Strip Jack

'Fast as I can,' agreed Doctor Curt, chuckling. He too got to his feet. 'Oh, one thing I can tell you straight away.' He opened his office door for Rebus.

'Yes?'

'Mrs Jack was depilated. There'd be no getting her by the short-and-curlies…'

Because Teviot Place wasn't far from Buccleuch Street, Rebus thought he'd wander along to Suey Books. Not that he was expecting to catch Ronald Steele, for Ronald Steele was a hard man to catch. Busy behind the scenes, busy out of sight. The shop itself was open, the rickety bicycle chained up outside. Rebus pushed the door open warily.

'It's okay,' called a voice from the back of the shop. 'Rasputin's gone out for a wander.'

Rebus closed the door and approached the desk. The same girl was sitting there, and her duties still seemed to entail the pricing of books. There wasn't any room for any more books on the shelves. Rebus wondered where these new titles were headed…

'How did you know it was me?' he asked.

'That window.' She nodded towards the front-of-shop. 'It might look filthy from the outside, but you can see out of it all right. Like one of those two-way mirrors.'

Rebus looked. Yes, because the shop's interior was darker than the street, you could see out all right, you just couldn't see in.

'No sign of your books, if that's what you're wondering.'

Rebus nodded slowly. It was not what he was wondering…

'And Ronald's not here.' She checked the oversized face of her wristwatch. 'Should have been in half an hour ago. Must have got held up.'

Rebus kept on nodding. Steele had told him this girl's name. What was it again…? 'Was he in yesterday?'

She shook her head. 'We were shut. All day. I was a bit off colour, couldn't come in. At the start of the university year, we do okay business on a Wednesday, Wednesday being a half-teaching day, but not just now…'

Rebus thought of Vaseline… vanishing cream… I Vanessa! That was it.

'Well, thanks anyway. Keep an eye out for those books…'

'Oh! Here's Ronald now.'

Rebus turned round, just as the door rattled open. Ronald Steele closed it heavily behind him, started up the central aisle of books, but then almost lost balance and had to rest against a bookcase. His eyes caught a particular spine, and he levered the book out from the others around it.

'Fish out of Water,' he said. 'Out of water…' He threw the book as far as he could – a matter of a yard or so. It crashed into a bookcase and fell open on to the floor. Then he began picking books out at random and throwing them -with force,, his eyes red with tears.

Vanessa screamed at him and came round from her desk, making towards him, but Steele pushed past her and stumbled past Rebus, past the desk, and through a doorway at the very back of the shop. There was the sound of another door closing.

'What's back there?'

'The loo,' said Vanessa, stooping to recover a few of the books. 'What the hell's the matter with him?'

'Maybe he's had a bit of bad news,' Rebus speculated. He was helping her retrieve books. He stood up and examined the blurb on the back jacket of Fish out of Water. The front cover illustration showed a woman seated more or less demurely on a chaise longue, while a rugged suitor leant over her from behind, his lips just short of her bared shoulder. 'I think I might buy this,' he said. 'Looks like just my sort of thing.'

Vanessa accepted the book, then stared up from it to him, her disbelief hot quite showing through the shock of the scene she'd just witnessed.

'Fifty pence,' she told him quietly.

'Fifty pence it is,' said Rebus.

And after the formal identification, while the autopsy took its defined and painstaking course, there were the questions. There were an awful lot of questions.

Cath Ki

And, turning to Mr Ki

'You mean acting?'

'No, I mean about how to kill…"

And then there was Gregor Jack… Rebus kept out of that altogether. He'd look at any notes and transcripts later. He didn't want to get involved. There was too much he already knew, too much prejudgement, which was another way of saying potential prejudice. He let other CID men deal with Mr Jack, and with Ian Urquhart, and with Helen Greig, and with all Elizabeth Jack's cronies and cohorts. For this wasn't merely a case of the lady vanishing; this was a matter of death. Jamie Kilpatrick, the Hon. Matilda Merriman, Julian Kaymer, Martin Inman, Louise Patterson-Scott, even Barney Byars. They'd all either been questioned, or were about to be. Perhaps they'd all be questioned again at a later date. There were missing days to be filled. Huge gaps in Liz Jack's life, the whole final week of her life. Where had she been? Who had she seen? When had she died? (Hurry up, please, Dr Curt. Chop-chop.) How had she died? (Ditto.) Where was her car?

But Rebus read all the transcripts, all the notes. He read through the interview with Gregor Jack, and the interview with Ronald Steele. A Detective Constable was sent to Braid-water Golf Course to check the story of the Wednesday afternoon game. The interview with Steele, Rebus read very carefully indeed. Asked about Elizabeth Jack, Steele admitted that 'she always accused me of not being enough fun. She was right, I suppose. I'm not exactly what you'd call a "party animal". And I never had enough money. She liked people with money to throw around, or who threw it around even if they couldn't afford it.'

A touch of bitterness there? Or just the bitter truth? To all of which Rebus added one other question – had Elizabeth Jack ever left Edinburgh in the first place?

Then there was the separate hunt, the hunt for William Glass. If he had gone to Queensferry, where would be next? West, towards Bathgate, Linlithgow, or Bo'ness? Or north, across the Forth to Fife? Police forces were mobilized. Descriptions were issued. Had Liz Jack spent any time at all at Deer Lodge? How could William Glass simply disappear? Was there any co

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 Ki

Except that it wasn't the end of the story. As far as the papers were concerned, it was just the begi