Resurrection Men

Rebus saw her point. “I don’t suppose they’ve had any more luck tracking Mr. Montrose down than we have. And if they haven’t started looking by now, I think they’re whistling ‘Dixie.’ ”

“Because Montrose no longer exists?” Siobhan guessed.

Rebus nodded. “Know the best way to make someone disappear, Siobhan?”

She thought for a moment, then shrugged.

“If they’ve never been there in the first place,” Rebus told her, beginning to gather up the papers.

They stopped for a Chinese take-away and, already being on Siobhan’s side of town, went to her flat.

“I’m warning you,” she said, “it’ll look like a bomb’s hit it.”

And it did. Rebus could see how she’d spent her weekend: video rentals, a pizza box, crisp bags and chocolate wrappers, and a selection of CDs. As she went to fetch plates from the kitchen, he asked if he could put some music on.

“Be my guest.”

He perused the rack of titles, most of the names meaning nothing to him. “Massive Attack,” he called to her, opening the lid. “They any good?”

“Maybe not for our purposes. Try the Cocteau Twins.”

There were four to choose from. He opened one, dropped the CD onto the tray of the player, pressed the LOAD button. He was opening more of the cases when she came back through carrying a tray.

“You put your CDs back the right way up,” he commented.

“You’re not the first to notice. I should also tell you that I line up the tins in my cupboards with the labels facing out.”

“Profilers would have a field day with you.”

“Funny you should say that: Andrea Thomson offered me counseling after that attack on Laura.”

“You sound as though you liked her.”

“Thomson?” She was being obtuse.

“Laura,” Rebus corrected, accepting the plate and fork from her. They started prizing open the cartons of food.

“I did like her,” Siobhan confessed, pouring soy sauce onto her noodles. She sat down on the sofa. Rebus took the armchair. “What do you think of it?”

“I haven’t started yet,” Rebus said.

“I meant the music.”

“It’s fine.”

“They’re from Grangemouth, you know.”

“Must be all the chemicals in the water.” Rebus was thinking of the drive between Edinburgh and Tulliallan, passing the flare towers of Grangemouth in the distance, looking like some low-budget Blade Runner set. “You had a quiet weekend, then?”

“Mmm,” she said, mouth full of vegetables.

“Still seeing Brains?”

“His name’s Eric. We’re just friends. Did you see Jean at the weekend?”

“Yes, thanks.” He remembered the way it had turned out, with a patrol car leading him at speed through streets not far from here . . .

“Shall we call a truce on asking questions about one another’s love life?”

Rebus nodded his agreement, and they ate in silence. Afterwards, they cleared the coffee table and placed all the paperwork there. Siobhan said she had some lagers in the fridge. Turned out they were Mexican. Rebus frowned at the bottle, but Siobhan paid no attention; she knew he’d drink it anyway.

Then they got back to work.

“Who exactly was at the party that night?” Rebus asked. “Do we have a description of Montrose?”

“Always supposing he was there and the scribble didn’t belong to a Marlowe or Matthews . . .” She found the relevant pages in the folder. They’d interviewed everyone they could, but there were still some uncertainties. Bound to be, with the place so crowded and not all of the guests acquainted. She remembered Hood’s computer simulation. The gallery had sent out a hundred and ten invitations. Seventy-five had RSVP’d to accept, but not all of them had turned up on the night, and others, who hadn’t got round to replying, had turned up.

“Like Cafferty,” Rebus said.

“Like Cafferty,” Siobhan agreed.

“So how many were actually there on the night?”

She shrugged. “It’s not a precise science. If they’d bothered to sign the guest book, we might have had a better chance.”

“Montrose signed.”

“Or Matthews . . .”

He stuck out his tongue, then stretched his spine and groaned. “So what exactly did you do with all the guests?”

“We asked them who else they could remember being there: the names of anyone they’d known or talked to, physical descriptions of anyone else they could think of.”

Rebus nodded. It was the kind of painstaking detail that was oftentimes useless to a case, but very occasionally threw up some nugget. “And did you manage to put names to all the faces?”

“Not exactly,” she admitted. “One guest described someone in a tartan jacket. Nobody else seemed to have spotted it.”

“Sounds like they’d had a bit to drink.”

“Or had been to too many parties that night. There are a lot of vague descriptions . . . we did try to match each and every one of them . . .”

“Not easy,” Rebus admitted. “So what are we left with? Anyone put a name to Cafferty?”

“One or two, yes. He didn’t seem keen on striking up conversations.”

“You still see him as Montrose?”

“We could always ask.”

“We could,” Rebus agreed. “But maybe not yet.”

She pointed to a particular paragraph on one sheet. “These are all the descriptions that seem to be indicating Cafferty.”

Rebus read down the list. “Two of them have got him wearing a black leather jacket.”

“Which is what he usually wears.” Siobhan was nodding. “He had it on when he came to the station.”

“But another two have got him in a brown sports jacket . . .”

“They got through four dozen bottles of champagne,” Siobhan reminded him.

“And one person’s got him with darker hair . . . describes him as being ‘fairly tall.’ What’s Cafferty — five- nine? Would you say that was tall?”

“Maybe if the person describing him was on the short side . . . What’s your point?”

“My point is that we could be talking about two different people.”

“Cafferty and someone else?”

“Who happens to share some physical similarities.” Rebus was nodding. “Taller than Cafferty, with hair not turned so gray.”

“And wearing a brown jacket. That narrows things down nicely.” She saw that her sarcasm was lost on Rebus. He was deep in thought. “Our Mr. Montrose?” she asked.

“Maybe we’re just starting to see him, Siobhan. Only an outline, but definitely there . . .”

“So what now?” Siobhan looked suddenly tired. They’d been working flat out, and now she was home and feeling like a bath and an hour or two of mindless TV.

“Just to put your mind at rest, I thought we might pay Cafferty a visit.”

“Right now?”

“Could be we’ll catch him at home. But I want to drop in to Arden Street first, pick something up. Oh, and we’ll need to talk to Miss Meikle. Look and see if she’s in the phone book, will you?”

“Yes, boss,” Siobhan said, seeing bath and TV receding into the distance.