‘I’m not joking,’ she said. But then she started laughing too.
After two more drinks, Bain said he felt peckish and what about seeing if Howie’s had a table. She wasn’t about to say yes — didn’t really feel that hungry after the lager — but somehow she found herself unable to say no.
Jean Burchill was working late at the Museum. Ever since Professor Devlin had mentioned Dr Kennet Lovell, Jean had been intrigued. She’d decided to do some investigating of her own, to see if the pathologist’s theory could be substantiated. She knew that she could take a short cut by talking to Devlin himself, but something stopped her. She imagined she could still smell formaldehyde on his skin and feel the cold touch of dead flesh when he took her hand. History only brought her in contact with the long-dead, and then usually as mere references in books or artefacts discovered during digs. When her husband had died, his pathology report had made for grim reading, yet whoever had written it had done so with relish, lingering on the liver abnormalities, its swollen and overtaxed nature. ‘Overtaxed’ was the very word the writer had used. Easy enough, she supposed, to diagnose alcoholism after death.
She thought of John Rebus’s drinking. It didn’t seem to her to resemble Bill’s. Bill would toy with his breakfast, then head out to the garage where he kept a bottle hidden. A couple under his belt before getting into the car. She kept finding evidence: empty bourbon bottles in the cellar, and at the back of the topmost shelf of his closet. She never said anything. Bill went on being ‘the life and soul’, ‘steady and reliable’, ‘a fun guy’, right up until the illness stopped him working, sending him to a hospital bed instead.
She didn’t think Rebus was a secret drinker in that way. He just liked to drink. If he did it alone, that was because he didn’t have many friends. She’d asked Bill once why he drank, and he hadn’t been able to answer her. She thought probably John Rebus had answers, though he would be reluctant to give them. They’d be to do with washing away the world, scouring his mind of the problems and questions he kept stored there.
None of which would make him a more attractive drunk than Bill had been, but then so far she hadn’t seen Rebus drunk. She got the feeling he’d be a sleeper: however many drinks it took, and then crashing into unconsciousness wherever he happened to be.
When her phone rang, she was slow to pick it up.
‘Jean?’ It was Rebus’s voice.
‘Hello, John.’
‘Thought you’d have left by now.’
‘I’m working late.’
‘I was just wondering if you...’
‘Not tonight, John. I’ve a lot I want to get done.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose.
‘Fair enough.’ He couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice.
‘What about this weekend: any plans?’
‘Well, that was something I wanted to tell you...’
‘What?’
‘Lou Reed at the Playhouse tomorrow night. I’ve got two tickets.’
‘Lou Reed?’
‘He could be great, could be mince. Only one way to find out.’
‘I haven’t listened to him in years.’
‘Don’t suppose he’s learned how to sing in the interim.’
‘No, probably not. All right then, let’s do it.’
‘Where shall we meet?’
‘I’ve some shopping to do in the morning... how about lunch?’
‘Great.’
‘If you’ve nothing else on, we could make a weekend of it.’
‘I’d like that.’
‘Me too. I’m shopping in town... wonder if we can get a table at Café St Honore?’
‘Is that just along from the Oxford Bar?’
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling. She thought of Edinburgh in terms of restaurants, Rebus pubs.
‘I’ll phone and book.’
‘Make it one o’clock. If they can’t fit us in, call me back.’
‘They’ll fit us in. The chef’s a regular at the Ox.’
She asked him how the case was progressing. He was reticent, until he remembered something.
‘You know Professor Devlin’s anatomist?’
‘Who? Kennet Lovell?’
‘That’s the one. I had to interview a medical student, friend of Philippa’s. Turns out she’s a descendant.’
‘Really?’ Jean tried not to sound too intrigued. ‘Same name?’
‘No: Claire Benzie. She’s related on her mother’s side.’
They chatted for another couple of minutes. When Jean put the phone down, she looked around her. Her ‘office’ was a small cubicle with desk and chair, filing cabinet and bookshelves. She’d stuck some postcards on the back of the door, including one from the Museum shop: the Arthur’s Seat coffins. Secretarial and support staff shared a larger outer office just outside her door, but they’d all gone home. There would be cleaners busy elsewhere in the building, and a security guard doing the rounds. She’d wandered all through the Museum at night, never in the least spooked by it. Even the old museum, with its displays of stuffed animals, calmed her. Friday night, she knew the restaurant at the top of the Museum would be busy. It had its own lift, and someone on the door to make sure diners headed straight for it and didn’t wander into the Museum instead.
She remembered her first meeting with Siobhan, the story of the ‘bad experience’. Couldn’t have had anything to do with the food, though the bill at the end could sometimes come as a shock. She wondered if she’d treat herself later. The price of a meal went down after ten p.m.; maybe they could squeeze her in. She touched her stomach. Lunch tomorrow... it wouldn’t hurt her to skip dinner tonight. Besides, she wasn’t sure she’d still be here at ten. Her investigation into the life of Kennet Lovell hadn’t thrown up a surfeit of information.
Kennet: she’d first thought the name a misprint, but it kept recurring. Kennet, not Kenneth. Born 1807, in Coylton, Ayrshire, making him just twenty-one at the time of Burke’s execution. His parents were farming folk, his father having employed Robert Burns’s father for a time. Kennet was given an education locally, helped by the local church minister, the Reverend Kirkpatrick...
There was a kettle in the outer office. She got up, walked out of her room. Left the door open, so her shadow stretched across the floor. She didn’t bother with the lights. Switched the kettle on and rinsed a mug under the tap. Tea-bag, powdered milk. She stood in the semi-dark, leaning against the worktop, arms folded. Through the doorway, she could see her desk and the photocopied sheets, all she’d been able to find so far on Dr Kennet Lovell, who’d assisted at a murderer’s autopsy, helped flay William Burke’s skin from his bones. The initial post-mortem examination had been undertaken by Dr Monro, in the presence of a select audience including a phrenologist and a sculptor, as well as the philosopher Sir William Hamilton and the surgeon Robert Liston. This was followed by a public dissection in the university’s packed anatomical theatre, noisy medical students gathered around like so many vultures, hungry for knowledge, while those without tickets hammered at the doors for entry and fought with police.
She was working from history books: some about the Burke and Hare case, others about the history of medicine in Scotland. The Edinburgh Room at the Central Library had proved helpful as ever, as had a contact at the National Library. Both had done photocopying for her. She’d taken a trip to Surgeons’ Hall, too, using their library and database. Hadn’t told Rebus about any of this. She knew why: because she was worried. She felt that the Arthur’s Seat case was a blind alley, and one down which John, with his need for answers, might go careering. Professor Devlin had been right about that: obsession was always a trap into which you could fall. This was history — ancient history, compared to the Balfour case. Whether the killer had known about the Arthur’s Seat coffins or not seemed irrelevant. There was no way of telling. She was conducting this research for her own satisfaction; didn’t want John reading anything more into it. He had enough on his plate without that.