'Did Jean Marischal ever see the drawer when it was open? Never so much as a glimpse?'

'Worth talking to her again?'

'Maybe.'

Page was standing in the doorway. He signalled for Clarke to join him. She patted Ogilvie on the shoulder as she got up.

'Close the door,' he told her once she was inside his office. 'Sit down if you like.'

Clarke remained standing.

'I've already had enough grief since we went public with the Minton note,' he began. 'Only effect it seems to have produced is more noise from upstairs. Everyone wants this thing cleared up and no one wants it getting messy.'

'So we keep the Cafferty note to ourselves?'

'For the time being. Anything that seems to link a prominent member of the legal establishment to a local thug is hardly going to please the powers above.'

'You'll talk to Shona MacBryer?'

'Fiscal's office need to know. I'll make Shona see that a quiet interview with Cafferty at his home is preferable to bringing him in.'

'How about the team here?'

'I assume word's already gone around.'

'Only Esson and Ogilvie so far. But when we interview Cafferty...'

'I'll brief the troops.'

'And then pray for no leaks.'

'Indeed.' He leaned back in his chair and pressed his hands together, the tips of his fingers touching his lips. 'What's your gut feeling here, Siobhan?'

'The attacks themselves are very different, but the notes look identical.'

'So we should be seeking a connection between Cafferty and Minton?'

'Cafferty says there isn't one.'

'Some sort of vigilante?'

Clarke shrugged and watched as Page pressed the palms of his hands flat on his desk.

'What about Rebus?' he asked.

'What about him?'

'He's close to Cafferty, isn't he?'

'In a manner of speaking. You think we should attach him to the case?'

'In a consultative capacity. What's the old saying about pissing out of the tent rather than in?'

'Should I talk to him then?'

'I don't suppose it can do any harm, can it?'

Clarke didn't know how to answer that, so ran her tongue across her lips instead and shifted her feet slightly, eyes on the floor.

'Very well then,' Page decided, pressing his hands together once more as if in prayer. 'Talk to the man.'

Clarke nodded and made her exit. Christine Esson was waiting with her tea. Clarke took it and moved into the corridor, taking out her phone and making the call.

'Yes, Siobhan?' Rebus said by way of answer.

'Page wants you inside the tent rather than out.'

'Is that even possible?'

'You'd be acting in a consultative capacity.'

'Like Sherlock Holmes? Would I need invoices and stuff? And a housekeeper and a sidekick?'

'Are you interested or not?'

'He really wants me because I'm a conduit to Cafferty?'

'Yes.'

'Is Cafferty's note going to be kept out of the public domain?'

'For now.'

'Formal interview with him at his house?'

'Page thinks he can clear it with Shona MacBryer.'

'Then what's left for me to do?'

'I'm guessing you'll think of something.'

'Do I detect a lack of enthusiasm, DI Clarke?'

'Only because I know what you're likeput you in a tent, you start trying to knock the poles down.'

'Better than peeing on you from outside, though, eh?'

'Let me think about that for a moment.' She could almost hear Rebus break into a smile.

'Consultative capacity,' he echoed. 'I quite like that.'

'I thought you might. Just rememberyou're still not a cop. No warrant card, no real powers.'

'Well, tell Page I'm considering his proposal, but I don't come cheap.'

'You'd do this for no pay at all, Johnwe both know it.'

'Maybe we should meet later to compare notes.'

'The Oxford Bar?'

'Around nine?'

'Okay.'

'And why not bring Malcolm along?'

'Malcolm's not part of this case.'

'I know that, but I'd like him there anyway. The two of you have gotten so busy, it'll be nice for you to catch up.'

'See you at nine, then.'

Clarke ended the call and took a slurp from the cardboard cup as she walked back into the incident room. Ogilvie seemed to have been sharing his theory with Esson. Esson was holding a close-up photo of the desk drawer, peering at it.

'What do you think?' Clarke asked her.

'It's interesting.'

'I think so too.' Clarke looked at Ogilvie. 'Christine's already had a bit of an away dayyou ready for yours?'

'Absolutely,' Ronnie Ogilvie said.

12.

There was no longer anyone keeping guard outside David Minton's house on St Bernard's Crescent. A set of keys were being held at HQ, so Clarke had brought those, along with a note of the number for the alarm system. Having unlocked the door, she punched the code in while Ogilvie stooped to pick up the waiting mail.

'Anything?' she asked.

'Mostly flyers.' He added the collection to a pile on the nearby table.

The house was beginning to smell musty, and with the heating turned off there was a pronounced chill.

'Hope the pipes don't freeze,' Ogilvie commented.

'Minton's study is this way,' Clarke said, leading him past the foot of the imposing staircase. The curtains had been drawn closed, so she yanked them open. The window gave a view down on to the small back garden. The laundry room was directly below. Would Minton have heard the glass breaking? There was a venerable transistor radio on the desk, but no evidence that he'd had it switched on that evening. Clarke settled herself in the chair and slid the drawer open a couple of inches.

'More or less right?' she asked.

'But remember, the deceased had a bit more girth to him...'

'A bit?' she chided him. 'So the chair would have been further out from the desk?' She pushed it back. 'About here?'

Ogilvie nodded. 'From where it's hellish uncomfortable to write cheques.'

They studied the photos they'd brought with them. The chequebook and pen sat eight inches from the edge of the desk. It would have been almost impossible for Minton to reach either with the drawer open the way it had been.

'So we're back where we started,' Clarke said. 'Either the victim opened the drawer, or his attacker did.'

The drawer itself had been emptied, everything bagged as evidence and taken away to be examined. Clarke slid it out completely and held it up to the light, then placed it on top of the desk.

'This is where the gap was?' she checked with Ogilvie. 'Where you reckon something might have been removed?'

Ogilvie looked at the area she was circling with her finger.

'Yes.'

'Something measuringwhat? Nine inches by six? A book of some kind?'

'Not quite a rectangle, though, is it?' he qualified, showing Clarke the photo again.

'Not quite,' she conceded. 'And the mark on the base of the drawer?' Again she pointed to the spot where the putative item had once sat.

'Grease? Ink, maybe?'

'Worth getting forensics to take a look?'

'Maybe, yes.'

Clarke made the call to the lab at Howden Hall. Then, to Ogilvie: 'They're asking if we can drop it in, save them the trek.'

Ogilvie shrugged his acquiescence.

'Fine,' Clarke said into the phone. Then, again to Ogilvie: 'Go see if you can find a bin bag for us to carry it in.' He was heading out of the room as Clarke told the lab they'd be there in half an hour or so. But then she remembered something. 'Actually, maybe closer to an hour. I need to go back to Fettes first. Got something else I want you to take a look atbullet, probably nine mil.'

'You go months and months without seeing a bullet,' the voice on the other end of the phone told her. 'And then you get two in one week.'

Clarke blinked twice before finding her voice. 'Say again?'

'Another bullet came in a couple of days back.'