Inside the Box

Ian Rankin

‘Bloody hell, I thought you were dead!’

The hand stretched out towards John Rebus and he gripped it, returning the firm shake.

‘As good as, Jerry.’ Rebus gave a thin smile. He was at the bar in the Police Club on York Place. ‘Get you one?’

‘Gin and slim.’ Jerry Calder made a show of patting his stomach.

‘You’ve lost a bit of weight,’ Rebus agreed.

Calder looked Rebus up and down. ‘Same goes—you’re not ill, are you?’

‘Funny how often people ask that.’ Rebus took a sip from his pint glass. The barman had heard the order and was placing the drink in front of Calder. Rebus paid the man. They were in the downstairs room. No natural light. Trestle tables topped with paper tablecloths. Bowls of nibbles rapidly depleting. A DJ had set up his rig in the far corner but wasn’t due to start till the top of the hour. Rebus would be gone by then. He’d only popped in for one.

This week’s retiree was Babs Elliot. She’d risen to the ‘giddy depths’—as she’d put it to Rebus himself not five minutes back—of Detective Constable, back in Rebus’ St Leonard’s days. A good twenty years his junior but on her way out while she still had ‘a vestige of life left in me.’ Husband worked at HMP Saughton, and Babs was minded to pick up a bit of work—part-time; as mindless as possible.

‘Job’s gone to shit, John,’ she’d confided in a stage whisper.

‘I keep hearing that,’ Rebus had obliged, not bothering to add: but I still miss it like hell.

Babs was at the centre of the room, receiving new arrivals with a peck on the cheek or a more fulsome hug. Some people had brought gifts and cards, and Rebus wished he’d done the same. He’d dropped by on a whim, reminded by a text from DI Siobhan Clarke, who’d followed up just after he’d crossed the threshold with another message to say something had come up and she might not make it.

There were plenty of faces he knew in the room, and others he didn’t. The youngsters looked idealistic and full of zest. They liked the job. Liked it, too, when their elders retired—more chance of that sought-after promotion.

‘I feel like Methuselah,’ Jerry Calder muttered, scanning the room.

‘What does that make me?’ Rebus asked him. ‘Methuselah’s grandpa?’

‘You’re still here, though, that’s what counts.’ Calder had finished his drink and was gesturing across the bar for another round.

‘I’ve still half a pint here,’ Rebus complained.

‘Time was, you drank quicker.’

‘I did a lot of things quicker, Jerry. Just not necessarily better.’

Calder gave a snort and rubbed a finger across the bridge of his nose. ‘I didn’t see you at Rab Merrilees’s funeral.’

Rebus shrugged. ‘I couldn’t make it. Heard it was a decent turnout, though.’

‘Better than the old shitbag deserved. Mini sausage rolls at the reception after. Mini! Stone-cold they were, too.’

‘It’s what he would have wanted.’

‘No word of a lie there—mean old sod that he was. Not that I’m one to speak ill of the dead.’

‘Indeed not.’

‘Know what music he wanted as the coffin was lowered?’

‘Surprise me.’

“‘The Sash”!’

Rebus couldn’t help but laugh.

‘The bloody Sash,’ Calder confirmed. ‘Talk about old school. Sevco scarf draped over the coffin, too. Wouldn’t have surprised me if an Orange Marching Band had come parading down the aisle.’

Rab Merrilees had been one of those coppers—ruddy-cheeked Protestants raised on stories of the Old Firm and Ulster. Only a handful of years older than Rebus, but a generation apart. Rebus had served in Northern Ireland in the Army, had witnessed firsthand how those old stories twisted young men’s minds. He could see Merrilees now—a barn-door of a man in a uniform just too small for him. Handy with a truncheon and his fists when it kicked off on a Saturday night. Nothing Big Rab liked better than to wade in, hauling brawlers out of High Street howffs and dispensing some pavement justice in the halcyon days before CCTV and camera-phones.

‘He saved your skin once, didn’t he?’ Calder was remembering.

‘I was off duty. One for the road when some bawbag clocked me and decided to arrange a meeting between a bar stool and my head. Big Rab happened to be passing.’ Rebus toasted the memory before taking a slug from the fresh glass.

‘You heard what happened on his deathbed?’ Calder leaned in a little closer. ‘He was in hospital. Third or fourth heart attack. Few of the old boys paid him a visit. The inevitable came up…’ Calder’s voice drifted away. It took Rebus a moment to recollect which ‘inevitable’ he might be meaning.

‘Garrison’s the Jeweller’s?’ He watched Calder nod.

A shop on Rose Street. Someone had got in through the ceiling, having broken into the empty flat upstairs. Safe emptied, thousands missing. Mostly necklaces and earrings, a few high-end watches, a wedge of cash. Not many names in the frame when it came to getting into a safe. The second house they’d tried, firm questioning back at the station had led to an admission. The stuff was stashed in the culprit’s kid’s wardrobe. But there’d been nothing there. The wife was suspected of moving it, but swore blind she had done nothing of the sort. Then a few weeks later, Big Rab had been spotted on a weekend jaunt in his shiny new BMW. Nice car, just slightly out of his league. People remembered he’d been present at the initial arrest. People seemed to think he had lingered after everyone else had left. Those same people knew he had a bit of form—prisoners turning up for processing lacking the funds they swore had been on them when they’d been cuffed. Blind eyes turned. Whispers and winks.

‘He owned up?’ Rebus guessed, raising an eyebrow.

‘Not exactly.’ Calder’s smile was wry. He moved to let new arrivals get to the bar. Rebus had no option but to follow him to one of the tables, where Calder was already getting comfortable, sweeping a handful of crisps into his mouth.

‘Go on, then,’ Rebus prompted him.

‘Well, Jazz Helmsley—you know Jazz? He was in Drylaw for a while but works at the airport now?’

Rebus shook his head.

‘You sure?’ Calder persisted. ‘Sandy hair and freckles? Used to play rugby?’

‘I swear, Jerry, I’m going to be in my box before you finish this bloody story.’

Calder ignored the glower Rebus was giving him. In fact, he smiled.

‘Funny you should say that, John, actually.’

‘Why?’

‘Because when Jazz asked Big Rab if he’d lifted all that stuff, Rab told him: “You’re not thinking inside the box, son.”’

‘You mean outside the box,’ Rebus corrected him.

Calder offered a shrug. ‘Inside is the way Jazz told it to me. He probed a bit but Big Rab wasn’t giving any more than that.’

Rebus considered. ‘What do you think he meant?’

‘You know Rab, John—bloody joker at the best of times. Number of people in this room he played a trick on. Phoning, pretending to be somebody-or-other’s boss. Handcuffing Bert Jackson to the steering wheel when he fell asleep in his patrol car…’

‘That, I remember,’ Rebus said. ‘Bert woke to an emergency call and had to try driving with the cuffs still on.’ The two men shared a chuckle.

‘Funny thing is, of course,’ Calder said, lifting his glass, ‘a box is exactly where Rab ended up. He’s buried out near the Hearts ground.’

‘You don’t think…?’

‘Taking it with him, you mean?’ Calder thought for a moment then shrugged. ‘Not possible, is it? The undertakers would have it. But, that car apart, I never heard tell of him living the high life. Though his widow didn’t look too unhappy at the funeral.’

‘He left her provided for, then?’

‘Or she was just glad to see the back of him. Your shout.’ Calder slid his empty glass towards Rebus.

‘This’ll be the last one for me,’ Rebus warned him.

‘Getting out before the disco—can’t say I blame you. I’m staying for the buffet, though. Babs has promised sausage rolls—full-size and piping hot…’

Rebus’s dog Brillo kept staring up at him.

‘I know,’ Rebus said. ‘Longer walk than usual. Try not to get used to it.’

They had passed through the cemetery gates and were heading for what Rebus always thought of as the ‘arrivals section.’ The grave wasn’t hard to find. The polished black headstone was brand new, its gold lettering unweathered. Most of the floral tributes were beginning to wilt. Rebus crouched in front of them and focused on something placed in their midst. A child’s plastic toy. He recognised it as Doctor Who’s Tardis and knew at once why it was there. Merrilees, the old beat cop, had secured his own fiefdom once upon a time—a police box towards the foot of the Canongate. Such boxes had been a feature of policing back in the day. You could boil a kettle, settle back and eat your sandwiches, and then pee in the tiny sink. Big Rab, always the joker, would go further, however. He would watch through the tiny window as tourists traipsed past on their way to Holyrood Palace, then would drop a few coins on the stone floor of the interior, chuckling to himself as the tourists stopped and checked the ground around them, wondering if they had a hole in a pocket, baffled by the lack of any money on either pavement or roadway. Rebus lifted the Tardis and examined it. There was no note to say who had left it, but he didn’t suppose that mattered. What did matter were the words that had started to dance around the inside of his head: thinking inside the box.

‘Aye, maybe,’ he muttered to himself. Brillo was looking to him for instructions. ‘Walk’s not quite finished yet,’ Rebus obliged, rising to his full height.

So: Fountainbridge to the Grassmarket and then along the Cowgate and Holyrood Road, dog and owner both panting with the effort. Cutting up Gentle’s Entry to the Canongate, with a pause to look in the window of the secondhand record shop. There was a pub hard by the old police box with a bowl of water placed at its door. Brillo slaked his thirst while Rebus studied the battle-scarred box with its faded blue paint. He had noted a trend in the city for these old boxes to be reconditioned and used to sell coffee and hot food, their cramped interiors just about able to accommodate a single barista and some rudimentary catering equipment. This particular box, however, had yet to undergo any kind of gentrification. It was securely locked, glass panels boarded over, and festooned with graffiti and ragged flyers for music venues. Rebus studied as much of the exterior as he could, even picking away at some of the flyers, but he found no clues. Nor did giving the door a good shove do anything other than remind him he was not a young man anymore.

‘They don’t like it when you tear off their adverts,’ a voice called. Rebus turned towards the pub doorway. A young man was standing there, lighting a cigarette. He bent down to give Brillo a rub behind the ears.

‘You work here?’ Rebus gestured towards the pub.

‘Behind the bar,’ the man explained. ‘That thing’s an eyesore, but what can you do?’

‘Any idea who owns it?’

The barman stood up and stared at him. ‘Thinking of buying?’

‘It’s not yours, is it?’

He snorted. ‘Wouldn’t mind it for my back garden, though, if I had a back garden. My son’s daft on Doctor Who.’

‘Never really saw the appeal,’ Rebus said. ‘If I want to meet alien life forms, I’ll walk down the Cowgate at closing time.’ An open-top tour bus crawled past, offering commentary on the nearby Scottish Parliament. ‘Get many MSPs in?’

‘The odd one or two. So what’s your interest?’ The barman nodded past him to the police box.

‘Old pal of mine used to walk this beat. We just buried him. He used to rest up inside.’

‘Memory lane, eh?’

Rebus patted the box’s door. ‘I just fancied a keek at the interior.’

‘I can maybe help with that.’ The barman took one last draw on his depleted cigarette. ‘And dogs are almost as welcome as paying customers…’

So Rebus followed him inside.

‘What did you buy?’ The woman standing in front of Rebus gestured towards the carrier bag on the seat next to him.

‘A Nazareth LP. Had to do something while I waited.’

‘Probably one reason I don’t come down this way very often—I spend too much at Unknown Pleasures.’

Her name was Camille Riordan, just a hint of Ireland left in her accent. She was in her mid-thirties, dressed in a leather biker jacket. Shoulder-length dark hair with streaks of silver. Upon entering, she had waved a greeting towards the barman.

‘Nice mutt, by the way,’ she added. Brillo was lying on the pub’s wooden floor, tired out by the day’s exertions.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’ Rebus asked. She shook her head but settled on a low stool at Rebus’s table.

‘But you can tell me the story again.’

As he went through it, she watched him so intently he began to feel like a specimen in her laboratory.

‘So you were a cop?’ she commented when he finished. ‘And that’s all there is to this? An old pal gone, a pilgrimage to his wee man-cave?’

Rebus offered a shrug. ‘Your business,’ he stated, ‘is buying these boxes and opening them as going concerns. Makes me wonder why this one’s been left to rot.’

‘It was a job lot. Most turn a profit. A few don’t. The footfall here isn’t all that great. Tourists tend to arrive by coach and anyone heading to the palace or the parliament knows there are cafés inside both.’ She gave a shrug of her own. ‘We might try it eventually as a taco stand, see if we can grab the lunchtime trade.’

‘Great,’ the barman said, coming to clear Rebus’s empty glass. ‘As if this place wasn’t dead enough…’

Riordan gave a smile that could have passed for apologetic. Then she lifted a jangling keychain from her shoulder bag, waving it at Rebus. ‘So shall we go finish your little quest?’ Rebus was about to speak but she got in first. ‘Not that I believe that’s all there is to it.’ Her eyes narrowed slightly. ‘And that means you’re going to have to promise me something.’

‘What?’

‘The real story. Sometime. Whenever you’re ready…’

Rebus nodded slowly and they headed out on to the pavement. The first key she tried was the right one. She pushed open the door and peered inside. ‘No skeletons, anyway,’ she concluded, moving to one side so Rebus could squeeze past. He motioned for her to take Brillo’s lead and then headed in. The interior was bare. Even the tap from the sink had been stripped out. No clutter; just dust and grime. There were a few scraps of paper on the floor and Rebus scooped them up. They were tattered remnants of old flyers, probably blown in from outside through the gap at the bottom of the door. There was a flue to let fresh air in—and the smell of cigarette- and pipe-smoke out. Rebus inserted his hand but could feel nothing other than cobwebs. Riordan was smiling in the doorway, hunch confirmed.

‘Once a detective,’ Rebus said with a wink. But he was stumped. He stood in the small space and shuffled three hundred and sixty degrees. Then studied the floor again. And ran his fingers around the underside of the corner sink. If he’d had a screwdriver, he might have been tempted to open the electrical socket. Instead, he wiggled its casing. The screws were brown with rust. Not enough room in there for a pocket-watch, never mind anything bigger.

Exasperated, he raised his eyes to the ceiling. The light bulb had long gone and the cream-coloured paintwork was peeling. But he could make out scratches. He took out his mobile phone and switched on its torch function, angling it upwards, standing on tiptoe to get a better view.

‘Is that writing?’ Riordan was asking.

‘Looks like.’

‘A dirty limerick?’

‘An address,’ Rebus said. Scored into the paint in blue ink. Blue: the colour of preference for coppers of the old school…

Back home, Rebus phoned Jerry Calder and asked for Merrilees’s address.

‘What for?’

‘I was going to send condolences to the widow.’

‘I can probably get it for you. All I remember is, it’s on the main road as you drive into Balerno.’

Rebus looked at the address he had written on the back of one of the police box flyers. ‘How about before that?’

‘Eh?’

‘Where did he live before Balerno?’

‘This is about the jeweller’s, isn’t it? I saw that wee twinkle in your eye.’

‘Maybe I was just emotional, Jerry.’

‘Aye, and maybe I’m the tooth fairy.’ Calder paused. ‘There’ll be a finder’s fee, I dare say?’

‘I’ll have to think about that.’

‘Well, he was in Balerno the best part of twenty years and before then I think it was the mean streets of Uphall.’

‘So if I said the words Mountcastle Terrace to you…?’

‘Mountcastle Terrace out by Willowbrae?’

‘That’s the only one I know.’

‘And it’s connected to Big Rab?’

‘Maybe a relative lives there…’

‘How did you come by it anyway?’

‘Thinking inside the box, Jerry,’ Rebus said, ending the call.

Having fed himself and Brillo, he decided to take the Saab out to Mountcastle Terrace. It was part of a drab housing scheme between Holyrood Park and the coast. Dogs barked from behind fences, and he was glad he’d left Brillo sleeping at home. The house he approached looked identical to its neighbours. A handkerchief-sized garden; door needing a new coat of paint. The curtains were partially open and there were lights on within. Seeing no doorbell, he knocked with a fist, taking a step back and waiting. When the door was yanked open, he could smell cooking fat and hear a television. A stocky man in a faded t-shirt demanded to know what he wanted.

‘Might be a daft question, but does the name Rab or Robert Merrilees mean anything to you?’

‘Diddly-squat, pal.’ The door began to close. Rebus leaned forward, pressing his hand against it, maintaining eye contact.

‘You sure about that? He was a copper.’

‘Means hee-haw to me.’

‘Is there anyone else inside you could ask?’

‘Look, we only moved here six months back. He an old tenant? Owes back rent or something? Whoever was here before us, all they left was the smell. I’m going to shut this door now, and if you try and stop me, it won’t be words we’ll be having.’

Rebus considered for a moment, then dropped his hand and watched the door slowly close.

‘Worth a try,’ he told himself, remembering all the times on the job when he’d had to knock on doors. Dozens if not hundreds of them, usually leading nowhere. Back on the pavement, he studied the houses on either side. One was just that little bit neater than the other. Doormat on the step. Windows cleaned within memory. So he walked up to it and rang the bell. A stooped woman in her seventies answered, but only after she’d slid the security chain in place. Rebus smiled through the four-inch gap.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ he said. ‘But do you know the name Merrilees? Rab or Robert Merrilees?’

‘He passed away,’ she said, her face instantly sad at the memory. ‘I saw his obituary. You get to that point, don’t you, where they’re the first thing you check in the newspaper?’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘I couldn’t get to his funeral. I had a doctor’s appointment that day and they’re like gold-dust.’

Rebus kept smiling and nodding. ‘How did you know him, Mrs…?’

‘I’m Elspeth Tanner. People used to tease me, you know.’

‘Tease you?’

‘Elsie Tanner—from Coronation Street. Not that I’ve ever been anything like that little madam.’

‘Mrs Tanner, how did you know Big Rab?’

‘He changed the light bulb in my living room. Nice big strapping man, he was. Helped with the Christmas tree, too.’

‘So you met him…?’

‘Through Alison, of course. Alison from next door.’

‘He used to visit her? Were they related?’

Mrs Tanner’s eyes sparkled and she lowered her voice a little. ‘He was her gentleman friend.’

‘Oh.’ Rebus paused while this sank in.

‘He was married and everything—Alison told me. He’d leave his wife if he could—that’s what he told her. But he’d made his bed and must lie in it.’

‘Two beds, actually, when you think of it.’

Mrs Tanner gave a little squeal of laughter, hiding her mouth behind her hand. ‘I couldn’t condone his behaviour, but he was always considerate—and Alison didn’t seem to mind. He brought her flowers and things.’

‘Anything a bit more extravagant? Maybe earrings or a necklace?’

‘Perhaps once or twice—Christmas and her birthday.’

‘No more than that?’

Mrs Tanner started to frown. ‘Why all these questions? What business is it of yours?’

‘I’m an old friend of Rab’s. I was sorting out some of his stuff and found Alison’s address.’

The wariness eased from Mrs Tanner’s face. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Did he leave her anything in his will? Difficult without his poor wife finding out.’

‘Difficult, yes.’ Rebus paused. ‘So is Alison still with us?’

‘She’s in a home. Has been for a year or so. I used to try to visit but it’s two buses, sometimes three.’

‘Do you know if Rab still saw her?’

‘He broke it off three Christmases past.’ Mrs Tanner grew thoughtful. ‘Actually, I think it was Alison who persuaded him. Soon after, she had an “episode,” and it got so she couldn’t look after herself. Maybe she knew it was coming. We sometimes sense these things, don’t we?’ Her eyes brightened. ‘If he’d maybe left a note for her…something that would cheer her up?’

‘I didn’t find anything.’ Rebus winced at the lie.

‘You could look again. I doubt she knows he’s dead. Will you break it to her?’

‘Do you think I should?’

Mrs Tanner was nodding. ‘Wait there,’ she said. ‘I’ll go find the address…’

Alison Hardy’s care home was in Morningside. It looked to Rebus as if a couple of large semi-detached houses had been knocked through to create it. He’d decided to walk there—it was only quarter of an hour from his flat—in the weak sunshine of the following morning. He tied Brillo to the iron railings outside and gave him a pat.

‘Five or ten minutes tops,’ he promised.

The door was being opened as he approached it. A uniformed woman stood there. ‘We allow dogs,’ she said. ‘The clients quite like it.’

‘Well, if you’re sure…’

So, tail wagging in delight at his inclusion, Brillo accompanied his owner indoors. Rebus had expected to smell cheap talc and strong disinfectant, but was met with neither. The place was brightly lit and freshly decorated.

‘You’ll be Mr Rebus,’ the woman was saying. ‘It was me you spoke to earlier.’

‘Thanks for letting me visit.’

‘We’re not a prison, Mr Rebus. Guests are welcome day and night. But as I said, I’m in two minds about breaking the news to Alison. She’s not had an episode for a while, and it’d be best if nothing brought on another one.’

‘Has she ever mentioned Mr Merrilees to you?’

The woman—he recalled now her name was Semple—shook her head. ‘But you say he was married and their affair was just that, so…’

Rebus nodded slowly. Some secrets had to be kept. ‘Well, maybe I’ll just say hello, then, and pass on her neighbour’s regards.’

Semple led the way without another word, down a wide carpeted corridor towards the last door before the fire escape. The door was ajar but she knocked anyway before putting her head inside.

‘Someone to see you, Alison. He’s a friend of your old neighbour, Elspeth. Is it all right if he comes in?’

Without waiting for an answer, she led the way. Alison Hardy sat in a chair with a tartan rug around her lower body. She had been flicking through a magazine and peered at Rebus from above her half-moon spectacles.

‘Elspeth never comes,’ she commented. Her hair was fine and silver, her face gaunt. A breeze could have toppled her. Rebus tried not to think about her trysts with Big Rab Merrilees.

‘Can I fetch you tea or anything?’ Semple was asking. Rebus shook his head and watched her withdraw. She hadn’t quite shut the door, so he did it for her.

‘Lovely dog,’ Alison Hardy said. Brillo was still on the lead so Rebus neared the woman’s chair. Brillo obliged by lifting his front paws onto the travel rug, so that Hardy’s slender hands could rub at his ears.

‘He’s called Brillo,’ Rebus informed her.

‘I never had a pet. Goldfish and budgies when I was a bairn, but nothing since.’

Rebus extended the lead a little so he could sit down on the chair opposite. ‘Elspeth’s sorry she doesn’t come as much as she’d like.’

‘It’s the buses, isn’t it? She’d spend half of every visit complaining about them.’

Rebus smiled an acknowledgment. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Maybe someone bedbound, or with a wandering mind. The woman he was facing didn’t even seem that old—not more than a handful of years older than him.

‘My name’s John, by the way,’ he said. ‘I was a policeman for a long time.’ She focused a little more deeply on him. ‘I knew Rab Merrilees back then.’

She gave a twitch of her mouth. ‘I saw in the paper that he’d died. I thought about the funeral, but with his wife and everything…’

‘I visited his old police box on the Canongate. Did you ever go there?’

‘Maybe once.’

‘He scratched your address on the paintwork—did you know about that?’

‘No.’

‘Any notion why he’d do something like that?’

‘Maybe to lead someone to my door, John. And here you are.’ She pursed her lips and peered at him.

‘You know, don’t you?’ he eventually broke the silence to ask.

She took a deep breath. ‘All I know is, Rab reckoned one day someone would turn up.’

‘Would you care to take a guess why they’d turn up, Alison?’

Her face broke into a smile. ‘You want the bookshelf over there.’ She gestured over Rebus’s shoulder. He turned to look. The shelves by the window contained mostly ornaments rescued from Hardy’s old home. But there were also a dozen or so paperbacks. He rose to his feet and approached the unit.

‘The Muriel Spark novel,’ she directed him. ‘It’s what I was reading at the time.’

Rebus lifted it down and looked at it. Loitering With Intent.

‘Inside the back cover,’ he heard Hardy say.

A small white envelope. Still sealed, no writing on it.

‘Rab said someone nosy might come asking questions, and if they did I was to give them this.’

Rebus put the book back on the shelf and carried the envelope to the chair.

‘Do you know what’s in it?’ he inquired. She shook her head. ‘Never tempted to take a look?’

‘I knew Rab had done some things during his life. It was him I was interested in, not them.’

‘What do you think is in it?’

‘The answer to a question you’ve not been brave enough to ask.’

‘So I have your blessing to open it?’

She nodded slowly and watched him get to work.

Back in his living room, once he’d fed Brillo, he stood by the window, staring out at the street. Eventually he took the sheet of notepaper from his pocket and unfolded it, reading it for the fourth or fifth time.

I got rid of the lot and spent the cash. What else was I going to do? I’m not the mug here.

One final practical joke on the world. A wild goose chase around the city. And Rebus the mug who’d fallen for it. He twisted his mouth and managed a pained smile, then took out his phone and called Camille Riordan.

‘You wanted the story,’ he said. ‘So here it is.’

When he finished, he heard laughter on the line, then her voice. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

Rebus’s eyes narrowed. ‘Say what?’

‘If you’d given me Merrilees’s name, I might have saved you the trouble.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘All the police boxes—the job lot. We bought them from someone called Robert Merrilees. I’d no idea he’d been a cop—he was just a name on a purchase agreement. They’d have cost him a few thousand back in the day but they cost us a good bit more.’

‘How long had he owned them?’

‘Long enough.’

‘That’s what he did with the proceeds then? He bought half a city’s worth of redundant Tardises?’

‘And made sure his widow’s sitting pretty as a result, I dare say.’

Rebus remembered Jerry Calder’s words: Widow didn’t look too unhappy at the funeral…

‘Which means,’ Riordan continued, ‘he was doing the same two things as you, John.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Thinking inside the box and out.’ And she started to laugh again.