Ian Rankin - Exit Music

'He did try explaining it to me – his theory about us – but it went in one ear and out the other.'

Clarke noticed the receptionist and engineer share a look, and assumed this was nothing new as far as they were concerned.

'So he spent the day in Glasgow,' she recapped. 'What time did you meet up?'

'Around eight. He'd been waiting till rush hour was past, meant he got a cheap ticket. Met him off the train and we hit a couple of pubs. Weren't the first drinks he'd had that day.'

'He was drunk?'

'He was voluble. Thing about Alex was, when he drank he got more intellectual. Which was a bugger, because if you were drinking with him you soon started to lose the plot.'

“What happened after the curry?'

'Not much. I had to be heading home, he said he was getting thirstier. If I know him, he would have gone on to Mather's.'

'On Queensferry Street?'

'But he's just as likely to have wandered into the Caledonian Hotel.'

Leaving Todorov at the west end of Princes Street, not a stone's throw from King's Stables Road.

'What time was this?'

'Must've been around ten.'

'I'm told by the Scottish Poetry Library that you recorded Mr Todorov's recital the previous night.'

'That's right. I've done a lot of poets.'

'Charlie's done a lot of everything,' the engineer added. Riordan laughed nervously.

'He means my little project… I'm putting together a sort of soundscape of Edinburgh. From poetry readings to pub chatter, street noise, the Water of Leith at sunrise, football crowds, traffic on Princes Street, the beach at Portobello, dogs being walked in the Hermitage… hundreds of hours of the stuff.'

'Thousands more like,' the engineer corrected him.

Clarke tried not to be deflected. 'Had you met Mr Todorov before?'

'I taped another performance of his at a cafe.'

'Which one?'

Riordan shrugged. 'It was for a bookshop called Word Power.'

Clarke had seen it that very afternoon, opposite the pub where she'd had lunch with Rebus. She remembered a line in one of Todorov's poems – Nothing connects – and thought again how wrong he was.

'How long ago was that?'

'Three weeks back. We had a drink that night, too.'

Clarke tapped her pen against her notebook. 'Do you have a receipt for the restaurant?'

'Probably.' Riordan reached into his pocket and brought out a wallet.

'First sighting this year,' the engineer said, eliciting a laugh from the receptionist. She'd clamped a pen between her teeth and was playing with it. Clarke decided the two of them were an item, whether their employer knew it or not. Riordan had pulled out a mass of receipts.

'Reminds me,' he muttered, 'need to get some stuff to the accountant… Ah, here it is.' He handed it over. 'Mind if I ask why you want it?'

'Shows the time you got the bill, sir. Nine forty-eight – much as you said.' Clarke slipped the piece of paper into the back of her notebook.

'One question you haven't asked,' Riordan said teasingly. 'Why did we meet up at all?'

'All right then…why did you?'

'Alex wanted a copy of his gig. Seemed to him it had gone well.'

Clarke thought back to Todorov's flat. 'Did he ask for any particular format?'

'I burned it on to a CD.'

'He didn't have a CD player.'

Riordan gave a shrug. 'Plenty of people do.'

True enough, but the CD itself hadn't turned up, most likely taken with the other stuff…

'Could you make another copy for me, Mr Riordan?' Clarke asked.

'How would that help?'

'I'm not sure, but I'd like to hear him in full flow, as it were.'

'The master's back at my home studio. I could get it burnt by tomorrow.'

'I'm based at Gayfield Square – any chance someone could pop it in?'

'I'll have one of the children do it,' Riordan agreed, eyes taking in the engineer and receptionist.

'Thanks for your help,' Clarke said.

When smoking had been banned, back in March, Rebus had foreseen disaster for places like the Oxford Bar – traditional pubs catering to basic needs: a pint, a cigarette, horse-racing on TV and a hotline to the local turf accountant. Yet most of his haunts had survived, albeit with reduced takings. True to form, however, the smokers had formed a stubborn little gang that would congregate outside, trading stories and gossip. Tonight, the talk was the usual mix: someone was giving his views on a recently opened tapas bar, while the woman alongside wanted to know what the quietest time was to visit Ikea; a pipe-smoker was arguing for full-scale independence, while his English-sounding neighbour teased that the south would be glad of the break-up – 'and no bloody alimony!'

' North Sea oil's the only alimony we'll need,' the pipe-smoker said.

'It's already running out. Twenty years and you'll be back with the begging-bowl.'

'In twenty years we'll be Norway.'

'Either that or Albania.'

'Thing is,' another smoker interrupted, 'if Labour lost its Scottish seats at Westminster, it'd never get elected again south of the border.'

'Fair point,' the Englishman said.

'Just after opening or just before closing?' the woman was asking.

'Bits of squid and tomato,' her neighbour stated. 'Not bad once you got the taste…'

Rebus stubbed out his cigarette and headed indoors. The round of drinks was waiting for him, along with his change. Colin Tibbet had emerged from the back room to help out.

“You can take your tie off, you know,' Rebus teased him. 'We're not in the office.'

Tibbet smiled but said nothing. Rebus pocketed the change and hefted the two glasses. He liked that Phyllida Hawes drank pints.

Tibbet was on orange juice, Clarke sticking to white wine. They'd taken the table at the far end. Clarke had her notebook out. Hawes raised her fresh glass in a silent toast to Rebus. He scraped himself back into the chair.

'Drinks took longer than I thought,' he offered by way of apology.

'Managed a quick smoke, though,' Clarke chided him. He decided to ignore her.

'So what have we got?' he asked instead.

Well, they had a time-line for Todorov's last two or three hours of life. They had a growing list of items missing – presumed removed – from the deceased. They had a new locus, the car park.

'Is there anything,' Colin Tibbet piped up, 'to suggest that we're dealing with something other than a particularly brutal mugging?'

'Not really,' Clarke offered, but she met John Rebus's eyes and he gave a slow blink of acknowledgement. It didn't feel right; Clarke could sense it, too. It just didn't feel right. His phone, which he'd laid on the tabletop, started to vibrate, sending tremors across the surface of the pint glass next to it. He picked it up and moved away, either for a better signal or to escape the hubbub. They weren't alone in the back room: a group of three tourists sat bewildered in one corner, showing too much interest in the various artefacts and adverts on the walls. Two men in business suits were hunched over another table, arguing near-silently about something. The TV was on, tuned to a quiz show.

'We should enter a team of four,' Tibbet said. Hawes asked what he meant. 'HQ is having a pub quiz, week before Christmas,' he explained.

'By then,' Clarke reminded him, 'we'll be a team of three.'

'Heard anything about the promotion?' Hawes asked her. Clarke just shook her head. 'Taking their time,' Hawes added, twisting the knife. Rebus was coming back.

'Curiouser and curiouser,' he said, sitting down again. 'That was Howdenhall with a bit of news. Tests show our Russian poet had ejaculated at some point during the day. Stained underpants, apparently.'

'Maybe he got lucky in Glasgow,' Clarke speculated.

'Maybe,' Rebus agreed.

'Him and this sound recordist?' Hawes offered.

Todorov had a wife,' Clarke said.