“The one you owe me…” He paused. “Except that’s not the deal you made with Rebus, is it?”
Siobhan smiled. “All depends. Are you at the lab?”
“Working my ass off on your behalf.”
“The stuff from Clootie Well?”
“Might have something for you, though I’m not sure you’re going to like it. How soon can you get here?”
“Half an hour.” She turned away from the sudden blare of the air horn.
“No prizes for guessing where you are,” Duff’s voice said. “I’ve got it on the news channel here.”
“The march or the demonstration?”
“Demo, naturally. Happy, law-abiding marchers hardly make for a story, even when they number quarter of a million.”
“Quarter of a million?”
“That’s what they’re saying. See you in half an hour.”
“Bye, Ray.” She ended the call. A figure like that…more than half the population of Edinburgh. It was like three million on the streets of London. And sixty black-clad figures hogging the news cycle for the next hour or two…
Because after that, all eyes would turn to the Live 8 concert in London.
No, no, no, she thought, too cynical, Siobhan; you’re thinking like John bloody Rebus. Nobody could ignore a human chain encircling the city, a ribbon of white, all that passion and hope…
Minus one.
Had she ever planned to stick around, add her own small self to the statistics? No chance of that now. She could apologize later to her parents. For now, she was on the move, walking away from the Meadows. Her best bet: St. Leonard ’s, the nearest police station. Hitch a lift in a patrol car; hijack one if need be. Her own car was sitting in the garage Rebus had recommended. Mechanic had said to call him on Monday. She remembered how one owner of a 4x4 had apparently moved her car out of town for the duration, lest rioters should target it. Just one more scare story, or so she’d thought at the time…
Santal didn’t appear to notice her leave.
“…can’t even mail a letter,” Ray Duff was saying. “They’ve locked up all the mailboxes in case someone decides to put a bomb in one.”
“Some of the shop fronts on Princes Street are boarded up,” Siobhan added. “What do you reckon it is Ann Summers is afraid of?”
“Basque separatists?” Rebus guessed. “Any chance of us getting to the point?”
Duff snorted. “He’s afraid he’ll miss the big reunion.”
“ Reunion?” Siobhan looked at Rebus.
“Pink Floyd,” Rebus answered. “But if it’s anything like McCartney and U2, I’m well shut of it.”
The three were standing in one of the labs belonging to the Lothian and Borders Forensic Science Unit on Howdenhall Road. Duff, midthirties with short brown hair and a pronounced widow’s peak, was polishing his glasses on a corner of his white lab coat. The rise of television’s CSI franchise had had, to Rebus’s mind, a detrimental effect on all the Howdenhall techs. Despite their lack of resources, glamour, and pounding sound track, they all seemed to think they were actors. Moreover, some of the CID had started to agree and would ask them to replicate the TV shows’ most far-fetched forensic techniques. Duff had apparently decided that his own role would be that of eccentric genius. As a result, he had dispensed with his contact lenses and reverted to NHS-style specs with thick black frames, the better to complement the row of multicolored pens in his top pocket. Additionally, a line of alligator clips was attached to one lapel. As Rebus had pointed out on arrival, he looked like he’d walked out of a Devo video.
And now he was stringing them along.
“In your own time,” Rebus encouraged him. They were standing in front of a workbench on which various pieces of cloth had been laid out. Duff had placed numbered squares beside each one, and smaller squares- apparently color-coded-next to any stains or blemishes on each article. “Sooner we’re done, sooner you can get back to polishing the chrome on your MG.”
“That reminds me,” Siobhan said. “Thanks for offering me to Ray.”
“You should have seen first prize,” Rebus muttered. “What are we looking at, Prof?”
“Mud and bird shit mostly.” Duff rested his hands on his hips. “Brown for the former, gray for the latter.” He nodded at the colored squares.
“Leaving blue and pink…”
“Blue is for stuff that needs further analysis.”
“Tell me pink is for lipstick,” Siobhan said quietly.
“Blood, actually.” Duff spoke with a flourish.
“Oh, good,” Rebus responded, eyes fixing on Siobhan. “How many?”
“Two so far. Numbered one and two. One is a pair of brown cord trousers. Blood can be a bugger to make out against a brown background-resembles rust. Two belongs to a sports shirt, pale yellow, as you can see.”
“Not really,” Rebus said, leaning over for a closer look. The shirt was caked with dirt. “What’s that on the left breast? Badge of some kind?”
“What it actually says is Keogh’s Garage. The blood spatter is on the back.”
“Spatter?”
Duff nodded. “Consistent with a blow to the head. Something like a hammer, you make contact, break the skin, and when you draw the hammer away, the blood flies off in all directions.”
“Keogh’s Garage?” Siobhan’s question was directed at Rebus, who merely shrugged. Duff, however, cleared his throat.
“Nothing in the Perthshire phone book. Or Edinburgh, come to that.”
“Fast work, Ray,” Siobhan said approvingly.
“Another brownie point there, Ray,” Rebus added with a wink. “How about contestant number one?”
Duff nodded. “Not spatter this time-dollops on the right leg, around the level of the knee. Whack someone on the head, you’ll get some drips like that.”
“You’re saying we’ve got three victims, one attacker?”
Duff shrugged. “No way to prove it, of course. But ask yourself: what are the chances of three victims having three different attackers, all ending up in the same obscure location?”
“You’ve got a point, Ray,” Rebus conceded.
“And we’ve got a serial killer,” Siobhan said into the silence. “Different blood types, I take it?” She watched Duff nod. “Any idea which order they might have died in?”
“CC Rider is the freshest. I’d guess the sports shirt is the oldest.”
“And no other clues from the cords?”
Duff shook his head slowly, then dug into his lab-coat pocket and produced a clear plastic envelope. “Unless you count this, of course.”
“What is that?” Siobhan asked.
“Cash-machine card,” Duff told her, relishing the moment. “Name of Trevor Guest. So never let me hear you say I don’t earn my little rewards…”
Back in the fresh air, Rebus lit a cigarette. Siobhan paced the length of a parking bay, arms folded.
“One killer,” she stated.
“Yep.”
“Two named victims, the other a mechanic…”
“Or a car salesman,” Rebus mused. “Or just someone who had access to a shirt advertising a garage.”
“Thanks for refusing to narrow the search.”
He shrugged. “If we’d found a scarf with a soccer team’s logo on it, would we be homing in on the team?”
“All right, point taken.” She stopped in her tracks. “Do you need to get back to the autopsy?”
He shook his head. “One of us is going to have to break the news to Macrae.”
She nodded. “I’ll do it.”
“Not a hell of a lot more to be done today.”
“Back to Live 8 then?”
He gave another shrug. “And the Meadows for yourself?” he guessed.
She nodded, her mind elsewhere. “Can you think of a worse week for this to happen?”
