‘I don’t suppose so, no. What are you getting at?’

‘It’s just that whoever did it was in the know.’

‘Cops know about it,’ he admitted. ‘It’s not much used these days, for obvious reasons. But there was a time it could make an unruly prisoner manageable. The Vulcan death-grip, we used to call it.’

She smiled. ‘The what?’

‘You know, Spock on Star Trek.’ He pinched her shoulder blade. She wriggled free and gave his chest a slap, resting her hand there. Rebus was thinking of his army training, and how he’d been taught attack techniques, including pressure on the carotid …

‘Would doctors know?’ Jean asked.

‘Probably anyone who’s had medical training would.’

She looked thoughtful.

‘Why?’ he asked at last.

‘Just something from the paper. Wasn’t one of Philippa’s friends a medical student, one of the ones she was going to meet that night … ?’

10

His name was Albert Winfield – ‘Albie’ to his friends. He seemed surprised that the police wanted to talk to him again, but turned up at St Leonard’s at the appointed time next morning. Rebus and Siobhan left him fully fifteen minutes while they got on with other work, then made sure two burly uniforms led him to the interview room, where they left him for a further quarter of an hour. Outside the room, Siobhan and Rebus locked eyes and nodded at one another. Then Rebus pushed open the door forcefully.

‘Many thanks for coming along, Mr Winfield,’ he snapped. The young man almost leaped from his chair. The window was closed tight, the room stifling. Three chairs – two on one side of the narrow table, one on the other. Winfield had been facing those two empty chairs. Tape recorders and a video recorder were bolted to the wall where it met the table. There were scratched names on the table itself, evidence of time being whittled away by previous occupants called things like Shug, Jazz and Bomber. A No Smoking sign on the wall, defaced with ballpoint pen, and a video camera mounted where wall met ceiling, peering down on proceedings should anyone decide a video record was required.

Rebus ensured his chair-legs made the maximum noise as he scraped them in towards the table. He’d thrown a bulky folder down: no names on it. Winfield seemed mesmerised. He couldn’t know it was full of blank sheets of paper borrowed from one of the photocopiers.

Rebus rested his hand on the folder and smiled at Winfield.

‘It must have come as a terrible shock.’ A quiet voice, soothing, solicitous … Siobhan sat down beside her thuggish colleague. ‘I’m DC Clarke, by the way. This is DI Rebus.’

‘What?’ the young man said. Perspiration made his forehead shine. His short brown hair came to a widow’s peak. There was acne on his chin.

‘The news of Flip’s murder,’ Siobhan continued. ‘It must have been a shock.’