This last line was the one pursued most eagerly by the newspapers. They seemed to be favouring a verdict of suicide in the case of Elizabeth Jack. Husband’s shame . . . discovered after she’s been on retreat . . . on her way home she decides she can’t face things . . . sets off perhaps to visit her friend the actor Rab Kinnoul . . . but grows more desperate and, having read the details of the Dean Bridge murder, decides to end it all. Throws herself into the river above Rab Kinnoul’s house. End of story.

Except that it wasn’t the end of the story. As far as the papers were concerned, it was just the beginning. After all, this one had it all – a TV actor, an MP, a sex scandal, a death. The headline writers were boggled, trying to decide which order to put things in. Sex Scandal MP’s Wife Drowns in TV Star’s Stream? Or TV Star’s Agony at MP Friend’s Wife’s Suicide Act? You could see the problem . . . All those possessives . . .

And the grieving husband? Kept well away from the media by protective friends and colleagues. But he was always available for interview by the police, when clarification of some point was required. While his father-in-law gave the media as many interviews as they needed, but kept his comments to the police succinct and scathing.

‘What do you want to talk to me for? Find the bugger who did it, then you can talk all you want. I want the animal who did this put behind bars! Better make them bloody strong bars, too, otherwise I might just pull them apart and strangle the life out of the bugger myself!’

‘We’re doing what we can, believe me, Sir Hugh.’

‘Is it enough though, that’s what I want to know!’

‘Everything we can . . .’

Yes, everything. Leaving just the one final question: Did anyone do it? Only Dr Curt could answer that.

6
Highland Games

Rebus packed an overnight bag. It was a large sports holdall, bought for him by Patience Aitken when she’d decided he should get fit. They’d enrolled together in a health club, bought all the gear, and had attended the club four or five times together. They’d played squash, been massaged, had saunas, encountered the plunge pool, gone swimming, survived the expensively equipped gymnasium, tried jogging . . . but ended up spending more and more time in the health club bar, which was stupid, the drinks being double the price they were at the pleasant-enough pub round the corner.

No longer a sports bag then, but these days an overnight bag. Not that Rebus was taking much this trip. He packed a change of shirt, socks and underwear, toothbrush, camera, notebook, a kagoul. Would he require a phrase book? Probably, but he doubted if one existed. Something to read though . . . bedtime reading. He found the copy of Fish out of Water and threw it in on top of everything else. The phone was ringing. But he was in Patience’s flat, and she had her own answering machine. All the same . . .