At this time on a Thursday night?
Rebus looked at the mess on the floor, then went out into the hall and tiptoed to the front door, just as the bell rang again. He could hear two voices at least, little more than murmurs. Suddenly, fingers pushed open his letterbox. Rebus stood to the side of the door, back pressed to the wall.
‘Maybe he leaves the lights on when he’s out.’
‘Aye, and maybe he’s half-shot and sleeping it off.’
Rebus turned the snib silently and yanked open the door. Siobhan Clarke, who’d been peering through the letterbox, stood up, but Rebus’s eyes were on Brian Holmes.
‘Half-shot, is it, Brian? I’m glad you hold me in such high regard.’
Holmes just shrugged. ‘It’s what I’d do on holiday.’
Rebus filled the doorway, his arms folded. ‘So what are you doing: canvassing, polling, or maybe you were just passing?’
‘We were working,’ Brian Holmes explained. ‘We went to get something to eat afterwards, and when we ran out of interesting topics, the conversation came round to you.’
‘What about me?’
‘We wondered,’ Siobhan Clarke said, ‘what the hell’s going on.’
Rebus smiled. ‘You and me both.’ He stood back from the doorway. ‘You better come in. You’re the first to arrive; I haven’t even got the party snacks out.’ He noticed a brown carrier bag on the landing behind Brian Holmes.
‘We brought our own party with us.’ When Holmes picked up the bag, Rebus heard cans and bottles collide.
‘You’re always welcome here, Brian,’ Rebus said, leading them indoors.
They sat in the living room, staring at the pile of paper strips. Siobhan Clarke took a gulp of coffee.
‘You stole these?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘A public service; I saved the binmen a job.’
Holmes looked to Siobhan. ‘We did say we were coming here to help.’
‘Yes, but this lot …?’ She flapped her arms. ‘I doubt the “Blue Peter” appeal could sort this lot out. Talk about shreds of evidence.’
Rebus held up a pacifying hand. ‘Look, this is my problem, not yours. I won’t be disappointed if you scurry off home. In fact, it would be better for you if you did.’
‘We know,’ said Holmes.
Rebus looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’
Siobhan Clarke explained. ‘The Farmer spoke to us this afternoon. Basically, he warned us off. He said you were on leave, but he didn’t think that would stop you sticking your nose in.’ She looked up. ‘His words, not mine.’
‘We’ve been given new duties,’ Brian Holmes added. ‘Desk work, restructuring the filing system prior to full computerisation.’
‘To keep you busy?’
‘Yes.’
‘And away from me?’
They both nodded.
‘So naturally you come straight here?’ Rebus got to his feet. ‘You could be fucking up both your careers!’
‘I’m not in CID to sort through a lot of old paperwork,’ Siobhan Clarke retorted. Then she realised what she’d said, looked at the mound of shredded paper in front of her, and laughed.
They all did.
They hit lucky with the third bag.
‘Look,’ Siobhan Clarke said, ‘it’s not just white paper.’
Rebus took a strip from her: yellow card. ‘Files,’ he said. ‘They shredded the folders as well!’
‘Must be some machine,’ Brian Holmes added.
‘That’s a bloody good point, Brian.’
The folders were a breakthrough. The problem with the paper was that there was so much of it. There wasn’t nearly so much card, and what there was could be grouped by colour. The front of each file had a white printed label, and these were what Rebus wanted. He wanted the reconstructed labels.
But even knowing what they were looking for, it took time and effort. Rebus’s eyes were stinging, and he kept rubbing them, which only blurred his vision.
‘Get you two anything?’ he kept saying. They would only shake their heads. Rebus demolished the cans on his own. He knew he’d had too much when he polished off a tin of Irn-Bru without realising it was non-alcoholic.
The streets grew quieter after the students had slouched home on the wings of blasphemy. Around two-thirty, the central heating clocked off and Rebus turned on the gas fire. They each worked on a different colour of folder.
‘I saw one of the folders when Mrs Gillespie dropped it,’ Rebus said. ‘It was marked SDA/SE. I presume the letters stand for Scottish Development Agency and Scottish Enterprise. Scottish Enterprise took over when the SDA was wound up. Councillor Gillespie, by the way, sits on an industrial planning committee.’
‘So,’ Holmes remarked, ‘the SDA file could be completely innocent.’
‘Certainly he had a genuine reason for having a file on the SDA. But why be in such a panic to shred it?’
Holmes conceded the point.
‘I think I’ve got something,’ Siobhan Clarke said. She’d all but completed a yellow file, the label intact save for a strip or two. ‘Looks like the letters A C,’ she said, ‘then a name: Haldayne.’
Rebus fetched the phone book. There was no A C Haldayne in Edinburgh.
‘Strange spelling,’ Brian Holmes said. ‘I’ve never come across Haldayne with a y.’
‘Misspelt?’ Siobhan Clarke said. ‘The name of one of the councillor’s constituents?’
Rebus shrugged. Half an hour later, it was Holmes’s turn to complete a red file.
“‘Gyle Park West”,’ he read out.
Rebus wasn’t paying much attention; he was close to completing the last of the coloured folders, this one a lurid green.
“‘Mensung”,’ he said, looking up. ‘What the hell is Mensung?’
Siobhan Clarke yawned and rubbed at her eyes, then blinked a few times, looking around the room.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘it’s a good job this paper’s lying everywhere. Without it, this place would look like a tip.’
It was six on Friday morning when Rebus’s phone started ringing.
He fell off the chair, the duvet sliding with him. The phone was underneath one of the heaps of paper strips.
‘Whoever you are,’ he said, ‘whatever you want … you’re dead.’
‘It’s Siobhan, sir. I’ve been thinking about A C Haldayne.’
‘Me, too,’ Rebus lied.
‘I’ve been thinking about that funny spelling. American names are sometimes spelt differently, aren’t they?’
‘Is that why you woke me up?’
‘Well, it would tie in with AC.’
‘Would it?’
‘Christ, you’re slow, sir.’
‘It’s six in the morning, Clarke.’
‘All I mean is AC could stand for American Consulate. Haldayne could be a surname, and AC the consulate.’
Rebus sat up and opened his eyes. ‘That’s not bad.’
‘I tried phoning the consulate, but got an answering machine. It offered me a lot of options, mostly to do with visa applications, then put me through to the consulate proper, but all I got was another answering machine message telling me the opening hours.’
‘Try again in the morning.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry for waking you.’
‘That’s all right. Listen, Siobhan … thanks for helping me.’
‘It’s no problem, really.’
‘Then you won’t mind doing something else?’ He could almost hear her smile.
‘What?’
‘That shredder. I’m wondering how long Gillespie’s owned it.’
‘You want me to check?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will do. Goodnight, sir.’
‘Goodnight, Clarke.’
Rebus put down the receiver and decided to get up. Half a minute later, he was asleep on the living-room carpet.
19
On Sunday, Rebus was invited to Oxford Terrace for afternoon tea.
He was glad of the break, having spent much of the previous forty-eight hours trying to piece together some of the strands of A4 paper. He hadn’t made any progress, but it had taken his mind off his swollen gum. By Saturday afternoon, he’d had enough and phoned a dentist, but of course by then all the dentists in Edinburgh were in the clubhouse, deciding over a second gin whether to bother with eighteen holes or, in this weather, just settle for nine.