Rebus nodded. He was looking at all the material, thinking how he’d like to have a few weeks with it, how he might find something no one else had spotted … It was a dream, of course, a fantasy, but on slow nights sometimes it was motivation enough. Rebus had his newspapers, but they told only as much of the story as the police had wanted made public. He walked over to a row of shelves, read the spines of the box-files: Door to Door; Taxi Firms; Hairdressers; Tailors’ Shops; Hairpiece Suppliers.

‘Hairpiece suppliers?’

Ancram smiled. ‘His short hair, they thought maybe it was a wig. They talked to hairdressers to see if anyone recognised the cut.’

‘And to tailors because of his Italian suit.’

Again Ancram stared at him.

Rebus shrugged. ‘The case interests me. What’s this?’ He pointed to a wall chart.

‘Similarities and dissimilarities between the two cases,’ Ancram said. ‘Dancehalls versus the club scene. And the descriptions: tall, skinny, shy, auburn hair, well dressed … I mean, Johnny could almost be Bible John’s son.’

‘That’s something I’ve been asking myself. Supposing Johnny Bible is basing himself on his hero, and supposing Bible John’s still out there somewhere …’

‘Bible John’s dead.’

Rebus kept his eyes on the chart. ‘But just supposing he isn’t. I mean, is he flattered? Is he pissed off? What?’

‘Don’t ask me.’

‘The Glasgow victim hadn’t been to a club,’ Rebus said.

‘Well, she wasn’t last seen in a club. But she’d been to one earlier that evening, he could have followed her from there to the concert.’

Victims one and two had been picked up by Johnny Bible in nightclubs, the nineties equivalent of a sixties dancehall: louder, darker, more dangerous. They’d been in parties, who were able to furnish only the vaguest descriptions of the man who had walked off into the night with their friend. But victim three, Judith Cairns, had been picked up at a rock concert in a room above a pub.

‘We’ve had others too,’ Ancram was saying. ‘Three unsolveds in Glasgow in the late seventies, all three missing some personal item.’

‘Like he never went away,’ Rebus muttered.

‘There’s too much to go on, yet not nearly enough.’ Ancram folded his arms. ‘How well does Johnny know the three cities? Did he pick the clubs at random, or did he know them to start with? Was each locus chosen beforehand? Could he be a brewery delivery-man? A DJ? Music journalist? Maybe he writes fucking travel guides for all I know.’ Ancram started a joyless laugh, and rubbed at his forehead.

‘Could always be Bible John himself,’ Rebus said.

‘Bible John’s dead and buried, Inspector.’

‘You really think so?’

Ancram nodded. He wasn’t alone. There were plenty of coppers who thought they knew who Bible John was, and knew him to be dead. But there were others more sceptical, and Rebus was among them. A DNA match probably wouldn’t have been enough to change his mind. There was always the chance that Bible John was out there.