Ian Rankin - Exit Music

'I'm not sure I can take all this in,' Siobhan Clarke admitted. They were gathered in the CID suite. Clarke was pacing up and down in front of the Murder Wall. She passed by photos of Alexander Todorov in life and in death, a photocopied pathology report, names and phone numbers. Rebus was polishing off a ham salad sandwich, washed down with polystyrene tea. Hawes and Tibbet sat at their desks, swaying gently in their chairs, as if in time to a piece of music only they could hear. Todd Goodyear was sipping milk from a half-litre carton.

'Want me to recap for you?' Rebus offered. 'Gill Morgan's stepdad runs First Albannach, she buys drugs from Nancy Sievewright, and she has ready access to a hooded cape.' He shrugged as if it was no big deal. 'Oh, and Sievewright knew about the cape, too.'

'We need to bring her in,' Clarke decided. ' Phyl, Col – go fetch.'

They managed a synchronised nod as they rose from their chairs.

'What if she's not there?' Tibbet asked.

'Find her,' Clarke demanded.

'Yes, boss,' he said, sliding his jacket back on. Clarke was glaring at him, but Rebus knew Tibbet hadn't been trying for sarcasm.

He'd called her 'boss' because that was what she was. She seemed to sense this, and glanced towards Rebus. He balled up the wrapper from his sandwich, and missed the waste-bin by about three feet.

'She doesn't seem like a dealer to me,' Clarke said.

'Maybe she's not,' Rebus responded. 'Maybe she's just a friend who likes to share.'

'But if she charges for that share,' Goodyear argued, 'doesn't

that make her a dealer?' He had walked over to the waste-bin and picked up Rebus's wrapper, making sure it found its target. Rebus wondered if the young man was even aware that he'd done it.

'So if she wasn't at Gill Morgan's flat that night, where was she?'

Clarke asked.

While we're adding ingredients to the broth,' Rebus interrupted, 'here's another for you. Barman at the hotel saw Andropov and Cafferty with another man, the night Todorov was murdered. The man in question is a Labour minister called Jim Bakewell.'

'He was on Question Time,' Clarke stated. Rebus nodded slowly.

He'd decided not to mention his own run-in with Andropov at the Caledonian.

'Did he talk to the poet?' Clarke asked.

'I don't think so. Cafferty bought Todorov a drink at the bar, then, when the poet hoofed it, he went and joined Andropov and Bakewell at their table. I sat where they'd been sitting – there's a blind spot, doubtful Andropov saw Todorov.'

'Coincidence?' Goodyear offered.

'We've not much room for that in CID,' Rebus told him.

'Doesn't that mean you often see connections where none exist?'

'Everything's connected, Todd. Six degrees of separation, they call it. I'd've thought a bible-thumper would concur.'

'I've never thumped a bible in my life.'

Tou should try it – good way of letting off steam.'

'When you two boys have quite finished,' Clarke chided them. Tfou want us to talk to this Bakewell character?' she asked Rebus.

'At this rate, we'd be as well precognosing the whole Parliament,'

Goodyear stated.

'How do you mean?' Rebus asked.

So then it was their turn to tell him about their morning: Roddy Denholm's project and the Urban Regeneration Committee recordings.

As if to prove the point, Goodyear held up a box of DAT tapes.

'Now if only we had a player,' he said.

'One's on its way from Howdenhall,' Clarke reminded him.

'Hours and hours of fun,' he muttered, laying the small cassettes out in a row across the desk in front of him. He stood them on their sides, as if attempting to build a run of dominoes.

'I think the allure of CID is beginning to wane,' Rebus suggested to Clarke.

Tou could be right,' she agreed, giving the desk a nudge so that the tape cases fell over.

'Think we need to talk to Megan Macfarlane again?' was Rebus's next question.

'On what grounds?'

'That she probably knew Riordan. Funny she has links to both the victims…'

Clarke was nodding, without looking entirely convinced. 'This case is a bloody minefield,' she eventually groaned, turning back to the Murder Wall. Rebus noticed for the first time that a photo of Charles Riordan had been added to the collection.

'A single killer?' he suggested.

'Let me just go ask the ouija board,' she shot back.

'Not in front of the children,' Rebus teased her. Goodyear had found a biscuit wrapper on the floor and was tidying it into the bin.

We've got cleaners to do that, Todd,' Rebus reminded him. Then, to Siobhan Clarke: 'One killer or two?'

'I really don't know.'

'Close enough – the correct answer should be “doesn't matter”.

All that's important at this stage is that we're treating the two deaths as connected.'

She nodded her agreement. 'Macrae's going to want the team enlarged.'

'The more the merrier.'

But when her eyes drilled into his, he could see she wasn't confident.

She'd never led a full-scale inquiry before. The death at the G8 last year had been kept low-key, so as not to grab headlines.

But once the media got to hear that they were dealing with a double murder, they'd be resetting their front pages and demanding plenty of action and a quick result.

'Macrae's going to want a DI heading it up,' Clarke stated. Rebus wished Goodyear wasn't there – the pair of them could talk properly.

He shook his head.

'Make your case,' he said. 'If you've anyone in mind for the team, tell him. That way you get the people you want.'

'I've already got the people I want.'

'Aww, isn't that sweet? But what the public needs to hear is that there's a twenty-strong force of detectives prowling the badlands, hot on the villain's scent. Five of us in a room in Gayfield Square doesn't have the same ring to it.'

'Five was enough for Enid Blyton,' Clarke said with a thin smile.

'Worked for Scooby Doo, too,' Goodyear added.

'Only if you include the dog,' Clarke corrected him. Then, to Rebus: 'So who do I start annoying first – Macrae, Macfarlane or Jim Bakewell?'

'Go for the hat-trick,' he told her. The phone on his desk started ringing and he picked it up.

'DI Rebus,' he announced to the caller. He pursed his lips, gave a couple of grunts in response to whatever was being said, and let the receiver clatter back into its cradle.

'The chiefs are demanding a sacrifice,' he explained, hauling himself to his feet.

James Corbyn, Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders Police, was waiting for Rebus in his office on the second floor of the Fettes Avenue HQ. Corbyn was in his early forties, a parting in his black hair and a face that shone as though freshly shaved and cologned.

People usually paid too much attention to the Chief Constable's grooming, as a way of not staring at the oversized mole on his right cheek. Officers had noticed that, when interviewed on TV, he always stayed right-of-screen, so that the other side of his face would be in profile. There had even been discussion as to whether the blemish most resembled the coastline of Fife or a terrier's head.

His initial nickname of Trouser Press had soon been supplanted by the more telling Mole Man, which Rebus seemed to think was also the name of a cartoon villain. He'd met Corbyn only three or four times, never (so far) for a pat on the back or a congratulatory handshake. Nothing he'd heard over the phone had suggested a change of script this time round.

'In you come then,' Corbyn himself snapped, having opened his door just wide enough to stick his head around. By the time Rebus rose from the corridor's only chair and pushed the door all the way open, Corbyn was back behind his large and unfeasibly tidy desk. There was a man seated across from the Chief Constable.