‘Sir, I appreciate all of this.’

‘Inspector … if you’re coming north again any time, call to let me know, understood?’

Rebus understood that it wasn’t an invitation to afternoon tea.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘good night.’

He put the phone down. Aberdeen beckoned, and he was damned if he’d give anyone prior notice. But Aberdeen could wait another day. Vanessa Holden connected to the oil industry …

‘What is it, John?’

Rebus looked up at his friend. ‘It’s Johnny Bible, Jack. I just got a strange feeling about him.’

‘What?’

‘That he’s an oilman …’

They tidied everything away and washed up, then made mugs of coffee and decided to go back to the decorating. Jack wanted to know more about Johnny Bible, and about Eve and Stanley, but Rebus didn’t know where to start. His head felt clogged. He kept filling it with new information, and nothing drained away. Johnny Bible’s first victim had been a geology student at a university with close ties to the oil industry. Now his fourth victim made stands for conventions, and working in Aberdeen, he could guess who her best clients had been. If there was a connection between victims one and four, was there something he was missing, something linking two and three? A prostitute and a barmaid, one in Edinburgh, the other Glasgow …

When the telephone rang, he put down his sandpaper – the door was looking good – and picked it up. Jack was using a ladder to reach the cornices.

‘Hello?’

‘John? It’s Mairie.’

‘I’ve been trying to reach you.’

‘Sorry, another assignment – a paying one.’

‘Did you find out anything about Major Weir?’

‘A fair bit. How was Aberdeen?’

‘Bracing.’

‘It’ll do that to you. These notes … probably too much to read over the phone.’

‘So let’s meet.’

‘Which pub?’

‘Not a pub.’

‘There must be something wrong with the line. Did you just say “not a pub”?’

‘How about Duddingston Village? That’s about halfway. I’ll park by the loch.’

‘When?’

‘Half an hour?’

‘Half an hour it is.’

‘We’ll never get this room finished,’ Jack said, stepping down off the ladder. He had traces of white paint in his hair.

‘Grey suits you,’ Rebus told him.

Jack rubbed at his head. ‘Is it another woman?’ Rebus nodded. ‘How do you manage to keep them apart?’

‘The flat has a lot of doors.’

Mairie was waiting when they got there. Jack hadn’t been around Arthur’s Seat in years, so they took the scenic route; not that there was much to see at night. The huge hump of a hill, looking like nothing so much as – even kids could see it – a crouched elephant, was a great place to blow off the cobwebs – and anything else you might have on you. At night, though, it was poorly lit and a long way from anywhere. Edinburgh had lots of these glorious empty spaces. They were fine and private places right up until the moment you met your first junkie, mugger, rapist or gay-basher.