Everyone knew Scotland's first family was the Broons.
'What are you smiling at?'
'Nothing.' Rebus nipped his cigarette and returned it to the packet. He couldn't know for sure whether stubbing it out would have contaminated the crime scene. But he knew the importance of Scene of Crime work. And he felt the sudden pang of desire for a drink, the drink he'd arranged with Bobby Hogan just before Friday's discovery. A long bar-room session of reminiscence and tall tales, with no bodies buried in walls or dumped in summer houses. A drink in some parallel universe where people had stopped being cruel to each other.
And speaking of mental torture, here came Chief Superintendent Farmer Watson. He had Rebus in his sights, and his eyes had narrowed, as though taking aim.
'Don't blame me, sir,' Rebus said, getting his retaliation in first.
'Christ, John, can't you stay out of trouble for one minute?' It was only half a joke. Watson's retirement was a couple of months away. He'd already warned Rebus that he wanted a quiet canter downhill. Rebus held up his hands in surrender and introduced his boss to Derek Linford.
'Ah, Derek.' The Chief Super held out a hand. 'Heard of you, of course.' The two men shook; kept shaking as they sized one another up.
'Sir,' Rebus interrupted, 'DI Linford and I... we feel this should be our case. We're looking at parliamentary security, and this is a prospective MSP who's been killed.'
Watson seemed to ignore him. 'Do we know how he died?'
'Not yet, sir,' Linford was quick to answer. Rebus was impressed at the way he had changed. He was all fawning inferior now, eager to please the Big Chief. It was calculated, of course, but Rebus doubted Watson would notice, or even want to notice.
'Doctor mentioned head trauma,' Linford added. 'Curiously, we're getting a similar result from the body in the fireplace. Skull fracture and stab wound.'
Watson nodded slowly. 'No stab wounds here, though.'
'No, sir,' Rebus said. 'But all the same.'
Watson looked at him. 'You think I'd let you near a case like this?'
Rebus shrugged.
I can show you the fireplace,' Linford told Watson. Rebus wondered if he was trying to defuse the situation. Linford could get the case only through the PPLC, which meant not without Rebus.
'Maybe later, Derek,' the Farmer was saying. 'Nobody's going to bother much about a mouldy old skeleton when we've got Roddy Grieve on our hands.'
'It wasn't that mouldy, sir,' Rebus felt bound to say. 'And it'll still need investigating.'
'Naturally,' Watson snapped. 'But there are priorities, John. Even you've got to see that.' Watson held a hand out, palm upwards. 'Hell, is it starting to snow?'
'Might persuade some of the audience to head indoors,' Rebus said.
The Farmer grunted in agreement. 'Well, if it's going to start snowing, Derek, you might as well show me this fireplace of yours.'
Derek Linford looked as though he'd melt with pleasure, and started leading the Farmer indoors, leaving Rebus out in the cold, where he allowed himself a cigarette and a little smile. Let Linford work on the Farmer... that way they might get both cases, a workload to keep Rebus busy through the winter's darkest weeks, and the perfect excuse to ignore Christmas for another year.
Identification was a formality, albeit a necessary one. The public entered the mortuary by a door in High School Wynd, and were immediately faced by a door marked Viewing Room. There were chairs for them to sit in. If they chose to wander, they'd come across a desk with a department store mannequin seated behind it. The mannequin was dressed in a white lab coat and had a moustache pencilled below its nose - a rare, if bizarre, example of humour, given the surroundings.
It would be some time before Gates and Curt could get round to doing an autopsy, but, as Dougie reassured Rebus, there was 'plenty of room in the fridge'. There wasn't nearly so much space in the reception area outside the Viewing Room. Roddy Grieve's widow was there. So were his mother and sister. His brother Cammo was flying up from London. An unwritten rule stated that the media kept clear of the mortuary, no matter how juicy the story. But a few of the most rapacious vultures had gathered on the pavement across the road. Rebus, stepping outside for a cigarette, approached them. Two journalists, one photographer. They were young and lean and had little or no respect for old rules. They knew him, shuffled their feet but made no attempt to move.
'I'm going to ask nicely,' Rebus said, shaking a cigarette from its pack. He lit it, then offered the pack around. The three shook their heads. One was fiddling with his mobile phone, checking messages on its tiny screen.
'Anything for us, DI Rebus?' the other reporter asked.
Rebus stared at him, seeing immediately that it was no good appealing to reason.
'Off the record, if you like,' the reporter persisted.
'I don't mind being quoted,' Rebus said quietly. The reporter lifted a tape-recorder from his jacket pocket.
'Bit closer, please.'
The reporter obliged, switched the machine on.
Rebus was careful to enunciate slowly and clearly. After eight or nine words, the reporter flicked the machine off, the look on his face somewhere between a sneer and a grudging smile. Behind him, his colleagues were staring at their shoes.
'Need a spell-check for any of that?' Rebus asked. Then he crossed the road and headed back into the mortuary.
The ID was over, the paperwork complete. The family members looked numb. Even Linford looked a bit shaken: maybe it was another of his acts. Rebus approached the widow.
'We can arrange for a couple of cars She sniffed back tears. 'No, that's all right. Thanks anyway.' She blinked, eyes finally focusing on him. 'A taxi should be coming.' The deceased's sister came across, leaving her mother stony-faced and straight-backed on one of the chairs.
'Mum has a funeral home she wants to use, if that's all right with you.' Lorna Cordover was speaking to the widow, but it was Rebus who answered.
'You realise we can't release the body just yet.'
She stared at him with eyes he'd stared at a thousand times in newspapers and magazines. Lorna Grieve: her modelling name. She wasn't yet fifty, but was closing in on it fast. Rebus had first come across her towards the end of the sixties, when she'd have been in her late teens. She'd dated rock stars, was rumoured to have caused the break-up of at least one successful band. She'd been in Melody Maker and NME. Long straw-blond hair back then, and thin to the point of emaciation. She'd filled out quite a bit, and her hair was shorter, darker. But there was still something about her, even in this place, at this time.
'We're his bloody family,' she snapped.
'Please, Lorna,' her sister-in-law cautioned.
'Well, we are, aren't we? Last thing we need is some jumped-up little squirt with a clipboard telling us--'
'I think maybe you're confusing me with the staff here,' Rebus cut in.
She looked at him again, eyes narrowing. 'Then just who the hell are you?'
'He's the policeman,' Seona Grieve explained. 'He'll be the one who looks into...' But she couldn't find the words, and the sentence died softly with an exhalation.
Lorna Grieve snorted, pointed towards Derek Linford, who had seated himself next to the mother, Alicia. He was leaning towards her, his hand touching the back of hers. 'That', Lorna informed them, 'is the officer who'll be investigating Roddy's murder.' She squeezed Seona's shoulder. 'He's the one we should be talking to,' she said. Then, with a final glance towards Rebus, 'Not his monkey.'
Rebus watched her move back towards the chairs. Beside him, the widow spoke so softly he didn't catch it.
'Sorry,' she repeated.
He smiled, nodded. There were a dozen platitudes scrawled and waiting in his head. He rubbed a hand across his forehead to erase them.
