The book also became a source of wish-fulfilment, which is why, when Greenpeace needed a band of world stature to front a gig in Aberdeen (see Chapter 13), they opted for the Dancing Pigs rather than U2 or REM. The Dancing Pigs, you see, had been my band, the band I’d sung with when I was nineteen. In real life, we broke up after about a year, with little to show for our efforts. But in this parallel world, we lit up the sky.

As good a reason as any to write a novel.

May 2005

Empty Capital

Weary with centuries

This empty capital snorts like a great beast
Caged in its sleep, dreaming of freedom
But with nae belief …

Sydney Goodsir Smith,

‘Kynd Kittock’s Land’

1

‘Tell me again why you killed them.’

‘I’ve told you, it’s just this urge.’

Rebus looked back at his notes. ‘The word you used was “compulsion”.’

The slumped figure in the chair nodded. Bad smells came off him. ‘Urge, compulsion, same thing.’

‘Is it?’ Rebus stubbed out his cigarette. There were so many butts in the tin ashtray, a couple spilled over on to the metal table. ‘Let’s talk about the first victim.’

The man opposite him groaned. His name was William Crawford Shand, known as ‘Craw’. He was forty years old, single, and lived alone in a council block in Craigmillar. He had been unemployed six years. He ran twitching fingers through dark greasy hair, seeking out and covering a large bald spot at the crown of his head.

‘The first victim,’ Rebus said. ‘Tell us.’

‘Us’ because there was another CID man in the biscuit-tin. His name was Maclay, and Rebus didn’t know him very well. He didn’t know anyone at Craigmillar very well, not yet. Maclay was leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes reduced to slits. He looked like a piece of machinery at rest.

‘I strangled her.’

‘What with?’

‘A length of rope.’

‘Where did you get the rope?’

‘Bought it at some shop, I can’t remember where.’

Three-beat pause. ‘Then what did you do?’

‘After she was dead?’ Shand moved a little in the chair. ‘I took her clothes off and was intimate with her.’

‘With a dead body?’

‘She was still warm.’

Rebus got to his feet. The grating of his chair on the floor seemed to unnerve Shand. Not difficult.

‘Where did you kill her?’

‘A park.’

‘And where was this park?’

‘Near where she lived.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Polmuir Road, Aberdeen.’

‘And what were you doing in Aberdeen, Mr Shand?’

He shrugged, running his fingers now along the rim of the table, leaving traces of sweat and grease.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Rebus said. ‘The edges are sharp, you might get cut.’

Maclay snorted. Rebus walked over towards the wall and stared at him. Maclay nodded briefly. Rebus turned back to the table.

‘Describe the park.’ He rested against the edge of the table, got himself another cigarette and lit it.