in a couple of lutes.'
He's not got a pulse,' Goodyear said. 'I checked.'
Rebus glowered at him.
Told you they wouldn't like it,' Goodyear's partner said with ler chuckle.
I'XJontaminates the locus,' Clarke told the young constable, show[him her gloved hands and overshoes. He looked embarrassed.
f'Doctor still has to confirm death,' Rebus added. 'Meantime, you.start persuading that rabble to get themselves home.'
jrlorified bouncers, that's us,' the older cop told his partner as ¦ moved off.
'Which would make this the VIP enclosure,' Clarke said quietly.
She was checking the corpse again. 'He's well enough dressed; probably not homeless.'
'Want to look for ID?'
She took a couple of steps forward and crouched beside the body, pressing a gloved hand against the man's trouser and jacket pockets. 'Can't feel anything,' she said.
'Not even sympathy?'
She glanced up at Rebus. 'Does the suit of armour come off when you collect the gold watch?'
Rebus managed to mouth the word 'ouch'. Reason they'd been staying late at the office so often – Rebus only ten days from retirement, wanting loose ends tied.
'A mugging gone wrong?' Clarke suggested into the silence.
Rebus just shrugged, meaning he didn't think so. He asked Clarke to shine the torch down the body: black leather jacket, an open-necked patterned shirt which had probably started out blue, faded denims held up with a black leather belt, black suede shoes. As far as Rebus could tell, the man's face was lined, the hair greying. Early fifties? Around five feet nine or ten. No jewellery, no wristwatch. Bringing Rebus's personal body-count to… what?
Maybe thirty or forty over the course of his three-decades-plus on the force. Another ten days and this poor wretch would have been somebody else's problem – and still could be. For weeks now he'd been feeling Siobhan Clarke's tension: part of her, maybe the best part of her, wanted Rebus gone. It was the only way she could start to prove herself. Her eyes were on him now, as if she knew what he was thinking. He offered a sly smile.
'I'm not dead yet,' he said, as the Scene-of-Crime van slowed to a halt on the roadway.
The duty doctor had duly declared death. The SOCOs had taped off Raeburn Wynd at top and bottom. Lights had been erected, a sheet pinned up so that onlookers no longer had a view of anything except the shadows on the other side. Rebus and Clarke were suited up in the same white hooded disposable overalls as the SOCOs. A camera team had just arrived, and the mortuary van was standing by. Beakers of tea had materialised from somewhere, wisps of steam rising from them. In the distance: sirens headed elsewhere; drunken yelps from nearby Princes Street; maybe even the hooting of an owl from the churchyard. Preliminary statements had been taken from the teenage girl and the middle-aged couple, and Rebus was nicking through these, flanked by the two constables, the elder of whom, he now knew, was called Bill Dyson.
'Rumour is,' Dyson said, 'you've finally got your jotters.'
'Weekend after next,' Rebus confirmed. 'Can't be too far away yourself.'
'Seven months and counting. Nice wee taxi job lined up for afterwards.
Don't know how Todd will cope without me.'
'I'll try to maintain my composure,' Goodyear drawled.
'That's one thing you're good at,' Dyson was saying, as Rebus went back to his reading. The girl who had found the body was called Nancy Sievewright. She was seventeen and on her way home from a friend's house. The friend lived in Great Stuart Street and Nancy in Blair Street, just off the Cowgate. She had already left school and was unemployed, though hoping to get into college some day to study as a dental assistant. Goodyear had done the interview, and Rebus was impressed: neat handwriting, and plenty of detail. Turning to Dyson's notebook was like turning from hope to despair – a mess of hastily scrawled hieroglyphs. Those seven months couldn't pass quickly enough for PC Bill Dyson. Through guesswork, Rebus reckoned the middle-aged couple were Roger and Elizabeth Anderson and that they lived in Frogston Road West, on the southern edge of the city. There was a phone number, but no hint of their ages or occupations. Instead, Rebus could make out the words 'just passing1 and 'called it in'. He handed the notebooks back without comment. All three would be interviewed again later.
Rebus checked his watch, wondering when the pathologist would arrive. Not much else to be done in the meantime.
Tell them they can go.'
'Girl's still a bit shaky,' Goodyear said. 'Reckon we should drop her home?'
Rebus nodded and turned his attention to Dyson. 'How about the other two?'
Their car's parked in the Grassmarket.'
'Spot of late-night shopping?'
Dyson shook his head. 'Carol concert at St Cuthbert's.'
'A conversation we could have saved ourselves,' Rebus told him, ' you'd bothered to write any of it down.' As his eyes drilled into constable's, he could sense the question Dyson wanted to ask: I would be the bloody point of that? Luckily, the old-timer knew tter than to utter anything of the kind out loud… not until the Br old-timer was well out of earshot.
Rebus caught up with Clarke at the Scene-of-Crime van, where she was quizzing the team leader. His name was Thomas Banks – ' Tarn ' to those who knew him. He gave a nod of greeting and asked if his name was on the guest list for Rebus's retirement do.
'How come you're all so keen to witness my demise?'
'Don't be surprised,' Tam said, 'if the suits from HQ come with stakes and mallets, just to be on the safe side.' He winked towards Clarke. 'Siobhan here tells me you've wangled it so your last shift's a Saturday. Is that so we're all at home watching telly while you take the long walk?'
'Just the way it fell, Tam,' Rebus assured him. 'Any tea going?'
Tou turned your nose up at it,' Tam chided him.
'That was half an hour ago.'
'No second chances here, John.'
'I was asking,' Clarke interrupted, 'if Tarn 's team had anything for us.'
'I'm guessing he said to be patient.'
'That's about the size of it,' Tam confirmed, checking a text message on his mobile phone. 'Stabbing outside a pub at Haymarket,'
he informed them.
'Busy night,' Clarke offered. Then, to Rebus: 'Doctor reckons our man was bludgeoned and maybe even kicked to death. He's betting blunt force trauma at the autopsy.'
'He's not going to get any odds from me,' Rebus told her.
'Nor me,' Tam added, rubbing a finger across the bridge of his nose. He turned to Rebus: 'Know who that young copper was?' He nodded towards the patrol car. Todd Goodyear was helping Nancy Sievewright into the back seat, Bill Dyson drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.
'Never seen him before,' Rebus admitted.
Tou maybe knew his grandad though…' Tam left it at that, wanting Rebus to do the work. It didn't take long.
'Not Harry Goodyear?'
Tam was nodding in confirmation, leaving Clarke to ask who Harry Goodyear was.
'Ancient history,' Rebus informed her.
Which, typically, left her none the wiser.
2
