Siobhan glanced at Rebus, worried he was milking his role. As Winfield stared down at the table-top, Rebus gave Siobhan a wink of reassurance.

'Hot in here, isn't it, Albert?' Siobhan paused. CYou don't mind me calling you Albert?'

'No... no, that's fine.' He glanced up at her again, but whenever he did his eyes were drawn towards her neighbour.

'Would you like me to open a window?'

'Wonderful, yes.'

Siobhan looked at Rebus, who pushed his chair back with as much noise as possible. The windows were narrow, fixed high on the external wall. Rebus stood on tiptoe to open one of them, pulling it in three or four inches. The breeze swept over him.

'Better?' Siobhan asked. CYes, thanks.'

Rebus stayed standing, over to Winfield's left. He folded his arms and rested against the wall, directly below the camera.

'Just a few follow-up questions really,' Siobhan was saying.

'Right ... fine.' Winfield nodded enthusiastically.

'So you wouldn't say you knew Flip that well?'

'We went out together ... in a group, I mean. Dinner some- times I'At her flat?'

'Once or twice. And at mine.'

CYou live down near the Botanics?'

238 'That's right.'

'Nice part of town.'

'It's my father's place.'

'He lWes there?'

'No, he's *. I mean, he bought it for me.' Siobhan looked towards Rebus.

'All right for some,' he muttered, arms still folded.

'I can't help it if my father has money,' Winfleld complained.

'Of course you can't,' Siobhan agreed.

'What about Flip's boyfriend?' Rebus asked.

Winfield found himself looking at Rebus's shoes. 'David? What about him?'

Rebus bent down, waved a hand in Winfleld's direction. 'I'm up here, son.' He straightened. Winfield held his gaze for all of three seconds.

'Just wondering if you consider him a friend,' Rebus said. 'Well, it's a bit awkward now ... I mean, it was awkward. They kept splitting up, getting back together again ...'

'And you took Flip's side?' Siobhan guessed.

'I had to, what with Camille and everything...' CYou say they kept splitting up. Whose fault was it?'

'I just think they had this personality clash ... you know how opposites attract? Well, sometimes you get the inverse of that.'

'I didn't have the benefit of a university education, Mr Winfield,' Rebus said. 'Maybe you could spell that out for me.'

'I just mean that they were similar in lots of ways, and that made their relationship difficult.'

'They argued?'

'It was more that they couldn't let an argument lie. There had to be a winner and a loser, no middle ground.'

'Did these disagreements ever turn violent?'

'No.'

'But David's got a temper on him?' Rebus persisted.

'No more so than anyone else.'

Rebus walked over to the table. It only took him a couple of steps. He leaned forward so that his shadow covered Winfleld. 'But you've seen him lose the rag?'

'Not really.'

'No?'

Siobhan cleared her throat, a sign that she thought Rebus had hit a wall. 'Albert,' she said, her voice like a balm, 'did you know that Flip liked to play computer games?'

239 'No,' he said, looking surprised.

'Do you play them?'

'I used to play Doom in first year... maybe pinball in the student union.

'Computer pinball?'

'No, just pinball.'

'Flip was playing a game online, a sort of variation on a treasure hunt.' Siobhan unfolded a sheet of paper and slid it across the table. 'Do these clues mean anything to you?'

He read with a frown, then expelled some air. 'Absolutely nothing.'

CYou're studying medicine, aren't you?' Rebus interrupted.

'That's right. I'm in my third year.'

'I bet it's hard work,' Siobhan said, sliding the sheet of paper back towards her.

CYou wouldn't believe it,' Winfleld laughed.

'I think we might,' Rebus said. 'In our line of work, we see doctors all the time.' Though some of us, he could have added, do our best to avoid them ...

'I'm assuming you know something of the carotid artery then?' Siobhan asked.

'I know where it is,' Winfield admitted, looking puzzled.

'And what it does?'

'It's an artery in the neck. Actually, there are two of them.'

'Carrying blood to the brain?' Siobhan said.

'I had to look it up in a dictionary,' Rebus told Winfield. 'It's from the Greek, meaning sleep. Know why that is?'

'Because compression of the carotid causes you to black out.' Rebus nodded. 'That's right, a deep sleep. And if you keep on pressing ...

'Christ, is that how she died?'

Siobhan shook her head. 'We think she was rendered unconscious, then strangled afterwards.'

In the silence that followed, Winfield looked wildly from one detective to the other. Then he started rising to his feet, fingers gripping the table's edge.

'Jesus Christ, you don't think ...? For pity's sake, you think it was me?'

'Sit down,' Rebus ordered. In truth, Winfleld hadn't got very far up; it looked like his knees were refusing to lock.

'We know it wasn't you,' Siobhan said firmly. The student fell back on to his chair, nearly toppling it.

240 'We know it wasn't you because you've got an alibi: you were with everyone else in the bar that night, waiting for Flip.'

'That's right,' he said, 'that's right.'

'So you've nothing to worry about,' Rebus said, backing off from the table. 'Unless you know better.'

'Anyone else in your group like to play games, Albert?' Siobhan asked.

'Nobody. I mean, Trist has a few games for his computer Tomb Raider, that sort of thing. But probably everyone does.'

'Probably,' Siobhan admitted. 'No one else in your circle studies medicine?'

Winfleld shook his head, but Siobhan could see he was having a thought. 'There's Claire,' he said. 'Claire Benzie. I've only met her once or twice at parties, but she was a friend of Flip's ... from school days, I think.'

'And she's studying medicine?'

CYes.'

'But you don't really know her?'

'She's a year below me, and a different specialism. God, that's right..., He looked up at Siobhan, then to Rebus. 'Of all the bloody things, she wants to be a pathologist ...'

CYes, I know Claire,' Dr Curt said, leading them down one of the corridors. They were in part of the medical faculty at the university, in a block behind McEwan Hall. Rebus had been here before: it was where both Curt and Gates had their teaching offices. But he'd never been to the lecture halls. Curt was leading them there now. Rebus had asked if he was feeling better. Gastric problems, Curt had explained. ~ery pleasant girl,' he said now, 'and a good student. I hope she stays with us.'

'How do you mean?'

'She's only in second year, she could yet change her mind.'

'Are there many female pathologists?' Siobhan asked.

'Not many, no ... not in this country.'

'It's a weird decision to take, isn't it?' Rebus said. 'When you're that young, I mean.'

'Not really,' Curt mused. 'I was always one for dissecting the frogs at biology.' He beamed a smile. 'And I'd rather treat the deceased than the living: no anxious diagnoses, no expectant families, fewer negligence claims .. .' He stopped at a set of doors and peered through the glass upper half. CYes, in he?e.'

241 The lecture room was small and antiquated: wood veneer on the walls, curved wooden benches rising steeply. Curt checked his watch. 'Only another minute or two.'

Rebus peered inside. Someone he didn't know was lecturing to a few dozen students. There were fresh diagrams on the blackboard, and a podium where the lecturer stood brushing chalk from his hands.

'Not a cadaver on view,' Rebus commented.

'We tend to keep those for the practicals.'

'Are you still having to use the Western General?'

'We are, and it's a blessed nuisance with the traffic.'

The autopsy suite at the mortuary was out of commission. Fear of hepatitis allied to a ventilation system past its prime. No sign of funding for a new unit, which meant one of the city hospitals was bearing the brunt of the pathologists' needs.

'The human body is a fascinating machine,' Curt was saying. CYou only really get a sense of that post mortem. A hospital surgeon will concentrate on one particular area of the body, but we have the luxury of unlimited access.'

Siobhan's look said she wished he'd stop being so remorselessly cheery on the subject. 'It's an old building,' she remarked.

'Not that old really, in the context of the university. The medical school was based at Old College in earlier times.'

'That's where they took Burke's body?' Rebus added.

CYes, after he was hanged. A tunnel led into Old College. The bodies were all brought in that way - by dead of night in some cases.' He looked to Siobhan. 'The Resurrection Men.'

'Good name for a band.'

He graced her flippancy with a scowl. 'Body snatchers,' he said.

'And the skin was flayed from Burke's body?' Rebus went on.

CYou know a bit about it.'