by Ian Rankin
Seismic Storage, the premises were called. Three long rows of concrete bunkers, each one roughly three-quarters the size of a normal garage.
'Seismic,' the owner, Gerry Reagan explained, 'in that they'll survive an earthquake.'
'A real worry around here, earthquakes,' Rebus commented.
Reagan smiled. He was leading them down one of the rows. The weather was closing in, clouds gathering and a fierce wind blowing off the estuary. 'The Castle's built on a volcano,' he said. 'And do you remember those tremors a while back in Portobello?'
'Wasn't that mine workings?' Siobhan asked.
'Whatever,' Reagan said. There was constant humour in his eyes, topped off with bushy grey eyebrows. He wore metal-rimmed glasses on a chain around his neck. 'Thing is, my customers know their stuff'll be safe till kingdom come.'
'What sort of customers do you get?' Siobhan asked.
'AH sorts: old folk who've moved into sheltered accommodation, no space for all their furniture. People flitting, either on their way here or heading south. Sometimes they sell up before their new place is ready. I've one or two collectors' cars, too.'
'Do they fit?' Rebus asked.
'It's snug,' Reagan conceded. 'One of them, we had to remove the bumpers. This is it.'
They'd come armed with a letter of authorisation from Blair Martine, which Reagan now held in his hand, along with a key to unlock the up-and-over door.
'Unit thirteen,' he said, double-checking he was in the right place. Then he stooped to unlock the door, yanking it open.
As Martine had explained, Hastings' effects had first been stored in a warehouse. But then the warehouse had undergone conversion, forcing the lawyer to make other arrangements: 'I swear, him going off like that gave me more headaches than a dozen contested estates.' The effects had ended up at Seismic Storage only three years before, and Martine couldn't swear that everything was intact. He'd also told them that he hadn't known Hastings well - a few social occasions: dinners, parties. And that he'd had no dealings with Alasdair Grieve.
Siobhan's question afterwards: 'So if money wasn't why they left, what was?'
Rebus's response: 'Freddy didn't leave.'
'He left and came back,' Siobhan corrected. 'And Alasdair? Is it his body in the fireplace?'
Rebus had let that one go unanswered.
Now, as Reagan opened the door to its fullest extent, they saw that the place was a ready-made bric-a-brac shop, lacking only the cash register.
'Nice, neat job we made of it,' Reagan said, admiring his self-storage handiwork.
'Oh, dear heavens,' Siobhan gasped. Rebus was already punching numbers into his mobile phone.
'Who are you calling?' she asked.
He said nothing, straightening up when the call was answered. 'Grant? Is Wylie with you?' He grinned wickedly. 'Get a pen in your mitt, I'll give you directions. Little job here that's just perfect for the Time Team.'
Linford was back at Fettes, seated in ACC Carswell's office. He sipped his tea - china cup and saucer - while Carswell took a call. When the call was finished, Carswell lifted his own cup, held it to his lips and blew.
'Bit of a mess at St Leonard's, Derek.'
'Yes, sir.'
'I told Watson to his face, if he's got no control over his officers...'
'With respect, sir, a case like this one, tempers are bound to flare.'
Carswell nodded. 'I admire you for that, Derek.'
'Sir?'
'You're not the kind to drop fellow officers in the soup, even when they're at fault.'
'I'm sure I was partly to blame, sir. Nobody likes it when someone comes into an inquiry from outside.'
'So you become the scapegoat?'
'Not exactly, sir.' Linford was looking at his cup. Small blobs of oil dotted the surface. He wasn't sure if the tea, the water or the milk was to blame.
'We could transfer the investigation here,' Carswell was saying. 'Lock, stock and barrel if need be. Use Crime Squad officers to--'
'With respect, sir, it's late on in the investigation to start over from scratch. We'd lose a lot of time.' He paused. 'And it would send the budget rocketing.'
Carswell was known to like a nice, tidy budget. He frowned, took a sip from his cup. 'Don't want that,' he said. 'Not if we can help it.' He stared across the desk at Linford. 'You want to stay put, that's what you're telling me?'
'I think I can win them over, sir.'
'Well, you're braver than most, Derek.'
'Most of the team are absolutely fine,' Linford went on. 'It's just a couple...' He broke off, lifted his cup again.
Carswell looked at the notes he'd made for himself back in St Leonard's. 'Would that be DI Rebus and DC Clarke, by any chance?'
Linford said nothing; made sure his eyes didn't meet CarsweH's.
'No one's irreplaceable, Derek,' the ACC said quietly. Believe me, no one.'
'It's deja vu all over again,' Wylie said, as she and Hood inspected the contents. The concrete store was full almost to its roof. Desks, tables, chairs, rugs. Cardboard boxes, framed prints, a stereo system.
'This'll take days,' Hood complained. And with no Mrs Coghill to make coffee, no inviting kitchen. Just this bleak wasteland, the wind forcing tears from his eyes, rain threatening.
'Nonsense,' Rebus said. 'We're looking for paperwork. All the big items, we just put to one side. The interesting-looking stuff goes into the back of the car. We'll work shifts of two.'
Wylie looked at him. 'Meaning?'
'Meaning two clearing out the junk, and two sorting through all the papers. We'll take the stuff back to St Leonard's.'
'Fettes is closer,' Wylie reminded him.
He nodded. But Fettes was Linford's home turf. It was as though Siobhan could read his mind.
'That's even closer,' she said, nodding towards the glorified Portakabin which acted as Gerry Reagan's office.
Rebus nodded. 'I'll go square it with him.'
Grant Hood carried a portable TV out of the garage and placed it on the ground. 'Ask him if he's got a tarp, too.' He looked up. 'Rain's not far off.'
Half an hour later, the first showers blew in off the Forth, jabbing their faces and hands with needles of cold, and bringing a thick haar which seemed to cut them off from the world. Reagan had provided a large sheet of thick translucent polythene, which was going to blow-away given half a chance. They'd fixed down three of its corners with bricks, leaving one open, flapping entrance. Then Reagan had a better idea: the garage two along was currently out of use. So the three of them - Hood, Wylie and Siobhan Clarke - carried the goods along to this new site while Reagan attempted to fold up his polythene sheet.
'What's the boss up to?' Hood asked Reagan.
Slitting his eyes against the rain, Reagan peered back towards his office, its lit windows like beacons of warmth and shelter against the darkening afternoon. 'Setting up the command post, that's what he told me.'
Hood and Wylie exchanged a look. 'And did that involve a kettle and a seat by the heater?' Wylie asked.
Reagan laughed.
'He said shifts,' Siobhan reminded them. 'You'll get your turn.' All the same, she wished they'd find some files or something, so she, too, would have an excuse to visit the Portakabin.
'I knock off at five,' Reagan said. 'No point staying here in the dark.'
'Any lamps we could use?' Siobhan asked. Wylie and Hood looked disappointed: a five o'clock homer sounded good to them. Reagan was looking doubtful, but for different reasons.
'We'd lock up after us,' Siobhan reassured him. 'Set the alarms or whatever.'
'I'm not sure my insurance company would be happy.'
'When are they ever?'
He laughed again, rubbed his head. 'I could stick around till six, I suppose.'
She nodded. 'Six it is then.'
Soon afterwards, they started finding the box-files. Reagan had produced a wheelbarrow, with the folded-up sheet of polythene covering its base. They loaded the files into the bar
row, and Siobhan wheeled it towards the office. She pushed open the door and saw that Rebus was just finishing clearing one of the room's two desks. He'd piled all the stuff on the floor in a corner.
'Reagan said we could use this one,' he told her. He pointed to a door. 'There's a chemical toilet through there. Plus sink and kettle. Boil the water before you drink it.' She noticed there was a mug of coffee on the chair by Rebus.
'I think we could all do with a cup,' she said. She found a socket and plugged in her mobile phone, letting it charge while she filled the kettle and switched it on. Rebus went outside and started bringing the box-files in.
'It's getting pretty dark,' she said.
'How are you coping?'
'There's a light inside the garage. That's pretty much it. Mr Reagan says he can stay till six.'
Rebus checked his watch. 'So be it.'
'Just one thing,' she reminded him, 'this is the Grieve case we're working on now, right?'
He looked at her. 'We can probably swing overtime, if that's what you're thinking.'
'Might help pay for the Christmas shopping... if I ever get time to do any.'
'Christmas?'
'You know, festive time of year, coming up fast.'
He looked at her. 'You can just switch off like that?'
'I don't think you have to be obsessed to make a good detective.'
He went back outside, gathered more files into his arms. In the distance, he could see the three figures working in the mist - Wylie, Hood, Reagan - while their shadows danced on the pitted surface of the compound. The scene seemed timeless to him. Humans had been working like this, moving things in sub-zero gloom, for thousands of years. And to what end? So much of the past simply disappeared. But it was their job to make sure past crimes did not go unpunished, whether they be committed the day before or two decades before. Not because justice or the lawmakers demanded it, but for all the silent victims. the haunted souls. And for their own satisfaction, too. Because in trapping the guilty, they atoned for their own sins of commission and omission. How in God's name could you switch that all off for the sake of swapping some presents...?
Siobhan came out to help, broke the spell. She cupped hands to her mouth and called out that she was making coffee. Cheers and clapping. The scene no longer timeless but discrete, the figures turned into personalities. Reagan thumping his gloved hands together, bouncing on his toes, glad to be part of this adventure: something to stave off the daily loneliness of his job. Hood whooping, but not breaking stride as he moved chairs from one unit to the other: the work ethic strong in him. Wylie raising her hand, announcing that she took two sugars: making sure she got what she wanted.
'Strange job, isn't it?' Siobhan commented.
'Yes,' he agreed. But she meant Reagan's.
'Every day stuck out here on your own, all these concrete boxes full of secrets and other people's stuff. Aren't you curious what else we'd find if we opened a few doors?'
Rebus smiled. 'Why do you think he's so keen to help out?'
'Because he's a generous soul?' Siobhan guessed.
'Or he doesn't want us snooping.' She looked at him. 'Reason I was indoors so long, I thought I'd take a look at his client list.'
'And?'
'Couple of names I recognised: fences who live in Pilton and Muirhouse.'
'Just along the road.' Rebus nodded. 'No way we can search without a warrant.'
'All the same, a useful piece of ammo should Mr Reagan start proving uncooperative.' He glanced at her. 'And something to bear in mind next time we pull either of them in on a charge: no point getting a search warrant for a flat in Muirhouse when the stuff's sitting in self-storage.'
They took a break, huddling in the office. Four of them: Hood said he wanted to keep going; Wylie could take his coffee out to him when she'd finished hers.
'Boy wouldn't go down well with the unions,' was Reagan's comment.
The heater was Calor gas, all three elements lit. Not much insulation in the cabin. The long narrow window to the front wore a film of condensation, with occasional beads breaking free to trickle downwards, gathering on the sill. There was one overhead bulb, and a desk lamp. The room was fuggy and yellow-bathed. Reagan accepted a cigarette from Rebus, the two men forming a huddle while the non-smoking women edged away.
'New Year resolution,' Reagan said, examining the tip of the cigarette. 'I'm giving them up.'
'Reckon you'll make it?'
The man shrugged. 'Might do, all the practice I get -two or three times a year I try calling a halt.'
'Practice makes perfect,' Rebus admitted.
'How long do you reckon this'll all take?' Reagan asked.
'We appreciate your cooperation, sir.' Said in the voice of someone who had suddenly become an official, all cigarette-sharing bonhomie erased. Reagan got the point: this policeman could make a nuisance of himself given the motivation. Then the door flew open and Grant Hood staggered in. He was carrying a computer screen and keyboard, pushed his way past them and dropped it on to the cleared desk.
'What do you think?' he asked, getting his breath.
'Looks ancient,' Siobhan commented.
'Not much use without the hard drive,' Ellen Wylie added.
Hood grinned. It was the answer he'd been waiting for. He reached beneath his coat, to where something was tucked into his waistband. 'Hard disks like we have weren't around back then. Slot on the side is for floppies.' He pulled out half a dozen cardboard squares, circular holes in them like old novelty records. 'Nine-inch floppies.' he said, waving them in front of him. With his free hand, he patted the keyboard. 'Probably a DOS-based WP package. Which, if that doesn't say much to any of you, means I'm going to be stuck in here.' He put down the floppies and rubbed his hands in front of the flames. 'While you lot are out there seeing if you can find any more disks.'
By the end of play, they'd emptied half the garage, and a lot of what was left looked like furniture. Rebus took three box-files away with him, thinking he'd make an evening of it at St Leonard's. The station was quiet. This time of year, pickpockets and shoplifting were the major concerns: crowds in the Princes Street stores, wallets and purses bulging. You got muggings at cash machines, too. And depression: some said it was the short bursts of daylight and longer stretches of dark. People drank themselves angry, drank until they unravelled. Bust-ups. windows smashed - bus shelters; phone boxes; shops and pubs. They took knives to their loved ones, slashed at their own wrists. SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder.
More work for Rebus and his colleagues. More work for the A&E departments, the social workers, the courts and prisons. Paperwork mounting as the Christmas cards started to arrive. Rebus had long since given up writing cards, but people persisted in sending them to him: family, colleagues, a few of his drinking cronies.
Father Conor Leary always sent one. But Leary was still convalescing, and Rebus hadn't been to see him for a while. Hospital beds reminded him of his daughter Sammy, unconscious after the hit-and-run which had put her in a wheelchair. In Rebus's experience, Christmas was about sham get-togethers, about pretending that all was well with the world. A celebration of one man's birth, carried out with tinsel and trappings, and conducted in a haze of white lies and alcohol. Or maybe it was just him.
There was no sense of urgency as he studied each page from the box. He kept taking coffee and cigarette breaks, stepping outside, lighting up in the car park at the rear of the station. Business correspondence: deadly dull. Newspaper clippings: commercial properties for sale and rent, some of them circled, some with double question marks in the margin. Once Rebus had identified Freddy Hastings' handwriting, he was able to tell that it was a one-man operation, no other hand at work. No secretary. And where did Alasdair Grieve fit in? Meetings: Alasdair was always mentioned at the meetings; business lunches. Maybe he was a meeter and greeter, his surname lending a certain something to the operation. Cammo's brother, Lorna's brother, Alicia's son - someone prospective clients would want to dine
with.
Back inside to warm his feet and dig into the box, retrieving another batch of documents. And then another cup of coffee, a wander downstairs to talk to the night shift in the Comms Room. Break-ins, fist fights, family quarrels. Cars stolen, vandalised. Burglar alarms tripped. A missing person reported. A patient who'd absconded from his hospital ward, dressed only in pyjamas. Car smashes: black ice on the roads. One alleged rape; one serious assault.
'Quiet night,' the duty officer said.
Camaraderie on the night shift. One officer shared his sandwich snack with Rebus. 'I always seem to make one more than I need.' Salami and lettuce on wholemeal bread. A carton of orange juice if Rebus wanted one, but he shook his head.
'This is fine,' he said.
Back at his desk, he jotted notes based on his findings, flagging some of the pages by dint of fixing Post-it notes to them. Looked at the office clock and saw it was almost midnight. Reached into his pocket and checked his cigarette packet: just the one left. That decided it. He locked the files in a drawer, put his coat on, and headed out. Cut through to Nicolson Street. There were all-night shops there, three or four of them. Cigarettes and a snack on his shopping list; maybe something for tomorrow's breakfast. The street was noisy. A group of teenagers screaming for a non-existent taxi; people weaving home. cartons of carry-out food held close to them, faces bathing in steam. Underfoot: greasy wrappings, dropped gobbets of tomato and onion, squashed chips. An ambulance sped past, blue light flashing but sirenless, eerily silent amidst the street's cacophony. Conversations turned high decibel by drink. And older groups, too, well dressed, heading home from a night at the Festival Theatre or Queen's Hall.
Clusters of young people, standing in doorways and the corners of buildings. Voices low, eyes scanning.. Rebus saw crime where none existed; or perhaps it was that he was attuned to the possibility of crime. Had the midnight revels always been this harsh and alarming? He didn't think so. The city was changing for the worse, and no amount of imaginative construction in glass and concrete could hide the fact. The old city was dying, wounded by these roars, this new paradigm of... not lawlessness exactly, but certainly lack of respect: for surroundings, neighbours, self.