`I mean, you're not a team player. You're a loner, bit like me. Loners can be useful.’
`Useful?’
`For undercover, jobs that are a bit out of the ordinary.’
`You think I'm Special Branch material?’
`Ever fancied moving to London? It's where the action is.’
`I get action enough up here.’
Abernethy looked out of the window. `You couldn't wake this place with a fifty-megaton warhead.? 'Look, Abernethy, not that I'm not enjoying your company or anything, but why are you here?’
Abernethy brushed crumbs from his hands. `So much for the social niceties.’
He took a gulp of coffee, squirmed at its awfulness. `War Crimes,' he said. Rebus stopped chewing. `There's a new list of names. You know that, because you've got one of them living on your doorstep.’
`So?’
`So I'm heading up the London HQ. We've established a temporary War Crimes Unit. My job's to collate gen on the various investigations, create a central register.’
`You want to know what I know?’
`That's about it.’
`And you drove through the night to find out? There's got to be more to it.’
Abernethy laughed. `Why's that?’
`There just has. A collator's job is for someone good at office work. That's not you, you're only happy in the field.’
`What about you? I'd never have taken you for a historian.’
Abernethy tapped one of the books on the table.
`It's a penance.’
`What makes you think it's any different with me? So, what's the score with Herr Lintz?’
`There's no score. So far all the darts have missed the board. How many cases are there?’
`Twenty-seven originally, but eight of those are deceased.’
`Any progress?’
Abernethy shook his head. `We got one to court, trial collapsed first day. Can't prosecute if they're ga-ga.’
`Well, for your information, here's where the Lintz case stands. I can't prove he was and is Josef Linzstek. I can't disprove his story of his participation in the war, or how he came to Britain.’
Rebus shrugged.
`Same tale I've been hearing up and down the country.’
`What did you expect?’
Rebus was picking at a croissant.
`Shame about this coffee,' Abernethy said. `Any decent Gaffs in the neighbourhood?’
So they went to a cafe, where Abernethy ordered a double espresso, Rebus a decaf. There was a story on the front of the Record about a fatal stabbing outside a nightclub. The man reading the paper folded it up when he'd finished his breakfast and took it away with him.
`Any chance you'll be talking to Lintz today?’Abernethy asked suddenly.
'Why?’
`Thought I might tag along. It's not often you get to meet someone who might have killed seven hundred Frenchies.’
`Morbid attraction?’
`We're all a bit that way inclined, aren't we?’
`I've nothing new to ask him,' Rebus said, `and he's already been muttering to his lawyer about harassment.’
`He's well-connected?’
Rebus stared across the table. `You've done your reading.’
'Abernethy the Conscientious Cop.’
`Well, you're right. He has friends in high places, only a lot of them have been hiding behind the curtains since this all started.’
`Sounds like you think he's innocent.’
`Until proven guilty.’
Abernethy smiled, lifted his cup. `There's a Jewish historian been going around. Has he contacted you?’
`What's his name?’
Another smile. `How many Jewish historians have you been in touch with? His name's David Levy.’
`You say he's been going around?’
`A week here, a week there, asking how the cases are going.’
`He's in Edinburgh just now.’
Abernethy blew on his coffee. `So you've spoken with him?’
`Yes, as it happens.’
`And?’
`And what?’
`Did he try his 'Rat Line' story?’
`Again, why the interest?’
`He's tried it with everyone else.’
`What if he has?’
`Jesus, do you always answer a question with a question? Look, as collator, this guy Levy's name has popped up on my computer screen more than once. That's why I'm interested.’
'Abernethy the Conscientious Cop.’
`That's right. So shall we go see Lintz?’
`Well, seeing you've come all this way…’
On the way back to the flat, Rebus stopped at a newsagent's and bought the Record. The stabbing had taken place outside Megan's Nightclub, a new establishment in Portobello. The fatality had been a `doorman', William Tennant, aged 25. The story had made the front page because a Premier League footballer had been on the periphery of the incident. A friend who'd been with him had received minor cuts. The attacker had fled on a motorbike. The footballer had offered no comment to reporters. Rebus knew him. He lived in Linlithgow and a year or so back had been caught speeding in Edinburgh, with – in his own words – a `wee bitty Charlie', meaning cocaine, on his person.
`Anything interesting?’ Abernethy asked.
`Someone killed a bouncer. Quiet little backwater, eh?’
`A story like that, in London it wouldn't rate a column inch.’
`How long are you staying here?’
`I'll be off today, want to drop in on Carlisle. They're supposed to have another old Nazi. After that, it's Blackpool and Wolverhampton before home.’
`A sucker for punishment.’
Rebus drove them the tourist route: down The Mound and across Princes Street. He double parked in Heriot Row, but Joseph Lintz wasn't home.
`Never mind,' he said. `I know where he'll probably be.’
He took them down Inverleith Row and turned right into Warriston Gardens, stopping at the cemetery gates.
`What is he, a gravedigger?’ Abernethy got out of the car and zipped his jacket.
`He plants flowers.’
`Flowers? What for?’
`I'm not sure.’
A cemetery should have been about death, but Warriston didn't feel that way to Rebus. Much of it resembled a rambling park into which some statuary had been dropped. The newer section, with stone driveway, soon gave way to an earthen path between fading inscriptions. There were obelisks and Celtic crosses, lots of trees and birds, and the electric movements of squirrels. A tunnel beneath a walkway took you to the oldest part of the cemetery, but
