‘Hiya, Jack, thought you were still in Falkirk?’

DI Jack Morton turned, his eyes opening wide in disbelief. He rose from his desk, took Rebus’s hand and pumped it.

‘I am,’ he said, ‘but they’re short-handed here.’ He looked around the room. ‘Understandably.’

Rebus looked Jack Morton up and down, couldn’t believe what he saw. Last time they’d met, Jack had been a couple of stone overweight, a heavy smoker with a cough that could crack patrol-car windscreens. Now he’d shed the excess weight, and the perennial ciggie was missing from his mouth. More, his hair was professionally groomed and he was dressed in an expensive-looking suit, polished black shoes, crisp shirt and tie.

‘What happened to you?’ Rebus asked.

Morton smiled, patted his near-flat stomach. ‘Just looked at myself one day and couldn’t understand why the mirror didn’t break. Got off the booze and the cigs, joined a health club.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Life and death decisions. You can’t afford to hem and haw.’

‘You look great.’

‘Wish I could say the same, John.’

Rebus was thinking up a comeback when CI Ancram entered the room.

‘DI Rebus?’ They shook hands. The Chief Inspector didn’t seem keen to let go. His eyes were soaking up Rebus. ‘Sorry to keep you.’

Ancram was in his early fifties, and every bit as well-dressed as Jack Morton. He was bald mostly, but with Sean Connery’s style and a thick dark moustache to match.

‘Has Jack been giving you the tour?’

‘Not exactly, sir.’

‘Well, this is the Glasgow end of the Johnny Bible operation.’

‘Is this the nearest station to Kelvingrove?’

Ancram smiled. ‘Proximity to the locus was just one consideration. Judith Cairns was his third victim, by then the media had already hit on the Bible John connection. And this is where all the Bible John files are stored.’

‘Any chance I can see them?’

Ancram studied him, then shrugged. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

Rebus followed Ancram along the corridor to another suite of offices. There was a musty smell in the air, more library than cop-shop. Rebus saw why: the room was full of old cardboard boxes, box-files with spring hinges, packets of curl-edged paper bound with string. Four CID officers – two male, two female – were working their way through everything and anything to do with the original Bible John case.

‘We had this lot stashed in a storeroom,’ Ancram said. ‘You should have seen the stoor that came off when we brought them out.’ He blew on a folder, fine powder rising from it.

‘You do think there’s a connection then?’

It was a question every police officer in Scotland had asked every other police officer, for there was always the chance that the two cases, the two killers, had nothing in common, in which event hundreds of man-hours were being wasted.

‘Oh yes,’ Ancram said. Yes: it was what Rebus felt, too. ‘I mean, the modus operandi is close enough to start with, then there are the souvenirs he takes from the scene. The description of Johnny Bible may be a fluke, but I’m sure he’s copying his hero.’ Ancram looked at Rebus. ‘Aren’t you?’