Their drinks came. Siobhan checked that she had no messages on her mobile.
'Okay,' Rebus said, 'it'll have to be me who asks it.'
'Asks what?'
'What are you going to do about Linford?'
'Do I know anyone called that?'
'Fair enough.' Rebus went back to drinking his coffee.
Siobhan poured some tea into her cup and lifted it with both hands. 'Did you talk to him?' she asked. Rebus nodded slowly. 'Thought so. You were spotted running out after him.'
'He told the Farmer a lie about me.'
'I know. The chief mentioned it.'
'What did you tell him?'
'The truth,' she said. They were silent, raising their cups and drinking, lowering them again as though synchronised. Rebus was nodding again, though he didn't really know why. Siobhan cracked first. 'So what did you say to Linford?'
'He's going to send you an apology.'
'That's big of him.' She paused. 'You think he means it?'
'I think he regrets what he did.'
'Only because it might have affected his glorious career.'
'You could be right. All the same 'You think I should let it drop?'
'Not exactly. But Linford's got his own leads to follow. With any luck, they'll keep him out of your way.' He looked at her. 'I think he's scared of you.'
She snorted. 'He should be.' She lifted her cup again. 'But fair enough, if he keeps out of my way, I'll keep out of his.'
'Sounds good.'
'You think the trail's gone cold, don't you?'
'Hastings?' She nodded. 'I'm not sure,' he said. 'It's amazing what you can turn up in Edinburgh.'
Blair Martine was waiting for them when they returned to the solicitors' offices. He was rotund and elderly, with a chalk-stripe suit and silver watch-chain.
'I always wondered', he said, 'whether Freddy Hastings would come back to haunt me.' In front of him on the desk sat a ten-inch-thick bundle of manila folders and envelopes, tied together with parcel string. His fingers brushed the topmost folder, came away dusty.
'How do you mean, sir?'
'Well, it was never a case for you lot, but it was a mystery all the same. He just upped and left.'
'Creditors at his heels,' Rebus added.
Martine looked sceptical. He'd obviously lunched very well, his cheeks suffused with contentment, waistcoat straining. When he leaned back in his chair, Rebus feared the buttons would pop slapstick-style.
'Freddy was not without resources,' Martine said. 'That's not to say he didn't make some bad investments; he did. But all the same...' He tapped the files again. Rebus was champing at the bit to be let loose on them, but knew Martine would plead client confidentiality.
'And he did leave a number of creditors,' Martine went on. 'But none of them so very significant. We had to arrange for his flat to be sold. It fetched a fair price, not quite what it might have done.'
'Enough to see off these creditors?' Siobhan asked.
'Yes, and my firm's own fees. Costly business, when someone disappears.' He paused. There was a trick hiding beneath his cuff-linked sleeve. Rebus and Siobhan stayed silent; they could see he was bursting to play it. Martine leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
'I did keep a little aside,' he said conspiratorially, 'to defray the storage costs.'
'Storage?' Siobhan echoed.
The lawyer shrugged. 'I did think Freddy might walk back into my life some day. I just never expected it to be posthumous.' He sighed. 'When is the funeral, incidentally?'
'We've just been to it,' Siobhan told him. She didn't add: with half a dozen mourners. A speedy burial, no personal eulogy from the minister. It could have been called a pauper's funeral, only Supertramp had been no pauper.
'So what exactly is it that's in storage?' Rebus asked.
'Effects from his flat: everything from pens and pencils to a rather fine Persian carpet.'
'Had your eye on that, did you?'
The lawyer glared at Rebus. 'Plus the contents of his office.'
Rebus's back stiffened visibly. 'And where', he asked, 'might we find this storage facility?'
The answer was: on a bleak stretch of road round the northern perimeter of the city. Edinburgh, being coastal, was bounded on its northern and eastern sides by the Firth of Forth. Developers and the council had big plans for Granton, at the city's northernmost extreme.
'Active imagination required,' Rebus said as they drove.
Meaning: Granton at present was an unassuming, in places ugly and brutal, region of harsh sea-wall views, grey industrial buildings and redundancy. Broken factory windows, spray paint, sooty lorries. People like Sir Terence Conran had taken one look at the place and visualised a future of retail and leisure developments, Docklands-style warehouse apartments. They foresaw moneyed people moving in, jobs and homes, a whole new lifestyle.
'Any redeeming features?' Siobhan asked.
Rebus thought for a moment. 'The Starbank's not a bad boozer,' he said. She looked at him. 'You're right,' he conceded. 'That's more Newhaven than Granton.'
Seismic Storage, the premises were called. Three long rows of concrete bunkers, each one roughly three-quarters the size of a normal garage.
'Seismic,' the owner, Gerry Reagan explained, 'in that they'll survive an earthquake.'
'A real worry around here, earthquakes,' Rebus commented.
Reagan smiled. He was leading them down one of the rows. The weather was closing in, clouds gathering and a fierce wind blowing off the estuary. 'The Castle's built on a volcano,' he said. 'And do you remember those tremors a while back in Portobello?'
'Wasn't that mine workings?' Siobhan asked.
'Whatever,' Reagan said. There was constant humour in his eyes, topped off with bushy grey eyebrows. He wore metal-rimmed glasses on a chain around his neck. 'Thing is, my customers know their stuff'll be safe till kingdom come.'
'What sort of customers do you get?' Siobhan asked.
'AH sorts: old folk who've moved into sheltered accommodation, no space for all their furniture. People flitting, either on their way here or heading south. Sometimes they sell up before their new place is ready. I've one or two collectors' cars, too.'
'Do they fit?' Rebus asked.
'It's snug,' Reagan conceded. 'One of them, we had to remove the bumpers. This is it.'
They'd come armed with a letter of authorisation from Blair Martine, which Reagan now held in his hand, along with a key to unlock the up-and-over door.
'Unit thirteen,' he said, double-checking he was in the right place. Then he stooped to unlock the door, yanking it open.
As Martine had explained, Hastings' effects had first been stored in a warehouse. But then the warehouse had undergone conversion, forcing the lawyer to make other arrangements: 'I swear, him going off like that gave me more headaches than a dozen contested estates.' The effects had ended up at Seismic Storage only three years before, and Martine couldn't swear that everything was intact. He'd also told them that he hadn't known Hastings well - a few social occasions: dinners, parties. And that he'd had no dealings with Alasdair Grieve.
Siobhan's question afterwards: 'So if money wasn't why they left, what was?'
Rebus's response: 'Freddy didn't leave.'
'He left and came back,' Siobhan corrected. 'And Alasdair? Is it his body in the fireplace?'
