ten minutes. Left turn, he'd be going home.
He turned right, heading for Queen Street, the top of Leith Walk. The Barony Bar on Broughton Street, he liked it there. Good beer, an old-fashioned place. You wouldn't stand out in a place like that, drinking alone.
And afterwards, it only took him a couple of minutes to find Siobhan Clarke's building. Addresses: no problem in QD. First time they'd met, he'd gone to the office next day, checked up on her. Her flat was on a quiet street, a terrace of four-storey Victorian tenements. Second floor: that was where she lived .2FL: second floor, left side. He went to the terrace opposite. The main door was unlocked. Climbed the stairs, until he reached the half- landing between second and third floors. There was a window, looking out on to the street and the flats opposite. Lights burning in her windows, curtains open. Yes, there she was: briefest of glimpses as she walked across the room. Carrying something, reading it: a CD cover? Hard to tell. He wrapped his jacket around him. Temperature wasn't much above freezing. The skylight above had a hole in it; cold gusts assailing him.
But still he watched.
'When will his body be released?'
'I'm not sure.'
'It's awful, to have someone die and not be able to bury them.'
Rebus nodded. He was in the sitting room of the house in Ravelston. Derek Linford was seated beside him on the sofa. Alicia Grieve looked small and frail in the armchair opposite. Her daughter-in-law, who'd just been speaking, was perched on the arm. Seona Grieve was dressed in black, but Alicia wore a flowery dress, the splashes of colour contrasting with her ash-grey face. To Rebus, her skin seemed like an elephant's, the way the folds fell from her face and neck.
'You have to understand, Mrs Grieve,' Linford said, his voice pouring like treacle, 'in a case like this, there's a need to keep the body. The pathologist may be called on to--'
Alicia Grieve was rising to her feet. 'I can't listen any more!' she trilled. 'Not here, not now. You're going to have to go.'
Seona helped her up. 'It's all right, Alicia. I'll talk to them. Would you like to go upstairs?'
'The garden... I'm going into the garden.'
'Mind you don't slip.'
'I'm not helpless, Seona!'
'Of course not. I'm just saying...' But the old woman was making for the door. She didn't say anything, didn't look back. Closed the door after her. They could hear her feet shuffling away.
Seona slipped into the chair her mother-in-law had vacated. 'Sorry about that.'
'No need to apologise,' Linford said.
'But we will need to talk to her,' Rebus cautioned.
'Is that absolutely necessary?'
'I'm afraid so.' He couldn't tell her: because your husband might have confided in his mother; because maybe she knows things we don't.
'How about you, Mrs Grieve?' Linford asked. 'How are you managing?'
'Like an alcoholic,' Seona Grieve said with a sigh.
'Well, a drink often helps--'
'She means', Rebus interrupted, 'she's taking things one day at a time.'
Linford nodded, as though he'd known this all along.
'Incidentally,' Rebus added, 'does anyone in the family have a drink problem?'
Seona Grieve looked at him. 'You mean Lorna?'
He stayed silent.
'Roddy didn't drink much,' she went on. 'The odd glass of red wine, maybe a whisky before dinner. Cammo... well, Cammo seems unaffected by drink, unless you know him well. It's not that he slurs or starts singing.'
'What then?'
'His behaviour changes, just ever so slightly.' She looked down at her lap. 'Let's say his morals become hazy.'
'Has he ever...?'
She looked at Rebus. 'He tried once or twice.'
Linford, no subtlety on display, glanced meaningfully towards Rebus. Seona Grieve caught the look and snorted.
'Clutching at straws, Inspector Linford?'
He flinched. 'How do you mean?'
'Crime of passion, Cammo killing Roddy so he can get to me.' She shook her head.
'Are we being too simplistic, Mrs Grieve?'
She considered Rebus's question. Took her time over it. So he lobbed in another.
'You say he didn't drink much, your husband, and yet he went out drinking with friends?'
'Yes.'
'Sometimes stayed out overnight?'
'What are you trying to say?'
'It's just that we can't find anyone who was out drinking with him the night he died.'
Linford checked his notebook. 'So far, we've found one bar in the West End, they think he was there early on in the evening, drinking by himself.'
Seona Grieve didn't have anything to say to that. Rebus sat forward. 'Did Alasdair drink?'
'Alasdair?' Caught unawares. 'What's he got to do with this?'
'Any idea where he might be?'
'Why?'
'I'm wondering if he knows about your husband. Surely he'd want to be here for the funeral.'
'He hasn't phoned...' She turned thoughtful again. 'Alicia misses him.'
'Does he ever get in touch?'
'A card now and then: Alicia's birthday, never misses that'
'But no address?'
'No.'
'Postmarks?'
She shrugged. 'All over, mostly abroad.'
There was something in the way she said it that made Rebus state: 'There's something else.'
'I just... I think he gets people to post them for him, when they're on the move.'
'Why would he do that?'
'In case we're trying to find him.'
Rebus sat forward a little further, cutting down the distance between himself and the widow. 'What happened? Why did he leave?'
She shrugged again. 'It was before my time. Roddy was still married to Billie.'
'Had that marriage broken up before you met Mr Grieve?' Linford asked.
Her eyes narrowed. 'What exactly are you implying?'
'To get back to Alasdair,' Rebus said, hoping his tone would dissuade Linford from further queries, 'you've no idea why he left?'
'Roddy talked about him now and again, usually when a card arrived.'
'Cards to him?'
'No, to Alicia.'
Rebus looked around him, but someone had removed Alicia Grieve's birthday cards. 'Did he send one this year?'
'He's always late. It'll arrive in a week or two.' She looked towards the door. 'Poor Alicia. She thinks I'm staying here as a sort of sanctuary.'
'Whereas, in reality, you're looking after her?'
She shook her head. 'Not looking after exactly, but I am worried about her. She's grown fragile. This
