by Ian Rankin
“I’ve often thought pedestrians should be issued with hammers for just this situation,” Siobhan said, watching the car disappear into the distance. She said good-bye to Rebus on the steps of the police station, watched him disappear inside. She’d wanted to say something: take care, maybe, or watch yourself, but the words hadn’t come out. He’d nodded anyway, reading her eyes with a smile. The problem wasn’t that he thought himself indestructible — quite the opposite. She worried that he relished the idea of his own fallibility. He was only human, and if proving it meant enduring pain and defeat, he would welcome both. Did that mean he had a martyr complex? Maybe she should give Andrea Thomson a call, see if the two of them could talk about it. But Thomson would want to talk about her, and Siobhan wasn’t ready for that. She thought of Rebus and his ghosts. Would Laura Stafford now haunt her dreams? Might she be the first of many? Laura’s face was already starting to fade, losing definition, leaving Siobhan with a hand locked to a car’s door handle.
She took a deep breath. “Got to keep busy,” she told herself. Then she opened the door to the station and peered inside. No sign of Rebus. She walked in, showed her ID, climbed the stairs to the CID floor. It struck her that Donny Dow might still be in the cells, but by now he was probably on remand in Saughton jail. She could always ask, but wasn’t sure that seeing him again would constitute any kind of exorcism.
“It’s Siobhan, isn’t it?” The voice startled her. The man had just appeared from out of an office. He was carrying a blue folder. She forced a smile.
“DI McCullough,” she said. “That’s funny,” the smile widening, “I was just looking for you . . .”
“Oh yes?”
“I wanted a quick word.”
He looked up and down the corridor, then nodded to the room he’d just vacated. “We’ll have some privacy in here,” he said, leaning past her to open the door.
“After you,” she said, the smile frozen on her face. The office looked little used. Some old desks, chairs each missing a leg, stiff-drawered filing cabinets. She left the door open, then remembered Rebus . . . didn’t want him catching her here. So she closed the door behind her.
“All very mysterious,” McCullough said, placing the folder on a desk and folding his arms.
“Not really,” she said. “It’s just something that’s cropped up in connection with the Marber case.”
He nodded. “I hear you found the missing painting. That should give you a hike up.”
“I was promoted pretty recently.”
“Nevertheless . . . You go on breaking cases at this rate, sky’s the limit.”
“I don’t think the case is necessarily broken.”
He paused. “Oh?” Sounding genuinely surprised.
“Which is why I have to ask a few questions about the owner of MG Cabs.”
“MG Cabs?”
“A woman called Ellen Dempsey. I think you know her.”
“Dempsey?” McCullough frowned, trying the name out a few times. Then he shook his head. “Give me a clue?”
“You knew her in Dundee. Prostitute. She was working the night you raided a sauna. A while after that, she was off the game and running a couple of minicabs. Used mace against a customer, ended up in court . . .”
McCullough was nodding. “Right,” he said, “I’ve got her now. What did you say her name was? Ellen . . . ?”
“Dempsey.”
“That the name she was using back then?”
“Yes.”
He looked like he was still having trouble putting a face to the name. “Well, what about her?”
“I just wondered if you’d kept in touch?”
His eyes widened. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“DS Clarke . . .” Unfolding his arms, face turning angry. His hands had started to bunch themselves into fists. “I should have you know I’m a happily married man — ask anyone . . . even your friend John Rebus! They’ll tell you!”
“Look, I’m not suggesting anything improper here. It just seems a coincidence that the two of you —”
“Well, coincidence is all it can be!”
“Okay, okay.” McCullough’s face had reddened, and she didn’t like those clenched fists . . . the door opened and a face peered round.
“You okay, Jazz?” Francis Gray asked.
“Far from it, Francis. This little bitch has just accused me of shagging some old pro I arrested once in Dundee!”
Francis Gray stepped into the room, closing the door softly behind him. “Say that again,” he growled, eyes reduced to slits which were concentrated on Siobhan.
“All I’m trying to say is —”
“You better be careful what you say, dyke-features. Anybody starts bad-mouthing Jazz, they’ve got me to contend with, and I make Jazz here look like a pussy, though probably not the kind of pussy that interests you.”
Siobhan’s face was suffusing with color. “Now hang on a minute,” she spat, trying to control the tremor in her voice. “Before the pair of you go flying off the handle . . .”
“Did Rebus put you up to this?” McCullough was snarling, fingers of both hands pointed at her as though they were six-shooters. “Because if he did . . .”
“DI Rebus doesn’t even know I’m here!” Siobhan said, her voice rising. The two men seemed to glance at one another, and she couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Gray stood between her and the door. She didn’t think she was going to get past him in a hurry.
“Best thing you can do,” McCullough was warning her, “is head back to your burrow and dig yourself in for the winter. You start telling tales, you could be headed for your chief constable’s cooking pot.”
“I think Jazz, as usual, is being too generous in his predictions,” Gray said, with quiet menace. He’d just taken half a step towards her and away from the door when it flew open, catching him in the back. Rebus had shouldered it, and was now standing there, surveying the scene.
“Sorry to crash the party,” he said.
“What do you think you’re trying to pull, Rebus? Reckon you could drag your little girlfriend here into those paranoid fantasies of yours?”
Rebus looked at Jazz. He seemed upset, but Rebus couldn’t tell how genuine it was, or what its cause might be. It was just as easy to be upset when maligned as when found out.
“You finished asking questions, Siobhan?” When she nodded, Rebus stuck out his thumb and jabbed it over his shoulder, letting her know it was time to leave. She hesitated, not liking the idea of him bossing her around. Then she gave McCullough and Gray the same withering stare, and squeezed past Rebus, striding down the corridor without looking back.
Gray offered Rebus a wicked grin. “Want to shut that door again, John? Sort things out here and now?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Why not? Just you and me. We’ll leave Jazz out of it.”
Rebus’s fingers were around the door handle. He didn’t know what was about to happen, but started pushing the door closed anyway, watching as Gray’s grin widened, showing yellow, glinting teeth.
Then a fist rapped on the other side of the door, and Rebus let it swing open again.
“Getting all cozy in here?” Bobby Hogan said. “I’ll have no goldbricking on my shift.”
“Just conferencing,” Jazz McCullough said, face and voice suddenly back to normal. Gray had his own face lowered, pretending to adjust his necktie. Hogan looked at the three men, knowing something had been going on.
“Well,” he said, “conference your arses out of here and back to what we in the human world call work.”
The human world. . . Rebus wondered if Hogan would ever know how close to the mark he’d been. In this room, for a matter of seconds, three men had been reconciled to acting like something less than human . . .
“Sure thing, DI Hogan,” Jazz McCullough said, picking up his folder and readying to leave the office. Gray’s eyes caught Rebus’s, and Rebus could see the man was
having a hard time pulling himself back. It was like watching Edward Hyde decide he no longer needed Henry Jekyll. Rebus had told Jazz that there was still the chance for resurrection, but not in Francis Gray’s case. Something had died behind his eyes, and Rebus didn’t think he’d be seeing it again.
“After you, John,” McCullough was saying with a sweep of his arm. As he followed Hogan out of the room, Rebus could feel a tingling all down his spine, as though a blade were about to lodge itself there . . .
26
There was a tapping at Siobhan’s window. It took her a moment to work out where she was: the St. Leonard’s car park. She must have driven there from Leith; couldn’t remember anything about it. How long had she been sitting? It could have been half a minute or half an hour. More tapping. She got out of the car.
“What’s up, Derek?”
“Shouldn’t that be my question? You’re sitting there like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost, no.”
“What then? Has something happened?”
She shook her head, as if trying to clear it of the memory of that office . . . Gray and McCullough . . .
Rebus had warned her, and she’d gone blundering in anyway with her sweeping accusations and half-formed questions. It was hardly what they taught you at Tulliallan. Even so, the reactions of McCullough and Gray had been startling: McCullough’s sudden anger, Gray’s snarling defense of his colleague. She’d expected a response, yes, but nothing quite so feral. It was as if the two men had been unraveling in front of her eyes.
“I’m fine,” she told Linford. “Just in a dream, that’s all.”
“Sure?”
“Look, Derek . . . ” Her voice had hardened. She rubbed at a throbbing spot on her right temple.
“Siobhan . . . I am trying to mend the fence between us.”
“I know you are, Derek. But this isn’t the time, okay?”
“Okay.” He held up both hands in surrender. “But you know I’m there for you if you need me.” She managed to nod her head. He shrugged, prefacing a change of subject. “Friday night tonight. Shame you’ve got that date. I was going to suggest dinner at the Wichery . . .”
“Another time maybe.” She couldn’t believe she was saying this. I don’t want to make any more enemies . . . Linford was smiling.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
She nodded again. “I have to go to the office now . . .”
Linford checked his watch. “I’m out of here. Might be back before the close of play. Otherwise, have a great weekend.” He seemed to think of something. “Maybe we could do something together.”
“I need a bit more notice than that, Derek.” The throbbing was getting worse. Why wouldn’t he just go? She turned and walked towards the station’s rear door. He’d be standing there . . . watching her . . . waiting for her to turn so he could try out another sympathetic smile.
No chance.
Upstairs in the murder room, things were winding down. The team had been given the weekend off en masse. The Procurator Fiscal’s office was happy enough with the case as it stood. They’d have more questions, more information they needed come Monday morning. But for now, everyone was relaxing. There was still paperwork to contend with, still loose ends to be gathered together and tied as tight as possible.
It could all wait till Monday.
Siobhan sat at her desk, staring at the cover sheet of the Dundee fax. When she looked up, Hynds was moving in her direction. She could see by the look on his face that he was going to ask if anything was wrong. She held up a finger, warning him off. He stopped, shrugged and turned away. She started reading the text of the fax one more time, willing something — anything — to jump out at her. She supposed she could try talking to Ellen Dempsey, see if she’d let anything slip.
So what? she wondered. What difference did it make if McCullough did connect to Ellen Dempsey? It certainly seemed to make a difference to him. She knew almost nothing about McCullough and didn’t have any contacts in Dundee who could enlighten her. Then she turned back to the cover sheet.
To: DS Clarke, Lothian and Borders
From: DS Hetherington, Tayside
Hetherington . . . a detective sergeant, just like her. Siobhan’s request hadn’t been addressed to any particular officer. She’d just got the fax number for Tayside Police HQ and sent it there. The cover sheet was on letterhead, the telephone number just discernible. Then she noticed something typed below Hetherington’s name: x242. Had to be an extension number. Siobhan picked up her phone and punched the digits.
“Police HQ, DC Watkins,” the male voice said.
“It’s DS Clarke here, St. Leonard’s in Edinburgh. Any chance I could have a word with DS Hetherington?”
“She’s not in the office right now.” She . . . A smile cracked open Siobhan’s face. “Can I take a message?”
“Is she likely to be back?”
“Hang on a sec . . .” There was the sound of the receiver being laid down on a desktop. DS Hetherington was a woman. It gave them something in common, might make it easier for the pair of them to talk . . . The receiver was picked up again. “Her stuff’s still here.” Meaning she’d be back to pick it up.
“Could I leave you a couple of numbers to pass on to her? I’d really like to talk to her before the weekend.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. We have to prize her out of the office usually.”
Better and better, thought Siobhan, giving Watkins her St. Leonard’s and mobile numbers. Afterwards, she stared at the telephone, willing it to ring. The room around her was emptying: early doors, as Rebus would have called it. She hoped he was all right. She didn’t know why she hadn’t called him . . . Actually, she had a vague memory of doing just that. Probably as soon as she’d got back to her car. But he hadn’t been answering. She tried him again now. He picked up.
“I’m fine,” he told her without preamble. “I’ll talk to you later.” End of conversation.
She visualized Hetherington returning to her desk . . . maybe not noticing the message. Watkins hadn’t sounded the type who had to be prized from anything but a barstool. What if he’d already made his escape before her return? What if she saw the message but was too tired to do anything about it? Maybe she’d had a long week . . . To Siobhan, it had lasted an eternity. She wasn’t going to do anything this weekend but lie in bed and read, doze, then read some more. Maybe drag the duvet as far as the sofa and watch a black-and-white film. There were CDs she hadn’t got round to playing: Hobotalk, Goldfrapp . . . She’d decided to give the football a miss. It was an away game at Motherwell.
The phone remained silent. Siobhan counted to ten, giving it a chance, then gathered her stuff and headed for the door.
She got in her car and put some driving music on: the latest REM. It was fifty-three minutes long, which meant it would see her most of the way to Dundee.
She hadn’t allowed for the Friday-afternoon exodus from the city, ending with a long queue to pay the toll at the Forth Road Bridge. After that, she put her foot down. Her mobile was attached to its charger. Still no word from Hetherington. She picked it up every few minutes, just in case some new text message had escaped her attention. The farther north she traveled, the better she felt. It wouldn’t matter if there was nobody at the office when she arrived. It was good to be out of Edinburgh. It reminded her that there was another world out there. She didn’t know Dundee professionally but had visited the city plenty of times as a football fan. The two Dundee teams had stadiums practically next door to one another. There were a few pubs in the center where Siobhan had enjoyed a drink before kickoff, her Hibs scarf hidden deep down in her shoulder bag. There was a sign off the motorway to the Tay Bridge, but she’d made that mistake once before. It led to a long, winding trail through the villages of Fife. She stuck to the M90, bypassing Perth and heading into Dundee from the west. This approach turned into a seemingly endless series of roundabouts. She was steering the car around one of these when her pho
ne sounded.
“I got your message,” the female voice said.
“Thanks for calling back. As it happens, I’m on the outskirts of town.”
“Christ, it must be serious.”
“Maybe I just fancied a Friday night in Dundee.”
“In which case, delete ‘serious’ and add ‘desperate.’ ”
Siobhan knew she was going to like DS Hetherington. “My name’s Siobhan, by the way,” she said.
“Mine’s Liz.”
“Are you just about ready to shut up shop, Liz? Only, I know the pubs in this city better than I do your HQ.”
Hetherington laughed. “I suppose I could be persuaded.”
“Great.” Siobhan named a pub, and Hetherington said she knew it.
“Ten minutes?”
“Ten minutes,” Hetherington agreed.
“How will we know one another?”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem, Siobhan. Single women in that place tend to be an endangered species.”
She was right.
Siobhan only knew the place from Saturday afternoons, drinking in safety, a pack of Hibs fans around her. But as people clocked off, the weekend stretching ahead of them, the pub took on a very different character. There were office parties, loud laughter. The only people drinking alone were sour-faced men at the bar. Couples were meeting up after work, bringing their day’s gossip with them. Supermarket shopping bags held the evening meal. There was thumping dance music, and a TV sports channel playing silently. The interior was spacious, but Siobhan was having trouble finding somewhere to stand, somewhere she’d be conspicuous to anyone coming in. There were two doors into the place, which didn’t help. Every time she thought she’d found a spot, drinkers would gather nearby, camouflaging her. And Hetherington was late. Siobhan’s glass was empty. She went to the bar for a refill.
“Lime and soda?” the barman remembered. She nodded, quietly impressed. She turned to watch the door and saw that it had opened. A woman was standing there. Something Liz Hetherington had forgotten to mention: she had to be six feet tall or thereabouts. Unlike a lot of tall women, she made no attempt to make herself seem shorter, holding her back straight and wearing shoes with heels. Siobhan waved, and Hetherington joined her.