‘What about you?’ Duggan asked. ‘What are you going to do?’
But Rebus had released his hold on the body and was heading back downstairs.
He went into a dive he knew near the foot of Leith Walk. It had a burgundy linoleum floor and matching coloured walls, and was like staring into somebody’s throat.
‘Whisky,’ Rebus said. ‘A double.’
And when the whisky came, he drank it down in two gulps.
‘Know something?’ he said to the closest drinker. ‘A couple of days ago, I was eating wild smoked salmon and shooting clay-pigeons.’
‘Better that than the other way round, son,’ the elderly drinker said, adjusting the cap on his head.
That night, Mrs Cochrane came upstairs to tell him there was a small dark patch on her living-room ceiling. Rebus had forgotten to empty the coffee-jar. Water had soaked the bare floorboard beneath.
‘Wait till it’s dried out,’ he said by way of apology, ‘and I’ll touch up the paintwork.’
He’d been asleep in his chair, but now felt wide awake. It was half past eleven, too late to do anything. Then the telephone rang, and he picked it up.
‘I’m not interested,’ he said.
‘You’ll be interested in this.’
Rebus recognised the voice of DC Robert Burns. ‘Don’t tell me West End needs my help?’
‘We’re not that desperate. I just thought I’d do you a favour. Looks like we’ve got a murder.’
Rebus’s grip tightened on the receiver. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘Identification near the body suggests the name’s Thomas Gillespie.’
‘Councillor Gillespie?’
‘I haven’t told you the best part yet. He was found in a lane connecting Dundee Street to Dalry Road.’
Rebus tried to fix the geography. ‘Next to the cemetery?’
‘Yes. The lane’s called Coffin Walk.’
Coffin Walk climbed quite steeply from Dalry Road. It had the busy Western Approach Road on one side, Dalry Cemetery on the other. It was a narrow alley, well lit but long.
‘If someone stopped you halfway,’ Burns told Rebus, leading him down the lane, ‘there’d be no escape.’
‘But you’d see an attacker, wouldn’t you? There’s no place to hide.’
Burns nodded at the cemetery wall. ‘You could stand behind there, listen for someone coming, then jump over when they got close. It’s the perfect site for an ambush.’
‘You think that’s what this was?’
Burns shrugged. They were close to the body now. Police officers with torches were in the cemetery, looking for footprints and the murder weapon. The lane had been sealed off at both ends, and though there was a knot of policemen near the body, the only person actually next to it was the pathologist, Professor Gates. Gates was telling the photographer what to do, and DI Davidson was talking to the undertaker. Even in mufti — padded jacket and jeans rather than the black suit — an undertaker was recognisable.
‘So what happened?’ Rebus asked Burns.
‘Somebody came out of the Diggers, walked up Angle Park Terrace, looked down here, and saw the body. They thought it was a tramp sleeping rough. Well, there’s a night shelter on Gorgie Road, so the guy came down here to say so.’
‘Like a good citizen.’
‘He saw the blood, knew fine well what had happened, and called us.’
Rebus pointed to a wallet, which lay a couple of feet from the body. ‘That was lying there?’
‘Yep, driver’s licence, blood donor card …’
‘But no cash or credit cards?’
‘Cleaned out.’
‘And nobody saw the attack?’
‘My guess is, he hoofed it back over the wall.’
Professor Gates had finished his initial examination. ‘We can wrap this one up,’ he said.
But Rebus wanted a look first. Tom Gillespie lay in a protective foetal position. He hadn’t been dead when he dropped. He’d curled himself around the pain in his gut.
‘Stab wound,’ Professor Gates said. ‘The shock probably killed him.’
‘Has his widow been notified?’
‘Are you volunteering, John?’ Davidson said.
‘This isn’t my patch, remember.’
‘No, but you knew the deceased. Anything you want to tell us?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘I will ask a question though: what was he doing here? He lives in Marchmont, chances are he’d never even heard of Coffin Walk. God knows I hadn’t. So why was he here, where was he headed?’
‘Maybe the Diggers.’
The Diggers was actually the Athletic Arms pub, but got its nickname from the gravediggers who’d used it in the past.
‘Not much of a shortcut, is it?’
‘Not much,’ Davidson agreed. ‘Lots of questions, John.’
‘I know the way your mind works, Davidson. You think it’s a simple mugging gone wrong — assailant: unknown; motive: robbery.’
‘So let’s hear your theory.’
Rebus smiled. His head was full of theories. Maybe too many for his own good. ‘Give me a cigarette,’ he said.
‘Not at the locus, John,’ Davidson warned. Rebus looked at the body again. It was being bagged. A trip to the mortuary first, and then the funeral parlour, your last journeys in the world as predictable as your first.
‘I asked if you had a theory,’ Davidson said.
‘OK, OK.’ Rebus put his hands up in surrender. ‘Take me back to your nice warm police station, give me a cigarette, and I’ll tell you a story. Just don’t blame me if it doesn’t make sense.’
He would tell Davidson what he knew, which wasn’t half as much as he suspected.
Which itself wasn’t half as much as he feared.
34
Next morning, when DI Davidson went to the widow’s house, Rebus went with him.
The curtains were closed, reminding Rebus of the day of McAnally’s funeral, inside Tresa’s flat. The door was answered not by Mrs Gillespie but by Helena Profitt, dressed in circumspect black — skirt, tights and shoes — and a plain white blouse.
‘I came as soon as I heard,’ she said, leading them inside. She looked surprised to see Rebus. We must, he thought, stop meeting like this.
‘Two policemen to see you, Audrey,’ Miss Profitt said, opening the living-room door.
It was a big light room, with prominence given to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases which lined two walls. The TV didn’t look much used, and though there was a video machine, Rebus couldn’t see more than half a dozen tapes. At one end of the room was a huge desk covered in paperwork, and a small table supporting a telephone and fax machine. The room, it seemed to him, was little more than an extension of the office at the front of the house, making Rebus wonder about Gillespie’s family life or, more pertinently, the lack of it.
His widow sat on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her. She’d started to rise, but Davidson had waved her back down. She looked as if she hadn’t slept. There was an empty mug on the floor, and next to it a tiny brown bottle of tablets. Despite the central heating, Audrey Gillespie was trembling.
‘Shall I make some tea?’ Helena Profitt asked.
‘Not for us, thanks,’ Davidson said.
‘Well, I’ll leave you to it. Shall I pop back later, Audrey?’
‘Only if it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Of course not.’ Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. Rebus saw through her act, saw she was as broken up as anyone. He followed her out of the room.
‘Could you wait in the kitchen? I’d like a quick word.’
She nodded hesitantly. Rebus went back into the living room and sat down next to Davidson.
‘Remember me, Mrs Gillespie?’ Davidson was saying. ‘We met last night.’
Davidson was good, better than a lot of coppers. It was a skill, handling other people’s grief, gauging what to say and how to say it, knowing how much they could take.
Audrey Gillespie nodded, then looked at Rebus. ‘And I know you, too, don’t I?’
‘I came to talk to your husband once.’ Rebus strived for the same tone Davidson had used.