by Ian Rankin
‘Is he trying to get me thrown off it?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘But at the very least, Page now sees me as a bigger liability than ever?’
‘I did have to fight your corner.’ She had settled on the arm of the sofa, as if planning only a short stay. Rebus’s book was on the floor by his chair and she angled her head to read the cover.
‘Myth and Magic?’
‘And old wives’ tales,’ Rebus added. ‘So did you manage to convince your boss?’
‘I think so.’
‘And did that involve using your feminine charms?’
She gave him a cold look.
‘Sorry,’ Rebus apologised. ‘It’s just that he’s a showroom dummy – I know it and you know it.’
‘But he’s not. You’re seeing what you want to see. Has there ever been anyone of a higher rank that you’ve not dismissed out of hand?’
‘Plenty.’ Rebus paused. ‘In the old days.’
‘These aren’t the old days, John. And James is good at what he does. You’ve seen the team he’s put together – do they seem unmotivated?’
‘No,’ Rebus was forced to admit.
‘Is there anything they’re not doing that they should be?’
‘No,’ he repeated.
‘Well then.’
‘Page is one of the good guys, that’s what you’re saying . . .’
But her attention had been diverted to the wall above the dining table and the large map of Scotland pinned there, the route of the A9 marked in red highlighter.
‘Meant to take that down,’ Rebus said. Clarke was walking towards the map, looking not at it but at the three large shopping bags sitting on the table.
‘Stuff needs putting away,’ Rebus said casually, but he wasn’t fooling her. She pulled a few sheets of paper from the first bag.
‘You made copies,’ she stated. ‘All those files you brought to the office . . .’
‘Not all of them,’ Rebus countered. ‘Just the official reports and statements. I skipped the newspaper cuttings.’
‘Jesus, John.’
‘You’ve seen what the office is like, Siobhan. I lugged all those boxes in there, and they’ve not been opened yet.’
‘You might not have noticed, but we’ve been a bit busy.’
‘You were going to find another room we could use.’
‘And I will, given a bit of time.’ She paused. ‘But that’s not what this is about. You made the copies before you handed the boxes over. You never intended to let them go, not completely.’
‘I get bored, Siobhan. A bit of reading whiles away the hours . . .’
She gave him another look. ‘This sort of thing, it’s meat and drink to the Complaints.’
‘Only if they find out about it.’
‘What makes you think they won’t?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘This is the way I’ve always worked, Siobhan – you know that.’
‘It’s also why people you work with tend not to last long. Remember Brian Holmes and Jack Morton?’ She watched as his face darkened. ‘Okay, sorry, that’s a low blow.’
‘Did Fox just happen to drop those names into your wee chat?’
‘He’s out to get you, John. He even came to my flat.’
‘When?’
‘Last night. Warning me off, telling me I should be on his side rather than yours.’ She began to slide the sheets of paper back into the shopping bag, then asked him if he’d seen Nina Hazlitt’s interview.
‘Was it on TV?’
Clarke shook her head. ‘Webcast for some news agency. She thanked us for everything we were doing.’
‘Nice of her.’
‘She handles herself well in front of a camera. No sign of craziness.’
‘She’s not crazy.’ But Rebus was remembering her last phone call, voice verging on the hysterical.
‘She still needs reining in, if at all possible.’
‘And I’m the man for the job? Is this your thinking or Page’s?’ Rebus waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming. ‘He told you to come here?’ He walked to the window and peered down on to the street. ‘Is he waiting in his car? What does he drive?’
It was a BMW, double-parked twenty yards up. There was someone in the driver’s seat.
‘Why didn’t you bring him in? Afraid it might have diluted those feminine charms of yours?’
She glowered at him. ‘This was my idea, John. And if I had brought him up, you’d be off the case right now.’ She pointed towards the shopping bags.
‘He wouldn’t have got over the threshold.’
She closed her eyes for a second. A text arrived on her phone.
‘That’ll be him,’ Rebus muttered. ‘Wondering what’s taking so long.’
Clarke read the text and turned towards the door. ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said quietly.
‘Is he dropping you at yours, or is it back to his?’
She didn’t rise to it, just walked out of the room. Rebus stayed by the window, watching her exit the tenement and head towards the car. Its lights came on as she approached, picking her out as though she were an actor making her entrance. The passenger-side door opened and closed, the BMW remaining motionless as a dialogue took place. Then it began to crawl down Arden Street’s gentle slope towards the junction, passing Rebus’s building in the process, driver and passenger staring straight ahead. He willed Clarke to look up, but she didn’t.
‘Played that with your usual charm and grace,’ he muttered to himself. Siobhan Clarke was stuck somewhere between Page and Fox and he could see how much it was hurting her.
How much he was hurting her.
Good at her job, ready for the next step up, life on an even keel – and then in walks John Rebus, not even bothering to wipe his shoes, leaving bits of muck everywhere without even noticing.
Aye, nicely played, John.
He lit a cigarette and poured himself a whisky, stopping when the liquid was halfway to the top of the glass. He sat himself at the dining table, eyes focused on the road map. After a while, the glass needed refilling and the ashtray emptying. Without music, he realised how empty the room felt, but he couldn’t find an album to match his mood. He thought of calling Siobhan Clarke, apologising for everything. Or maybe a text – keep it short and sweet. Instead of which he ended up in his armchair with the book Nina Hazlitt had given him. There were no serpents buried beneath Edinburgh, and no monster swimming in Loch Ness. It was all just superstition and the basic human hunger for explanations, answers, reasons.
When his eyelids began to droop, he decided that was fine. Just one more night when he wouldn’t quite make it as far as the bedroom.
23
The guardian of the front desk at Gayfield Square still showed reluctance to allow Rebus entry. Each morning she printed him a fresh visitor’s pass, and at the end of each day she needed him to return it.
‘Be easier doing me one for a week,’ Rebus suggested, trying to remember her name.
‘You might not be here a week,’ she countered.
‘Think of the environmental damage you’re doing.’
‘I recycle them.’ She handed him that day’s pass. ‘Needs to be worn at all times, remember.’
‘Absolutely.’
As he climbed to the first floor, he unclipped the badge and stuffed it into his jacket. The office had just started work for the day. He nodded towards Ronnie Ogilvie and, passing Christine Esson’s desk, asked her if she had any new wonders to show him.
‘Just these,’ she said.
He took the sheets of paper from her.
‘They’re e-fits,’ she explained. ‘There’s a guy I know on a force down south, he’s a dab hand with the software.’
Rebus stared at the three faces in turn. Sally Hazlitt, Brigid Young and Zoe Beddows had been aged so that each photo showed them as they might look in the present day. Hazlitt was the most changed – not surprising, since she had been missing the longest. A woma
n of thirty, eyes and cheekbones still much like her mother’s. Beddows and Young were more recognisably the same women who had disappeared. A few lines had been added to Young’s face, her eyes hollower, mouth sagging slightly. Beddows was shown in her late twenties, still sharp-featured but losing some of her spark.
‘What do you think?’ Esson was asking.
‘Pretty good,’ Rebus admitted.
‘He did some others – different hairstyles . . .’
Rebus nodded, and she knew what he was thinking.
‘Pretty pointless if they’re dead,’ she commented.
‘I think you should circulate them. But get Page’s permission first.’
‘Mr Trampled Underfoot?’ She gave Rebus a smile. ‘I did my research last night.’
Page’s door opened and he fixed his eyes on Rebus, then gave a little flick of the head by way of summons. Rebus helped himself to a mug of coffee first, then knocked and went in. There was no space for a chair for visitors. Yesterday, with three of them in there, it had been a sweat box. Yet somehow it suited Page, a man who liked his parameters tight, no room for manoeuvre.
‘John,’ he said, sitting down behind his laptop.
‘Yes, James?’
‘Good to see you here so early.’
Rebus just nodded, ready for whatever was coming.
‘Shows motivation, but we need focus also.’
‘Absolutely.’
Page’s words were just filling time while he considered how to broach the real subject. Rebus decided to spare him any more effort.
‘Is it to do with the Complaints?’ he guessed.
‘In a way.’ Meaning: yes, specifically and definitely.
‘Sorry if I seem to be bringing a bit of baggage with me,’ Rebus said. ‘Rest assured it won’t interfere with my work.’
‘Good man. And how’s that work going?’
‘Slower than I’d like.’
‘You appreciate that Annette McKie has to be our priority?’
‘Of course.’
‘And we can’t let your historical cases get in the way.’
‘Nina Hazlitt isn’t going to take a telling from me. She’s been waiting years for this opportunity.’
‘Is she still in Edinburgh?’
‘As far as I know, she went back to London last night.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose.’ He pressed his palms together as if in prayer, resting his mouth against the tips of his fingers.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve seen Siobhan this morning?’ Rebus asked, trying to keep his tone casual.
Page shook his head and checked his watch. ‘Not like her to be tardy.’
‘Unless she was late to bed.’
Page stared at him. ‘I dropped her home at quarter past nine, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
Rebus pretended to show surprise. ‘No, nothing like that. I just thought—’
He was interrupted by his mobile phone. Siobhan Clarke’s name was on the screen.
‘Talk of the devil,’ he said, pressing the phone to his ear.
‘Where are you?’ Clarke asked.
‘In the office. Why?’
‘I’m parked outside. Better get down here.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Robertson’s bunk’s not been slept in. He didn’t get back to the camp last night . . .’
24
The M90 again, but only once they’d escaped the sluggish morning traffic in Edinburgh. Heading towards Perth and the A9. A quick pit stop to pick up beakers of tea and dry croissants. Kate Bush still singing about snowmen. As they crossed the Forth Road Bridge, Rebus asked Clarke if she noticed anything different. She studied him and shook her head.
‘No scaffolding on the rail bridge.’
She looked to her right and saw this was true.
‘Can’t remember the last time I saw it without,’ he added.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. Then: ‘Look, I’m sorry about last night.’
‘Me too. Hope you didn’t have words with James afterwards.’
She glanced towards him. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Nothing.’ He paused for effect. ‘It’s just that I was in his bolt-hole when you phoned . . .’
‘And?’
‘He was giving me a slap on the wrist about the Complaints.’
‘And?’ she repeated, growing a little more irritated.
‘And nothing,’ Rebus stressed. ‘I just got a feeling the two of you had . . . you know . . . maybe had words . . . before he dropped you at your flat. And if that’s the case, I’m sorry I was the cause.’
‘You can be a real bastard sometimes, John.’ She shook her head slowly.
‘It has been said,’ he admitted. ‘And believe me, I’m not proud of the fact.’
‘Thing is, though, you are proud of the fact.’ She looked at him again. ‘You really are.’
They drove in silence after that, Rebus staring at the scenery – the elongated stretches of hillside near Kinross; the merest glimpse of Loch Leven; the way the view opened up as they rounded a curve in the road and entered Perthshire, snow visible along the topmost ridge of the distant Ochils. (He guessed they were the Ochils; didn’t feel like checking with Clarke.) When her phone rang, she pressed a button on the steering wheel and answered with a voice raised above the engine noise.
‘DI Clarke,’ she informed the caller.
‘It’s Lightheart.’ The inspector’s dull drone seemed to emanate from the same speaker as Kate Bush. Clarke pressed another button to mute the CD.
‘Give me an update,’ she said.
‘He seems to have got on the bus all right. It dropped him near the works. Some of the men gave him short shrift, though – didn’t like that their Portakabin had been searched. So he didn’t hang about, told them he was going into Pitlochry. That was the last they saw of him.’
‘He’s done a runner,’ Clarke confirmed.
‘Looks like.’
‘Anyone talked to his girlfriend?’
‘The barmaid, you mean? Not yet.’
‘Could he be shacked up with her?’
‘It would solve all our problems.’
‘And if someone had checked first thing, it would be saving me this bloody drive.’
‘Want me to do it then?’
‘No, I’ll talk to her when I get there.’
Rebus took note of that – I, not we . . .
‘Are you in Pitlochry?’ she was now asking Lightheart.
‘Yes, but I need to head back to Perth – eleven o’clock meeting I can’t be late for.’
‘You do that then. We’ll talk again after.’
She ended the call and signalled to overtake the lorry in front.
‘Want the CD back on?’ Rebus eventually asked.
Clarke shook her head. A little later, she decided to put a question to him.
‘You don’t think it’s him, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Because he’s got a short fuse and that’s not the sort of person who goes years between victims?’
‘Right,’ Rebus agreed.
She nodded slowly. ‘So why did he run?’
‘It’s what people like him do – act on instinct; no forethought.’ Rebus decided it might be okay to throw in a question of his own. ‘Did the search turn up anything?’
‘They want to know if it’s worth putting a couple of frogmen in Loch Tummel.’
‘And is it?’
‘James’s call.’
‘What about Robertson’s stuff?’
‘Pretty much as you said. Half an ounce of cannabis, a few knock-off DVDs.’
‘Porn?’
‘Some.’
‘Hard core?’
‘No S and M, if that’s what you mean.’ She looked at him again. ‘This from the man who doesn’t rate profilers.’
‘Common sense comes cheaper.’
She managed a smile. The ice between them was melting. ‘That book in your fla
t – did Nina Hazlitt give it to you?’
‘How did you know?’
‘It’s on her Facebook bio that she edits books, including myths and legends.’
‘Did you know that “Ring-a-Roses” is about the plague?’
‘I thought everybody knew that.’
Rebus decided to try again: ‘Sawney Bean?’
Clarke thought for a moment. ‘Cannibal?’
‘Except he probably never existed. It was anti-Jacobite propaganda, according to one theory. Doesn’t take much to get a rumour started.’
‘Is the Burry Man in your book?’ Clarke asked.
‘He is – you ever seen him in the flesh?’
‘Last August. Took the car to Queensferry and watched him marching around, taking a drink from anyone that offered. Covered top to toe in burrs: no idea how he managed to pee . . .’ She paused. ‘Could Nina Hazlitt be putting together a new bogeyman?’
‘I as good as asked her the same thing.’
‘And?’
‘She wasn’t happy about it.’
‘She’s an editor by trade.’
‘So?’
‘She creates order, John. If there’s one person responsible for all these disappearances, that gives some sense to what’s otherwise senseless.’
‘And we’re back to psychology again.’
‘Not got much else, have we?’
‘We’ve got a lot of people who don’t seem to be around any more.’
‘There is that.’
When she asked him if he wanted to choose a CD, he knew he’d been forgiven his latest transgressions.
25
The Tummel Arms wouldn’t open for business for another hour, but its door was unlocked. It was a bright, bustling morning on Pitlochry’s Atholl Road. Neighbours stood on the pavements, grocery bags or dog leads in hand, and shared the local gossip. They were used to visitors, and hadn’t paid Clarke and Rebus a moment’s notice.
‘Hello?’ Clarke called out, pushing open the pub door. The place smelled of bleach. Stools and chairs had been placed on tables so the floor could be sluiced. A woman appeared from the direction of the ladies’ loo, toting a mop.
‘We’re looking for Gina Andrews,’ Clarke explained.
The woman pushed a stray hair behind one ear. ‘She’s at the baker’s. Won’t be long, though.’