‘To make a word that means a thing?’

‘Word or words,’ Grant corrected her. ‘You’ve got eleven letters to play with.’

‘Isn’t there some computer program we could use?’

‘Probably. But that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?’

‘Right now, cheating sounds fine to me.’

But Grant wasn’t listening. He was already at work.

‘I was only up here yesterday,’ Rebus said. Bill Pryde had left his clipboard back at Gayfield Square. He was breathing heavily as they climbed. Uniformed officers were standing around. They held rolls of striped tape and were waiting to be told whether a cordon was necessary or practical. There was a line of parked cars on the roadway below: journalists, photographers, at least one TV crew. Word had gone around fast, and the circus had come to town.

‘Anything to tell us, DI Rebus?’ he’d been asked by Steve Holly as he got out of his own car.

‘Just that you’re annoying me.’

Now Pryde was explaining that a walker had found the body. ‘In some gorse bushes. No real attempt to hide it.’

Rebus kept quiet. Two bodies never found … the other two found in water. Now this: a hillside. It broke the pattern.

‘Is it her?’ he asked.

‘From the Versace T-shirt, I’d have to say yes.’

Rebus stopped, looked around. A wilderness in the middle of Edinburgh. Arthur’s Seat itself was an extinct volcano, surrounded by a bird sanctuary and three lochs. ‘You’d have a hard job dragging a body up here,’ he said.

Pryde nodded. ‘Probably killed on the spot.’

‘Lured up here?’

‘Or maybe just out walking.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I don’t figure her for the walking type.’ They’d started moving again, getting close now. A cluster of stooped forms on the hillside, white overalls and hoods: all too easy to contaminate a crime scene. Rebus recognised Professor Gates, red-faced from the exertion of the climb. Gill Templer was next to him, not talking, just listening and looking. The scene-of-crime officers were doing a rudimentary ground search – later on, when the body had been shifted, they’d bring in some of the uniforms and start a fingertip search. It wouldn’t be easy: the grass was long and thick. A police photographer was adjusting his lens.

‘Better not go any further than this,’ Pryde said. Then he called for someone to fetch two more sets of overalls. As Rebus started pulling his on over his shoes, the thin material crackled and flapped in the strong breeze.

‘Any sign of Siobhan Clarke?’ he asked.

‘Tried contacting her and Grant Hood,’ Pryde said. ‘So far, no luck.’

‘Really?’ Rebus had to hold back a smile.

‘Something I should know about?’ Pryde asked.

Rebus shook his head. ‘Grim place to die, isn’t it?’

‘Aren’t they all?’ Pryde zipped up his one-piece and started forwards towards the corpse.

‘Throttled,’ Gill Templer informed them.