Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“Look, Siobhan . . .” He ran a hand down his face, as if trying to brush away a layer of skin. “You know I wouldn’t say anything if I didn’t think it mattered.”

She considered this, then nodded her agreement. They were walking around the side of the station, a pavement drunk causing them to step onto the road. Rebus pulled Siobhan back to safety as a car hurtled past, horn blaring. Someone in a hurry.

“Thanks,” Siobhan said.

“I do what I can,” Rebus informed her. The drunk was making for the opposite pavement, stumbling blindly across the road. They both knew he’d make it. He was carrying a bottle: no way a motorist would want that flying through his windshield.

“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.