‘Maybe not so half-baked — you’re on the North Coast 500 after all. Plenty new visitors.’
‘Mostly speeding past in their sports cars,’ Samantha said dismissively. Creasey turned towards Rebus.
‘It’s a circuit that’s become popular with drivers.’
‘I know,’ Rebus replied. ‘I might live in the far-off lands to the south, but news sometimes travels.’
Creasey decided to ignore Rebus’s tone and turned his attention back to Samantha. ‘What do you think’s happened to Keith, Samantha?’
‘Something.’
‘Could you be more specific?’
‘An accident maybe.’ She offered a shrug and checked her phone. ‘I need to fetch Carrie soon.’
A glance at his watch told Rebus his daughter was exaggerating — school wouldn’t finish for another hour or two. He saw Creasey come to the same conclusion, yet nod all the same.
‘One last question then — when did you last see or speak to Keith?’
‘That same evening. After dinner, he said he was going out.’
‘He didn’t say where?’
‘No.’
‘And he seemed all right?’
Samantha nodded slowly.
‘Then let’s leave things for now.’ Creasey got up from the sofa and handed her a business card. ‘I’ll file a missing person report, but if he does turn up or anything changes...’ Samantha gave another nod. ‘Are the keys to the Volvo here? I wouldn’t mind checking the interior. I’ll pop them through your letter box when I’m finished.’
‘On the table by the front door.’
Creasey stretched out his hand to take hers. ‘People almost always come back,’ he said. She returned the handshake without looking in the least bit convinced.
Rebus got up and said he would see the detective out. Creasey lifted the car keys while Rebus opened the door. Both men stepped outside, Rebus closing the door after them, making sure it wasn’t locked.
‘You reckon it’s nothing to worry about?’ he enquired.
‘Early days. If she’d not mentioned the affair and I’d found out after, I might have wondered what else she wasn’t telling me.’ He paused, studying Rebus’s face. ‘I know she’s not always had it easy. She was twelve, wasn’t she, when that nutcase got hold of her? Held a fearsome grudge against you.’
‘Thirty-odd years back.’
‘Then a hit-and-run in her twenties. She was in a wheelchair for a time. Still has a trace of a limp when she walks.’
‘Is this us playing detective Top Trumps?’
‘Aren’t Top Trumps a bit after your time?’
‘You’re forgetting I’ve got a granddaughter — plus a daughter who’s turned out perfectly well adjusted, despite your insinuations.’
‘I’ve not met too many folk who’re “perfectly” well adjusted, Mr Rebus.’
‘Go look at the car, head home, file your report.’
‘Leaving you here to do what exactly?’
‘Help my daughter as best I can.’ Rebus opened the door and disappeared back inside.
3
They got the living room and kitchen tidy, Samantha checking her phone every few minutes in case she’d missed a text from Keith.
‘So nothing at all out of the ordinary that day?’ Rebus asked.
‘No.’
‘Keith came home from work, had dinner, then went out?’
‘Weren’t you listening when I told the detective?’
‘Just getting it clear in my mind. What time did you start to worry?’
‘Bedtime, I suppose.’
‘You suppose?’
‘I texted him.’ She waved her phone in front of her father’s face. ‘Take a look if you don’t believe me.’
‘Of course I believe you.’
‘Doesn’t sound like it to me.’ She checked the time again. ‘Anyway, I really do have to go fetch Carrie.’
‘Creasey knows, you know.’
She scowled at him. ‘Knows what?’
‘That you lied to get rid of him.’
‘I couldn’t stand it another minute.’ She lifted her coat from the back of a chair and started putting it on. ‘You coming?’
‘Does Keith keep anything about the POW camp here?’
‘In the garage.’
‘I might stick around then.’
‘Suit yourself. It’s not locked. And you can leave the door unlocked here, too.’
‘Everywhere used to be like that,’ Rebus commented.
‘A nice safe place to bring up kids,’ Samantha said, mostly to herself, wrapping a long scarf around her neck and making for the door.
When she was gone, he wandered through the house. There were no bedside drawers in the main bedroom, just identical small tables. Her side: a half-empty blister pack of ibuprofen; nail scissors; phone charger; clock radio. His: a football biography; iPad; headphones. The iPad required a password. The screen saver was one of the framed photos from the living room — a beach holiday, father and daughter presumably with Samantha on the other end of the camera. He considered opening the clothes drawers and the fitted wardrobe but managed to stop himself.
Carrie’s room was a riot of colour and toys, including one he remembered buying her for her eighth birthday. There wasn’t much else apart from the small bathroom and a box room being used for storage, so he donned his coat and headed to the garage. Shelves filled with DIY stuff, tools and lengths of wire and cable. And in the centre, where a vehicle might sit, a large trestle table with a folding wooden chair. Rebus sat down and started examining the reams of paper, books, notebooks, plans and photocopied photographs.
Camp 1033 was also known as Borgie Camp, named after the river that ran past it. Rebus got the sense that it had housed different sets of people at different times during the Second World War, from ‘aliens’ long resident in the UK to captured German soldiers. Keith had been diligent. There were books about the history of concentration camps and about specific camps in Scotland and elsewhere. He’d picked them up from dealers, the cardboard packaging tossed on the floor nearby. To Rebus’s mind, that spoke of an urgency, a hunger — maybe a way to stop thinking about what had happened with Samantha? Immersing himself. Losing himself. There was a long handwritten list of official documents and books that he had yet to get his hands on. The words ‘National Library?’ had been double-underscored.
Rebus knew he could spend hours here without necessarily learning much that would help. All the same, he was curious. If Borgie was Camp 1033, presumably that meant there were at least another 1,032 camps like it scattered throughout the British Isles. Why hadn’t he known? One of the books was dedicated to another Scottish camp called Watten, near Wick. Not so far away in the scheme of things. There was also a flyer for a camp called Cultybraggen, near Comrie, which, practically intact, already operated as a tourist destination. Rebus saw that Keith — or someone — had made scribbled calculations about how much it would cost to do something similar with Camp 1033. The answer was several hundred thousand pounds. Whoever had written the figures had added a frowning face to the final underlined sum.
He listened as a car drew up, engine idling for half a minute, before driving off again. He made his way from the garage to the bungalow, unsurprised to find the Volvo key fob on the floor of the hallway. Picking it up, he closed the door again and decided to walk to the lay-by. The wind whipped around him, making him wish he had a hat while also aware that he’d have had trouble stopping it flying away. He unlocked the car and climbed into the driver’s side, closing the door on the elements. He turned the ignition and the engine sprang into life. When he tried the hi-fi, the radio was tuned to Radio Scotland, but there was no signal.