughtfully. 'If only to protect him from Cafferty.'

'You're all heart,' Clarke said. Rebus turned back towards Esson.

'I'm all heart,' he told her. 'Official confirmation.'

With a sigh and a rolling of the eyes, Esson held the box out towards him.

It had taken Rebus only a couple of minutes with a map to work out that the quickest route to Ullapool was the A9 to Inverness, then the A835 heading west. He filled the Saab with petrol, offered up a prayer that the old crate would survive the journey, and piled water, cigarettes and crisps on the passenger seat, along with a cut-price CD that promised him the best rock songs of the seventies and eighties.

The A9 was not a road he relished. He had driven up and down it several times a couple of years back on a previous case. Some of it was dualled, but long, winding stretches weren't, and those were where you tended to get stuck behind a convoy of lorries or venerable caravans towed by underpowered saloon cars. Inverness was 150 miles from Edinburgh, but it would take him three hours, and maybe half that again to reach his final destination.

Having witnessed Cafferty's reaction at the nursing home, he had decided to say nothing about this trip. Not until he was safely back in Edinburgh. As he crossed the Forth Road Bridge, he saw its replacement taking shape over to the west. The project was apparently on time and under budget, unlike the Edinburgh tram route. He had yet to take a tram anywhere in the city. At his age, buses were free to use, but he never took those either.

'Me and you,' he told his Saab, giving the steering wheel a reassuring pat.

North as far as Perth was dual carriageway and relatively quiet, but once past Perth the road narrowed and new average-speed cameras didn't help. He began to wish he had commandeered a patrol car and driver, with blue lights and siren. But then he would have had to explain the purpose of the trip.

A kid was killed and I need to talk to the man who took him away and buried him...

The fact that David Ratner had been in trouble recently meant that he might at least be available to answer a few questions. On the other hand, how willing would he be? Rebus mulled that over as he drove. Cafferty had helped cover up a crimepossibly a murder. In the scheme of things, he should already be in custody, but that wouldn't help solve the mystery. He would clam up, and his lawyer would have him back on the street in no time. This way, as Rebus had argued to Siobhan Clarke, at least there was the possibility of closureretribution could come later, if the Fiscal's office decided it was feasible. Rebus was a realist if nothing else. Down the years he had seen the guilty walk free and the (relatively) innocent suffer punishment. He had watchedas furiously impotent as Albert Stout or Patrick Spiersas the rich and powerful played the system. He had come to appreciate that those with influence could be more cunning and ruthless than those with none.

'The overworld and the underworld,' he muttered to himself, pulling out to overtake an artic. Having done so, he found himself stuck behind a Megabus with a smiling cartoon character waving at him from its rear end, advertising the cheap fares. Five slow miles later, he was imagining himself beating his cheery tormentor with a stick. The CD wasn't helping eitherhe didn't recognise most of the tunes, and power ballads coupled with big hair had never been his thing. He changed to the radio, until the reception died as white-capped mountains began to rise either side of the road. There was snow on the verges, turned grey from exhaust fumes, but the day was overcast and a couple of degrees above zero. He hadn't entertained the possibility that the route might become difficult or impassable. How good were his tyres? When had he last checked them? He glanced towards his passenger-seat supplies.

You'll be fine, he told himself as a BMW flew past, squeezing past the bus as an approaching lorry sounded its horn in annoyance.

There was nowhere to park in Corstorphine, so Fox ended up behind the McDonald's at Drum Brae roundabout. Fringing the car park were a few stores, with a huge Tesco beyond. He reckoned the Gifford Inn would open at eleven, and it was now five to. Walking back along St John's Road, he stopped at a guitar shop and studied the window display. Jude had always wanted a guitar, but their father had never allowed it.

'Soon as I move out, I'm getting one,' she had yelled, aged fourteen.

'Leave the key on the table,' Mitch had replied.

Fox himself had surprised her a decade later by buying her one for her birthdayacoustic rather than electric, and with a teach-yourself book and CD. The guitar had sat in a corner of her room for a year or two, until he visited one day and noticed it was no longer there. Nothing had ever been said.

There were no early customers at the Gifford when he pushed open the door. It looked the sort of place that catered to a lunchtime trade. Each table boasted a laminated menu, and the daily specials were on a chalkboard next to the bar. Stripped wooden floorboards, plenty of mirrors, and gleaming brass bar taps. A man in his twenties was rearranging the bar stools.

'I'll be with you in a second,' he announced.

'No real rushI'm not drinking anything.'

'If you're a rep, you need to phone the boss and book a slot.'

'I'm a detective.' Fox showed the man his warrant card.

'Has something happened?'

'Just checking a couple of things.'

'Sure you don't want a drinkon the house?'

'Maybe an Appletiser then.'

'No problem.' The barman checked he was happy with the stools and went around to the other side of the bar, pulling a bottle from the chiller cabinet. 'Ice?'

'No thanks.' Fox eased himself on to a stool and took out his phone, finding the photo of Hamish Wright's phone bill. He reeled off the number.