‘Then you might remember the little coffin that was found.’
‘Vaguely, yes.’
‘Only I’ve got a cutting from a newspaper at the time. It says that the hotel might be getting a reputation.’
‘Yes.’
‘And why would that have been?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe it was that American tourist.’
‘Which one?’
‘The one who disappeared.’
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and when he did it was to ask her to repeat what she’d just said.
Rebus went to the National Library annexe on Causewayside. It wasn’t much more than a five-minute walk from St Leonard’s. When he’d shown his ID and explained what he needed, he was taken to a desk where a microfilm reader sat. This was a large illuminated screen above two spools. The film was placed on one spool and would be wound on to the empty one. Rebus had used the machine before, back when newspapers had been stored at the main building on George IV Bridge. He’d told the staff that today’s was ‘a rush job’. Even so, he sat for the best part of twenty minutes before a librarian arrived with the film boxes. The Courier was Dundee’s daily paper. Rebus’s own family had taken it. He remembered that up until recently it had retained the look of a broadsheet from a previous era, with column-wide ads covering its front page. No news, no photos. The story went that when the Titanic sank, the headline in the Courier had been ‘Dundee Man Lost at Sea’. Not that the paper was parochial or anything.
Rebus had the Huntingtower cutting with him, and wound the tape forward until he was four weeks shy of its appearance. There, on an inside page, was the headline ‘Tourist’s Disappearance a Mystery, Say Police’. The woman’s name was Betty-Anne Jesperson. She was thirty-eight and married. She’d been a member of a tour party from the USA. The tour was called ‘The Mystical Highlands of Scotland’. The photograph of Betty-Anne came from her passport. It showed a heavy-set woman with dark permed hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Her husband, Garry, said she was in the habit of waking early and going for a pre-breakfast walk. No one in the hotel had seen her depart. The countryside was searched, and police went into Perth town centre armed with copies of the photograph. But as Rebus wound the film forward a week, the story was cut down to half a dozen paragraphs. A further week along, and there was just a single paragraph. The story was in the process of vanishing as completely as Betty-Anne had.
According to the hotel receptionist, Garry Jesperson had made several trips back to the area in that first year, with a further month-long trip the year after. But then the last she’d heard, Garry had met someone else and moved from New Jersey to Baltimore.
Rebus copied the details into his notebook, then sat tapping at the page he’d just written on until one of the browsers cleared their throat, warning him that he’d started to make too much noise.
Back at the main desk, he put in a request for more papers: the Dunfermline Press, Glasgow Herald and Inverness Courier. Only the Herald was on microfilm, so he started with that. Nineteen eighty-two, the doll in the churchyard... Van Morrison had released Beautiful Vision early in ’82. Rebus found himself humming ‘Dweller on the Threshold’, then stopped when he remembered where he was. Nineteen eighty-two, he’d been a detective sergeant, working cases with another DS called Jack Morton. They’d been based at Great London Road, back before the station had caught fire. When the Herald film arrived, he spooled it and got to work, the days and weeks a blur across his screen. All the officers above him at Great London Road, they were either dead or retired. He hadn’t kept in touch with any of them. And now the Farmer was gone too. Soon, whether he liked it or not, it would be his turn. He didn’t think he’d go quietly. They’d have to pull him screaming and kicking...
The churchyard doll had been found in May. He started at the beginning of April. Problem was, Glasgow was a big city, more crime than a place like Perth. He wasn’t sure he’d know if and when he found something. And if it was a missing person, would it even make the paper? Thousands of people disappeared each year. Some of them left without being noticed: the homeless, the ones with no family or friends. This was a country where a corpse could sit in a chair by the fire until the smell alerted the neighbours.
By the time he’d searched April, he had no reported MisPers, but six deaths, two of them women. One was a stabbing after a party. A man, it was stated, was helping police with their inquiries. Rebus guessed the boyfriend. He was pretty sure that if he read on, he’d find the case coming to court. The second death was a drowning. A stretch of river Rebus had never heard of: White Cart Water, the body found by its banks on the southern border of Rosshall Park. The victim was Hazel Gibbs, aged twenty-two. Her husband had walked out, leaving her with two kids. Friends said she’d been depressed. She’d been seen out drinking the previous day, while the kids fended for themselves.
Rebus walked outside and got on his mobile, punching in the number for Bobby Hogan at Leith CID.
‘Bobby, it’s John. You know a bit about Glasgow, don’t you?’
‘A bit.’
‘Ever heard of White Cart Water?’
‘Can’t say I have.’
‘What about Rosshall Park?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Got any contacts out west?’
‘I could make a phone call.’
‘Do that, will you?’ Rebus repeated the names and ended the call. He smoked a cigarette, staring across at a new pub on the opposite corner. He knew one drink wouldn’t do him any harm. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be seeing the doctor. Hell, it would have to wait. He could always make another appointment. When, at cigarette’s end, Hogan hadn’t called back, Rebus returned to his desk and started going through the editions for May ’82. When his mobile sounded, the staff and readers gave a look of collective horror. Rebus cursed and put the phone to his ear, getting up from his seat to head outside again.
‘It’s me,’ Hogan said.
‘Go ahead,’ Rebus whispered, moving towards the exit.
‘Rosshall Park’s in Pollok, south-west of the city centre. White Cart Water runs along the top of it.’
Rebus stopped in his tracks. ‘You sure?’ His voice was no longer a whisper.
‘It’s what I’m told.’
Rebus was back at his desk. The Herald cutting was just below the one from the Courier. He eased it out, just to be sure.
‘Thanks, Bobby,’ he said, ending the call. People around him were making exasperated noises, but he didn’t pay them any heed. ‘Church Condemns Sick Joke Find’: the coffin found in the churchyard. The church itself located on Potterhill Road.
In Pollok.
‘I don’t suppose you’d care to explain yourself,’ Gill Templer said.
Rebus had driven to Gayfield Square and asked her for five minutes. They were back in the same stale office.
‘That’s just what I want to do,’ Rebus told her. He placed a hand to his forehead. His face felt like it was burning.
‘You were supposed to be attending a doctor’s appointment.’
‘Something came up. Christ, you’re not going to believe it.’
She stabbed a finger at the tabloid newspaper open on her desk. ‘Any idea how Steve Holly got hold of this?’
Rebus turned the paper so it was facing him. Holly couldn’t have had much time, but he’d patched together a story which managed to mention the Arthur’s Seat coffins, a ‘local expert from the Museum of Scotland’, the Falls coffin, and the ‘persistent rumour that more coffins exist’.