Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“Having trouble?” she asked, approaching the garage.

“That’s it, fixed,” he said, dropping the hood. “Maintenance check.” He slid into the driver’s seat, revved the engine a couple of times. “Sweet as a nut. Office is in there.” He nodded towards the prefab. Siobhan was studying him. Through the oil and grease on the backs of his hands she could see old homemade tattoos. He was skinny, with a pale face and thinning hair which stuck out above the ears. Something about him made her think: ex-offender. She recalled that Sammy Wallace, the driver who’d taken Marber home, had boasted a police record.

“Thanks,” she told the mechanic. “Who’s manning the phone tonight?”

He looked at her, saw her for what she was. “Mrs. Dempsey’s inside,” he said coldly. Then he shifted the Astra into reverse and started maneuvering it out of the garage and into a parking space, the driver’s-side door still open so that Siobhan had to take a step back or risk being hit by it. He glowered at her through the windshield, and she knew she hadn’t made a friend.

There were two steps up to the office. She tapped on the glass door. A woman was seated behind a desk. The woman looked up, sliding the spectacles from her nose, and gestured for her to enter. Siobhan closed the door after her.

“Mrs. Dempsey? I’m sorry to trouble you . . .” She was opening her bag to find her warrant card.

“Don’t bother with that,” Ellen Dempsey said, leaning back in her chair. “I can see you’re a cop.”

“Detective Sergeant Clarke,” Siobhan said by way of introduction. “We spoke on the phone.”

“Indeed we did, DS Clarke. What can I do for you?” Dempsey motioned towards the chair on the other side of the desk, and Siobhan sat down. Ellen Dempsey was in her mid-forties. Full-figured but well preserved. The ringed creases of skin around her neck were a better indicator of her age than was her carefully made-up face. The dark-brown hair had probably been dyed, but it was hard to tell. No nail polish, no jewelry on her fingers, just a chunky ladies’ Rolex on her left wrist.

“I just thought you’d like to know that Sammy Wallace is off the hook,” Siobhan said.

Dempsey was making a show of tidying some papers. In truth, the desk was about as neat as could be, the paperwork divided into four piles, with four labeled folders waiting to be filled.

“Was he ever on the hook?” Dempsey asked.

“He was the last person to see Mr. Marber alive.”

“Apart from whoever murdered him,” Dempsey corrected. Now she looked up at Siobhan, narrowing her eyes slightly. Her glasses hung around her neck by a chain. “If he was ever really a suspect, DS Clarke, it was because he already had a criminal record, and that’s just laziness on your part.”

“I’m not saying we seriously considered —”

“What other reason was there?”

Siobhan paused, knowing this was an argument she couldn’t win. Yes, they’d looked that bit more closely at Sammy Wallace precisely because of his criminal past. It had been as good a starting point as any.

“Besides,” Dempsey said, reaching into the wastebasket and pulling out the latest edition of the Evening News, “it was on the front page — all about this painter you’ve arrested. That’s you, isn’t it?” Dempsey had turned the paper round for Siobhan to see. There was a headline — MAN CHARGED IN ART DEALER MURDER — and a large color photo of the search party as they made ready to enter the house at Inveresk. Obviously, the story had been printed just too early to use a photo of them coming out again, carrying their labeled trash bags, in one of which was hidden the painting . . .

Dempsey was jabbing at one of the figures in the photograph. Yes, it was Siobhan, mouth open as she issued orders, finger pointing towards the house. But there was another figure at the very edge of the frame. Grainy, to be sure, but identifiable to those who knew him as Detective Inspector John Rebus. Chances of Gill Templer not seeing the photo? Astronomical. It took Siobhan a moment or two to recover.

“Mrs. Dempsey,” she said, “are all your employees ex-offenders?”

“Not all of them, no.” Dempsey folded the paper and put it back in the bin.

“Maybe it’s some sort of principle . . . ?”

“It is, as it happens.” Dempsey’s tone said this was another argument she was ready for.

“Men with convictions for violence, driving cabs around Edinburgh . . .”

“Men who have served their sentence. Men whose crimes are far in the past. I credit myself with an instinct for knowing which ones I can trust.”

“But your instinct could be wrong.”

“I don’t think so.”

The silence in the room was broken by a phone call, not the phone on Dempsey’s desk but another, on a long, waist-high shelf which ran the length of the window. Siobhan noticed that there was a two-way radio system tucked on a shelf beneath. The window itself could slide open, and she guessed that outside office hours, if anyone came to the site looking for a cab they had to stand at the window and offer details through the opening. It wasn’t her drivers that Ellen Dempsey didn’t trust, it was the public.

She watched Dempsey take the call, then get on the radio and offer the job to “Car Four.” Two regulars needed picking up from a west end bar. Contract job, to be charged to one of the city’s insurance firms.

“Sorry about that,” Dempsey apologized, coming back to the desk. Siobhan had been studying her clothes: matching blue jacket and skirt with a white blouse. Thickish ankles, low-heeled black shoes. Every inch the successful businesswoman.

“I can’t help thinking this is an odd career choice,” Siobhan said with a smile.

“I like cars.”

“I’m guessing the MG outside is yours?”

Dempsey’s eyes turned to the window. She’d parked the car so it would be visible from the desk. “That’s the eighth one I’ve owned. Two are still in the garage at home.”

“All the same . . . you don’t see many women in charge of a cab company.”

“Maybe I’m breaking the mold.”

“You started from scratch?”

“If you’re implying that the company was set up by some ex-husband or other, you’re mistaken.”

“I was just wondering what you did beforehand.”

“Looking for some tips on changing your career?” Dempsey reached into a drawer and brought out cigarettes and lighter. She offered, but Siobhan shook her head. “I always have one a day, around this time,” Dempsey explained. “Somehow I can’t bring myself to stop altogether. . .” She lit up, inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. “I started with a couple of taxis in Dundee — that’s where I grew up. When I wanted to expand, I didn’t think Dundee was ready for me. Edinburgh, on the other hand . . .”

“Your competitors can’t have been too thrilled when you arrived.”

“We had some frank exchanges of views,” Dempsey admitted. She broke off to answer the phone again. Afterwards, Siobhan had a question for her.

“Including Big Ger Cafferty?”

Dempsey nodded. “But I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“In other words, he didn’t scare you off?”

“Cafferty’s not the only operator in town. Things can get a bit hairy . . . look at the trouble out at the airport.”

Siobhan knew she was referring to the constant battle between black taxis and licensed minicabs, vying for trade from the arriving planeloads.

“I’ve had slashed tires, broken windshields . . . a whole spate of fake bookings back in the early days. But they could see I was dug in. That’s the type of person I am, DS Clarke.”

“I don’t doubt it, Mrs. Dempsey.”