Ian Rankin - Set in Darkness

‘No known enemies?’

‘Widow didn’t seem to think so, sir,’ Linford said quickly, leaning forward in his chair. He didn’t want Rebus hogging the stage. ‘Still, there are things wives don’t always know.’

The Chief Super nodded. To Rebus, his face looked even more florid than usual. Run-up to the golden cheerio and he gets landed with this.

‘Friends? Business acquaintances?’

Linford nodded back, catching Watson’s rhythm. ‘We’ll speak to them all.’

‘Did the autopsy throw up anything?’

‘Blow to the base of the skull. It caused immediate haemorrhaging. Seems he died pretty much where he fell. Two more blows after that, producing fractures.’

‘These two blows were post-mortem?’

Linford looked to Rebus for confirmation. ‘Pathologist seems to think so,’ Rebus obliged. ‘They were to the top of the skull. Grieve was pretty tall —’

‘Six-one,’ Linford interrupted.

‘— so to render a blow like that, the attacker had to be hellish tall or standing on something.’

‘Or Grieve was already prone when the blows arrived,’ Watson said, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘Yes, makes sense, I suppose. How the devil did he get in there?’

‘Either he climbed the fence,’ Linford guessed, ‘or else someone had keys. The gates are kept padlocked at night: too much stuff in there worth nicking.’

‘There’s a security guard,’ Rebus continued. ‘He says he was there all night, kept a regular patrol, but didn’t see anything.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think he was kipping in the office. Nice and warm in there. Radio and kettle, all mod cons. Either that or he’d bunked off home.’

‘He says he checked the summer house?’ Watson asked.

‘He says he thinks he did.’ Linford quoted from memory: ‘“I always shine my torch inside, just in case. No reason I wouldn’t have that night.”’

The Chief Super leaned forward, rested his elbows on the desk. ‘What do you think?’ He had eyes only for Linford.

‘I think we need to concentrate on the motive, sir. Was this a chance encounter? Prospective MSP wants to take a midnight look at his future workplace, happens across someone who decides to bludgeon him to death?’ Linford shook his head persuasively, his eyes dodging Rebus, who was glaring, having said almost exactly the same thing to him about an hour before.

‘I’m not sure,’ Watson said. ‘Say someone was in there stealing tools. Grieve interrupts them, so they whack him.’

‘And after he’s laid out,’ Rebus interrupted, ‘they hit him twice more for luck?’

Watson grunted, acknowledging the point. ‘And the murder weapon?’

‘Not recovered yet, sir,’ Linford said. ‘Lot of building sites around there, places you could conceal something. We’ve got officers out looking.’

‘The contractors are carrying out an inventory,’ Rebus added. ‘Just in case anything’s missing. If your theory about it being a theft is right, maybe the inventory will throw up something.’

‘One more thing, sir. Recent scuff marks on the shoes and traces of dirt and dust on the inside legs of Grieve’s trousers.’

Watson smiled. ‘God bless forensics. What does it mean?’

‘Means he probably did climb the fence or the gate.’

‘All the same, rule nothing out and everything in. Talk to all the keyholders. All of them, understood?’

‘Very good, sir,’ Linford said.

Rebus just nodded, though no one was paying attention.

‘And our friend Skelly?’ the Chief Super asked.

‘Two other members of the PPLC are on it, sir,’ Rebus said.

Watson grunted again, then looked at Linford. ‘Something wrong with your coffee, Derek?’

Linford’s gaze went to the surface of the drink. ‘No, sir, not at all. Just don’t like it too hot.’

‘And how is it now?’

Linford put the mug to his lips, drained it in two swallows. ‘It’s very good, sir. Thank you.’

Rebus suddenly had no doubts: Linford would go far in the force.

When the meeting was over, Rebus told Linford he’d catch him up, and knocked again on Watson’s door.

‘I thought we’d finished?’ The Farmer was busy with paperwork.

‘I’m being sidelined,’ Rebus said, ‘and I don’t like it.’

‘Then do something about it.’

‘Such as?’

The Farmer looked up. ‘Derek’s in charge. Accept the fact.’ He paused. ‘Either that or ask for a transfer.’

‘Wouldn’t want to miss your retirement do, sir.’

The Farmer put down his pen. ‘This is probably the last case I’ll handle, and I can’t think of one with a higher profile.’

‘You saying you don’t trust me with it, sir?’

‘You always think you know better, John. That’s the problem.’

‘All Linford knows are his desk at Fettes and which arses to lick.’

‘The ACC says different.’ The Farmer sat back in his chair. ‘Bit of jealousy there, John? Younger man speeding through the ranks...?’

‘Oh aye, I’ve always been gasping for a promotion.’ Rebus turned to leave.

‘Just this once, John, play for the team. It’s that or the sideline...’

Rebus closed the door on his boss’s words. Linford was waiting for him at the end of the corridor, mobile pressed to his ear.

‘Yes, sir, we’re headed there next.’ He listened, raised a hand to let Rebus know he’d only be a minute. Rebus ignored him, stalked past and down the stairs. Linford’s voice carried down a few moments later.

‘I think he’ll be fine, sir, but if not...’

Rebus dismissed the nightwatchman, but the man stayed in his seat, eyes shifting nervously between Rebus and Linford.

‘I said you can go.’

‘Go where?’ the watchman asked at last, voice trembling. ‘This is my office.’

Which was true: the three men were seated in the gatehouse of the parliament site. There was a thick register lying on the table, being pored over by Linford. It listed all the visitors to the site since work had begun. Linford had his notebook out, but hadn’t jotted a single name into it.

‘I thought you might want to go home,’ Rebus told the watchman. ‘Shouldn’t you be asleep or something?’

‘Aye, sure,’ the man mumbled. He probably reckoned he wouldn’t have the job much longer. Bad PR for the security firm, a body finding its way on to the premises. It was a low-pay job, being a security guard, and the hours tended to suit loners and the desperate. Rebus had told the man that they’d be checking up on him — you found a lot of ex-cons in his line of work. The man had admitted to spending some time at what he called the Windsor Hotel Group, meaning in jail. But he swore no one had asked him for copies of his keys. He wasn’t protecting anybody.

‘On you go then,’ Rebus said. The guard left. Rebus let out a long whistle of breath and stretched his vertebrae. ‘Anything?’

‘A few suspicious names,’ Linford announced. He turned the ledger so Rebus could see. The names were their own, along with Ellen Wylie, Grant Hood, Bobby Hogan and Joe Dickie: the group who’d toured Queensberry House. ‘Or how about the Scottish Secretary and the Catalan President?’

Rebus blew his nose. There was a one-bar electric fire in the room, but the heat was having no difficulty escaping through the cracks in the door and window. ‘What did you reckon to our nightwatchman?’

Linford closed the register. ‘I think if my two-year-old nephew asked for the gate keys, he’d hand them over rather than risk a bite to the ankles.’

Rebus went to the window. It was crusted with dirt. Outside, everyone was busy knocking things down and putting things up. An investigation was like that, too: sometimes you were demolishing an alibi or story, sometimes building up the case, each new piece of information another brick in the often unlovely edifice.