Ian Rankin - Exit Music

'How many of those do you get through a month?' Rebus couldn't help asking. Clarke gave him a warning look.

'I've talked to the neighbours either side of him,' Goodyear reported to Clarke. 'They're in a state of shock, of course – terrified their own houses might be about to explode. They want to get back in and save a few bits and pieces, but the brigade's not having it.

Seems Riordan came home at eleven thirty. After that, not a peep from him.'

'The way he'd soundproofed the house…'

Goodyear nodded enthusiastically. 'Unlikely they'd have heard anything. One of the fire officers says the acoustic baffling was probably part of the problem – it can be incredibly flammable.'

'Riordan didn't have any visitors in the night?' Clarke asked.

Goodyear shook his head. He couldn't help glancing towards Rebus, as if expecting some sort of praise or appraisal.

'You're in mufti,' was all Rebus said.

The constable's eyes swivelled between the two detectives. Clarke cleared her throat before speaking.

'If he's working with us, I thought he'd look less conspicuous…'

Rebus tried staring her out, then nodded slowly, though he knew she was lying. The suit had been Goodyear's idea, and now she was covering for him. Before he could say anything, a red car with flashing light roared into view, stuttering to a halt.

'The fire inspector,' Clarke announced. The woman who emerged from the car was elegant and businesslike, and seemed straight off to have the brigade's attention and respect. Officers started pointing at parts of the smoke-streaked building, obviously giving their side of the story, while the two detectives from Leith hovered nearby.

'Think we should introduce ourselves?' Clarke asked Rebus.

'Sooner or later,' he told her. But she'd already decided and was striding towards the cluster of bodies. Rebus followed, indicating for Goodyear to hang back. The constable seemed reluctant, hopping from pavement to roadway and back again. Rebus had attended plenty of house fires, including one he'd ended up being accused of starting. There'd been a fatality that time, too… Not much fun for the pathologists, when there were victims to be identified. He'd almost burned his own flat down once, as well, falling into a stupor on the sofa with the cigarette hanging from his mouth. He'd woken to smouldering fabric and a plume of sulphurous smoke.

Easily done…

Clarke was shaking hands with the FI. Not everyone looked happy: the firefighters reckoned CID should leave them to get on with it. Natural reaction, and one Rebus could sympathise with.

All the same, he started lighting another cigarette, reckoning it might get him noticed.

'Bloody menace,' one of the brigade dutifully muttered. Mission accomplished. The FFs name was Katie Glass, and she was telling Clarke what happened next: locating any victims; securing breached gas-sources; checking the obvious.

'Meaning anything from a chip pan left on the heat to an electrical fault.'

Clarke nodded along until Glass had finished, then explained about the homeowner's role in an ongoing investigation, aware of Leith CID listening in.

'And that makes you suspect something?' Glass guessed. 'So be it, but I always like to enter a scene with an open mind – preconceptions mean you can miss things.' She moved towards the garden I gate, flanked by firefighters and watched by Rebus and Clarke.

“There's a cafe back in Portobello,' Rebus said, giving a final glance towards the gutted house. 'Fancy a fry-up?'

Afterwards, they headed to Gayfield Square, where Hawes and Tibbet, feeling abandoned, welcomed them with frowns. They soon

perked up at news of the fire and asked if it meant they could put the HMF away. Goodyear asked what that was.

'Habitual Mugger File,' Hawes explained.

'Not an official term,' Tibbet added, slapping a hand against the pile of box files.

'Thought they'd all be on computer,' Goodyear commented.

'If you're applying for the job…?'

But Goodyear waved the offer aside. Clarke was seated at her desk, tapping it with a pen.

'What now, boss?' Rebus asked, receiving a glare for his efforts.

'I need to talk to Macrae again,' she said at last, though she could see his office was empty. 'Has he been in?'

Hawes shrugged. 'Not since we got here.'

'Travel in together?' Rebus asked, all innocence. It was Colin Tibbet's turn to glower at him.

'This changes everything,' Clarke was saying quietly.

'Unless it was an accident,' Rebus reminded her.

'First Todorov, now the man he spent his final evening with…'

It was Goodyear who had spoken, but Clarke was nodding her agreement.

'Could all be a horrible coincidence,' Rebus argued. Clarke stared at him.

'Christ, John, you were the one seeing conspiracies! Now it looks like we've got a connection, you're pouring cold water on it!'

'Isn't that what you do with a fire?' When he saw the blood shooting up Clarke's neck, he knew he'd gone too far. 'Okay, say you're right – you still need to run it past Macrae. And meantime, we wait to hear if they find a body. And supposing they do, we then wait to see what Gates and Curt make of it.' He paused. 'That's what's called “procedure” – you know it as well as I do.' Clarke knew he was right, and he watched as her shoulders relaxed a little and she dropped the pen on to the desk, where it rolled and settled.

'For once John's not wrong,' she told the room, 'much as it galls me to say it.' She smiled, and he smiled back with a little bow from the waist.

'Had to happen once in my career,' he said. 'Better late than never, I suppose.' There were more smiles, and Rebus felt it at that moment. The inquiry had been on the go for days, but only now had everything changed.

Despite the scowls and the sniping, they really were a team.

Which was how Macrae found them when he walked into the CID suite. Even he seemed to sense a change of atmosphere. Clarke

gave him her report, keeping everything simple. The phone rang on Hawes's desk and Rebus wondered if it was another response to their public appeal. He thought again of the prostitute, trying to do business on a no-through-road, and of Cath Mills, stoking up on Rioja. Todorov was attractive to women – and attracted by them, no doubt. Could a stranger have lured him to his doom with an offer of sex? It was straight out of Le Carre…

Hawes was off the phone and advancing towards Rebus's desk.

'They found the body,' was all she needed to say.

Rebus knocked on Macrae's door, relaying the message with a look and a nod. Clarke asked the boss if she could be excused. Back in the main body of the kirk, she asked Hawes for details.

'Male, they think. Under a collapsed section of ceiling in the living room.'

'Meaning the studio room,' Goodyear interrupted, reminding them all that he, too, had been to the producer's home.

'They've got their own team taking photographs and the like,'

Hawes went on. 'Body is on its way to the mortuary.'

To be placed in the Decomposing Room, Rebus didn't doubt. He wondered how Todd Goodyear would react to seeing a crispy one.

We should go there,' Clarke told him. But Rebus was shaking his head.

'Take Todd,' he offered. 'Part of that CID learning curve…'

Hawes was on the phone to CR Studios, giving them the news while confirming that Riordan himself hadn't actually turned up so far that day. Colin Tibbet's task was to chase up Richard Browning at the Caledonian Hotel. How long did it take to go through an evening's worth of bar tabs? If Rebus didn't know better, he'd have said Browning was chancing his arm, hoping CID would forget all about it. When a face appeared around the door, Rebus was the only one not doing anything.

There's someone downstairs,' the desk sergeant said. 'Looking to hand in a list of Russians… could it be the Hearts first team for Saturday?'