Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Most of the G8 leaders touched down at Prestwick Airport, southwest of Glasgow. In all, nearly one hundred and fifty aircraft would land in the course of the day. The leaders, their spouses, and their closest personnel would then be transferred to Gleneagles by helicopter, while fleets of chauffeured cars conveyed other members of the various delegations to their eventual destinations. George Bush’s sniffer dog had its own car. Today was Bush’s fifty-ninth birthday. Jack McConnell, first minister of the Scottish parliament, was on the tarmac to greet the world leaders. There were no visible protests or disruptions.
Not at Prestwick.
But in Stirling, morning TV news showed masked protesters hitting out at cars and vans, smashing the windows of a Burger King, blocking the A9, attacking gas stations. In Edinburgh, demonstrators halted all traffic on Queensferry Road. Lothian Road was lined with police vans, a chain of uniformed officers protecting the Sheraton Hotel and its several hundred delegates. Police horses paraded down streets usually busy with the morning rush hour, but today devoid of traffic. Buses lined the length of Waterloo Place, ready to convey marchers north to Auchterarder. But there were mixed signals, no one very sure that the official route had been sanctioned. The march was off, then on, then off again. Police ordered the bus drivers not to move their vehicles until the situation could be verified one way or the other.
And it was raining; looked like the Final Push concert that evening might be a washout. The musicians and celebrities were at Murrayfield Stadium, busy with sound checks and rehearsals. Bob Geldof was at the Balmoral Hotel, but preparing to visit Gleneagles with his friend Bono, always supposing the various protests would let them through. The queen was on her way north, too, and would host a dinner for the delegates.
The news journalists sounded breathless, wired on doses of caffeine. Siobhan, having spent a night in her car, was getting by on watery coffee from a local baker’s. The other customers had been more interested in the events unfolding on the wall-mounted TV set behind the counter.
“That’s Bannockburn,” one of them had said. “And there’s Springkerse. They’re everywhere!”
“Circle the wagons,” her friend had advised, to a few smiles. The protesters had left Camp Horizon as early as two in the morning, literally catching the police napping.
“Can’t understand how those bloody politicians can tell us this is good for Scotland,” a man in painter’s overalls had muttered, waiting for his bacon roll to arrive. “I’ve got jobs in Dunblane and Crieff today. Christ knows how I’m supposed to get there.”
Back in her car, Siobhan was soon warmed by the heater, though her spine remained creaky, her neck tight. She’d stayed in Stirling because going home would have meant coming back this morning, with the same security rigmarole-maybe even worse. She washed down two aspirin and headed for the A9. She hadn’t made much progress along the two-lane highway when the flashers on a car ahead told her both lanes were at a dead stop. Drivers had emerged from their vehicles to shout at the men and women in clown costumes who were lying in the road, some chained to the central median’s crash barriers. Police were chasing other garish figures through the adjoining fields. Siobhan parked on the hard shoulder and walked to the head of the line, where she showed her ID to the officer in charge.
“I’m supposed to be in Auchterarder,” she told him. He waved his short black baton in the direction of a police motorcycle.
“If Archie’s got a spare helmet, he can have you there in two shakes.”
Archie produced the necessary helmet. “You’re going to be bloody cold on the back, mind,” he warned.
“I’ll just have to snuggle up then, won’t I?”
But as he accelerated away, the word snuggle suddenly didn’t fit. Siobhan was clinging to him for dear life. There was an earpiece inside her helmet, allowing her to listen in on messages from Operation Sorbus. Around five thousand demonstrators were descending on Auchterarder, preparing to march past the gates of the hotel. Futile, Siobhan knew: they’d still be hundreds of yards from the main building, their slogans evaporating on the wind. Inside Gleneagles, the dignitaries would have no scent of any march, any large-scale dissent. Protesters were heading across country from all directions, but the officers on the other side of the security cordon were prepared. Leaving Stirling, Siobhan had noticed fresh graffiti on a fast-food outlet: 10,000 Pharaohs, Six Billion Slaves. She was still trying to work out who was meant to be who…
Archie braked suddenly, tipping her forward so she could see over his shoulder the scene unfolding ahead.
Riot shields, dog handlers, mounted police.
A twin-engined Chinook helicopter scything the air overhead.
Flames licking from an American flag.
A sit-down protest stretching the full width of the roadway. As officers started breaking it up, Archie gunned the bike toward the gap and squeezed through. If Siobhan’s knuckles hadn’t been rigid and numb with cold, she might have eased her grip on him long enough to offer a pat on the back. The earpiece was telling her that Stirling railway station might reopen shortly, but anarchists could be using the line as a shortcut to Gleneagles. She remembered that the hotel boasted its own railway station; doubted anyone would be using it today. There was better news from Edinburgh, where torrential rain had dampened the demonstrators’ spirits.
Archie turned his head toward her. “Scottish weather!” he yelled. “What would we do without it?”
The Forth Road Bridge was operating with minimal disruption, and early road blocks on Quality Street and Corstorphine Road had been cleared. Archie slowed to negotiate another blockade, Siobhan taking the opportunity to wipe drizzle from her visor with the sleeve of her jacket. As they signaled to turn off the highway, another, smaller helicopter seemed to be following their progress. Archie brought his bike to a stop.
“End of the line,” he said. They hadn’t quite reached the town’s boundary, but she could see he was right. Ahead of them, past a police cordon, flew a sea of flags and banners. Chants, whistles, and jeers.
Bush, Blair, CIA, how many kids did you kill today? Same chant she’d heard at the naming of the dead.
George Bush, we know you, your daddy was a killer, too. Okay, so that was a new one.
Siobhan eased herself from the pillion, handed over the helmet, and thanked Archie. He grinned at her.
“Won’t get too many days as exciting as this,” he said, turning the bike around. Speeding off, he gave her a wave. Siobhan waved back, some of the feeling returning to her fingers. A red-faced cop bounded up to her. She already had her ID open.
“Which only makes you more of a bloody idiot,” he barked. You look like one of them.” He stabbed a finger in the direction of the stalled demonstration. “They see you behind our lines, they’ll think that’s where they belong, too. So either make yourself scarce or get suited up.”
“You’re forgetting,” she told him, “there is a third way.” And with a smile she walked up to the police line, squeezed between two of the black-clad figures, and ducked under their riot shields. She was now in the front line of demonstrators. The red-faced officer looked aghast.
“Show your badges!” a protester was calling out to the police rank. Siobhan stared at the cop immediately in front of her. The thing he was wearing looked almost like coveralls. The letters ZH were painted in white on his helmet above the visor. She tried to remember if any of the squad from Princes Street Gardens boasted the same insignia. All she could remember was XS.
Police excess.
Sweat was running down both sides of the officer’s face, but he seemed composed. Orders and encouragement were being called down the police line:
“Keep it tight!”
“Easy, lads.”
“Move it back!”
There was an element of agreed orchestration to the pushing on both sides. One of the demonstrators seemed to be in control, calling out that the march was official and the police were now in breach of all agreements. He could not, he said, be responsible for the consequences. Throughout, he held a cell phone to his ear, while news photographers stood on tiptoe, cameras held aloft, to capture some of the drama.
Siobhan started backpedaling, then shuffled sideways until she was on the edge of the proceedings. From this vantage point, she started scanning the crowd for any sign of Santal. There was a teenager next to her, with bad teeth and a shaved head. When he started yelling abuse, the accent sounded local. His jacket flapped open at one point, and Siobhan caught a glimpse of something tucked into his waistband.
Something not unlike a knife.
He had his cell phone out, using it to capture snippets of video, sending them to his buddies. Siobhan looked around. No way she could alert the police officers. If they waded in to arrest him, all hell would break loose. Instead, she squeezed in behind him, waiting for the right moment. When a chant broke out and hands rose into the air, she seized her chance. Grabbed his arm and wrenched it around his back, pressing forward so he was sent down onto his knees. Her free hand went to his waist, removed the knife, then pushed him hard so he fell on all fours. She moved backward briskly through the crowd, tossing the knife over a low wall into shrubbery. Melted into the crowd and raised her own arms into the air, clapping along. His face was purple with anger as he elbowed his way through the throng in front of her, seeking out his attacker.
He wasn’t going to find her.
Siobhan almost allowed herself a smile, but knew her own search might well prove every bit as fruitless as his. And meantime she was in the middle of a demonstration, one that could at any moment turn into a riot.
I’d kill for a Starbucks latte, she thought.
Wrong place, and very definitely the wrong time.
Mairie was in the foyer of the Balmoral Hotel. The elevator door opened and she saw the man in the blue silk suit appear. She got up from her chair, and he walked toward her, holding out his hand.
“Mr. Kamweze?” she asked.
He gave a bow of confirmation, and she returned his handshake.
“Good of you to see me on short notice,” Mairie said, trying not to sound too gushing. Her phone call had been just that: the cub reporter, overawed to be talking to such a senior figure in African politics…and could he possibly spare five minutes to help with a profile she was doing?
The pose was no longer necessary; he was right there in front of her. All the same, she didn’t want him bolting just yet.
“Tea?” he suggested, leading the way to the Palm Court.
“I love your suit,” she said as he drew out her chair for her. She smoothed her skirt beneath her as she sat. Joseph Kamweze seemed to enjoy the view.
“Thank you,” he said, sliding onto the banquette opposite her.
“Is it designer?”
“Purchased in Singapore, on my way back from a delegation to Canberra. Really rather inexpensive…” He leaned toward her conspiratorially. “But let’s keep that to ourselves.” He gave a huge grin, showing one gold tooth at the back of his mouth.
“Well, I want to thank you again for seeing me.” Mairie was reaching into her bag for notebook and pen. She also had a little digital recorder, and she asked him if he would mind.
“That will be dependent on your questions,” he said with another grin. The waitress arrived and he ordered Lapsang souchong for both of them. Mairie hated the stuff but kept her mouth shut.
“You must let me pay,” she told him. He waved the offer aside.
“It is of no consequence.”
Mairie raised an eyebrow. She was still busying herself with the tools of her trade when she asked her next question.
“Your trip’s being funded by Pennen Industries?”
The grin disappeared; the eyes hardened. “I beg your pardon?”
She tried for a look of unsullied naïveté. “Just wondered who was paying for your stay here.”
“What is it you want?” The voice was chilled. His hands brushed the edge of the table, the fingertips running along it.
Mairie made a show of consulting her notes. “You are part of the Kenyan trade delegation, Mr. Kamweze. What exactly is it that you’re looking for from the G8?” She checked that the recorder was running and placed it on the table between them. Joseph Kamweze seemed thrown by the sheer ordinariness of the question.
“Debt relief is crucial to Africa ’s rebirth,” he recited. “Chancellor Brown has indicated that some of Kenya ’s neighbors-” He broke off, unable to keep going. “Why are you here? Is Henderson even your real name? I’m a fool for not asking to see your identification.”
“I’ve got it right here.” Mairie began to rummage through her bag.
“Why did you mention Richard Pennen?” Kamweze interrupted.
She blinked at him. “I didn’t.”
“Liar.”
“I did mention Pennen Industries, but that’s a company, not an individual.”
“You were with the policeman at Prestonfield House.” It sounded like a statement, though he could have been guessing. Either way, she didn’t deny it.
“I think you should go now,” he stated.
“Are you sure about that?” Her own voice had hardened, and she returned his stare. “Because if you walk away from here, I’m going to splash a photo of you across the whole front page of my newspaper.”
“You are being ridiculous.”
“It’s a bit grainy, and we’ll need to blow it up, meaning it might be on the fuzzy side, too. But it will show a pole dancer cavorting in front of you, Mr. Kamweze. You’ll have your hands on your knees and a big smile on your face as you stare at her naked chest. Her name’s Molly and she works at the Nook on Bread Street. I took possession of the security-camera tape this morning.” Lies, all lies, but she loved the effect they were having on him. His fingernails were digging into the tabletop. His close-cropped hair glistened with sweat.
“You were then questioned at a police station, Mr. Kamweze. I daresay there’s footage of that little expedition, too.”
“What is it you want from me?” he hissed. But he had to compose himself as the tea tray arrived, and with it some shortbread biscuits. Mairie bit into one: no breakfast this morning. The tea smelled like oven-baked seaweed, and she pushed her cup aside after the waitress had poured. The Kenyan did the same with his.
“Not thirsty?” she asked, and couldn’t help smiling.
“The detective told you,” Kamweze realized. “He, too, threatened me like this.”
“Thing is, he can’t prosecute. Me, on the other hand…well, unless you give me a good reason to dump a front-page exclusive…” She could see he hadn’t yet taken the bait. “A front page that will be seen around the world…How long till the press in your own country picks up the story and runs with it? How long till your government masters get to hear of it? Your neighbors, friends-”
“Enough,” he growled. His eyes were focused on the table. It was highly polished, throwing his own reflection back at him.
“Enough,” he repeated, and his tone told her he was beaten. She bit into another of the biscuits. “What do you want?”
“Not much, really,” she assured him. “Just everything you can tell me about Mr. Richard Pennen.”
“Am I to be your Deep Throat, Miss Henderson?”
“If the thought excites you,” she offered.
Thinking to herself: But really, you’re just another dupe who got caught…another flawed civil servant.
Another informer…
His second funeral in a week.
He’d crawled out of the city-domino effect from earlier. At the Forth Bridge, Fife constabulary were pulling over trucks and vans, checking their potential as barricades. Once over the bridge, however, traffic was fine. He was early as a result. Drove into the center of Dundee, parked by the waterfront, and smoked a cigarette with the radio tuned to news. Funny, the English stations were on about London ’s Olympic bid; hardly a mention of Edinburgh. Tony Blair was jetting back from Singapore. Rebus pondered whether he got frequent-flier miles.
The Scottish news had picked up on Mairie’s story: everyone was calling him the G8 Killer. Chief Constable James Corbyn was making no public statements on the subject; SO12 was stressing that there was no danger to the leaders gathering at Gleneagles.
Two funerals inside a week. He wondered if one reason that he was working so hard was so he wouldn’t have time to think too much about Mickey. He’d brought a CD of Quadrophenia with him, played some of it on the drive north, Daltrey rasping the insistent question: Can you see the real me? He had the photos on the passenger seat: Edinburgh Castle, dinner jackets and bow ties. Ben Webster with about two hours to live, looking no different from anyone else. But then suicides didn’t wear signs around their necks. Neither did serial killers, gangsters, bent politicians. Beneath all the official portraits was Mungo’s close-up of Santal and her camera. Rebus studied it for a moment before placing it on top. Then he started the car and headed for the funeral home.
Place was packed. Family and friends, plus representatives from all the political parties. Labor MSPs, too. The media kept their distance, huddled at the gates. Probably the office juniors, sour-faced with the knowledge that their elders and betters were busy at the G8, capturing Thursday’s headlines and front pages. Rebus hung back as the real guests were ushered indoors. Some of them had looked at him quizzically, thinking it unlikely he’d been a man with any connection to the MP, taking him for some kind of vulture, preying on the grief of strangers.
Maybe they were right at that.
A hotel in Broughty Ferry was providing refreshments afterward. “The family,” the reverend was telling the assembly, “have asked me to say that you’ll all be most welcome.” But his eyes told another story: close family and bosom friends only, please. Quite right, too: Rebus doubted any hotel in the Ferry could cope with a crowd this size.
He was seated in the back row. The reverend had asked one of Ben Webster’s colleagues to step up and say a few words. Sounded much like the eulogy at Mickey’s funeral: a good man…much missed by those who knew him, and many did…devoted to his family…well liked in the community. Rebus reckoned he’d given it long enough. There was no sign of Stacey. He hadn’t really thought much about her since that meeting outside the morgue. He guessed she’d gone back to London, or else was clearing out her brother’s home, dealing with the banks and insurers and such.
But to miss the funeral…
There had been more than a week between Mickey’s death and his cremation. And Ben Webster? Not even five full days. Could the haste be classed as indecent? Stacey Webster’s decision, or someone else’s? Outside in the parking lot, he lit another cigarette and gave it five more minutes. Then he unlocked the driver’s side and got in.
Can you see the real me…
“Oh, yes,” he said quietly, turning the ignition.
Mayhem in Auchterarder.
The rumor had gone around that Bush’s helicopter was on its way. Siobhan had checked her watch, knowing he wasn’t due to arrive at Prestwick till midafternoon. Every chopper that came over, the crowd booed and bayed. They’d streamed down lanes and through fields, clambered over walls into people’s gardens. One aim in mind: get to the cordon. Get past the cordon. That would be the real victory; no matter if they were still half a mile from the actual hotel. They would be on the Gleneagles estate. They would have beaten the police. She saw a few members of the Clown Army, and two protesters dressed in plus fours and carrying golf bags: the People’s Golfing Association, whose mission was to play a hole on the hallowed championship course. She had heard American accents, Spanish voices, Germans. She had watched a huddle of black-clad, face-muffled anarchists planning their next move. An airship droning overhead, gathering surveillance…
But no Santal.
Back on Auchterarder’s main street, news had arrived that the Edinburgh contingent was being prevented from leaving the city.
“So they’re marching there instead,” someone explained gleefully. “Bullyboys are going to be stretched to breaking.”
Siobhan doubted it. All the same, she tried her parents’ cell. Her father answered, said they’d been sitting on the bus for hours and were still there.
“Promise me you won’t join any march,” Siobhan implored.
“Promise,” her father said. Then he put his wife on so Siobhan could hear the same pledge from her. As she ended the call, Siobhan suddenly felt like an utter idiot. What was she doing here when she could be with her parents? Another march meant more riot cops; could be her mother would recognize her attacker, or something might nudge a nugget of remembrance to the surface.
She cursed herself quietly, then turned and was face to face with her quarry.
“Santal,” she said. The young woman lowered her camera.
“What are you doing here?” Santal asked.
“Surprised?”
“Just a little, yes. Are your parents…?”
“They’re stranded in Edinburgh. I see your lisp’s improved.”
“What?”
“Monday in the gardens,” Siobhan went on, “you were busy with your little camera. Only thing is, you weren’t zeroing in on the cops. Why is that?”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at.” But Santal glanced to the left and right, as if afraid they would be overheard.
“Reason you didn’t want to show me any of your photos is that they would tell me something.”
“Like what?” She sounded neither scared nor wary, but genuinely curious.
“They’d tell me you were interested in your fellow rabble-rousers rather than the forces of law and order.”
“So?”
“So I got to wondering why that might be. It should have come to me earlier. Everyone said so, after all-at the Niddrie camp and then again in Stirling.” Siobhan had taken a step closer, the two women nose to nose. She leaned in toward Santal’s ear. “You’re undercover,” she whispered. Then she stood back, as if admiring the young woman’s getup. “The earrings and piercings…mostly fake?” she guessed. “Temporary tattoos, and”-staring at the coils of hair-“a nicely made wig. Why you bothered with the lisp, I’ve no idea-maybe to help you retain a sense of your own identity.” She paused. “How am I doing?”
Santal just rolled her eyes. A phone was ringing, and she searched her pockets, bringing out two. The screen on one was lit up. She studied it, then stared over Siobhan’s right shoulder. “Gang’s all here,” she said. Siobhan wasn’t sure what she meant. Oldest trick in the book, but she turned and looked anyway.
John Rebus, standing there with a phone in one hand and what looked like a business card in the other.
“I’m not sure of the etiquette,” he commented, coming closer. “If I light up something that’s a hundred percent tobacco, does that make me a slave to the evil empire?” He shrugged and brought out the pack of cigarettes anyway.
“Santal here is a plant,” Siobhan explained to him.
“This just might not be the safest place to announce that fact,” Santal hissed.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Siobhan snorted.
“I think I can oblige,” Rebus said. But his eyes were on Santal. “Beyond the call of duty,” he told her, “skipping your own brother’s funeral.”
She glared at him. “You were there?”
He nodded. “I have to admit, though, I stared and stared at the photo of Santal, and it still took an age to dawn on me.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should.”
“I wanted to be there, you know.”
“What sort of excuse did you give?”
Only at this point did Siobhan butt in. “You’re Ben Webster’s sister?”
“The penny drops,” Rebus commented. “DS Clarke, meet Stacey Webster.” Rebus’s eyes were still on Stacey. “But I’m guessing we should keep calling you Santal?”
“Bit late for that now,” Stacey replied. As if on cue, a young man with a red bandanna around his forehead started toward them.
“Everything cool here?”
“Just catching up with an old friend,” Rebus warned him.
“You look like pigs to me.” His eyes shifted between Rebus and Siobhan.
“Hey, I can handle it.” Santal was back in character: the strong woman, able to fight her own battles. She stared the young man down.
“If you’re sure…” He was already retreating. As she turned back toward Rebus and Siobhan, she became Stacey again.
“You can’t stay here,” she stated. “I’m due to be relieved in an hour-we can talk then.”
“Where?”
She considered for a moment. “Inside the security fence. There’s a field behind the hotel, that’s where the drivers hang out. Wait for me there.”
Siobhan looked at the crowds surrounding them. “And how exactly do we get there?”
Stacey offered a sour smile. “Show some initiative.”
“I think,” Rebus explained, “she’s telling us to get ourselves arrested.”
It took Rebus a good ten minutes to push his way to the front of the throng, Siobhan tucking herself in behind him. With his body pressed to a scratched and scrawled riot shield, Rebus palmed his ID against the see-through reinforced plastic, level with the cop’s eye line.
“Get us out of here,” he mouthed. The cop wasn’t falling for it. Called out instead for his boss to decide. The red-faced officer appeared over the cop’s shoulder, recognized Siobhan straight off. She was trying to look suitably chastened.
The officer gave a sniff, then an order. The cordon of shields opened a fraction, and hands hauled at Rebus and Siobhan. The noise level rose perceptibly on the other side of the line.
“Show them your ID,” the officer ordered. Rebus and Siobhan were happy to oblige. The officer held a megaphone in front of him and let the crowd know no arrests had been made. When he identified Rebus and Siobhan as police detectives, a huge jeer went up. All the same, the situation seemed to be easing.
“I should put you on report for that little escapade,” he told Siobhan.
“We’re murder squad,” Rebus lied fluently. “There was someone we needed to talk to-what else could we do?”
The officer stared at him, but suddenly found himself with more pressing concerns. One of his men had fallen over, and the protesters were aiming to exploit this breach in the barricade. He barked out orders on his megaphone, and Rebus gestured to Siobhan that maybe they should make themselves scarce.
Van doors were opening, more cops spilling out to provide backup on the front line. A medic asked Siobhan if she was okay.
“I’m not injured,” she told him. A small helicopter was sitting on the road, rotor blades turning. Rebus got into a crouch and went to talk to the pilot, then waved Siobhan across.
“He can take us to the field.”
The pilot was nodding from behind mirrored sunglasses. “Not a problem,” he called out in an American accent. Thirty seconds later they were installed, and the machine was rising into the air, whipping up dust and litter below it. Rebus whistled a bit of Wagner-a nod to Apocalypse Now-but Siobhan ignored him. Hard to hear anything, which didn’t stop her asking Rebus what he’d told the pilot. She read his lips as he replied:
Murder squad.
The hotel was a mile to the south. From the sky, it was easy to make out the security fence and the watchtowers. Thousands of acres of deserted hillside, and pockets of demonstrators being corralled by black uniforms.
“I’m not allowed to go near the hotel itself,” the pilot was yelling. “A missile would have us down if I did.”
He sounded serious, and he took a wide arc around the hotel’s security fence. There were lots of temporary structures, probably to shelter the world’s media. Satellite dishes on the tops of anonymous-looking vans. Television, or maybe the secret service. Rebus could make out a track that led from a large white canopy toward the security fence. The field had been reduced to stubble, and someone had spray-painted a giant letter H to let the chopper know where to land. Their flight had taken only a couple of minutes. Rebus shook the pilot’s hand and jumped out, Siobhan following.
“My day for traveling in style,” she mused. “A motorbike brought me up the A9.”
“Siege mentality,” Rebus explained. “This week, it’s us and them as far as this lot are concerned.”
There was a soldier approaching, dressed in combat fatigues and toting a submachine gun. He looked far from pleased at their arrival. Both showed their ID, but this was not enough for the soldier. Rebus noted that there was no insignia on his uniform, nothing to identify his nationality, or which branch of the armed services he belonged to. He insisted on taking their badges from them.
“Wait right there,” he ordered, pointing to where they were standing. As he turned away, Rebus did a little soft-shoe shuffle and gave Siobhan a wink. The soldier had disappeared into a huge trailer. Another armed soldier guarded its door.
“I get the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Rebus offered.
“Does that make me Toto?”
“Let’s see what’s over there,” Rebus suggested, heading for the canopy. Its roof was a fixed structure of plastic sections, held up by a series of poles. Beneath it sat rows of limousines. Liveried drivers shared cigarettes and stories. Strangest of all, a chef, dressed in white jacket and checkered trousers, and with a toque perched on his head, was cooking what appeared to be omelets. He stood behind a sort of platform, a large red bottle of cooking gas by his side. The food was being dished out on proper plates, with silver cutlery. Tables had been set up for the drivers’ use.
“I heard about this when I was up here with the DCI,” Siobhan said. “Hotel staff are using a back route into the compound, leaving their vehicles in the next field over.”
“I’m assuming they’ve all been vetted,” Rebus said, “which is what’s happening to us right now.” He glanced toward the trailer, then nodded a greeting to one group of drivers. “Omelets all right, lads?” he asked, receiving replies in the affirmative. The chef was awaiting fresh orders.
“One with everything,” Rebus told him, turning toward Siobhan.
“Same,” she said.
The chef got busy with his little plastic containers of cubed ham, sliced mushrooms, chopped peppers. Rebus picked up a knife and fork while he was waiting.
“Bit of a change for you,” he said to the chef. The man just smiled. “All modern conveniences though,” Rebus went on, sounding impressed. “Chemical toilets, hot food, a bit of shelter for when it rains…”
“Half the cars have got TVs,” one of the drivers informed him. “Signal’s not up to much, mind…”
“It’s a hard life,” Rebus commiserated. “Ever allowed inside the trailers?”
The drivers shook their heads. “They’re chock-full of gizmos,” one man offered. “I caught a glimpse. Computers and stuff.”
“That aerial on the roof probably isn’t for Coronation Street then,” Rebus said, pointing. The drivers laughed just as a door opened and the soldier reappeared. He seemed nonplussed that Rebus and Siobhan were no longer where he’d left them. As he marched toward them, Rebus accepted his omelet from the chef and scooped up a mouthful. He was praising the food as the soldier halted in front of him.
“Want some?” Rebus offered, holding out his fork.
“It’s an earful you’ll be getting,” the soldier countered. Rebus turned toward Siobhan.
“Pretty good comeback,” she told him, taking her own plate from the chef.
“DS Clarke is an expert,” Rebus informed the soldier. “We’ll just finish our grub, then hop into one of the Mercedes to watch Columbo…”
“I’m keeping hold of your badges,” the soldier said. “For verification purposes.”
“Looks like we’re stuck here then.”
“Which channel’s Columbo on?” one of the drivers asked. “I like that program.”
“It’ll be in the TV pages,” a colleague offered.
The soldier’s head jerked upward, chin jutting as he watched a heli copter approaching. It was low and deafening. The soldier stepped out from under the canopy to get a better view.
“You have got to be kidding,” Rebus said as the man stiffly saluted the underside of the machine.
“Does it every time,” one of the drivers yelled. Another asked if it might be Bush arriving. Watches were checked. The chef was covering his ingredients, in case flying debris from the downdraft landed in them.
“He’s due around now,” someone surmised.
“I brought Boki in from Prestwick,” another added, going on to explain that this was the name of the president’s dog.
The helicopter had disappeared over a line of trees. They could hear it coming in to land.
“What do the wives do,” Siobhan asked, “while the menfolk are arm wrestling?”
“We can take them on a scenic tour.”
“Or shopping.”
“Or museums and galleries.”
“Whatever they want, that’s what they get. Even if it means shutting roads or clearing the public out of a shop. But they’re also ferrying in some arty types from Edinburgh -writers and painters-to pass the time.”
“And Bono, of course,” another driver added. “Him and Geldof are doing their glad-handing bit later today.”
“Speaking of which…” Siobhan glanced at the time on her cell. “I’ve got the offer of a Final Push ticket.”
“Who from?” Rebus asked, knowing she’d had no luck in the public draw.
“One of the guards in Niddrie. Think we’ll be home in time?”
He just shrugged. “Oh,” he said, “something I meant to tell you.”
“What?”
“I’ve co-opted Ellen Wylie onto the team.”
Siobhan’s look became a glare.
“She knows more about BeastWatch than we do,” Rebus plowed on, failing to make eye contact.
“Yes,” Siobhan said, “a damned sight too much.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning she’s too close to it, John. Think what a defense lawyer would do to her in court!” Siobhan was failing to keep her voice down. “You didn’t think to ask me? I’m the one whose head’s on the block if this all falls apart!”
“She’s just doing admin,” Rebus said, knowing himself how pathetic this sounded. He was saved by the soldier, striding back toward them.
“I need you to state your business,” the man announced crisply.
“Well, I’m in the CID business,” Rebus replied, “as is my colleague here. We’ve been told to meet someone, and this is where it’s hap pening.”
“Which person? Whose orders?”
Rebus tapped the side of his nose. “Hush-hush,” he said in an under tone. The drivers had returned to their own conversation, debating which stars they might be chauffeuring to the Scottish Open on Saturday.
“Not me,” one of them boasted. “I’m doing the run between Glasgow and T in the Park.”
“You’re based in Edinburgh, Inspector,” the soldier was saying. “This is way out of your jurisdiction.”
“We’re investigating a murder,” Rebus hit back.
“Three murders, actually,” Siobhan corrected him.
“And that means no boundaries,” Rebus concluded.
“Except,” the soldier countered, rising onto his toes, “you’ve been ordered to put your inquiry on ice.” He seemed to like the effect his words had on Siobhan in particular.
“Okay, so you made a phone call,” Rebus told him, not about to be impressed.
“Your chief constable wasn’t very happy.” The soldier was smiling with his eyes. “And neither was he…” Rebus followed the line of his eyes. A Land Rover was bumping its way toward them. The passenger-side window was wide open, Steelforth’s head leaning out from it as though he was straining at some leash.
“Oh, crap,” Siobhan muttered.
“Chin up,” Rebus advised her, “shoulders back.” He was rewarded with another withering look.
The car had screeched to a halt, Steelforth spilling out. “Do you know,” he was yelling, “how many months of training and preparation, weeks of deep cover surveillance…do you know how much of that you’ve just blown to smithereens?”
“Not sure I follow you,” Rebus answered blithely, handing his empty plate back to the chef.
“I think he means Santal,” Siobhan said.
Steelforth glared at her. “Of course I do!”
“She’s one of yours?” Rebus asked, then he nodded to himself. “Stands to reason. Send her to the campsite at Niddrie, get her taking photos of all those protesters. Compiling a nice little portfolio for future use…So valuable to you, in fact, that you couldn’t even spare her for her own brother’s funeral.”
“Her decision, Rebus,” Steelforth snapped.
“Two o’clock, Columbo started,” one of the drivers said.
Steelforth was not to be deflected. “A surveillance operation like that, oftentimes they hardly get off the ground before the cover’s blown. Months she’d been in place.”
Rebus picked up on that use of the past tense, and Steelforth confirmed it with a nod.
“How many people,” he asked, “do you think saw you with her today? How many clocked you as CID? Either they’ll start to mistrust her, or they’ll feed her garbage in the hope that we’ll bite.”
“If she’d trusted us in the first place-” Siobhan was cut off by a harsh burst of laughter from Steelforth.
“Trusted you?” He laughed again, leaning forward with the effort. “My God, that’s a good one.”
“Should have been here earlier,” Siobhan told him. “Our soldier friend’s comeback was better.”
“And by the way,” Rebus said, “I wanted to thank you for putting me in a cell overnight.”
“I can’t help it if officers decide to use their own initiative, or if your own boss won’t answer a phone call.”
“They were real cops then?” Rebus asked. Steelforth rested his hands on his waist, elbows jutting. He stared at the ground, then back up at Rebus and Siobhan.
“You’ll be put on suspension, of course.”
“We don’t work for you.”
“This week, everyone works for me.” He turned his attention to Siobhan. “And you won’t be seeing DS Webster again.”
“She has evidence-”
“Evidence of what? That your mother got hit by a baton during a riot? It’s up to her if she wants to make a complaint-have you even asked her?”
“I…” Siobhan hesitated.
“No, you just tore off on this little crusade. DS Webster’s being sent back home-your fault, not mine.”
“Speaking of evidence,” Rebus said, “whatever happened to those security-camera tapes?”
Steelforth frowned. “Tapes?” he echoed.
“The operations room at Edinburgh Castle…cameras trained on the ramparts…”
“We’ve been through this a dozen times,” Steelforth growled. “Nobody saw anything.”
“So it’s okay for me to watch the tapes?”
“If you can find any, be my guest.”
“They’ve been wiped?” Rebus guessed. Steelforth didn’t bother replying. “This suspension of ours,” Rebus went on, “you forgot to add ‘pending an inquiry.’ I’m guessing that’s because there won’t be one.”
Steelforth shrugged. “Up to the pair of you.”
“Dependent on our conduct? Like not pushing for the tapes to be made available?”
Steelforth shrugged again. “You can survive this-but just barely. I can make you look like heroes or villains-” The radio clipped to Steelforth’s belt crackled to life. Report from one of the watchtowers: security fence breached. Steelforth held the radio to his mouth and ordered a Chinook’s worth of reinforcements, then strode back toward the Land Rover. One of the chauffeurs intercepted him.
“Wanted to introduce myself, Commander. Name’s Steve and I’ll be driving you to the Open-”
Steelforth snarled some sort of oath, stopping Steve dead. The other drivers started joking that he wouldn’t be getting much of a tip this weekend. Steelforth’s Land Rover, meantime, was already revving its engine.
“Not even a farewell kiss?” Rebus called out, offering a wave of his hand. Siobhan stared at him.
“You’ve got retirement to look forward to-some of us were hoping for a career.”
“You see what he’s like, Shiv: moment this is all over, we’ll have fallen off his radar.” Rebus kept waving as the vehicle roared away. The soldier was standing in front of them, holding out their badges.
“Off you go now,” he snapped.
“Where exactly?” Siobhan asked.
“Or, more to the point, how?” Rebus added.
One of the drivers cleared his throat and stretched out an arm, drawing attention to the array of luxury cars. “I just got a text-one of the suits has to get back to Glasgow. I could drop you off somewhere.”
Siobhan and Rebus shared a look. Siobhan then smiled at the driver and nodded toward the cars.
“Do we get to choose?” she asked.
They ended up sitting in the back of a six-liter Audi A8, four hundred miles on its clock, most of them added since first thing that morning. Pungent aroma of new leather and the bright gleam of chrome. Siobhan asked if the TV was working. Rebus gave her a look.
“Just wondering if London got the Olympics,” she explained.
Their IDs were scrutinized at three separate checkpoints between the field and the hotel grounds.
“We don’t go near the hotel itself,” the driver said. “I’ll pick up the suit from the meet ’n’ greet next to the media center.” Both were situated near the hotel’s main car lot. Rebus saw that no one was playing the golf course. Pitch-and-putt and croquet lawns-both empty, except for dapper, slow-paced security men.
“Hard to believe there’s anything happening,” Siobhan commented. Her voice was just above a whisper; something about the place…Rebus felt it, too. You didn’t want to draw attention to yourself.
“Just be a sec,” the driver said, stopping the car. He pulled on his chauffeur’s peaked cap as he exited. Rebus decided to get out, too. He couldn’t see any rooftop marksmen, but figured they were probably there nevertheless. They had parked to one side of the main baronial building, near a vast conservatory that Rebus guessed was probably the restaurant.
“Weekend here would do me grand,” he confided to Siobhan as she emerged from the backseat.
“Cost you a grand, too, no doubt,” she countered. Inside the media center-a tented structure with solid sides-reporters could be glimpsed hammering copy into their laptops. Rebus had lit a cigarette. He heard a sound and turned to see a bicycle round the corner of the hotel. Its rider was bent low, aiming for speed, another bike tucked in directly behind. The leading cyclist passed within thirty feet, caught sight of them, and offered a wave. Rebus gave a flick of his cigarette in acknowledgment. But lifting his fingers from the handlebars had unbalanced the rider. His front wheel wobbled, slewing across the gravel. The other cyclist tried to avoid him, but ended up going over his own handlebars. Men in dark suits arrived as if from nowhere, making a rapid huddle around the two sprawled figures.
“Did we just do that?” Siobhan asked quietly. Rebus said nothing, just dumped the cigarette and eased himself back into the car. Siobhan followed his example, and they watched through the windshield as the first cyclist was helped to his feet, rubbing his grazed knuckles. The other rider was still on the ground, but no one seemed to be paying him much heed. A question of protocol, Rebus guessed.
The needs of President George W. Bush must always come first.
“Did we just do that?” Siobhan repeated, her voice trembling a little. The Audi driver had emerged from the meet ’n’ greet, followed by a man in a gray suit. The man carried two bulging briefcases. Like the driver, he paused for a moment to watch the commotion. The chauffeur held open the passenger-side door and the civil servant got in without so much as a nod of greeting in the direction of the backseat. The chauffeur got behind the steering wheel, his cap grazing the Audi’s roof, and asked them what was going on.
“Wheels within wheels,” Rebus offered. At last, the civil servant decided to acknowledge that he was-possibly to his chagrin-not the only passenger.
“I’m Dobbs,” he said. “F.C.O.”
Meaning foreign and commonwealth office. Rebus reached out a hand.
“Call me John,” he invited. “I’m a friend of Richard Pennen’s.”
Siobhan looked to be taking none of this in. Her attention, as the car drew away, was on the scene unfolding behind them. Two men in green paramedics’ uniforms were being prevented from reaching the U.S. president by his insistent security detail. Hotel staff had emerged to watch, as had a couple of the reporters from the media center.
“Happy birthday, Mr. President,” Siobhan sang huskily.
“Pleased to meet you,” Dobbs was telling Rebus.
“Richard been here yet?” Rebus asked casually.
The civil servant frowned. “Not sure he’s on the list.” He seemed worried that he might have been kept out of the loop.
“Told me he was,” Rebus lied blithely. “Thought the foreign sec had a role for him.”
“Quite possibly,” Dobbs stated, trying to sound more confident than he looked.
“George Bush just fell off his bike,” Siobhan commented. It was as if the words needed to be spoken before they could become fact.
“Oh, yes?” Dobbs said, not really listening. He was opening one of the briefcases, ready to immerse himself in some reading. Rebus realized the man had suffered enough small talk, his mind geared to higher things: statistics and budgets and trade figures. He decided on one last try.
“Were you at the castle?”
“No,” Dobbs drawled. “Were you?”
“I was, as a matter of fact. Hellish about Ben Webster, wasn’t it?”
“Ghastly. Best PPS we had.”
Siobhan seemed suddenly to realize what was going on. Rebus offered her a wink.
“Richard’s not too sure he jumped,” Rebus commented.
“Accident, you mean?” Dobbs replied.
“Pushed,” Rebus stated. The civil servant lowered his sheaf of papers, turned his head toward the backseat.
“Pushed?” He watched Rebus slowly nod. “Who the hell would do that?”
Rebus offered a shrug. “Maybe he made enemies. Some politicians do.”
“Almost as many as your chum Pennen,” Dobbs countered.
“How do you mean?” Rebus tried to sound slighted on his friend’s behalf.
“That company of his used to belong to the taxpayer. Now he’s making a packet out of R and D we paid for.”
“Serves us right for selling it to him,” Siobhan chipped in.
“Maybe the government was badly advised,” Rebus teased the civil servant.
“Government knew bloody well what it was doing.”
“Then why sell to Pennen?” Siobhan asked, genuinely curious now. Dobbs was shuffling through his papers again. The driver was on the phone to someone, asking which routes were open to them.
“R and D departments are costly,” Dobbs was saying. “When the MoD needs to make cuts, it always looks bad if it’s regiments taking the brunt. Ditch a few techs, the media doesn’t so much as blink.”
“I’m still not sure I get it,” Siobhan admitted.
“Thing about a private company,” Dobbs went on, “is that they can sell to pretty much anyone they like-fewer constraints than the MoD, F.C.O., or department of industry. Result? Faster profits.”
“Profits made,” Rebus added, “from selling to suspect dictators and spit-poor nations already up to their eyes in debt.”
“I thought he was your…?” Dobbs flinched as he realized he was not necessarily among friends. “Who did you say you were again?”
“John,” Rebus reminded him. “And this is my colleague.”
“But you don’t work for Pennen Industries?”
“Never implied that we did,” Rebus insisted. “We’re Lothian and Borders Police, Mr. Dobbs. And I want to thank you for your frank answers to our questions.” Rebus stared over the seat toward the civil servant’s lap. “You seem to be crushing all your lovely papers. Is that to save on a shredder…?”
Ellen Wylie was busy manning the phones when they got back to Gayfield Square. Siobhan had called her parents, discovering that they’d given up on the trip to Auchterarder and had kept clear of the angry protest in Princes Street. There had been trouble stretching from the Mound to the Old Town -disgruntled protesters, prevented from leaving the city, clashing with riot police. As Rebus and Siobhan walked into the CID suite, Wylie gave them a look. Rebus thought she was on the verge of a protest herselfalone all day in the station. But then a figure emerged from Derek Starr’s private office-not Starr himself, but Chief Constable James Corbyn. His hands were clasped behind his back, showing impatience. Rebus stared at Wylie, who shrugged a response, indicating that Corbyn had stopped her from texting a warning.
“Pair of you, in here,” Corbyn snapped, retreating back into Starr’s airless domain. “Close the door after you,” he added. He was seating himself; no other chairs in the room, so Rebus and Siobhan stayed standing.
“I’m glad you could make time, sir,” Rebus stated, getting his retaliation in first. “I wanted to ask you about the night Ben Webster died.”
Corbyn was caught off guard. “What about it?”
“You were at the dinner, sir…something you should probably have declared from the start.”
“We’re not here to talk about me, DI Rebus. We’re here so that I can formally suspend the pair of you from active duty with immediate effect.”
Rebus nodded slowly, as if this were a given. “All the same, sir, now you are here, best if we get your statement. Looks like we’re hiding something otherwise. Papers are flocking around like vultures. Hardly in the interests of public relations for the chief constable to be-”
Corbyn rose to his feet. “Maybe you weren’t listening, Inspector. You’re no longer taking part in any inquiry. I want the pair of you off the premises in the next five minutes. You’ll go home and sit by the phone, waiting for news of my investigation into your conduct. Is that clear?”
“I need a few minutes to update my notes, sir. Need to make our conversation a matter of record.”
Corbyn stabbed a finger toward Rebus. “I’ve heard all about you, Rebus.” His gaze shifted to Siobhan. “Might explain why you were so reluctant to give me your colleague’s name when I put you in charge.”
“You never actually asked, sir, if you don’t mind me saying,” Siobhan retorted.
“But you knew damned well trouble couldn’t be far off.” His attention was firmly back on Rebus. “Not with Rebus here in the vicinity.”
“With respect, sir-” Siobhan started to argue.
Corbyn slammed his fist against the desk. “I told you to put the whole thing on ice! Instead of which, it makes the front pages, and then you proceed to end up at Gleneagles! When I tell you you’re off the case, that’s all you need to know. End of game. Sayonara. Finito.”
“Picked up a few words at the dinner, eh, sir?” Rebus responded with a wink. Corbyn’s eyes bulged from his head. Just their luck if he were to collapse with an aneurysm. But instead he stalked from the room, almost sending Siobhan and a bookcase toppling as he passed them. Rebus exhaled noisily, ran a hand through his hair, and scratched his nose.
“So what do you want to do now?” he asked.
Siobhan just looked at him. “Pack my things?” she guessed.
“Packing certainly comes into it,” Rebus replied. “We pack all the case files off to my place, set up camp there.”
“John…”
“You’re right,” he said, choosing to misinterpret her tone. “They’ll be noticed if they go missing. So we need to copy them instead.”
This time he got a smile.
“I’ll do it if you want,” he added. “I know you’ve got a hot date.”
“In the pouring rain.”
“Only excuse Travis needs to play that bloody song of theirs.” He emerged from Starr’s office. “Did you catch any of that, Ellen?”
She was putting the phone down. “I couldn’t warn you,” she began.
“Don’t apologize. I suppose Corbyn knows who you are now?” He perched on the corner of her desk.
“Didn’t seem that interested. He got my name and rank, never bothered to ask if I was a regular here.”
“Perfect,” Rebus told her. “Means you can keep being our ears and eyes.”
“Hang on a second,” Siobhan interrupted. “That’s not your call to make.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Siobhan ignored him, focusing on Ellen Wylie. “This is my show, Ellen. Understood?”
“Don’t worry, Siobhan, I can tell when I’m not wanted.”
“I’m not saying you’re not wanted, but I need to know you’re on our side.”
Wylie prickled visibly. “As opposed to whose?”
“Ladies, ladies,” Rebus said, stepping between them like an old-fashioned wrestling referee. His eyes were on Siobhan. “An extra pair of hands wouldn’t go amiss, boss, you have to admit that.”
She smiled eventually-boss had done the trick. But her gaze stayed fixed on Wylie. “Even so,” she said, “we can’t ask you to spy for us. It’s one thing for John and me to get into trouble, another to land you in the mire.”
“I don’t mind,” Wylie said. “Nice overalls, by the way.”
Siobhan’s smile reappeared. “I suppose I should change before the show.”
Rebus exhaled noisily: flash point avoided. “So what’s been happening here?” he asked Wylie.
“Trying to alert all the offenders listed on BeastWatch. I’ve asked the various police authorities to tell them to be on their guard.”
“And did they sound enthusiastic?”
“Not exactly. Betweentimes, I’ve had several dozen reporters following up on the front page.” She had the newspaper beside her and tapped Mairie’s headline. “Amazed she gets the time,” she commented.
“How’s that?” Rebus wondered.
Wylie opened the paper at a double-page spread. Byline: Mairie Henderson. An interview with Councilman Gareth Tench. Big photo of him in the midst of the Niddrie campsite.
“I was there when they did that,” Siobhan said.
“I know him,” Wylie couldn’t help countering. Rebus gave her a look.
“Explain.”
She gave a shrug, wary of his sudden interest. “I just do.”
“Ellen,” he warned, drawing her name out.
She sighed. “He’s been seeing Denise.”
“Your sister Denise?” Siobhan asked.
Wylie nodded. “It was me who hooked them up, more or less.”
“They’re an item?” Rebus had wrapped his arms around himself like a straitjacket.
“They’ve been out a few times. He’s been…” She sought the right words. “He’s been good for her, brought her out of herself.”
“With the help of a drop of wine?” Rebus guessed. “But how did you come to meet him?”
“BeastWatch,” she said quietly, eyes refusing to connect with his.
“Say again?”
“He saw that piece I wrote. Sent me an e-mail full of praise.”
Rebus had jumped to his feet, unfolding his arms as he searched the desk for a sheet of paper-the list Bain had given of BeastWatch subscribers.
“Which one is he?” he demanded, handing her the names.
“That one,” she said.
“Ozyman?” Rebus checked, watching her nod. “Hell kind of name is that? He’s not from Down Under, is he?”
“Ozymandias, maybe,” Siobhan offered.
“Ozzy Osbourne’s more my line,” Rebus admitted. Siobhan leaned over a keyboard and stuck the name into a search engine. A couple of clicks and a biography appeared on the screen.
“King of kings,” Siobhan explained. “Put up a huge statue of himself.” Two more clicks and Rebus was looking at a poem by Shelley.
“‘Look on my works, ye Mighty,’” he recited, “‘and despair.’” He turned toward Wylie. “Not that he’s bigheaded or anything.”
“Can’t dispute it,” she conceded. “All I said was, he’s been good for Denise.”
“We need to talk to him,” Rebus said, his eyes running down the list of names, wondering how many more lived in Edinburgh. “And you, Ellen, should have said something before now.”
“I didn’t know you had a list,” she said, defensively.
“He got to you through the Web site-stands to reason we’d want to question him. Christ knows, we’ve few enough leads to go on.”
“Or too many,” Siobhan countered. “Victims in three different regions, clues left in another…It’s all so scattered.”
“I thought you were heading home to get ready?”
She nodded, looked around the office. “You’re really going to take it all with you?”
“Why not? I can copy the paperwork, Ellen here won’t mind staying late to make some floppies.” He gave her a meaningful look. “Will you, Ellen?”
“That’s my punishment, is it?”
“I can appreciate you’d want Denise kept out of it,” Rebus told her, “but you should still have given us Tench.”
“Just remember, John,” Siobhan interrupted, “the councilman saved me from a beating that night in Niddrie.”
Rebus nodded. Could have added that he’d witnessed another side to Gareth Tench, but didn’t bother.
“Enjoy your concert,” he said instead.
Siobhan’s attention was back on Ellen Wylie. “My team, Ellen. If I think you’re hiding anything else…”
“Message received.”
Siobhan started to nod slowly, then thought of something. “Did BeastWatch subscribers ever have get-togethers?”
“Not that I know of.”
“But they can contact each other?”
“Obviously.”
“Did you know who Gareth Tench was before you met him?”
“First e-mail he sent, he said he was based in Edinburgh, signed off with his real name.”
“And you told him you were CID?”
Wylie nodded.
“What’s your thinking?” Rebus asked Siobhan.
“I’m not sure yet.” Siobhan started to get her things together. Rebus and Wylie watched her. Finally, with a wave over her shoulder, she was gone. Ellen Wylie folded the newspaper and dumped it in a wastebasket. Rebus had filled the kettle and switched it on.
“I can tell you exactly what she’s thinking,” Wylie told him.
“Then you’re cleverer than me.”
“She knows that murderers don’t always work alone. She also knows sometimes they need validation.”
“Over my head, Ellen.”
“I don’t think so, John. If I know you, you’re thinking much the same. Somebody decides to start killing perverts, they might want to tell someone about it-either beforehand, almost asking permission, or afterward, to get it off their chest.”
“Okay,” Rebus said, busy with the mugs.
“Hard to work in a team if you’re one of the suspects.”
“I really do appreciate you helping out, Ellen,” he said, pausing before adding, “so long as that’s what you’re doing.”
She sprang from the chair, placing her hands on her hips, elbows jutting. Rebus had been told once why humans did that-to make them seem bigger, more threatening, less vulnerable.
“You think,” she was saying, “I’ve been here half the day just to protect Denise?”
“No…but I do think people will go a long way to protect family.”
“Like Siobhan and her mum, you mean?”
“Let’s not pretend we wouldn’t do the same.”
“John…I’m here because you asked me.”
“And I’ve said I’m grateful, but here’s the thing, Ellen-Siobhan and me have just been sent out of the game. We need someone to look out for us; someone we can trust.” He spooned coffee into the two chipped mugs. Sniffed the milk and decided it would do. He was giving her time to think.
“All right,” she said at last.
“No more secrets?” he asked. She shook her head. “Nothing I should know?” Shook it again. “You want to be there when I interview Tench?”
Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “How do you plan to do that? You’re on suspension, remember?”
Rebus made a face and tapped his head. “Short-term memory loss,” he told her. “It comes with the territory.”
After the coffee, they got busy: Rebus filled the copier with a fresh ream of paper; Wylie asked what he wanted copied from the computer’s various databases. The phone rang half a dozen times, but they ignored it.
“Incidentally,” Wylie chimed in at one point, “did you hear? London got the Olympics.”
“Whoop-dee-doo.”
“It was great actually: everyone dancing around Trafalgar Square. Means Paris lost out.”
“Wonder how Chirac’s taking it.” Rebus checked his watch. “He’ll be sitting down to dinner with the queen right around now.”
“With TB doing his Cheshire cat impression, no doubt.”
Rebus smiled. Yes, and Gleneagles serving up the best of Caledonian fare for the French president…He thought back to that afternoon, standing a few hundred yards from all those powerful men. Bush toppling from his bike, a painful reminder that they were every bit as fallible as anyone else. “What does the G stand for?” he asked. Wylie just looked at him. “In G8,” he amplified.
“Government?” she guessed, giving a shrug. There was a tapping against the open door: one of the duty uniforms from the front desk.
“Someone to see you downstairs, sir.” He glanced pointedly in the direction of the nearest phone.
“We’ve not been picking up,” Rebus explained. “Who is it?”
“Woman called Webster…she was hoping for DS Clarke, but said you’d do in a pinch.”
Backstage at the Final Push.
Rumors that some sort of rocket had been fired from the railway tracks nearby, falling short of its target.
“Filled with purple dye,” Bobby Greig had told Siobhan. He was in civvies: faded jeans and a battered denim jacket. Looked damp but happy as the rain drizzled down. Siobhan had changed into black cords and a pale green T-shirt, topped off with a biker jacket bought secondhand from an Oxfam shop. Greig had smiled at her. “How come,” he’d said, “whatever you wear, you still look like CID?”
She hadn’t bothered replying. She kept fingering the laminated pass strung around her neck. It showed an outline of Africa and the legend Backstage Access. Sounded grand, but Greig soon explained her spot on the food chain. His own pass was Access All Areas, but beyond this were two further levels-VIP and VVIP. She’d already seen Midge Ure and Claudia Schiffer, both of them VVIPs. Greig had introduced her to the concert promoters, Steve Daws and Emma Diprose, the pair of them glamorous despite the weather.
“Amazing lineup,” Siobhan had told them.
“Thank you,” Daws had said. Then Diprose had asked if Siobhan had a favorite, but she’d shaken her head.
Throughout, Greig hadn’t bothered mentioning to them that she was a cop.
There had been ticketless fans outside Murrayfield, begging to buy, and a few scalpers whose prices were deterring all but the wealthiest and most desperate. With her pass, Siobhan had been able to wander around the base of the stage and onto the playing field itself, where she joined sixty thousand drenched fans. But the hungry looks they gave in the direction of her little plastic rectangle made her uncomfortable, and she soon retreated behind the security fence. Greig was stuffing his face with the free food, while holding a half-empty bottle of continental lager. The Proclaimers had opened the show with a sing-along of “ 500 Miles.” Word was, Eddie Izzard would be playing piano on Midge Ure’s version of “ Vienna.” Texas, Snow Patrol, and Travis were due up later, with Bono helping out the Corrs and a closing set by James Brown.
But the frenetic backstage activity was making her feel old. She didn’t know who half the performers were. They looked important, moving to and fro with their various entourages, but their faces didn’t mean anything to her. It struck her that her parents might be leaving on Friday, giving her just one more day with them. She’d called them earlier; they’d gone back to her place, buying provisions on the way, and might go out for dinner. Just the two of them, her dad had said, making it look like this was what he wanted.
Or maybe so she wouldn’t feel guilty at being elsewhere.
She was trying to relax, to get in the mood, but work kept intruding. Rebus, she knew, would still be hard at it. He wouldn’t rest till his demons had been quelled. Yet each victory was fleeting, and each fight drained him a little more. Now that the sun was setting, the stadium was dotted with the flashes from camera phones. Luminous glow sticks were being waved in the air. Greig found an umbrella from somewhere and handed it to her as the rain got heavier.
“Had any more trouble in Niddrie?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “They’ve made their point,” he said. “Besides which, they probably think there’s a better chance of a fight if they head into town.” He tossed his empty beer bottle into a recycling bin. “Did you see it today?”
“I was in Auchterarder,” she said.
He looked impressed. “Bits I saw on TV made it look like a war zone.”
“Wasn’t quite that bad. How about here?”
“Bit of a demonstration when the buses were stopped from going. Nothing like Monday though.” He nodded over her shoulder. “Annie Lennox,” he pointed out. And so it was, not ten feet away, giving them a smile as she headed to her changing room. “You played great at Hyde Park!” Greig called out to her. She just kept smiling, her mind on the performance ahead. Greig went to fetch more beers. Most of the people Siobhan saw were just hanging around, looking bored. Technical crews who wouldn’t be busy again until it was time to pack everything away and dismantle the stage. Personal assistants and record company staff-the latter wearing a uniform of black suits with matching V-neck sweaters, sunglasses on and phones clamped to their ears. Caterers and promoters and hangers-on. She knew she was one of the last group. No one had asked what role she was playing because no one thought she was a player.
The terraces, that’s where I belong, she thought.
Either there or the CID room.
She felt so very different from the teenager who’d hitched her way to Greenham Common, singing “We Shall Overcome” as she locked hands with the other women ringing the air base. Already, Saturday’s Make Poverty History march seemed like history itself. And yet…Bono and Geldof had managed to breach the G8 security, putting their case to the various leaders. They’d made damned sure those men knew what was at stake, and that millions expected great things of them. Tomorrow, decisions might be made. Tomorrow would be crucial.
Her cell was in her hand, and she was on the verge of calling Rebus. But she knew he would laugh, tell her to switch it off and enjoy herself. She suddenly doubted that, despite the ticket pinned by a magnet to the fridge in her kitchen, she would go to T in the Park. Doubted the killings would be solved by then, especially now she was officially off the case. Her case. Except now Rebus had brought in Ellen Wylie…it rankled that he hadn’t thought to ask. Rankled, too, that he’d been right: they needed help. But now it turned out Wylie knew Gareth Tench and Tench knew Wylie’s sister…
Bobby Greig had returned with her beer. “So what do you think?” he asked.
“I think they’re all remarkably small,” she commented. He nodded his agreement.
“Pop stars,” he explained, “must’ve been the school runts. This is how they get their revenge. You’ll notice their heads are big enough though.” He saw that he had lost her attention.
“What’s he doing here?” Siobhan asked.
Greig recognized the figure, gave a wave. Councilman Gareth Tench waved back. He was talking to Daws and Diprose, but broke off-a pat on the shoulder for the former; peck on either cheek for the latter-and came toward them.
“He’s the council’s culture convener,” Greig stated. He held out a hand for Tench to squeeze.
“How are you, lad?” Tench inquired.
“Just fine.”
“Keeping out of trouble?” This question was directed at Siobhan. She took the proffered hand and returned its firm grasp.
“Trying to.”
Tench turned back to Greig. “Remind me again, where do I know you from?”
“The campsite. Name’s Bobby Greig.”
Tench shook his head at his own incompetence. “Of course, of course. Well, isn’t this great?” He clapped his hands together and looked around. “Whole bloody world’s got its eyes on Edinburgh.”
“Or on the concert at any rate,” Siobhan couldn’t help qualifying.
Tench just rolled his eyes. “There’s no pleasing some folk. Tell me, did Bobby here sneak you in for free?”
Siobhan felt obliged to nod.
“And you’re still complaining?” He gave a chuckle. “Remember to give a donation before you leave, eh? Might look like a kickback otherwise.”
“That’s a bit unfair,” Greig started to protest, but Tench waved the complaint aside. “And how’s that colleague of yours?” he was asking Siobhan.
“You mean DI Rebus?”
“That’s the one. Seems a bit too friendly with the criminal fraternity, if you ask me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you work together…I’m sure he confides in you. The other night?” As if jogging her memory. “ Craigmillar Faith Center? I was making a speech when your man Rebus showed up with a monster called Cafferty.” He paused. “I’m assuming you know him?”
“I know him,” Siobhan confirmed.
“Seems strange to me that the forces of law and order would need to…” He seemed to be searching for the right word. “Fraternize,” he decided. Then he paused, eyes boring into Siobhan’s. “I’m presuming DI Rebus wouldn’t have kept any of this from you. I mean, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know?”
Siobhan felt like a fish worried by an insistent hook.
“We all have our private lives, Mr. Tench” was the only reply she could muster. Tench seemed disappointed. “And what about yourself?” she continued. “Hoping to persuade a few bands into playing the Jack Kane Center?”
He rubbed his hands again. “If the opportunity presents…” His voice drifted away as he saw a face he recognized. Siobhan knew it too: Marti Pellow from Wet Wet Wet. The name reminded her to raise her umbrella. The rain tom-tommed off it as Tench moved away toward his target.
“What was all that about?” Greig asked. She just shook her head. “Why do I get the feeling you’d rather be elsewhere?”
“Sorry,” she said.
Greig was watching Tench and the singer. “Works fast, doesn’t he? Not shy either. I think that’s why people listen. You ever heard him when he’s giving a speech? The hairs on your arms start to rise.”
Siobhan nodded slowly. She was thinking about Rebus and Cafferty. It didn’t surprise her that Rebus hadn’t said anything. She looked at her phone again. She had an excuse now to call him, but still she held back.
I’m owed a private life, an evening off.
Otherwise, she’d become just like Rebus-obsessed and sidelined; cranky and mistrusted. He’d been stuck at inspector rank for the best part of two decades. She wanted more. Wanted to do the job well, but be able to switch off now and again. Wanted a life outside her job, rather than a job that became her life. Rebus had lost family and friends, pushing them aside in favor of corpses and con men, killers, petty thieves, rapists, thugs, racketeers, and racists. When he went out drinking, he did so on his own, standing quietly at the bar, facing the row of optics. He had no hobbies, didn’t follow any sports, never took a vacation. If he had a week or two off, she could usually find him at the Oxford Bar, pretending to read the paper in a corner, or staring dully at daytime TV.
She wanted more.
This time, she made the call. It was picked up and she broke into a smile. “Dad?” she said. “You still in the restaurant? Tell them to squeeze in an extra place setting for dessert.”
Stacey Webster was herself again.
Dressed much as she had been the time Rebus had met her outside the morgue. Her T-shirt had long sleeves.
“That to hide the tattoos?” he asked.
“They’re temporary,” she told him. “They’ll fade in time.”
“Most things do.” He saw the suitcase. It was standing on end, carry handle retracted. “Back to London?”
“Sleeper car.” She nodded.
“Look, I’m sorry if we…” Rebus looked around the reception area, as though reluctant to make eye contact.
“It happens,” she said. “Maybe my cover wasn’t breached, but Commander Steelforth doesn’t like to risk his officers.” She seemed awkward and uncertain, brain stuck in the no-man’s-land between two very separate identities.
“Time for a drink?” he asked.
“I came to see Siobhan.” She slid a hand into her pocket. “Is her mum okay?”
“Recuperating,” Rebus said. “Staying at Siobhan’s.”
“Santal never got the chance to say good-bye.” She was holding her hand out toward Rebus. A clear plastic wallet, within which sat a silver disk. “CD-ROM,” she said. “Film copied from my camera, that day on Princes Street.”
Rebus nodded slowly. “I’ll see she gets it.”
“The commander would kill me if…”
“Our secret,” Rebus assured her, tucking the disk into his breast pocket. “Now let’s get you that drink.”
Plenty of pubs available to them on Leith Walk. But the first they walked past looked busy, the Murrayfield concert blaring from the TV. Farther downhill they found what they wanted-a quiet, traditional place with a jukebox sound track and a one-armed bandit. Stacey had left her suitcase behind the desk at Gayfield Square. She told him she wanted to off-load some Scottish money-her excuse for getting the round. They settled at a corner table.
“Ever used the sleeper car before?” Rebus asked.
“That’s why I’m drinking gin and tonic-only way to sleep on that damned train.”
“Is Santal gone for good?”
“Depends.”
“Steelforth said you were undercover for months.”
“Months,” she agreed.
“Can’t have been easy in London…always the chance someone would recognize you.”
“I walked past Ben once…”
“As Santal?”
“He never knew.” She sat back. “That’s why I let Santal get close to Siobhan. Her parents had told me she was CID.”
“You wanted to see if your cover would hold?”
Rebus watched her nod, thinking now that he understood something. Stacey would have been devastated by her brother’s death, but to Santal it would have mattered very little. Problem was, all that grief was still caged-something he knew a bit about.
“ London wasn’t really my main base though,” Stacey was saying. “A lot of the groups have moved out-too easy for us to monitor them there. Manchester, Bradford, Leeds…that’s where I spent most of my time.”
“You think you made a difference?”
She gave this some thought. “We hope we do, don’t we?”
He nodded his agreement, sipped at his own pint, then put it down. “I’m still looking into Ben’s death.”
“I know.”
“The commander told you?” He watched her nod. “He’s been putting obstacles in my way.”
“He probably sees it as his job, Inspector. It’s nothing personal.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trying to protect a man called Richard Pennen.”
“Pennen Industries?”
It was Rebus’s turn to nod. “Pennen was picking up your brother’s hotel tab.”
“Strange,” she said. “There wasn’t much love lost.”
“Oh?”
She stared at him. “Ben had visited plenty of war zones. He knew the horrors inflicted by the arms trade.”
“The line I keep being fed is that Pennen sells technology rather than guns.”
She snorted. “Only a matter of time. Ben wanted to make things as awkward as possible. You should look back at Hansard-speeches he made in the House, asking all sorts of difficult questions.”
“Yet Pennen paid for his room.”
“And Ben would have loved that. He’d take a room from a dictator, then spend the whole trip slamming them.” She paused and swirled her drink, then turned her eyes back toward him. “You thought it was bribery, didn’t you? Pennen buying Ben off?” His silence answered her question. “My brother was a good man, Inspector.” At last, tears were welling in her eyes. “And I couldn’t even go to his bloody funeral.”
“He’d have understood,” Rebus offered. “My own…” Had to stop and clear his throat. “My own brother died last week. We cremated him on Friday.”
“I’m sorry.”
He lifted the glass to his mouth. “He was in his fifties. Doctors say it was a stroke.”
“You were close?”
“Phone calls mostly.” He paused again. “I put him in jail once for dealing drugs.” Looked at her to gauge her reaction.
“Is that what’s bothering you?” she asked.
“What?”
“That you never told him…” She struggled to get the words out, face twisting as the tears started falling. “Never told him you were sorry.” She got up from the table, fled to the restroom-one hundred percent Stacey Webster now. He thought maybe he should follow her, or at least send the barmaid in after her. But he just sat there instead, swilling the glass until fresh foam appeared on the surface of the beer, thinking about families. Ellen Wylie and her sister, the Jensens and their daughter Vicky, Stacey Webster and her brother…
“Mickey,” he said in a whisper. Naming the dead so they’d know they weren’t forgotten.
Ben Webster.
Cyril Colliar.
Edward Isley.
Trevor Guest.
“Michael Rebus,” he said out loud, making a little toast with his glass. Then he got up and bought refills-IPA, vodka and tonic. Stood by the bar as he waited for his change. Two regulars were discussing Team Britain’s chances at the 2012 Olympics.
“How come London always gets everything?” one of them complained.
“Funny they didn’t want the G8,” his companion added.
“Knew what was bloody coming.”
Rebus had to think for a moment. Wednesday today…it all wrapped up on Friday. Just one more full day and then the city could start getting back to normal. Steelforth and Pennen and all the other intruders would head south.
There wasn’t much love lost…
She’d meant between her brother and Richard Pennen, the MP trying to stymie Pennen’s expansion plans. Rebus had had Ben Webster all wrong, seeing him as a lackey. And Steelforth not letting Rebus near the hotel room. Not because he didn’t want any fuss, didn’t want the various bigwigs bothered with questions and theories. But to protect Richard Pennen.
Wasn’t much love lost.
Making Richard Pennen a suspect, or at the very least giving him a motive. Any one of the guards at the castle could have heaved the MP over the ramparts. There would have been bodyguards mixing with the guests…secret service, too-at least one detail apiece to protect the foreign secretary and defense secretary. Steelforth was SO12, next best thing to the spooks at MI5 and MI6. But if you wanted to get rid of someone, why choose that method? It was too public, too showy. Rebus knew from experience: the successful murders were where there was no murder. Smothered during sleep, drugged and then left in a moving vehicle, or simply made to disappear.
“Christ, John,” he scolded himself. “It’ll be little green men next.” Blame the circumstances: easy to imagine any manner of conspiracy happening around you in G8 week. He set the drinks down at the table, a little concerned now that Stacey had yet to emerge from the restroom. It struck him that his back had been turned while he’d waited at the bar. Gave it five more minutes, then asked the barmaid to check. She came out of the ladies’ shaking her head.
“Three quid wasted,” she told him, gesturing toward Stacey’s drink. “And too young for you anyway, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Back at Gayfield Square, she’d taken her suitcase but left him a note.
Good luck, but remember-Ben was my brother, not yours. Make sure you do your own grieving, too.
Hours yet until the sleeper car left. He could head to Waverley, but decided against it; wasn’t sure there was much more left to be said. Maybe she even had a point. By investigating Ben’s death, he was keeping Mickey’s memory close. Suddenly, there was a question he wished he’d asked her:
What do you think happened to your brother?
Well, he had her business card somewhere, the one she’d given him outside the morgue. He’d call her tomorrow maybe, see if she’d been able to sleep on the train to London. He’d told her he was still investigating the death, and all she’d said was “I know.” No questions; no theories of her own. Warned off by Steelforth? A good soldier always obeyed orders. But she must have been thinking about it, weighing the options.
A fall.
A leap.
A push.
“Tomorrow,” he told himself, heading back to the CID room, a long night of clandestine photocopying ahead.
Thursday, July 7, 2005
The buzzer woke him.
He stumbled through to the hall and pushed the button on the intercom.
“What?” he rasped.
“I thought I worked here.” Tinny and distorted but still recognizable: Siobhan’s voice.
“What time is it?” Rebus coughed.
“Eight.”
“Eight?”
“The start of another working day.”
“We’re suspended, remember?”
“Are you still in your jam-jams?”
“I don’t wear them.”
“Meaning I need to wait out here?”
“I’ll leave the door open.” He buzzed her in, collected his clothes from the chair by the bed, and locked himself in the bathroom. He could hear her tapping on the door, pushing it open.
“Two minutes!” he called out, stepping into the bath and under the nozzle of the shower.
By the time he emerged, she had seated herself at the dining table and was sorting through last night’s photocopies.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” he said. He was halfway through knotting his tie. Remembering that he wouldn’t be going into work, he tugged it free instead and threw it toward the sofa. “We need supplies,” he told her.
“And I need a favor.”
“Such as?”
“A couple of hours at lunchtime-I want to take my parents out.”
He nodded his agreement. “How’s your mum doing?”
“She seems okay. They’ve decided to give Gleneagles a miss, even though climate change is on today’s agenda.”
“They’re heading home tomorrow?”
“Probably.”
“How was the show last night?” She didn’t answer straightaway. “I caught the last bit on TV-thought I might have seen you bopping down front.”
“I’d left by then.”
“Oh?”
She just shrugged. “So what are these provisions?”
“Breakfast.”
“I’ve had mine.”
“Then you can watch me while I demolish a bacon roll. There’s a café on Marchmont Road. And while I’m tucking in, you can call Councilman Tench, fix up a powwow.”
“He was at the show last night.”
Rebus looked at her. “Gets about a bit, doesn’t he?”
She’d wandered over to the stereo. There were LPs on a shelf, and she picked one up.
“That was made before you were born,” Rebus told her. Leonard Cohen, Songs of Love and Hate.
“Listen to this,” she said, reading the back of the sleeve. “‘They locked up a man who wanted to rule the world. The fools, they locked up the wrong man.’ Wonder what that means?”
“Case of mistaken identity?” Rebus offered.
“I think it’s to do with ambition,” she countered. “Gareth Tench said he saw you…”
“He did.”
“With Cafferty.”
Rebus nodded. “Big Ger says the councilman’s got plans to put him out of the game.”
She put the record back and turned to face him. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Depends what we get instead. Cafferty’s view is that Tench himself would take over.”
“You believe him?”
Rebus seemed to be considering the question. “Know what I need before I answer that?”
“Proof?” she guessed.
He shook his head. “Coffee.”
Eight forty-five.
Rebus was on his second mug. All that was left of his roll was a side plate spotted with grease. The café had a good selection of papers, Siobhan reading about the Final Push, Rebus showing her photos from yesterday’s shenanigans at Gleneagles.
“That kid,” he said, pointing at one, “didn’t we see him?”
She nodded. “But not with blood gushing from his head.”
Rebus turned the paper back toward him. “They love it really, you know. Bit of blood always looks good to the media.”
“And makes us look like the villains of the piece?”
“Speaking of which…” He lifted the CD-ROM from his pocket. “A going-away present from Stacey Webster-or Santal, if you prefer.”
Siobhan took it from him, holding it between her fingers as Rebus explained the circumstances. When he’d finished, he took Stacey’s business card from his wallet and tried her number. There was no answer. As he tucked the phone back into his jacket, he could smell the faintest trace of Molly Clark’s perfume. He’d decided Siobhan didn’t need to know about her, wasn’t sure how she would react. He was still thinking it over when Gareth Tench walked in. Tench shook hands with both of them. Rebus thanked him for coming and gestured for him to sit.
“What can I get you?”
Tench shook his head. Rebus could see a car parked outside, the minders standing next to it.
“Good idea that,” he told the councilman, nodding toward the window. “I don’t know why more Marchmont residents don’t use bodyguards.”
Tench just smiled. “Not at work today?” he commented.
“Bit more informal,” Rebus explained. “Can’t have our elected politicians slumming it in cop-shop interview rooms.”
“I appreciate that.” Tench had made himself comfortable, but showed no sign of removing his three-quarter-length coat. “So what can I do for you, Inspector?”
But it was Siobhan who spoke first. “As you know, Mr. Tench, we’re investigating a series of murders. Certain clues were left at a site in Auchterarder.”
Tench’s eyes narrowed. His focus was still on Rebus, but it was clear he’d expected some other conversation-Cafferty, maybe, or Niddrie.
“I don’t see-” he started.
“All three victims,” Siobhan went on, “were listed on a Web site called BeastWatch.” She paused. “You know it, of course.”
“I do?”
“That’s our information.” She unfolded a sheet of paper and showed it to him. “Ozyman…that’s you, isn’t it?”
He thought for a moment before answering. Siobhan folded the sheet and put it back in her pocket. Rebus winked at Tench, conveying a simple message: She’s good.
So don’t try jerking us around…
“It’s me,” Tench finally conceded. “What of it?”
Siobhan shrugged. “Why are you interested in BeastWatch, Mr. Tench?”
“Are you saying I’m a suspect?”
Rebus gave a cold laugh. “That’s a bit of a leap to make, sir.”
Tench glowered at him. “Never know what Cafferty might try and hatch-with a little help from his friends.”
“I think we’re straying from the point,” Siobhan interrupted. “We need to interview anyone who had access to that site, sir. It’s procedure, that’s all.”
“I still don’t know how you got from my screen name to me.”
“You forget, Mr. Tench,” Rebus said blithely, “we’ve got the world’s best intelligence officers here this week. Not much they can’t do.” Tench looked ready to add some remark, but Rebus didn’t give him the chance. “Interesting choice: Ozymandias. Poem by Shelley, right? Some king gets a bit above himself, has this huge statue built. But over time, it crumbles away, sitting there out in the desert.” He paused. “Like I say, interesting choice.”
“Why so?”
Rebus folded his arms. “Well, this king must have had some ego-that’s the point of the poem. No matter how high and mighty you are, nothing lasts. And if you’re a tyrant, your fall’s all the greater.” He leaned forward a little across the table. “Person who chose that name wasn’t stupid…had to know it wasn’t about power as such-”
“-but power’s corrupting influence?” Tench smiled and nodded slowly.
“DI Rebus is a fast learner,” Siobhan added. “Yesterday, he was wondering if you might be Australian.”
Tench’s smile broadened. His eyes remained fixed on Rebus. “We did that poem at school,” he said. “Had this really enthusiastic English teacher. He made us memorize it.” Tench offered a shrug. “I just like the name, Inspector. Don’t read any more into it.” His gaze shifted to Siobhan and back. “Peril of the profession, I suppose-always looking for motive. Tell me, what’s your killer’s motive? Have you considered that?”
“We think he’s a vigilante,” Siobhan stated.
“Picking them off one by one from that Web site?” Tench didn’t look convinced.
“You’ve still yet to tell us,” Rebus said quietly, “your own motive for being so interested in BeastWatch.” He unfolded his arms and laid his palms on the tabletop, on either side of his coffee mug.
“My district’s a dumping ground, Rebus-don’t say you haven’t noticed. Agencies bring us their hard-to-house, the dealers and flotsam, sex offenders, junkies, losers of all descriptions. Sites like BeastWatch give me a chance of fighting back. They mean I can argue my corner when some fresh problem’s about to land on my doorstep.”
“And has it happened?” Siobhan asked.
“We had a guy released three months back, sex maniac…I made sure he steered clear.”
“Making it someone else’s problem,” Siobhan commented.
“Always been the way I’ve worked. Someone like Cafferty comes along, same thinking prevails.”
“Cafferty’s been here a long time,” Rebus pointed out.
“You mean despite your lot, or because of them?” When Rebus didn’t answer, Tench’s smile became a sneer. “No way he’d have lasted as long as he has without some help.” He leaned back and rolled his shoulders. “Are we finished here?”
“How well do you know the Jensens?” Siobhan asked.
“Who?”
“The couple who run the site.”
“Never met them,” Tench stated.
“Really?” Siobhan sounded amazed. “They live right here in Edinburgh.”
“And so do half a million just like them. I try to get about, DS Clarke, but I’m not made of elastic.”
“What are you made of, Councilman?” Rebus asked.
“Anger,” Tench offered, “determination, a thirst for what’s right and just.” He took a deep breath, but then released it noisily. “We could be here all day,” he apologized with another smile. Then, rising to his feet: “Bobby looked heartbroken when you walked out on him, DS Clarke. You want to be careful: passion’s a snarling beast in some men.” He made a little bow as he headed for the door.
“We’ll talk again,” Siobhan warned him. Rebus was watching through the window as one of the minders opened the back door of the car and Tench crammed his oversize frame inside.
“Councilmen often have a well-fed look,” he commented. “You ever notice that?”
Siobhan was rubbing a hand across her forehead. “We could have handled that better.”
“You ducked out of the Final Push?”
“Wasn’t really getting into it.”
“Anything to do with our esteemed councilman?” She shook her head. “‘Destroyer and preserver,’” Rebus muttered to himself.
“What?”
“It’s another line from Shelley.”
“So which of them is Gareth Tench?”
The car was drawing away from the curb. “Maybe both,” Rebus offered. Then he gave a huge yawn. “Any chance today will give us some respite?”
She looked at him. “You could stop for lunch, come and meet my parents.”
“Pariah status has been lifted?” he guessed, raising an eyebrow.
“John…” she warned.
“You don’t want them to yourself?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I’ve been a bit greedy.”
Rebus had taken a couple of paintings down from one wall of his living room. Details of the three victims were now pinned there instead. He was seated at the dining table while Siobhan lay stretched out along the sofa. Both were busy reading, asking occasional questions or pitching a notion.
“Don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to listen to the Ellen Wylie tape?” Rebus asked at one point. “Not that it really matters…”
“Plenty more subscribers we could talk to.”
“Need to know who they are first: think Brains could do that without Corbyn or Steelforth getting a whiff?”
“Tench talked about motive…could we be missing something?”
“Some connection between all three?”
“Come to that, why’s he stopped at three?”
“Usual explanations: he’s gone elsewhere, or we’ve arrested him for something else, or he knows we’re onto him.”
“But we’re not onto him.”
“Media say otherwise.”
“Why the Clootie Well in the first place? Because we were bound to go there?”
“Can’t rule out a local connection.”
“What if this has nothing to do with BeastWatch?”
“Then we’re wasting precious time.”
“Could he be sending a message to the G8? Maybe he’s here right now, holding a banner somewhere.”
“Photo might be on that CD-ROM…”
“And we’d never know.”
“If those clues were left to taunt us, how come he hasn’t followed up? Shouldn’t he be trying to make more of a game of it?”
“Maybe he doesn’t need to follow up.”
“Meaning what?”
“He could be closer than we think…”
“Thanks for that.”
“Do you want a cup of tea?”
“Go on then.”
“Actually, it’s your turn-I paid for the coffees.”
“There’s got to be a pattern, you know. We are missing something.”
Siobhan’s phone bleeped: text message. She studied it. “Turn on the TV,” she said.
“Which show are you missing?”
But she’d swung her legs off the sofa and punched the button herself. Found the remote and flipped channels. NEWS FLASH across the bottom of the screen. BLASTS IN LONDON.
“Eric sent the text,” she said quietly. Rebus came and stood next to her. There didn’t seem to be much information. A series of blasts or explosions…the London Underground…casualties, several dozen.
“Suspected power surge,” the broadcaster was saying. He didn’t sound convinced.
“Power surge, my ass,” Rebus growled.
Major railway stations closed. Hospitals on alert. The public advised not to try entering the city. Siobhan slumped back onto the sofa, elbows on knees, head in hands.
“Blindsided,” she said quietly.
“Might not just be London,” Rebus replied, but he knew it probably was. Morning rush hour…all those commuters…and transport police sent packing to Scotland for the G8. All those officers sent off from the Met to Scotland. He squeezed shut his eyes, thinking: Lucky it wasn’t yesterday, thousands of revelers in Trafalgar Square, cheering the Olympic result; or Saturday night in Hyde Park…two hundred thousand.
The National Grid had just confirmed that there were no apparent problems with its systems.
Aldgate.
King’s Cross.
Edgware Road.
And fresh speculation that a bus had also been wrecked. The broadcaster’s face was pale. An emergency number was running along the foot of the screen.
“What do we do?” Siobhan asked quietly as the TV showed live pictures from one of the scenes-medics running pell-mell, smoke billowing, wounded sitting curbside. Glass and sirens and the alarms from cars and nearby offices.
“Do?” Rebus echoed. He was saved from answering by Siobhan’s phone. She put it to her ear.
“Mum?” she said. “Yes, we’re watching it right now.” She paused, listening. “I’m sure they’re fine…Yes, you could call the number. Might take a while to get through though.” Another pause to listen. “What? Today? They might have locked down King’s Cross…” She’d half turned from Rebus. He decided to leave the room, let her say whatever needed saying. In the kitchen, he ran the tap, filled the kettle. Listened to the water running: such a basic sound, he almost never heard it. It was just there…
Normal.
Everyday.
And when he closed the tap, there was a faint gurgle. Funny how he couldn’t remember having caught it before. When he turned, Siobhan was standing there.
“Mum wants to go home,” she said, “make sure the neighbors are okay.”
“I don’t even know where they live.”
“Forest Hill,” she told him. “South of the Thames.”
“No lunch then?”
She shook her head. He handed a strip of paaper towel to her and she blew her nose.
“Puts things in perspective, something like this,” she said.
“Not really. It’s been in the air all week. There were times I could almost taste it.”
“That’s three tea bags,” she said.
“What?”
“You’ve just put three tea bags in that mug.” She handed him the teapot. “This what you were thinking of?”
“Maybe,” he conceded. In his mind he was seeing a statue in the desert, smashed to smithereens…
Siobhan had gone home. She would help her parents, maybe take them to the train if that was still the plan. Rebus watched TV. The red double-decker had been ripped apart, its roof lying in the road in front of it. And yet there were survivors. A small miracle, it seemed to him. His instinct was to open the bottle and pour, but so far he’d resisted. Eyewitnesses were telling their stories. The prime minister was on his way south, leaving the foreign secretary in charge at Gleneagles. Blair had made a statement before leaving, flanked by his G8 colleagues. You could just make out the Band-Aids on President Bush’s knuckles. Back on the news, people were talking about crawling over body parts to get out of the trains. Crawling through smoke and blood. Some had used their camera phones to capture the horror. Rebus wondered what instinct had kicked in to make them do that, turning them into war correspondents. The bottle was on the mantelpiece. The tea was cold in his hand. Three bad men had been chosen for death by a person or persons unknown. Ben Webster had fallen to his doom. Big Ger Cafferty and Gareth Tench were squaring up for violence. Puts things in perspective-Siobhan’s words. Rebus wasn’t so sure. Because now more than ever he wanted answers to questions, wanted faces and names. He couldn’t do anything about London or suicide bombers or casual carnage on the scale in front of him. All he could do was lock up a few bad people now and then. Results that didn’t seem to change the bigger picture. Another image came to mind: Mickey as a kid, maybe Kirkcaldy Beach or some holiday in St. Andrews or Blackpool. Frantically scooping up lines of damp sand, creating a barrier against the creeping sea. Working as if his life depended on it. And big brother John, too, using the small plastic shovel to pile the sand on, Mickey patting it down. Twenty, thirty feet long, maybe six inches high…But the first flecks of foam would be arriving before they had a chance, and they’d have to watch their edifice melt, becoming one with its surroundings. Squealing in defeat, stamping their feet and waving their tiny fists at the lapping water and the treacherous shore and the unmoved sky.
And God.
God above all else.
The bottle seemed to be swelling in size, or maybe it was that he was growing smaller. He thought of some lines in a Jackie Leven song: But my boat is so small, and your sea is so immense. Immense, yes, but why did it have to be so full of bloody sharks? When the phone started ringing, he considered not answering. Considered for all of ten seconds. It was Ellen Wylie.
“Any news?” he asked. Then he barked out a short laugh and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Apart from the obvious, I mean.”
“State of shock here,” she told him. “Nobody’s about to figure out that you copied all that stuff and took it home. I doubt anyone’s going to look twice at anything until this week’s over. I thought I might head back to Torphichen, see how my team is doing.”
“Good idea.”
“London contingent are being sent home. Could be we’ll need all available hands.”
“I won’t be holding my breath.”
“Actually, even the anarchists seem to be stunned. Word from Gleneagles is, it’s all gone quiet. A lot of them just want to go home.”
Rebus had risen from his chair. He was standing by the mantelpiece. “Time like this, you want to be near your loved ones.”
“John, are you all right?”
“Just dandy, Ellen.” He drew a finger down the bottle’s length. It was Dewar’s, pale gold in color. “You get yourself back to Torphichen.”
“Do you want me to drop by later?”
“I don’t think we’ll have accomplished much.”
“Tomorrow then?”
“Sounds good. Talk to you then.” He cut the connection, leaned both hands against the edge of the mantelpiece.
Could have sworn the bottle was staring back at him.
There were buses heading south, and Siobhan’s parents had decided to catch one of them.
“We’d have been leaving tomorrow anyway,” her father had said, giving her a hug.
“You never did get to Gleneagles,” she’d told him. He’d pecked her on the cheek, right on the line of her jaw, and for a few seconds she’d been a kid again. Always the same spot, be it Christmas or a birthday, good grades at school, or just because he was feeling happy.
And then another embrace from her mother, and whispered words: “It doesn’t matter.” Meaning the damage to her face; meaning finding the culprit. And then, pulling free of the embrace but still holding her at arm’s length: “Come see us soon.”
“Promise,” Siobhan had said.
The apartment seemed empty without them. She realized that she lived most of her time there in silence. Well, not silence-there was always music or the radio or TV. But not many visitors, nobody whistling as they walked down the hall, or humming as they washed up.
Nobody but her.
She’d tried calling Rebus, but he wasn’t answering. The TV was on; she couldn’t bring herself to switch it off. Thirty dead…forty dead…maybe fifty. The mayor of London had made a good speech. Al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility. The queen was “deeply shocked.” London’s commuters were starting the long march home from work. Commentators were asking why the terror alert had been downgraded from severe general to substantial. She wanted to ask them: What difference would it have made?
She went to the fridge. Her mother had been busy at the local shops: duck fillets, lamb chops, a slab of cheese, organic fruit juice. Siobhan tried the freezer compartment and hauled out a frosted tub of Mackie’s vanilla ice cream. Got herself a spoon and went back through to the living room. For want of anything else to do, she booted up her computer. Fifty-three e-mails. A quick glance told her she could delete the vast bulk of them. Then she remembered something, reached into her pocket. The CD-ROM. She slotted it into her hard drive. A few clicks of the mouse and she was studying a screen’s worth of thumbnails. Stacey Webster had taken a few of the young mother and her pink-clad baby. Siobhan had to smile. The woman was obviously using her child as a prop, enacting the same diaper-changing scenario in different locations, always directly in front of police lines. A great photo op, and a potential flash point. There was even an image of the various press cameramen, Mungo included. But Stacey had been concentrating on the demonstrators, putting together a nice little dossier for her masters at SO12. Some of the cops would be from the Met. They’d be on their way south now, to help in the aftermath, to check on loved ones, maybe eventually to attend the funerals of colleagues. If her mother’s attacker turned out to be from London…she didn’t know what she’d do.
Her mother’s words: It doesn’t matter…
She shook the notion away. It was fifty or sixty pictures in before Siobhan spotted her mum and dad-Teddy Clarke trying to drag his wife away from the front line. A complete melee around them. Batons raised, mouths open in a roar or a grimace. Trash bins flying. Dirt and uprooted flowers flying.
And then the stick connecting with the front of her mother’s face. Siobhan almost flinched, but forced herself to look. A stick, looked like something picked up off the ground. Not a baton. And swung from the protesters’ side of the trouble. The person holding it, he retreated fast. And suddenly Siobhan knew. It was just like she’d been told by Mungo the photographer: you strike out at the cops, and when they retaliate you make sure innocent civilians are in the firing line. Maximum PR, make the cops look like thugs. Her mother flinched as contact was made. Her face was blurred with movement, but the pain was evident. Siobhan rubbed her thumb over the screen, as if to take away the hurt. Followed the stick back to its owner’s bare arm. His shoulder was in the shot, but not his head. She went back a few frames, then forward a few past the actual blow.
There.
He’d placed a hand behind his back, hiding the stick, but it was still there. And Stacey had caught him full-face, caught the glee in his eyes, the crooked grin. A few more frames and he was up on his toes, chanting. Baseball cap low down on his forehead, but unmistakable.
The kid from Niddrie, the leader of the pack. Heading down to Princes Street like many of his kind-just for the pure hell of it.
Last seen by Siobhan emerging from the sheriff court, where Councilman Gareth Tench waited. Tench’s words: A couple of my constituents got caught up in all that trouble…Tench returning the culprit’s salute as he walked free from court. Siobhan’s hand was trembling slightly as she tried Rebus again. Still no answer. She got up and walked around the apartment, in and out of every room. The towels in the bathroom had been neatly folded and left in a pile. There was an empty soup carton in the bin in the kitchen. It had been rinsed out so that it wouldn’t smell. Her mother’s little touches…She stood in front of her bedroom’s full-length mirror, trying to see any resemblance. She thought she looked more like her father. They’d be on the A1 by now, making steady progress south. She hadn’t told them the truth about Santal, probably never would. Back at the computer she went through all the other photos, then started again from the beginning, this time on the lookout for just the one figure, one skinny little troublemaker in his baseball cap, T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Tried printing some of them off, but got a warning that her ink levels were low. There was a computer shop on Leith Walk. She grabbed her keys and purse.
The bottle was empty and there was no more in the house. Rebus had found a half bottle of Polish vodka in the freezer, but its contents had been reduced to a single measure. Couldn’t be bothered walking to the shops, so he made himself a mug of tea instead and sat down at the dining table, skimming through the case notes. Ellen Wylie had been impressed by Ben Webster’s CV, and so was Rebus. He went through it again. The world’s trouble spots: some people were drawn to them-adventurers, newsmen, mercenaries. Rebus had been told a while back that Mairie Henderson’s boyfriend was a cameraman and had traveled to Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq…But Rebus got the feeling Ben Webster hadn’t gone to any of these places from the need for a thrill, or even because he’d felt them particularly worthy causes. He’d gone because that was his job.
“It is our most basic duty as human beings,” he’d said in one of his parliamentary speeches, “to aid sustainable development wherever and whenever possible in the poorest and harshest regions of the world.” It was a point he’d hammered home elsewhere-to various committees, on public platforms, and in media interviews.
My brother was a good man…
Rebus didn’t doubt it. Nor could he think of any reason that someone would have pushed him from those ramparts onto the rocks below. Hardworking as he was, Ben Webster still hadn’t posed much of a threat to Pennen Industries. Rebus was coming back round to the suicide option. Maybe Webster had been made depressed by all those conflicts and famines and catastrophes. Maybe he’d known in advance that little progress would be made at the G8, his hopes of a better world stalled once again. Leaping into the void to bring attention to the situation? Rebus couldn’t really see that. Webster had sat down to dinner with powerful and influential men, diplomats and politicians from several nations. Why not voice his concerns to them? Make a fuss, kick up a stink. Shout and scream…
That scream flying into the night sky as he launched himself into the dark.
“No,” Rebus said to himself, shaking his head. It felt to him as though the jigsaw was complete enough for him to make out the image, but with some of the pieces wrongly placed.
“No,” he repeated, going back to his reading.
A good man…
After a further twenty minutes, he found an interview from one of the Sunday supplements of twelve months back. Webster was being questioned about his early days as an MP. He’d had a mentor of sorts, another Scottish MP and Labor highflier called Colin Anderson.
Rebus’s own member of parliament.
“Didn’t see you at the funeral, Colin,” Rebus said quietly, underlining a couple of sentences.
Webster is quick to credit Anderson for the help he gave the tyro MP: “He made sure I avoided the obvious pratfalls, and I can’t thank him enough for that.” But the sure-footed Webster is more reticent by far when questioned about the allegation that it was Anderson who propelled him into his current role as parliamentary private secretary, placing him where he could be of future assistance to the minister for trade in any leadership contest…
“Well, well,” Rebus said, blowing across the surface of his cup, even though the liquid within was tepid at best.
“I’d completely forgotten,” Rebus said, dragging a spare chair over to the table, “that my own member of parliament was minister for trade. I know you’re busy, so I’ll keep this short.”
He was in a restaurant on Edinburgh’s south side. Early evening, but the place was busy. The staff were making up a place setting for him, trying to hand him a menu. The Right Honorable Colin Anderson, MP, was seated across from his wife at a table meant for two.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
Rebus was handing the menu back to the waiter. “I’m not eating,” he explained. Then, to the MP: “My name’s John Rebus. I’m a detective inspector. Did your secretary not say?”
“Can I see some identification?” Anderson was asking.
“Not really her fault,” Rebus was telling him. “I exaggerated a little, said it was an emergency.” He’d opened his ID for inspection. While the MP studied it, Rebus smiled in his wife’s direction.
“Should I…?” She motioned to rise from the table.
“Nothing top secret,” Rebus assured her. Anderson was handing back Rebus’s ID.
“If you don’t mind me saying, Inspector, this isn’t exactly conve nient.”
“I thought your secretary would have told you.”
Anderson lifted his cell from the table. “No signal,” he stated.
“You should do something about that,” Rebus commented. “Lots of the city still like that.”
“Have you been drinking, Inspector?”
“Only when off-duty, sir.” Rebus fussed in his pocket until he found the pack.
“There’s no smoking in here,” Anderson warned him.
Rebus looked at the cigarette pack as though it had crawled unnoticed into his hand. He apologized and put it away again. “Didn’t see you at the funeral, sir,” he told the MP.
“Which funeral?”
“Ben Webster. You were a good friend to him in his early days.”
“I was otherwise engaged.” The MP made a show of checking his watch.
“Ben’s sister told me that once her brother was dead, Labor would soon forget about him.”
“I think that’s unreasonable. Ben was a friend of mine, Inspector, and I did want to attend the funeral…”
“But you’ve been busy,” Rebus said, all understanding. “And here you are, trying to catch a quick, quiet meal with your wife, and I come barging in unannounced.”
“It happens to be my wife’s birthday. We managed-God knows how-to keep a window free-”
“And I’ve gone and smudged it.” Rebus turned to the wife. “Many happy returns.”
The waiter was placing a wineglass in front of Rebus. “Maybe some water instead?” Anderson suggested. Rebus nodded.
“Have you been busy with the G8?” the MP’s wife leaned forward to ask him.
“Busy despite the G8,” Rebus corrected her. He saw husband and wife exchange a glance, knew what they were thinking. A hungover cop, wired from all the demonstrations and the chaos and now the bombings. Damaged goods, to be handled with care.
“Can this really not wait till morning, Inspector?” Anderson asked quietly.
“I’m looking into Ben Webster’s death,” Rebus explained. His voice sounded nasal, even to his own ears, and there was a creeping mist at the edges of his vision. “Can’t seem to find a reason for him to take his own life.”
“More likely an accident, surely,” the MP’s wife offered.
“Or he was given a hand,” Rebus stated.
“What?” Anderson’s hands stopped arranging the cutlery in front of him.
“Richard Pennen wants to link overseas aid to arms sales, doesn’t he? How’s it going to work-he donates a chunk of money in exchange for looser controls?”
“Don’t be absurd.” The MP allowed his voice to betray his irritation.
“Were you at the castle that night?”
“I was busy at Westminster.”
“Any chance that Webster had words with Pennen? Maybe at your behest?”
“What sort of words?”
“Cutting back the arms trade…turning all those guns into plow-shares.”
“Look, you can’t just go around defaming Richard Pennen. If there’s any evidence, I’d like to see it.”
“Me, too,” Rebus agreed.
“Meaning there’s none? And you’re basing this witch hunt on what exactly, Inspector?”
“On the fact that Special Branch wants me to butt out, or at the very least toe the line.”
“While you’d prefer to cross that same line?”
“Only way of getting anywhere.”
“Ben Webster was an outstanding member of parliament and a rising star in his party.”
“And he’d have supported you to the hilt in any leadership contest,” Rebus couldn’t help adding.
“Now you’re just being bloody scurrilous!” Anderson snarled.
“Was he the sort to get up the nose of big business?” Rebus asked. “The sort who couldn’t be bribed or bought off?” His head was feeling even muzzier.
“You seem exhausted, Officer,” the MP’s wife said, voice sympathetic. “Are you sure this really can’t wait?”
Rebus was shaking his head, aware of its sheer mass. Felt like he might crash through the floor, his body was so heavy…
“Darling,” the MP’s wife was telling her husband, “here’s Rosie.”
A flustered-looking young woman was squeezing her way between the tables. The staff looked worried that they might be asked to sit four at a table intended for two.
“I left message after message after message,” Rosie was saying, “and then thought maybe you weren’t getting them.”
“No signal,” Anderson growled, tapping his phone. “This is the inspector.”
Rebus had risen to his feet, offering Anderson’s secretary his chair. She shook her head, avoiding eye contact.
“The inspector,” she was telling the MP, “is currently under suspension, pending an inquiry into his conduct.” Now her eyes met Rebus’s. “I made a couple of calls…”
One of Anderson’s substantial eyebrows had lifted.
“I did say I was off-duty,” Rebus reminded him.
“I’m not sure it was quite as cut-and-dried as that. Ah…the appetizers.” Two waiters were hovering, one with smoked salmon, the other with a bowl of orange-colored soup. “You’ll be leaving now, Inspector.” It was statement rather than request.
“Ben Webster deserves a bit of consideration, don’t you think?”
The MP ignored this, unfolding his napkin. But his secretary had no such qualms.
“Get out!” she snarled.
Rebus nodded slowly, and half turned before remembering something. “Pavements round my way are in a shocking state,” he told his MP. “Maybe you could spare the time to visit your constituency once in a while.”
“Jump in,” the voice ordered. Rebus turned and saw that Siobhan had parked in front of his tenement.
“Car looks good,” he told her.
“Just as well, the money your friendly mechanic charged.”
“I was just headed upstairs…”
“Change of plan. I need you to come with me.” She paused. “You okay?”
“Had a couple of drinks earlier. Did something I probably shouldn’t.”
“Now there’s a novelty.” But she still managed to look aghast when he told her about his trip to the restaurant.
“Another lecture in store, no doubt” went his closing words.
“You don’t say.” Siobhan closed her own door as Rebus got into the passenger seat.
“What about you?” he asked. So she told him about her parents and the contents of Stacey Webster’s camera. Reached into the backseat and handed him the evidence.
“So now we go talk to the councilman?” Rebus guessed.
“That was the plan. Why are you smiling?”
He pretended to be studying the pictures. “Your mum says she’s not bothered who whacked her…Nobody seems worried about Ben Webster’s death…And yet here we both are.” He lifted his face toward her and gave a tired smile.
“It’s what we do,” she replied quietly.
“My point exactly. No matter what anyone thinks or says. I just worry that you’ve learned all the wrong lessons from me.”
“Credit me with a bit of sense,” she chided him, putting the car into gear.
Councilman Gareth Tench lived in a sizable Victorian villa on Duddingston Park. It was a main road, but its houses were set back far enough to give them some privacy. Not five minutes’ drive from Niddrie, yet it was another world: respectable, middle class, quiet. There was a golf course to the rear of the properties, and Portobello Beach was within striking distance. Siobhan had taken a route along Niddrie’s main road, so they could see that the campsite was disappearing fast.
“Want to drop in on your boyfriend?” Rebus teased.
“Maybe you should stay in the car,” she retorted, “let me talk to Tench.”
“I’m as sober as a judge,” Rebus argued. “Well…getting there anyway.” They’d stopped at a garage on Ratcliffe Terrace so he could buy Irn-Bru and Tylenol.
“Inventor deserves the Nobel Prize,” Rebus had stated, without specifying which product he was referring to.
There were two cars parked in Tench’s forecourt. The whole front garden had been paved to make room for them. Lights blazed in the living room.
“Good cop, bad cop?” Rebus suggested as Siobhan rang the doorbell. She rewarded him with the beginnings of a smile. The door was opened by a woman.
“Mrs. Tench?” Siobhan asked, holding up her ID. “Any chance of a word with your husband?”
Then Tench’s voice from inside the house: “Who is it, Louisa?”
“Police, Gareth,” she bellowed back, retreating a little by way of invitation. They didn’t need asking twice, and were in the living room by the time Tench trudged downstairs. The fittings weren’t to Rebus’s taste: sashed velvet drapes; brass lamps fixed to the walls on either side of the fireplace; two oversize sofas taking up much of the floor space. Oversize and brassy seemed to describe Louisa Tench, too. She wore dangling earrings and a clatter of bracelets. The tan had come from a bottle or salon, as had the piled auburn hair. A little too much blue eye shadow and pink lipstick. He counted five carriage clocks in the room and decided that nothing here had been chosen by the councilman.
“Evening, sir,” Siobhan said as Tench walked into the room. He rolled his eyes heavenward in reply.
“Don’t they ever let up, Lord? Should I sue for harassment?”
“Before you do that, Mr. Tench,” Siobhan went on calmly, “maybe you could look at this photo.” She handed it to him. “You recognize your constituent, of course?”
“He’s the same one you hooked up with outside the court,” Rebus added helpfully. “And by the way…Denise says hello.”
Tench glanced fearfully toward his wife. She was back in her chair, staring at the TV with its sound muted. “What about these photos then?” he said, louder than was strictly necessary.
“You’ll notice that he’s attacking that woman with a wooden stick,” Siobhan continued. Rebus was watching carefully-and listening, too. “In this next photo, he’s trying to melt back into the crowd. But you’ll agree that he’d just attacked an innocent bystander.”
Tench looked skeptical, eyes flitting between one photo and the other. “Digital, aren’t they?” he pointed out. “Easy enough to manipulate.”
“It’s not the photos that are being manipulated here, Mr. Tench,” Rebus thought it his duty to state.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We want his name,” Siobhan said. “We can get it tomorrow morning from the court, but we’d prefer to get it from you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why’s that then?”
“Because we’d-” Siobhan paused. “Because I’d like to know what the connection is. Twice at the campsite, you just happened along to save the day”-she stabbed a finger at one photo-“from him. Next thing you’re waiting for him when he comes out of police custody. And now this.”
“He’s just another kid from the wrong part of town,” Tench said, keeping his voice down but emphasizing each word. “Wrong parents, wrong school, wrong choices at every fork in the road. But he lives on my turf and that means I look out for him, same as I would do for any other poor bloody kid in his position. If that’s a crime, DS Clarke, then I’m ready to go into the dock and argue my case.” A fleck of saliva escaped his mouth and hit Siobhan on the cheek. She brushed it away with the tip of a finger.
“His name,” she repeated.
“He’s already been charged…”
Louisa Tench was back in her chair, one leg crossed over the other, her eyes on the muted television.
“Gareth,” she said, “Emmerdale.”
“Don’t want your wife missing her soap, do you, Mr. Tench?” Rebus added. The opening titles were already on-screen. She had the remote in her hand, finger poised above the volume button. Three pairs of eyes boring into Gareth Tench, and Rebus mouthing the name Denise again…
“Carberry,” Tench said. “Keith Carberry.”
Music burst suddenly from the TV. Tench slid his hands into his pockets, stalked out of the room. Rebus and Siobhan waited a few moments, then said their good-byes to the woman who was tucking her legs beneath her on the chair. She ignored them, lost in a world of her own. The front door was ajar, Tench waiting for them outside, arms folded, feet apart.
“A smear campaign’s not going to do anyone any good,” he told them.
“Just doing our job, sir.”
“I grew up near a farm, DS Clarke,” he said. “I know bullshit when I smell it.”
Siobhan looked him up and down. “And I know a clown when I see one, even out of costume.” She walked toward the pavement, Rebus pausing in front of Tench, leaning forward toward his ear.
“The woman your boy smacked is her mother. That means this never ends, understood? Not until we get a result we’re happy with.” Leaned back again and nodded, reinforcing the message. “Wife doesn’t know about Denise then?” he added.
“That’s how you connected me to Ozyman,” Tench guessed. “Ellen Wylie told you.”
“Not very clever of you, Councilman, playing away from home. This is more a village than a city, bound to come out sooner or-”
“Christ, Rebus, it wasn’t like that!” Tench hissed.
“Not for me to say, sir.”
“And now I suppose you’ll go tell your employer? Well, let him do what he likes-I’m not about to bow down to his kind…or yours.” Tench gave a look of defiance. Rebus stood his ground a moment longer, then gave a smile and followed Siobhan back to the car.
“Special dispensation?” he asked, once he’d fastened his seat belt. She looked across, saw that he was waving a cigarette pack.
“Keep the window open,” she ordered. Rebus lit the cigarette and blew smoke into the evening sky. They’d only gone forty yards when a car pulled out in front of them, then braked, blocking half the road.
“Hell’s this?” Rebus hissed.
“Bentley,” Siobhan told him. Sure enough, as the brake lights dimmed, Cafferty emerged from the driver’s side, walking purposefully toward them, leaning down so his head was framed by Rebus’s open window.
“You’re a ways from home,” Rebus advised him.
“So are you. A wee visit to Gareth Tench, eh? I hope he’s not trying to buy you off.”
“He thinks you’re paying us five hundred a week,” Rebus drawled. “Made a counteroffer of two grand.” He blew smoke into Cafferty’s face.
“I’ve just bought a pub in Portobello,” Cafferty said, wafting his hands in front of him. “Come and have a drink.”
“Last thing I need,” Rebus told him.
“A soft drink then.”
“What is it you want?” Siobhan said. Her hands still gripped the steering wheel.
“Is it just me,” Cafferty asked Rebus, “or is she toughening up?” Suddenly, he reached a hand through the window, snatching one of the photos from Rebus’s lap. Took a couple of steps back into the road, holding it close to his face. Siobhan was out of the car in an instant, marching toward him.
“I’m not in the mood for this, Cafferty.”
“Ah,” he was saying, “I did hear something about your mother…And I recognize this little bastard.”
Siobhan stopped dead, hand caught in midgrab for the photo.
“Name’s Kevin or Keith,” Cafferty went on.
“Keith Carberry,” she told him. Rebus was getting out of the car, too, by now. He could see that Cafferty had snared her.
“Nothing to do with you,” Rebus warned him.
“Of course not,” Cafferty agreed. “I can understand it’s personal. Just wondered if I could help, that’s all.”
“Help how?” Siobhan asked.
“Don’t listen to him,” Rebus warned. But Cafferty’s gaze had her transfixed.
“Any way I can,” he said quietly. “Keith works for Tench, doesn’t he? Wouldn’t it be better to bring down both of them, rather than just the messenger?”
“Tench wasn’t in Princes Street Gardens.”
“And young Keith doesn’t have the sense he was born with,” Cafferty countered. “Tends to make lads like him suggestible.”
“Christ, Siobhan,” Rebus pleaded, gripping her by the arm. “He wants Tench taken down. Doesn’t matter to him how it happens.” He wagged a finger at Cafferty. “She’s not part of this.”
“I was only offering…” Cafferty held up his hands in surrender.
“What’s with the stakeout anyway? Got a baseball bat and a shovel in the Bentley?”
Cafferty ignored him, gave Siobhan back the photograph. “Pound to a penny, Keith’s playing pool at that place in Restalrig. Only one way to find out…”
Her eyes were on the photo. When he said her name, she blinked a couple of times and focused on him instead. Then she shook her head.
“Later,” she said.
He gave a shrug. “Whenever you like.”
“You won’t be there,” she declared.
He tried to look hurt. “Hardly fair after everything I’ve told you.”
“You won’t be there,” she repeated. Cafferty turned his attention to Rebus.
“Did I say she was toughening up? Might have been an understatement.”
“Might have been,” Rebus agreed.
He’d been steeping in a bath for twenty minutes when the intercom buzzed. Decided to ignore it, then heard his cell ringing. Whoever it was left a message-the phone beeped afterward to let him know. When Siobhan had dropped him, he’d warned her to go straight home, get some rest.
“Shit,” he said, realizing that she might be in trouble. Got out of the bath and wrapped a towel around himself, leaving wet footprints as he padded into the living room. But the message wasn’t from Siobhan. It was Ellen Wylie. She was outside in her car.
“Never been so popular with the ladies,” he muttered, punching the call-back button. “Give me five minutes,” he told her. Then he went and changed back into his clothes. The intercom sounded again. He let her in and waited at the door, listening to the sand paper sound of her shoes as she climbed the two flights of stone steps.
“Ellen, always a pleasure,” he said.
“I’m sorry, John. We were all down at the pub, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
“The bombings?”
She shook her head. “Your case,” she clarified. They were in the living room by now. She walked across to where the paperwork lay; saw the wall and moved toward it, scanning the pictures pinned there. “I’ve spent half the day reading about all these monsters…reading what their victims’ families think of them, and then having to alert those same bastards that there might be someone out for revenge.”
“It was still the right thing to do, Ellen. Time like this, we need to feel we’re doing something.”
“Say they were bombers instead of rapists…”
“What’s the point in that?” he asked, waiting until she’d given an answering shrug. Then: “Anything to drink?”
“Maybe some tea.” She half turned toward him. “This is okay, isn’t it? Me barging in like this?”
“Glad of the company,” he lied, heading for the kitchen.
When he came back with the two mugs, she was seated at the dining table, poring over the first pile of paperwork. “How’s Denise?” he asked.
“She’s fine.”
“Tell me, Ellen-” He paused until he was sure she was giving him her attention. “Did you know Tench is married?”
“Separated,” she corrected him.
Rebus pursed his lips. “Not by much,” he added. “They live in the same house.”
She didn’t blink. “Why are all men bastards, John? Present company excepted, naturally.”
“Makes me wonder about him,” Rebus went on. “Why is he so interested in Denise?”
“She’s not that bad a catch.”
Rebus conceded the point with a twitch of the mouth. “All the same, I suspect the councilman is attracted to victims. Some men are, aren’t they?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m not sure, really…just trying to work out what makes him tick.”
“Why?”
Rebus snorted. “Another bloody good question.”
“You think he’s a suspect?”
“How many do we have?”
She offered a shrug. “Eric Bain has managed to pull some names and details from the subscription list. My guess is, they’ll turn out to be the families of victims, or professionals working in the field.”
“Which camp does Tench fall into?”
“Neither. Does that make him a suspect?”
Rebus was standing next to her, staring down at the case notes. “We need a profile of the killer. All we know so far is that he doesn’t confront the victims.”
“Yet he left Trevor Guest in a hell of a state-cuts, scratches, bruises. Also left us Guest’s cash card, meaning we had his name straightaway.”
“You’re calling that an anomaly?”
She nodded. “But then you could just as easily say Cyril Colliar is the anomaly, being the only Scot.”
Rebus stared at a photograph of Trevor Guest’s face. “Guest spent time up here,” he said. “Hackman told me as much.”
“Do we know where?”
Rebus shook his head slowly. “Must be in the files somewhere.”
“Any chance that the third victim had some Scottish connection?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Maybe that’s the key. Instead of concentrating on BeastWatch, we should be thinking more about the three victims.”
“You sound ready to get started.”
She looked at him. “I’m too wired to sleep. How about you? I could always take some stuff away with me…?”
Rebus shook his head again. “You’re fine where you are.” He picked up a handful of reports and headed over to his chair, switching on a floor lamp behind him before settling down. “Won’t Denise worry where you are?”
“I’ll text her, say I’m working late.”
“Best not to mention where…don’t want any gossip.”
She smiled. “No,” she agreed, “we certainly wouldn’t want that. Speaking of which, should we let Siobhan know?”
“Know what?”
“She’s in charge of the case, isn’t she?”
“I keep forgetting,” Rebus replied casually, going back to his reading.
It was almost midnight when he woke up. Ellen was tiptoeing back from the kitchen with a fresh mug of tea.
“Sorry,” she apologized.
“I dozed off,” he said.
“Well over an hour ago.” She was blowing across the surface of the liquid.
“Did I miss anything?”
“Nothing to report. Why don’t you go to bed?”
“Leaving you plugging away on your own?” He stretched his arms out, feeling his spine crackle. “I’ll be fine.”
“You look exhausted.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” He’d risen to his feet and was walking toward the table. “How far have you got?”
“Can’t find any connection between Edward Isley and Scotland-no family, no jobs, and no vacations. I began to wonder if we were going at it from the wrong end.”
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe it was Colliar who had connections with the north of England.”
“Good point.”
“But that doesn’t seem to be panning out either.”
“Maybe you need to take a break.”
She hoisted the mug. “What does this look like?”
“I meant something more substantial.”
She was rolling her shoulders. “Haven’t got a Jacuzzi or a masseur on the premises by any chance?” She saw the look on his face. “I’m joking,” she reassured him. “Something tells me you’re not an expert at back rubs. Besides-” But she broke off, lifting the mug to her face.
“Besides what?” he asked.
She lowered the mug again. “Well, you and Siobhan…”
“…are colleagues,” he stated. “Colleagues and friends. Nothing more than that, despite the rumor mill.”
“Stories have gone around,” she admitted.
“And that’s what they are-stories. Meaning fiction.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time though, would it? I mean, you and DCS Templer.”
“Gill Templer was years back, Ellen.”
“I’m not saying she wasn’t.” She stared into space. “This job we do…how many do you know manage to keep a relationship together?”
“There are a few. Shug Davidson’s been married twenty years.”
She conceded the point. “But you, me, Siobhan…dozens more I could name.”
“Comes with the territory, Ellen.”
“All these other lives we get to know…” She wafted a hand over the case files. “And we’re useless at finding one for ourselves.” She looked at him. “There’s really nothing between you and Siobhan?”
He shook his head. “So don’t go thinking you can somehow drive a wedge between us.”
She tried to look outraged by the suggestion but struggled for words.
“You’re flirting,” he told her. “Only reason I can think of for that is so you can wind Siobhan up.”
“Jesus Christ…” She slammed the mug down on the table, splashing the paperwork spread out there. “Of all the arrogant, misguided, thickheaded-” She was rising from her chair.
“Look, if I’m wrong I apologize. It’s the middle of the night-maybe we both need some shut-eye.”
“A thank-you would be nice,” she demanded.
“For what?”
“For slogging while you were snoring! For helping you out when it could cost me a tongue-lashing! For everything!”
Rebus stood, seemingly dazed, for another moment before opening his mouth and uttering the two words she wanted to hear.
“Thank you.”
“And fuck you, too, John,” she retorted, picking up her coat and bag. He stood back to give her room as she walked out, listened to the door slam behind her. Took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the tea-stained paperwork.
“No real damage,” he said to himself. “No real damage…”
“Thanks for this,” Morris Gerald Cafferty said, holding open the passenger-side door. Siobhan paused for a moment, then decided to get in.
“We’re just talking,” she warned him.
“Absolutely.” He closed her door gently and walked around to the driver’s side. “It’s been a hell of a day, hasn’t it?” he said. “There was a bomb scare on Princes Street.”
“We don’t move from here,” she decreed, ignoring him.
He closed his own door and half turned toward her. “We could have talked upstairs.”
She shook her head. “No way you’re crossing that threshold.”
Cafferty accepted the slur on his character. He peered out at her tenement. “Thought you’d be living somewhere better by now.”
“Suits me fine,” she snapped back. “Though I wouldn’t mind knowing how you found me.”
He gave a warm smile. “I have friends,” he told her. “One phone call, job done.”
“Yet you can’t manage the same trick with Gareth Tench? One call to a professional and he’s never heard of again…”
“I don’t want him dead.” He sought the right phrase. “Just brought low.”
“As in humiliated? Cowed? Scared?”
“I think it’s time people saw him for what he is.” He leaned over a little closer. “You know what he is now. But in focusing on Keith Carberry, you’ll be missing a clear shot at the goal.” He gave another smile. “I speak as one soccer fan to another, even if we’re on opposite sides in our choices.”
“We’re on opposite sides in everything, Cafferty-never think otherwise.”
He bowed his head slightly. “You even sound like him, you know.”
“Who?”
“Rebus, of course. You both share the same hostile attitude-think you know better than anyone, think you are better than anyone.”
“Wow, a counseling session.”
“See? There you go again. It’s almost as if Rebus is working the strings.” He chuckled. “Time you became your own woman, Siobhan. And it has to happen before Rebus gets the gold watch…meaning soon.” He paused. “No time like the present.”
“Advice from you is the last thing I need.”
“I’m not offering advice-I’m offering to help. Between us we can bring Tench down.”
“You made John the same offer, didn’t you? That night at the church hall? I’m betting he said no.”
“He wanted to say yes.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Rebus and me have been enemies too long, Siobhan. We’ve almost forgotten what started it. But you and me, we’ve not got that history.”
“You’re a gangster, Mr. Cafferty. Any help from you, I become like you.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “what you do is, you put away the people responsible for that attack on your mother. If all you’ve got to work from is that photo, you’re not going to get further than Keith Carberry.”
“And you’re offering so much more?” she guessed. “Like one of those shysters on the shopping channels?”
“Now that’s cruel,” he chided her.
“Cruel but fair,” she corrected him. She was staring out through the windshield. A taxi was dropping a drunk-looking couple at their door. As it moved away, they hugged and kissed, almost losing their balance on the pavement. “What about a scandal?” she suggested. “Something that would put the councilman on the front of the tabloids?”
“Anything in mind?”
“Tench plays away from home,” she told him. “Wife sitting in front of the TV while he visits his girlfriends.”
“How do you know this?”
“There’s a colleague of mine, Ellen Wylie…her sister’s-” But if news broke, it wouldn’t just be Tench on the front pages…it would be Denise, too. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Forget that.” Stupid, stupid, stupid…
“Why?”
“Because we’d be hurting a woman whose skin’s more fragile than most.”
“Then consider it forgotten.”
She turned to face him. “So tell me, what would you do if you were me? How would you get to Gareth Tench?”
“Through young Keith, of course,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the starlit world.
Mairie was relishing the chase.
This wasn’t features; wasn’t some puff piece for a pal of the editor, or interview-as-marketing-tool for an overhyped film or book. It was an investigation. It was why she’d gone into journalism in the first place.
Even the dead ends were thrilling, and so far she’d taken plenty of wrong turns. But now she’d been put in touch with a journalist down in London-another freelancer. The two of them had danced around each other during their first telephone conversation. Her London connection was attached to a TV project, a documentary about Iraq. My Baghdad Laundrette, it was going to be called. At first, he wouldn’t tell her why. But then she’d mentioned her Kenyan contact, and the man in London had melted a little.
And she’d allowed herself a smile: if there was any dancing to be done, she’d be the one doing the leading.
Baghdad Laundrette because of all the money washing around Iraq in general, and its capital in particular. Billions-maybe tens of billions of U.S.-backed dollars-had gone into reconstruction. And much of it could not be accounted for. Suitcases of cash used for the bribing of local officials. Palms greased to ensure that elections would go ahead no matter what. American companies moving into the emerging market “with extreme prejudice,” according to her new friend. Money sloshing around, the various sides in the conflict needing to feel safe in these uncertain times…
Needing to be armed.
Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds. Yes, water and electricity were necessities, but so were efficient guns and rocket launchers. For defense only, of course, because reconstruction could only come when people felt protected.
“I thought arms were being taken out of the equation,” Mairie had commented.
“Only to be put back in again as soon as nobody’s looking.”
“And you’re linking Pennen to all of this?” Mairie had eventually asked, scribbling notes to herself furiously, the phone clenched between cheek and shoulder.
“Just the tiniest portion. He’s a footnote, a little P.S. at the end of the missive. And it’s not even him per se really, is it? It’s the company he runs.”
“And the company he keeps,” she couldn’t help adding. “In Kenya, he’s been making sure his bread’s buttered on both sides.”
“Funding the government and the opposition? Yes, I’d heard about that. As far as I know, it’s no big deal.”
But the diplomat Kamweze had given her a little more. Cars for government ministers; road-building in districts run by opposition leaders; new houses for the most important tribal leaders. All of it described as “aid,” while arms powered by Pennen technology added to the national debt.
“In Iraq,” the London journalist went on, “Pennen Industries seems to fund rather a gray area of reconstruction-namely, private defense contractors. Armed and subsidized by Pennen. It may be the first war in history run largely by the private sector.”
“So what do these defense contractors do?”
“Act as bodyguards for people coming into the country to do business. Plus man the barricades, protect the Green Zone, ensure local dignitaries can turn their car key in the ignition without having to fear a Godfather moment…”
“I get the picture. They’re mercenaries, right?”
“Not at all-perfectly legit.”
“But sponsored by Pennen cash?”
“To a degree.”
Eventually she’d ended the call with promises on both sides to stay in touch, her London friend stressing that as long as she steered clear of the Iraq story, they might be able to help each other. Mairie had typed up her notes while they were fresh, then had bounced through to the living room where Allan was slumped in front of Die Hard 3-watching all his old favorites again now that he had his home cinema to play with. She’d given him a hug and poured them each a glass of wine.
“What’s the occasion?” he’d asked, pecking her on the cheek.
“Allan,” she said, “you’ve been to Iraq…tell me about it.”
Later that night, she’d slipped out of bed. Her phone was beeping, telling her she had a text. It was from the Westminster correspondent of the Herald newspaper. They’d sat next to each other at an awards dinner two years back, knocking back the Mouton Cadet and laughing at the short lists in every single category. Mairie had kept in touch with him, actually quite fancied him though he was married-happily married, as far as she knew. She sat on the carpeted stairs, dressed in just a T-shirt, chin on her knees, reading his text.
U SHD HV SAID U HAD INTEREST IN PENNEN. CALL ME 4 MORE!
She’d done more than call him. She’d driven to Glasgow in the middle of the night and made him meet her at a twenty-four-hour café. The place was full of studenty drunks, bleary rather than loud. Her friend was called Cameron Bruce-it was a joke with them, “the name that works just as well from both directions.” He arrived wearing a sweatshirt and jogging pants, his hair tousled.
“Morning,” he said, glancing meaningfully at his watch.
“You’ve only got yourself to blame,” she chided him. “You can’t go teasing a girl at close to midnight.”
“It has been known,” he replied. The twinkle in his eye told her she’d need to check the current status of that happy marriage. She thanked God she hadn’t arranged to meet him at a hotel.
“Spit it out then,” she said.
“Coffee’s not that bad actually,” he replied, lifting his mug.
“I didn’t drive halfway across Scotland for bad jokes, Cammy.”
“Then why did you?”
So she sat back and told him about her interest in Richard Pennen. She left bits out, of course-Cammy was the competition, after all, despite being a friend. He was wise enough to know there were gaps in her story-every time she paused or appeared to change her mind about something, he gave a little smile of recognition. At one point she had to break off while the staff dealt with an unruly new client. It was all done professionally and at speed, and the man found himself back on the pavement. Gave the door a few kicks and the window a few thumps, but then slouched away.
They ordered more coffees and some buttered toast. And then Cameron Bruce told her what he knew.
Or, rather, what he suspected-all of it based on stories doing the rounds. “And therefore to be taken with the usual shaker of salt.”
She nodded her understanding.
“Party funding,” he stated. Mairie’s reaction: feigned sudden sleep. Bruce laughed and told her it was actually quite interesting.
“You don’t say?”
Richard Pennen, it transpired, was a major personal donor to the Labor Party. Nothing wrong with that, not even when his own company stood to benefit from government contracts.
“Happens with Capita,” Bruce commented, “and plenty of others.”
“You’re saying you dragged me all the way here to tell me Pennen’s doing something completely legal and aboveboard?” Mairie sounded less than overwhelmed.
“I’m not so sure about that. See, Mr. Pennen is playing on both sides of the net.”
“Giving money to the Tories as well as Labor?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. Pennen Industries has sponsored several Tory shindigs and bigwigs.”
“But that’s the company rather than Pennen himself? So he’s probably not breaking any laws.”
Bruce just smiled. “Mairie, you don’t have to break the law to get into trouble in politics.”
She glared at him. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Might be,” he said, biting into another half slice of toast.