by Ian Rankin
“But is he any good?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll slap him into shape.”
“That’s one of the prerogatives, now you’ve been promoted.”
The pips were sounding again. “Do I get to go now?”
“A concise and helpful report, DS Clarke. Seven out of ten.”
“Only seven?”
“I’m deducting three for sarcasm. You need to address this attitudinal problem of yours, or —”
The sudden hum on the line told her his time was up. It was taking some getting used to, being addressed as “DS.” She sometimes still introduced herself as Detective Constable Clarke, forgetting that the recent round of promotions had been kind to her. Could jealousy be behind the message on her screen? Silvers and Hood had stayed the same rank — as had most of the rest of CID.
“Narrowing the field nicely, girl,” she told herself, reaching for her coat.
Back at the table, Barclay lifted a mobile phone and told Rebus he could have borrowed it.
“Thanks, Tam. I’ve actually got one.”
“Are the batteries dead?”
Rebus lifted his glass, shook his head slowly.
“I think,” Francis Gray said, “John just prefers things done the old-fashioned way. Isn’t that right, John?”
Rebus shrugged, tipped the glass to his lips. Above the rim, he could see the bald man standing sideways against the bar, watching the group intently . . .
2
“Good morning, gentlemen!” the voice boomed, entering the room.
Six of them already seated at the same oval table. A dozen or more box-files at one end, the end where the teacher would sit.
9:15–12:45: Case Management, DCI (ret’d) Tennant.
“I trust we’re all feeling bright as buttons. No thumping heads or churning stomachs to report!” Another box-file was slammed down onto the table. Tennant dragged his chair out, causing its feet to grate against the floor. Rebus was concentrating on the grain of the table’s wood, trying to keep it in focus. When he did finally look up, he blinked. It was the bald guy from the bar, dressed now in an immaculate chalk-stripe suit, white shirt and navy-blue tie. His eyes seemed little pinpricks of devilment as they alighted on every member of the previous night’s drinking party.
“I want all those cobwebs blown away, gentlemen,” he said, slapping his hand down on one of the files. Dust rose from it, hanging in a beam of light which was streaking through the window behind him, its sole purpose to fry the eyeballs of last night’s drinkers. Allan Ward, who’d hardly said three words in the bar but who’d moved quickly from pints to shots of straight tequila, was now sporting a pair of blue-tinted wraparound sunglasses and looked like he should be on the ski slopes rather than stuck in this airless room. He’d smoked a cigarette with Rebus outside after breakfast, hadn’t said a thing. But then Rebus hadn’t felt much like talking either.
“Never trust a man when you can’t see his eyes!” Tennant barked. Ward turned his head slowly towards him. Tennant didn’t add anything, just waited him out. Ward reached into his pocket, brought out a pouch and slipped the sunglasses into it.
“That’s better, DC Ward,” Tennant said. There were a couple of surprised looks around the table. “Oh yes, I know all your names. Know what that’s called? It’s called preparation. No case can succeed without it. You need to know who and what you’re dealing with. Wouldn’t you agree, DI Gray?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“No use jumping to conclusions, is there?”
The look Gray gave Tennant, Rebus knew Tennant had struck a chord. He was showing that he had done his research: not just names, but everything else in their files.
“No, sir,” Gray said coldly.
There was a knock at the door. It opened, and two men started carrying in what looked like a series of large collages. It took only a moment for Rebus to realize what they were: the Wall of Death. Photographs, charts, news cuttings . . . the sort of stuff you pinned to the walls of an inquiry room. The material was mounted on sheets of cork boarding, and the men placed these against the walls of the room. When they’d finished, Tennant thanked them and told them to close the door when they left. Then he got up and walked around the table.
“Case management, gentlemen. Well, you’re old pros, aren’t you? You know how to manage a murder inquiry. No new tricks to be learned?” Rebus remembered Tennant’s words to him last night at the bar: he’d been on a fishing expedition, wondering how much Rebus would say . . . “That’s why I’m not going to bother with new tricks. Instead, how about sharpening up the old ones, eh? Some of you will know about this part of the course. I’ve heard it called ‘Resurrection.’ We give you an old case, something dormant, unsolved, and we ask you to take another look. We require you to work as a team. Remember how that used to be? Once upon a time you were all team players. These days you think you know better.” He was spitting out the words now, circling the table. “Maybe you don’t believe anymore. Well, believe this: for me, you’ll work together as a team. For me,” he paused, “and for the poor bloody victim.” He was back at his end of the table, opening a file, bringing out a series of glossy photographs. Rebus was remembering regimental sergeant majors he’d known in his army days. He was wondering if Tennant had served in the forces.
“You’ll remember your CID training here, how we put you in teams we called ‘syndicates’ and gave you a case to work on. You were videotaped . . .” Tennant pointed upwards. Cameras were watching from the corners of the room. “There’d be a whole squad of us watching and listening in another room, feeding you tidbits of information, seeing what you’d do with it.” He paused. “That won’t happen here. This is just you lot . . . and me. If I tape you, it’s for my own satisfaction.” As he started his walk around the table again, he deposited one print in front of each man.
“Take a look. His name is Eric Lomax.” Rebus knew the name. His heart missed a beat. “Beaten to death with something resembling a baseball bat or pool cue. Hit with such force that splinters of wood were embedded in the skull.” The photo landed in front of Rebus. It showed the body at the scene of crime, an alleyway illuminated by the photographer’s flash, raindrops falling into puddles. Rebus touched the photo but didn’t pick it up, afraid that his hand might tremble. Of all the unsolveds still moldering in their boxes and storerooms, why did it have to be this one? He focused on Tennant, seeking a clue.
“Eric Lomax,” Tennant was saying, “died in the center of our biggest, ugliest city on a busy Friday night. Last seen a bit the worse for wear, leaving his usual pub. About five hundred yards from this alley. The alley itself used by ladies of the night for knee-tremblers and God knows what else. If any of them stumbled across the body, they didn’t come forward at the time. A punter on his way home phoned it in. We’ve still got the tapes of his call.” Tennant paused. He was back at the head of the table, and this time he sat down.
“All this was six years ago: October 1995. Glasgow CID handled the original investigation, but came to a slow stop.” Gray had looked up. Tennant nodded towards him. “Yes, DI Gray, I appreciate that you were part of that inquiry. It doesn’t make any difference.” Now his eyes scanned the table, fixing each man in turn. But Rebus’s gaze had shifted to Francis Gray. Gray had worked the Lomax case . . .
“I don’t know any more about this case than you do, gentlemen,” Tennant was telling them. “By the end of the morning, you should know more than me. We’ve got a session each day, and if some of you want to continue in the evening after your other classes, you won’t find me complaining. The door will always be open. We’re going to sift the paperwork, study the transcripts, see if anything was missed. We’re not looking for cock-ups: as I say, I’ve no idea what we’re going to find in these boxes.” He patted one of the files. “But for ourselves, and Eric Lomax’s family, we’re going to have a bloody good go at finding his killer.”
“Which do you want me to be: good cop or bad cop?”
; “What?” Siobhan was busy looking for a parking spot, didn’t think she’d quite heard him.
“Good cop, bad cop,” DC Davie Hynds repeated. “Which one am I?”
“Jesus, Davie, we just go in and ask our questions. Is that Fiesta pulling out, do you think?” Siobhan braked, flashed her lights. The Fiesta moved from its curbside spot. “Hallelujah,” Siobhan said. They were at the north end of the New Town, just off Raeburn Place. Narrow streets lined with cars. The houses were known as “colonies”: split into upper and lower halves, exterior stone stairs giving the only clue that these weren’t normal terraces. Siobhan stopped again just in front of the space, preparing to reverse into it, then saw that the car behind was nosing in, stealing her precious parking place.
“What the —” She sounded her horn, but the driver was ignoring her. The rear end of his car was jutting out into the street, but he seemed happy enough, was reaching over to the passenger seat to pick up some papers. “Look at this sod!” Siobhan said. Then she undid her seat belt and got out of the car, Hynds following.
He watched her tap on the driver’s window. The man pushed open his door, getting out.
“Yes?” he said.
“I was backing in here,” Siobhan told him, pointing to her own car.
“So?”
“So I’d like you to move.”
The man pressed the button on his ignition key, locking all the doors. “Sorry,” he said, “but I’m in a hurry, and possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
“That may be so” — Siobhan was opening her warrant card, holding it up before him — “but I happen to be the other tenth, and right now that’s the part that matters.”
The man looked at the card, then at Siobhan’s face. There was a dull clunk as the car’s locks sprang open again. The man got in and started his ignition.
“Stand there,” Siobhan told Hynds, gesturing to the spot the man’s car was leaving. “Don’t want any other bugger trying that trick.”
Hynds nodded, watched her making for her own car. “I think this means I’m the good guy,” he said, but not loud enough for her to hear.
Malcolm Neilson lived in one of the upper colonies. He answered the door wearing what looked like pajama trousers — baggy, with vertical pink and gray stripes — and a fisherman’s thick pullover. He was barefoot and sported wild, frazzled hair, as if he’d just pulled his finger out of a light socket. The hair was graying, the face round and unshaven.
“Mr. Neilson?” Siobhan asked, opening her warrant card again. “I’m DS Clarke, this is DC Hynds. We spoke on the phone.”
Neilson leaned out from his doorway, as if to look up and down the street. “You better come in then,” he said, closing the door quickly after them. The interior was cramped: living room with a tiny kitchen off, plus maybe two bedrooms maximum. In the narrow hallway, a ladder led up through a trapdoor into the loft.
“Is that where you . . . ?”
“My studio, yes.” He glanced in Siobhan’s general direction. “Out of bounds to visitors.”
He led them into the chaotic living room. It was split-level: sofa and stereo speakers down below, dining table above. Magazines were strewn around the floor, most with pictures and pages torn from them. Album sleeves, books, maps, empty wine bottles with the labels peeled off. They had to be careful where they put their feet.
“Come in if you can get in,” the artist said. He seemed nervous, shy, never meeting his visitors’ eyes. He smeared an arm along the sofa, clearing its contents onto the floor. “Sit down, please.”
They sat. Neilson seemed content to crouch in front of them, sandwiched by the loudspeakers.
“Mr. Neilson,” Siobhan began, “as I said on the phone, it’s just a few questions about your relationship with Edward Marber.”
“We didn’t have a relationship,” the artist snapped.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean we didn’t speak, didn’t communicate.”
“You’d had a falling-out?”
“The man rips off his customers and his artists both! How is it possible to have a relationship under those circumstances?”
“Just to remind you that Mr. Marber’s dead,” Siobhan said quietly. The artist’s eyes almost met hers for an instant.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just that you talk about him in the present tense.”
“Oh, I see.” He grew thoughtful. Siobhan could hear his breathing; it was loud and hoarse. She wondered if he might be asthmatic.
“Do you have any proof?” she asked at last.
“That he was a cheat?” Neilson considered this, then shook his head. “It’s enough that I know it.”
From the corner of her eye, Siobhan noticed that Hynds had taken out his notebook and was busy with his pen. The doorbell rang and Neilson bounded to his feet with a muttered apology. When he’d gone, Siobhan turned to Hynds.
“Not even the offer of a cuppa. What are you writing?”
He showed her. It was just a series of squiggles. She looked at him for an explanation.
“Concentrates the mind wonderfully if they think everything they say is likely to be recorded.”
“Learn that in college?”
He shook his head. “All those years in uniform, boss. You learn a thing or two.”
“Don’t call me boss,” she said, watching as Neilson led another visitor into the room. Her eyes widened. It was the parking-space thief.
“This is my . . . um . . .” Neilson was attempting introductions.
“I’m Malcolm’s solicitor,” the man said, managing a thin smile.
Siobhan took a moment to recover. “Mr. Neilson,” she said, trying for eye contact, “this was meant to be a casual chat. There was no need for . . .”
“Nice to formalize things though, don’t you find?” The solicitor stepped through the debris. “My name’s Allison, by the way.”
“And your surname, sir?” Hynds inquired blithely. In the fraction of a second it took the solicitor to recover, Siobhan could have hugged her colleague.
“William Allison.” He handed a business card to Siobhan.
She didn’t so much as glance at it, just handed it straight to Hynds. “Mr. Allison,” she said quietly, “all we’re doing here is asking a few routine questions concerning the relationship — professional and personal — which may have existed between Mr. Neilson and Edward Marber. It would have taken about ten minutes and that would have been the end of it.” She got to her feet, aware that Hynds was following suit: a quick learner, she liked that. “But since you want to formalize things, I think we’ll continue this discussion down at the station.”
The solicitor straightened his back. “Come on now, no need for —”
She ignored him. “Mr. Neilson, I assume you’ll want to travel with your lawyer?” She stared at his bare feet. “Shoes might be an idea.”
Neilson looked at Allison. “I’m in the middle of —”
Allison cut him off. “Is this because of what happened outside?”
Siobhan held his gaze without blinking. “No, sir. It’s because I’m wondering why your client felt the need of your services.”
“I believe it’s everyone’s right to —”
Neilson was tugging at Allison’s sleeve. “Bill, I’m in the middle of something, I don’t want to spend half the day in a police cell.”
“The interview rooms at St. Leonard’s are quite cozy actually,” Hynds informed the artist. Then he made a show of studying his watch. “Of course, this time of day . . . it’s going to take us a while to get through the traffic.”
“And back again afterwards,” Siobhan added. “Plus the waiting time if a room’s not available . . .” She smiled at the solicitor. “Still, makes things nice and formal, just the way you want them.”
Neilson held up a hand. “Just a minute, please.” He was leading the solicitor out into the hallway. Siobhan turned to Hynds and beamed. “One–nil to us,” she said.
&nb
sp; “But is the referee ready to blow?”
She shrugged a reply, slid her hands into her jacket pockets. She’d seen messier rooms, couldn’t help wondering if it were part of an act — the eccentric artist. The kitchen was just behind the dining table and looked clean and tidy. But then maybe Neilson just didn’t use it very much . . .
They heard the front door close. Neilson shambled back into the room, head bowed. “Bill’s decided . . . um, that is . . .”
“Fine,” Siobhan said, settling once again on the sofa. “Well, Mr. Neilson, sooner we get started and all that, eh?”
The artist crouched down between the speakers. They were big and old; wood-veneered sides and brown foam grilles. Hynds sat down, notebook in hand. Siobhan caught Neilson’s eye at last and offered her most reassuring smile.
“So,” she said, “just why exactly did you feel the need to have a solicitor present, Mr. Neilson?”
“I just . . . I thought it was the done thing.”
“Not unless you’re a suspect.” She let this sink in. Neilson muttered something that sounded like an apology.
Sitting back in the sofa, beginning to relax, Siobhan started the interview proper.
They both got cups of hot brown liquid from the machine. Hynds grimaced as he took his first sip.
“Couldn’t we all chip in for a coffeemaker?” he asked.
“It’s been tried before.”
“And?”
“And we started arguing about whose turn it was to buy the coffee. There’s a kettle in one of the offices. You can bring your own mug and stuff, but take my advice: keep everything locked up, or it’ll go walkies.”
He stared at the plastic cup. “Easier to use the machine,” he mumbled.
“Exactly.” She pushed open the door to the murder room.
“So whose mug did DI Rebus throw?” Hynds asked.
“Nobody knows,” she admitted. “Seems it’s been here since they built this place. Could even be that the builders left it.”
“No wonder he got the boot then.” She looked at him for an explanation. “Attempted destruction of a historical artifact.”