Ian Rankin - Exit Music

For three decades now this job of his had sustained him, and all it had cost him was his marriage and a slew of friendships and shattered relationships. No way he was ever going to feel like a civilian again; too late for that; too late for him to change. He would become invisible to the world, not just to revelling teenagers.

'Fuck,' he said, drawing the word out way past its natural length.

It was the casual arrogance that had flipped his switch, Addison sitting there in the full confidence of his power – and the stepdaughter's arrogance, too, in thinking one weepy phone call would make everything better. It was, Rebus realised, how things worked in the overworld. Addison had never woken from a beating in a piss-stained tenement stairwell. His stepdaughter had never worked the streets for money for her next fix and the kids' dinner.

They lived in another place entirely – no doubt part of the buzz Gill Morgan got from mixing with the likes of Nancy Sievewright.

The same buzz Corbyn got from having one of the most powerful men in Europe come to him with a favour.

The same buzz Cafferty got, buying drinks for businessmen and politicians… Cafferty: unfinished business, and likely to remain that way if Rebus heeded Corbyn's orders. Cafferty unfettered, free to commute between underworld and overworld. Unless Rebus went back indoors right now and apologised to the Chief Constable, promising to toe the line.

The scrapheap's hurtling towards me as it is… give me this one last chance… please, sir… please…

'Aye, right,' Rebus said, yanking open the car door and stabbing the key into the ignition.

' Nancy, we're going to record this, okay?'

Sievewright's mouth twitched. 'Do I need a lawyer?'

'Do you want a lawyer?'

'Dunno.'

Clarke nodded for Goodyear to switch on the deck. She'd slotted home both tapes herself – one for them and one for Sievewright.

But Goodyear was hesitating and Clarke had to remind herself that he'd not done this sort of thing before. Interview Room 1 felt stuffy and sweltering, as if it was sucking all the heat from the rooms around it. The central heating pipes hissed and gurgled and couldn't be turned down. Even Goodyear had taken off his jacket, and there were damp patches beneath his arms. Yet IR3, two doors along, was freezing, maybe because IR1 was keeping all the heat to itself.

'That one and that one,' she explained, pointing to the relevant buttons. He pressed them, the red light came on, and both tapes started running. Clarke identified herself and Goodyear, her final few words drowned by the scrape of his chair as he drew it in towards the desk. He gave a little grimace of apology, and she repeated herself, then asked Sievewright to state her name, before adding date and time to the recording. Formalities done with, she sat back a little in her chair. The Todorov file was in front of her, autopsy photo uppermost. She had padded the file itself with blank sheets of copy paper, to make it seem more impressive and, perhaps, more threatening. Goodyear had nodded admiringly.

Same went for the post-mortem photo, plucked from the Murder Wall to remind Sievewright of the grim seriousness of the case.

The young woman certainly looked unnerved. Hawes and Tibbet

had explained nothing of their appearance at her door, and had kept tight-lipped during the drive to Gayfield Square. Sievewright had then been left in IR1 for the best part of forty minutes, without any offer of tea or water. And when Clarke and Goodyear had come in, they'd both been carrying a fresh brew – even though Goodyear himself had insisted he wasn't thirsty.

'For effect,' Clarke had told him.

Next to the file on the table sat Clarke's mobile phone, and next to that a pad of paper and a pen. Goodyear, too, was bringing out a notebook.

'Now then, Nancy,' Clarke began. 'Want to tell us what you were really up to the night you found the victim?'

'What?' Sievewright's mouth stayed open long after the question had left it.

'The night you were out at your friend's flat…' Clarke made show of consulting the file. 'Gill Morgan.' Her eyes met Sievewright's.

Tour good friend Gill.'

Tes?'

Your story was that you'd been round to her flat and were on your way home. But that was a lie, wasn't it?'

'No.'

'Well, somebody's lying to us, Nancy.'

'What's she been saying?' The voice taking on a harder edge.

We're led to believe, Nancy, that you were on your way to her flat, not from it. Did you have the drugs on you when you tripped over the body?'

'What drugs?'

'The ones you were going to share with Gill.'

'She's a lying cow!'

'I thought she was your friend? Enough of a friend to stick to the story you gave her.'

'She's lying,' Sievewright repeated, eyes reduced to slits.

'Why would she do that, Nancy? Why would a friend do that?'

Tou'd have to ask her.'

'We already have. Thing is, her story fits with other facts in the case. A woman was seen hanging around outside the car park…'

'I already told you, I never saw her.'

'Maybe because you were her?'

'I look nothing like that picture you showed me!'

'See, she was offering herself for sex, and we know why some women will do that, don't we?'

'Do we?'

'Money for drugs, Nancy.'

'What?'

'You needed the money to buy drugs you could sell on to Gill.'

'She'd already given me the money, you dozy cow!'

Clarke didn't bother replying; just waited for Nancy 's outburst to sink in. The teenager's face crumpled and she knew she'd said more than she should.

'What I mean is…' she stumbled, but the lie wouldn't come.

'Gill Morgan gave you money to buy her some dope,' Clarke stated.

'To be honest with you – and this is for the record – I couldn't give a monkey's. Doesn't sound to me like you're some big-shot dealer.

If you had been, you'd have scarpered that night rather than sticking around to wait for us. But that makes me think you didn't have anything on you at the time, which means you were either waiting to score or on your way to score.'

'Yes?'

'I wouldn't mind knowing which it was.'

'The second one.'

'On your way to meet your dealer?'

Sievewright just nodded. 'Nancy Sievewright nods,' Clarke said for the benefit of the slowly spooling tapes. 'So you weren't hanging around outside the car park?'

'I already said, didn't I?'

'Just want to make sure.' Clarke made show of turning to another page in the file. 'Ms Morgan has ambitions to be an actress,'

she stated.

Teah.'

'Ever seen her in anything?'

'Don't think she's been in anything.'

Tou sound sceptical.'

'First she was going to write for the papers, then it was TV presenting, then modelling…'

'What we might call a gadfly,' Clarke agreed.

Tou call it what you want.'

'Must be fun, though, hanging out with her?'

'She gets good invites,' Sievewright admitted.

'But she doesn't always take you with her?' Clarke guessed.

'Not often.' Sievewright shifted in her chair.

'I forget, how did you two meet?'

'At a party in the New Town… got talking to one of her pals in a pub, and he said I could tag along with them.'

'You know who Gill's father is?'

'I know he must have a few quid.'

'He runs a bank.'

'Figures.'

Clarke turned to another sheet of paper. Really, she wanted Rebus there, so she could bounce ideas off him, and let him do some of the running while she collected her thoughts between rounds.

Todd Goodyear looked stiff and uncertain and was gnawing away at his pen like a beaver with a particularly juicy length of timber.

'She works on one of the city's ghost tours, did you know that?'