They took Jack’s car to Howdenhall, Rebus sitting in the back, calling Jack his ‘chauffeur’. It was a gloss-black Peugeot 405, three years old, turbo version; Rebus disregarded the No Smoking sticker and lit up, but kept the window open beside him. Jack didn’t say anything, didn’t even look in the rearview. Rebus hadn’t slept well in the bed; night sweats, the sheets like a straitjacket. Chase dreams waking him every hour or so, sending him shooting out of bed to stand naked and trembling in the middle of the floor.
Jack for his part had complained first thing of a stiff neck. His second complaint: the kitchen, bare fridge and all. He couldn’t go out to the shops, not without Rebus, so they’d made straight for the car.
‘I’m gutting,’ he complained.
‘So stop and we’ll eat something.’
They stopped at a bakery in Liberton: sausage rolls, beakers of coffee, a couple of macaroon cakes. Sat eating them in the car, parked double yellow by a bus stop. Buses rattled them as they passed, hinting they should shift. There were messages on the backs of some of them: Please Give Way to This Bus.
‘I don’t mind the buses,’ Jack said. ‘It’s their drivers I object to. Half of them couldn’t pass the time of day, never mind a PSV test.’
Rebus’s comment: ‘It’s not buses that have the choke-hold on this place.’
‘You’re cheery this morning.’
‘Jack, just shut your gub and drive.’
They were ready for him at Howdenhall. The team last night at his flat had taken away all his shoes, so the forensic bods could check for footprints and fail to match them against any left at the scene of Johnny Bible’s murders. First thing Rebus had to do this morning was remove the shoes he was wearing. They gave him plastic overshoes to wear, and said his own would be returned to him before he left. The overshoes were too big, uncomfortable — his feet slid around inside them, and he had to curl his toes to keep them from slipping off.
They decided against a saliva test — it was the least reliable — but plucked hairs from his head.
‘Could you graft them on to my temples when you’re finished?’
The woman with the tweezers smiled, went about her business. She explained that she had to get the roots — PCR analysis wouldn’t work on shed hair. There was a test available in some places, but...
‘But?’
She didn’t answer, but Rebus knew what she’d meant: but they were just going through the motions with him. Neither Ancram nor anyone else was expecting the expensive tests to yield any positive result. The only result would be a nettled, unsettled Rebus. That’s what the whole thing was about. Forensics knew it; Rebus knew it.
Blood sample — the need for a warrant had been waived — and fingerprints next, plus they wanted some strands and threads from his clothes. I’m going on the computer, Rebus thought. For all that I’m not guilty, I’ll still be a suspect in the eyes of history. Anyone digging the files out in twenty years’ time will see that a policeman was interviewed, and gave samples... It was a grim feeling. And once they had his DNA on record... well, that was him on the register. The Scottish DNA database was just beginning to be compiled. Rebus started to wish he’d insisted on a warrant.
Throughout each process Jack Morton stood by, averting his face. And afterwards, Rebus got his shoes back. It felt like the forensic science staff were staring at him; maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. Pete Hewitt wandered past — he hadn’t been present at the fingerprinting — and made a crack about the biter bit. Jack grabbed Rebus’s arm, stopped him from swinging. Hewitt shuffled off double quick.
‘We’re due at Fettes,’ Jack reminded Rebus.
‘I’m ready.’
Jack looked at him. ‘Maybe we’ll stop off somewhere first, get another coffee.’
Rebus smiled. ‘Afraid I’ll take a swing at Ancram?’
‘If you do, bear in mind he’s a southpaw.’
‘Inspector, do you have any objections to this interview being recorded?’
‘What happens to the recording?’
‘It’ll be dated and timed, copies made: one for you. Transcripts ditto.’
‘No objections.’
Ancram nodded to Jack Morton, who set the machine running. They were in an office on the third floor of Fettes. It was cramped, and looked like it had hastily been vacated by a disgruntled tenant. There was a wastepaper-bin by the desk, waiting to be emptied. Paper-clips littered the floor. The walls still bore marks where Sellotaped pictures had been yanked down. Ancram sat behind the scratched desk, the Spaven casenotes piled to one side. He was wearing a formal dark-blue pinstripe with pale blue shirt and tie, and looked like he’d been for a haircut first thing. There were two pens in front of him on the desk — a blue fine-nib Bic with yellow casing, and an expensive-looking lacquered rollerball. His buffed and filed nails tapped against a clean pad of A4 paper. A typed list of notes, queries and points to be raised sat to the right of the pad.
‘So, doctor,’ Rebus said, ‘what are my chances?’
Ancram merely smiled. When he spoke, it was for the benefit of the tape machine.
‘DCI Charles Ancram, Strathclyde CID. It’s —’ he consulted a thin wristwatch — ‘ten forty-five on Monday the twenty-fourth of June. Preliminary interview with Detective Inspector John Rebus, Lothian and Borders Police. This interview is taking place in office C25, Lothian Police Headquarters, Fettes Avenue, Edinburgh. Also present is —’
‘You forgot the postcode,’ Rebus said, folding his arms.
‘That was the voice of DI Rebus. Also present is DI Jack Morton, Falkirk CID, currently on secondment to Strathclyde Police, Glasgow.’
Ancram glanced at his notes, picked up the Bic and ran through the first couple of lines. Then he picked up a plastic beaker of water and sipped from it, watching Rebus over the rim.
‘Any time you’re ready,’ Rebus told him.
Ancram was ready. Jack sat by the table on which the tape machine sat. Two mikes ran from it to the desk, one pointing towards Ancram, one towards Rebus. From where he was sitting, Rebus couldn’t quite see Jack. It was just him and Ancram, the chessboard set for play.
‘Inspector,’ Ancram said, ‘you know why you’re here?’
‘Yes, sir. I’m here because I’ve refused to give up an investigation into possible links between Glaswegian gangster Joseph Toal, the Aberdeen drug market, and the murder of an oil-worker in Edinburgh.’
Ancram flicked through the casenotes, looking bored.
‘Inspector, you know that interest in the Leonard Spaven case has been revived?’
‘I know the TV sharks have been circling. They think they can smell blood.’
‘And can they?’
‘Just a leaky old ketchup bottle, sir.’
Ancram smiled; it wouldn’t come over on the recording.
‘CI Ancram smiles,’ Rebus said, for the record.
‘Inspector,’ referring to his notes, ‘what started this media interest?’
‘Leonard Spaven’s suicide, added to his public notoriety.’
‘Notoriety?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘The media get a vicarious thrill from reformed thugs and murderers, especially when they show some artistic leaning. The media often aspire to art themselves.’
Ancram seemed to expect more. They sat in silence for a moment. Cassette whirr; motor noise. Someone along the corridor sneezed. No sunshine today: iron-clad skies forecasting rain; a bitter wind off the North Sea.
Ancram sat back in his chair. His message to Rebus: I don’t need the notes, I know this case. ‘How did you feel when you heard Lawson Geddes had killed himself?’
‘Gutted. He was a good officer, and a good friend to me.’
‘You had your differences though?’
Rebus tried to hold the stare; ended up blinking first. Thought: of such accumulated setbacks were battles lost.