‘Pity the poor bugger whose job is keeping the formaldehyde topped up,’ Devlin said, panting from the exertion.
Rebus stared at the contents of one glass cylinder. The face of an infant stared back at him, but it looked distorted somehow. Then he realised that it sat atop two distinct bodies. Siamese twins, joined at the head, parts of either face forming a singular whole. Rebus, who’d seen his fair share of horror, was held in grim fascination. But there were other exhibits to explore: further deformed foetuses. Paintings, too, mostly from the nineteenth century: soldiers with bits blown off them by cannonball or musket.
‘This is my favourite,’ Devlin said. Surrounded by obscene images, he had found a still point, the portrait of a young man, almost smiling for the artist. Rebus read the inscription.
‘ “Dr Kennet Lovell, February, eighteen twenty-nine.” ’
‘Lovell was one of the anatomists charged with the dissection of William Burke. It’s even likely that he pronounced Burke dead after the hanging. Less than a month later, he sat for this portrait.’
‘He looks pretty happy with his lot,’ Rebus commented.
Devlin’s eyes sparkled. ‘Doesn’t he? Kennet was a craftsman too. He worked with wood, as did Deacon William Brodie, of whom you will have heard.’
‘Gentleman by day, housebreaker by night,’ Rebus acknowledged.
‘And perhaps the model for Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde. As a child, Stevenson had a wardrobe in his room, one of Brodie’s creations...’
Rebus was still studying the portrait. Lovell had deep black eyes, a cleft chin and a profusion of dark locks of hair. He had no doubt that the painter would have flattered his subject, maybe shaved a few years and pounds from him. Still, Lovell was a handsome man.
‘It’s interesting about the Balfour girl,’ Devlin said. Startled, Rebus turned to him. The old man, his breathing regular now, had eyes only for the painting.
‘What is?’ Rebus asked.
‘The caskets found on Arthur’s Seat... the way the press have brought them up again.’ He turned towards Rebus. ‘One notion is that they represent Burke and Hare’s victims...’
‘Yes.’
‘And now another casket seems to be some memorial for young Philippa.’
Rebus turned back to the portrait. ‘Lovell worked with wood?’
‘The table in my dining room.’ Devlin smiled. ‘He made that.’
‘Is that why you bought it?’
‘A small memento of the early years of pathology. The history of surgery, Inspector, is the history of Edinburgh.’ Devlin sniffed and then sighed. ‘I miss it, you know.’
‘I don’t think I would.’
They were walking away from the portrait. ‘It was a privilege, in its way. Endlessly fascinating, what this animal exterior can contain.’ Devlin slapped his own chest to make the point. Rebus didn’t feel he had anything to add. To him, a body was a body was a body. By the time it was dead, whatever it was that had made it interesting had disappeared. He almost said as much, but knew he’d fail to match the old pathologist’s eloquence.
Back in the main hall, Devlin turned to him. ‘Look here, you really ought to come along tonight. Plenty of time to run home and change.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Rebus said. ‘It’ll be all shop talk, you said as much yourself.’ And besides, he could have added, he didn’t own so much as a dinner jacket, never mind the rest.
‘But you’d enjoy it,’ Devlin persisted. ‘Bearing in mind our conversation.’
‘Why’s that?’ Rebus asked.
‘The speaker is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. He’s discussing the dichotomy between body and spirit.’
‘You’ve lost me already,’ Rebus said.
Devlin just smiled at him. ‘I think you pretend to be less able than you are. Probably useful to you in your chosen career.’
Rebus admitted as much with a shrug. ‘This speaker,’ he said. ‘It’s not Father Conor Leary, is it?’
Devlin’s eyes widened. ‘You know him? All the more reason to join us.’
Rebus was thoughtful. ‘Maybe just for a drink before dinner.’
Back at St Leonard’s, Ellen Wylie was not best pleased.
‘Your idea of a “break” differs somewhat from mine,’ she complained.
‘I bumped into someone,’ he said. She didn’t say anything else, but he knew she was holding back. Her face remained tense and when she snatched up the receiver it was as though with malice aforethought. She wanted something more from him: a fuller apology maybe, or some words of praise. He held off for a while, then, as she attacked the telephone again, asked:
‘Is it because of that press conference?’
‘What?’ She slammed the receiver back down.
‘Ellen,’ he said, ‘it’s not as—’
‘Don’t you fucking dare patronise me!’
He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay, no more first names. Sorry if it sounded patronising, DS Wylie.’
She glowered at him, then suddenly her face changed, became looser. She forced a smile from somewhere and rubbed at her cheeks with her hands.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Me too.’ She looked at him. ‘For being out so long. I should have called it in.’ He shrugged. ‘But now you know my awful secret.’
‘Which is?’
‘To wring an apology from John Rebus, you first have to violate a telephone.’
This time she laughed. It was far from full-blooded, and retained an edge of hysteria, but she seemed the better for it. They got back to work.
By the end of play, however, they’d achieved next to nothing. He told her not to worry, it was bound to be a rocky start. She shrugged her arms into her coat, asked if he was going for a drink.
‘Previous appointment,’ he told her. ‘Another night though, eh?’
‘Sure,’ she said. But she didn’t sound as if she believed it.
He drank alone: just the one before the walk to Surgeons’ Hall; a Laphroaig, with the merest trickle of water to smooth its edges. He chose a pub Ellen Wylie wouldn’t know, didn’t like the thought of bumping into her after he’d turned her down. He’d need a few drinks in him to tell her she was wrong, that one tongue-tied press conference wasn’t the end of her career. Gill Templer was down on her, no question of that, but Gill wasn’t stupid enough to let it turn into a feud. Wylie was a good cop, an intelligent detective. She’d get her chance again. If Templer kept knocking her back, she herself would start to look bad.
‘Another?’ the barman said.
Rebus checked his watch. ‘Aye, go on then.’
It suited him, this place. Small and anonymous and hidden away. There wasn’t even a name outside, nothing to identify it. It was on a corner in a back street where only the knowing would find it. Two old regulars in the corner, sitting straight-backed, eyes hypnotised by the far wall. Their dialogue was sparse and guttural. The TV had its sound turned off, but the barman watched it anyway: some American courtroom drama, with lots of pacing about and walls painted grey. Now and then there was a close-up of a woman trying to seem worried. Unwilling to rely on facial expression alone, she wrung her hands as well. Rebus handed over his money and poured the remains of his first drink into its replacement, shaking the drips out. One of the old men coughed, then sniffed. His neighbour said something, and he nodded silent agreement.
‘What’s going on?’ Rebus couldn’t help asking the barman.