Ian Rankin - Exit Music

maybe there'd be cameras outside the wine bar. Just because he hadn't noticed any didn't mean they weren't there. Unlikely they'd have spotted him loitering in the vicinity, but you never knew.

The Leamington Lift Bridge wasn't much used at night, but it was used. Drunks congregated with their bottles, youths walked to and fro, looking for action. Might someone have seen something? A figure running away? The tenement on Leamington Road where he'd parked his car that first night… if a neighbour had been peering from their window at the right moment…

'I think I'm being fitted up, Shug,' Rebus said as the car took a right at the roundabout, squeezing down the narrow arc of Gardner's Crescent and signalling left at the next lights, into Morrison Street.

They were back into the one-way system and would have to take a couple more rights to bring them to C Division HQ.

'Lot of people,' Davidson said, 'are going to think he deserves a medal – the guy who clobbered Cafferty, I mean.' He paused, fixing Rebus with a look. 'Just for the record, I don't happen to be among them.'

'I didn't do it, Shug.'

'Then you'll be fine, won't you? We're cops, John, we know the innocent always go free…'

They were silent after that until the patrol car drew up outside the police station. No media, for which Rebus was thankful, but as they entered the lobby he saw Derek Starr having a whispered confab with Calum Stone.

'Nice day for a lynching,' Rebus told them. Davidson just kept moving, so Rebus followed.

'Reminds me,' Davidson was saying, 'I think the Complaints are after a word, too.'

The Complaints: Internal Affairs… cops who liked nothing more than dustbinning their own.

'Seems you were suspended a few days back,' Davidson added, 'but didn't take it to heart.' He'd paused at the door to one of the interview rooms. 'In here, John.' The door opened outwards. Reason for that was, a prisoner couldn't barricade himself in. Usual arrangement of table and chairs, with tape recorders and even a video camera bolted high up on the wall above the door, aimed at the table.

“The accommodation's fine,' Rebus said, 'but does it come with breakfast?'

'I can probably summon a bacon roll.'

'With brown sauce,' Rebus stated.

'Tea or coffee with that?'

'Milky tea, I think, garqon. No sugar.'

'I'll see what I can do.' Davidson closed the door after him, and Rebus sat down at the table, resting his head on his arms. So what if a SOCO had found an overshoe? Could be that one of the SOCOs themselves had left it there. Bloodstains might well turn out to be bits of bark or rust – plenty of both in the canal. Cops and SOCOs used overshoes, but who else? Some hospitals… maybe the mortuary… places that needed to be kept sterile. He thought of the lock on the Saab's boot and how he'd been meaning to get it fixed. It would close eventually, but only with persistence, and even then it would spring open with minimal effort. Cafferty knew Rebus's car. Stone and Prosser knew it, too. Had Andropov's driver clocked it that day outside the City Chambers? No, because they'd been in Siobhan's car, hadn't they? But Rebus had left the Saab kerbside while he'd followed Cafferty and Andropov to the wine bar… an opportunity for either of the bodyguards to swipe anything they liked from the boot. Cafferty himself had said it: Andropov's driver had recognised Rebus… A bloodstained overshoe – what were the chances of finding anything on it leading back to Rebus? He'd no way of knowing.

Tour last days as a cop, John,' he told himself. 'Savour them…'

The door opened and a woman constable appeared with a polystyrene beaker.

'Tea?' he speculated, sniffing the contents.

'If you say so,' she responded, before making a tactical retreat. He took a sip and decided to be satisfied. When the door next opened, it was Shug Davidson, carrying in a third chair.

'Strangest bacon butty I've ever seen,' Rebus told him.

'Rolls are coming.' Davidson placed the chair next to his own, then sat down. He produced two cassette tapes from his pocket, unwrapped them and slotted them into the machine.

'Do I need a lawyer, Shug?'

Tou're the detective, you tell me,' Davidson answered. And then the door opened once more and DI Calum Stone made his entry.

He carried a case file with him, and wore a grim look on his face.

Tou've handed over control?' Rebus guessed, eyes on Davidson.

But it was Stone who replied.

'SCD takes precedence.'

'Feel free to help yourselves to some of my station's case load, too,' Rebus told him. Stone just smirked and opened the file. It

was dog-eared and coffee-stained and bore the hallmarks of having been pored over many times in pursuit of a fresh angle on Cafferty. Funny thing was, Rebus kept a file much like it at home…

'Right then, DI Davidson,' Stone said, adjusting his jacket and shirt cuffs as he made himself comfortable, 'switch that tape machine on and let's get down to business Half an hour later, the rolls arrived. Stone rose to his feet and began pacing, not quite managing to look sanguine that he had not been included in the food order. Rebus's was cold, and the sauce was tomato rather than brown, but he attacked it with exaggerated zeal.

'This is delicious,' he would say one minute, and 'Proper butter, too,' the next. Davidson had offered to split his own helping with Stone, but Stone had waved it aside. 'Another cup of tea's what we need,' Rebus suggested, and Davidson, finding his mouth full of stodgy dough, was forced to agree. So another round of teas arrived and they washed down the last remnants of roll with them, Rebus daintily brushing bits of flour from the corners of his mouth before declaring himself 'ready for round two'.

The machine was switched on again and Rebus went back to defending Siobhan Clarke's role in the previous evening's events.

'She does whatever you tell her,' Stone insisted.

'I'm sure DI Davidson here will vouch that DS Clarke is very much her own woman…' Rebus broke off and watched Davidson nod. 'DI Davidson nods,' he added for the benefit of the tapes. Then he rubbed a finger across the bridge of his nose. 'Look, here's the bottom line – I've not tried to hide anything from you. I admit I saw Cafferty last night. I was there by the canal with him. But I didn't attack him.'

Tou admit you led an SCD surveillance unit away from the scene?'

'Stupid in retrospect,' Rebus agreed.

'But that's all you did?'

'That's all I did.'

Stone looked to Davidson and then back at Rebus. 'In which case, Inspector, you won't mind if we go down to the processing area?'

Rebus stared at Stone. 'Are you charging me?'

'We're asking you to volunteer your fingerprints,' Davidson explained.

'And a DNA swab,' Stone added.

'For purposes of elimination, John.'

'And if I refuse?'

'Why would an innocent man refuse?' Stone asked. The smirk was back again.

Siobhan Clarke knew damned well she wouldn't find a space in the car park at Gayfield Square – all those new arrivals, driving in from all over the city. Her own flat was only a five-minute walk, her car parked kerbside in a residents' bay. So she walked to work, taking with her a personal CD player. She'd found it under her bed, coated with dust. Replaced the batteries and found that the earphones from her iPod fitted the socket. On her way to work, she picked up coffee from the Broughton Street basement cafe. Seemed like an age since she'd met Todd Goodyear there. Derek Starr still didn't seem to have noticed her new recruit – plenty of bodies in the CID suite, meaning Todd might go undetected a while longer.

When she arrived, there was someone at her desk. She flung her shoulder bag on to the floor next to the chair, hoping it might act as a hint. When it didn't, she flicked the officer's ear. He looked up from the call he was making, and she gestured for him to vamoose.