Ian Rankin - Exit Music

'Why's your hair wet?' Clarke asked.

'Didn't have time to dry it,' he answered. He could see everything; no need to get closer. SOCOs shining their torches against the surface of the opposite footpath. Arc lamps being plugged into some sort of mooring point – probably how the boats hooked up to electricity during their stay. Lots of quietly busy people. There was a huddle around one particular area of walkway.

'That where they found him?' he asked. Clarke nodded. 'Pretty much where he was when I left him.'

'Couple on their way home stumbled across him. One of the medics recognised the face. West End came running and Shug thought maybe I'd want to know.'

There were SOCOs up to their waists in the canal. They wore the same sort of protection as anglers, complete with braces holding up their oilskin trousers.

'They'll find one of my cigarette butts,' Rebus told Clarke. 'Unless it's floated away or been eaten by a duck.'

'That'll be nice when they trace the DNA.'

He turned towards her, gripping one of her arms. 'I'm not saying I wasn't here – I'm saying he was right as rain when I left him.'

She couldn't meet his eyes, and he let her go. 'Don't think what you're thinking,' he said quietly.

Tou don't know what I'm thinking!'

He turned away again and saw DI Shug Davidson giving orders to some of the uniforms from West End. Stone and Prosser were just behind him, deep in a discussion of their own.

'Any second now they'll see you,' Clarke warned. Rebus nodded.

He'd already taken a couple of steps back into the crowd of onlookers.

She followed him until they were standing to the rear.

This was where he'd parked his car the time he'd followed Cafferty.

His head was thumping.

'Got any aspirin?' he asked.

'No.'

'Never mind, I know where I can find some.'

She caught his meaning. 'You've got to be joking.'

'Never more serious in my life.'

She fixed her eyes on him, then glanced back towards the canal and made her mind up. 'I'll drive you,' she said. 'My car's on Gilmore Place.'

They didn't say much on the way to the Western General.

Cafferty had been taken there not only because it was closer than the Infirmary but also because it specialised in head injuries.

'Did you see him?' Rebus asked as they reached the hospital car park.

Clarke shook her head. 'When Shug called me, he thought he was the bearer of glad tidings.'

'He knows there's history between us and Cafferty,' Rebus agreed.

'But he could tell straight away something was up.'

Tou told him I'd gone to meet Cafferty?'

She shook her head again. 'I haven't told anyone.'

'Well, you better had – only way to keep your head above the shit. Stone's going to work it out before long.'

'Wait till they find out I've done a runner…' She pulled into a parking bay and turned off the ignition, then slid around to face him. 'Okay,' she said, 'tell me.'

He met her eyes. 'I didn't touch him.'

'So what did you talk about?'

'Andropov and Bakewell… Sievewright and Sol Goodyear…'

He shrugged, deciding to omit the abattoir bull. 'Funny thing is, I almost offered him a lift home.'

'I wish you had.' She sounded slightly more mollified.

'Does that mean you believe me?'

'I've got to, haven't I? All we've been through… if I can't believe you, what the hell else is there?'

'Thanks,' he said quietly, squeezing her hand.

TTou still owe me the story of your run-in with the SCDEA.' She removed her hand from beneath his.

'They've had Cafferty under surveillance. Heard I'd been watching him and warned me off.' He shrugged again. 'That's about the size of it.'

'And being bull-headed, you did exactly the opposite?'

Rebus had a sudden image: the bull with its legs buckling, a bullet between its eyes… He shook himself free of it. 'Let's go see what the damage is,' he said.

Inside the hospital, the first question they were asked was: 'Are you family?'

'He's my brother,' Rebus stated. This seemed to oil the wheels, and they were shown to a waiting area, deserted this time of night.

Rebus picked up a magazine. It was page after page of celebrity gossip, but as it was also six months out of date, chances were the celebrities had already been returned to obscurity. He offerecl it to Clarke, but she shook her head.

Tour brother?' she said.

Rebus just shrugged. His real brother had died a year and a half back. Over the past couple of decades, Rebus had paid him a lot less attention than Cafferty… probably spent less time with him, too.

You can't choose your family, he thought to himself, but you can choose your enemies.

'What if he dies?' Clarke asked, folding her arms. She had her legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, and was slumped low in the chair.

'I'm not that lucky,' Rebus told her. She glowered at him.

'So who do you reckon is behind it?'

'Can we make that a multiple-choice question?' he asked.

'How many names have you got?'

'Depends if he's gone upsetting his Russian friends.'

'Andropov?'

'For starters. SCD reckoned they were close to having Cafferty in the bag. Might be a lot of people out there who couldn't let that happen.' He broke off as an unfeasibly young doctor in the

traditional white coat pushed through the swinging doors at the end of the corridor and, notes in one hand, pen between his teeth, marched up to them. He removed the pen and popped it into his top pocket.

Tou're the patient's brother?' he asked. Rebus nodded. 'Well, Mr Cafferty, I don't have to tell you that Morris seems blessed with an unusually resistant skull.'

'We call him Ger,' Rebus said. 'Sometimes Big Ger.'

The young doctor nodded, consulting his notes.

'But is he okay?' Clarke asked.

'Far from it. We'll do another scan in the morning. He's still unconscious, but there's enough brain activity to be going on with.'

He paused, as if deciding how much more they needed to know.

'When the skull is hit with tremendous force, the brain shuts down automatically so as to protect itself, or at least limit and assess the damage. The problem we sometimes have is getting it to restart.'

'Like rebooting a computer?' Clarke offered. The doctor seemed to agree.

'And it's too early yet to say whether there's any damage to your uncle,' he told her. 'No blood clots that we could see, but we'll know more tomorrow.'

'He's not my uncle,' she said sternly. Rebus patted her arm.

'She's upset,' he explained to the doctor. And then, as Clarke pulled her arm away: 'So he was hit hard with something?'

'Two or three times probably,' the doctor agreed.

'Attacked from behind?' The doctor was growing less comfortable with each new question.

'The blows were to the back of the skull, yes.'

Rebus was looking at Siobhan Clarke. Alexander Todorov, too, had been hit hard from behind, hard enough to kill. 'Can we see him, Doc?' Rebus asked.

'As I say, he's not awake at present.'

'But all the same…' The doctor was looking worried now. 'Is there a problem with that?' Rebus persisted.

'Look, I've been told who Mr Cafferty is… I know he has a certain reputation in Edinburgh.'

'And?' Rebus asked.

The doctor moistened his dry lips. 'Well, you're his brother… asking all these questions. Please tell me you're not going to go after whoever did this.' He decided some levity might help. 'Wards are crowded enough as it is,' he said with a weak smile.

'We'd just like to see him, that's all,' Rebus assured him, patting the youngster's arm to reinforce the point.

'Then I'll see what I can do. You can wait here if you like.'

Rebus answered by sitting down again. They watched the doctor depart through the swing doors. But as the doors came to rest, a face appeared at one of their porthole-shaped windows.