Ian Rankin - Exit Music

'Aksanov as his eyes and ears?' Clarke nodded her agreement.

'Fair enough, but is he anything else?'

'Executioner, you mean?' Rebus pondered this for a moment, then realised that a tear was running down Scarlett Colwell's face.

'Sorry,' he apologised to her. 'I know this can't be easy.'

'Just catch whoever did this to Alexander.' She dabbed at her face with the back of her hand. 'Just do that, please.'

'Thanks to you,' he assured her, 'we've come a step closer.' He picked up her translation of the poem. 'Andropov would have been furious about this. Calling him greedy and a “blight” and part of the whole “parcel of rogues”.'

'Furious enough to want the poet dead,' Clarke agreed. 'But does that mean he did it?'

Rebus stared up at her again. 'Maybe we should ask him,' he said.

It had taken well over an hour for Siobhan Clarke to lead DI Derek Starr through the story. Even then, he'd complained for a further fifteen minutes about being kept 'out of the loop' before agreeing that Sergei Andropov should be brought in for questioning. They had to shoo three detectives out of the interview room. The men had set up base there, and complained at having to move their stuff.

'Smells like a prop-forward's jockstrap in here,' Starr commented.

'I wouldn't know,' Clarke replied with a thin smile. She'd bumped into Goodyear in the CID suite and he, too, had voiced a complaint – about being abandoned at the West End cop-shop. True enough, Colwell's phone call had led Clarke straight out to her car, Goodyear still chatting to his pals in the corridor. Even so, she'd studied the young man's scowl and offered him four evenly spaced words: get used to it. To which he'd replied that he really was ready to go back to Torphichen and his constable's uniform both.

They had dispatched a patrol car to the Caledonian Hotel. Forty minutes later it was back and discharging its unhappy human

cargo. It was almost eight o'clock, the sky black and the temperature falling.

'Do I have the right to a lawyer?' was Sergei Andropov's first question.

'Think you need one?' Starr shot back. He'd borrowed a CD player and was tapping it with one finger.

Andropov considered Starr's question, then took off his coat, placed it over the back of the chair, and sat down. Clarke was seated next to Starr, notebook and mobile phone in front of her.

She was hoping Rebus – stationed outside in his car – would manage to keep quiet.

'When you're ready, DS Clarke,' Starr said, pressing his hands together.

'Mr Andropov,' she began, 'I spoke to Boris Aksanov earlier today.'

Tes?'

'We were talking about the recital at the Scottish Poetry Library… I believe you were there?'

'Did he tell you that?'

'There are plenty of witnesses, sir.' She paused for a moment.

'We already know that you knew Alexander Todorov in Moscow, and that the pair of you weren't exactly friends…'

'Again, who told you this?'

Clarke ignored the question. Tou went to the reading with Mr Aksanov and then had to sit and listen as the poet extemporised a new piece.' Clarke unfolded the translation. 'Heartless appetite…

The gut's greed knows no fullness… such a parcel of rogues… Not exactly a love letter, is it?'

'It's only a poem.'

'But directed at you, Mr Andropov. Aren't you one of the “children of Zhdanov”?'

'Like many thousands of others.' Andropov gave a little laugh.

His eyes were shining.

'By the way,' Clarke said, 'I should have offered commiserations at the start…'

'For what?' The eyes had narrowed and darkened.

“Your friend's injuries. Have you visited him in hospital?'

Tou mean Cafferty?' He seemed dismissive of the tactic. 'He'll survive.'

'A cause for celebration, I'm sure.'

'What the hell is she getting at?' Andropov directed the question at Starr, but it was Clarke who answered.

f

'Would you mind taking a listen to this?' On cue, Starr hit the play button. The noise of the Todorov recital's conclusion filled the room. People rising from their seats, commenting on the evening, planning drinks and supper… and then the burst of Russian.

'Recognise it, Mr Andropov?' Clarke asked as Starr paused the recording.

'No.'

'Sure about that? Maybe if DI Starr plays it back…?'

'Look, what are you getting at?'

'We have a forensics facility here in the city, Mr Andropov. They have a pretty good track record when it comes to voice-pattern recognition…'

'What do I care?'

Tou care because that's you on the recording, expressing to Boris Aksanov your desire to see the poet Alexander Todorov dead – the poet who had just humiliated you, the poet who opposed everything you stand for.' She paused again. 'And the very next night, that same man was dead.'

'Meaning I killed him?' Andropov's laughter this time was louder and more sustained. 'And when exactly did I do this? Did I spirit myself away from the hotel bar? Did I hypnotise your development minister so that he would not notice my disappearance?'

'Others could have acted on your behalf,' Starr stated icily.

'Well, that's something you're going to have a great deal of trouble proving, since it happens to be untrue.'

'Why did you go to the recital?' Clarke asked. Andropov stared at her, and decided he had nothing to lose from answering.

'Boris told me he'd been to one a few weeks before. I was intrigued.

I had never seen Alexander read in public'

'Mr Aksanov didn't strike me as a poetry buff.'

Andropov shrugged. 'Maybe the consulate asked him to go.'

'Why would they do that?'

'To ascertain how much of an irritant Alexander intended to be during his stay in the city.' Andropov shifted in his seat. 'Alexander Todorov was a professional dissident – it's how he made his living, picking the pockets of bleeding-heart liberals all over the Western world.'

Clarke waited to see if Andropov had anything more to add. 'And when you heard his latest poem?' she asked into the silence.

The shrug this time was conciliatory. Tou're right, I was angry with him. What do poets give to the world? Do they provide jobs, energy, raw material? No… merely words. And often well

remunerated in the process – certainly lionised above their due.

Alexander Todorov had been suckled by the West precisely because he pandered to its need to see Russia as corrupt and corrosive.'

Andropov had made a fist of his right hand, but then decided against thumping the desk. Instead, he took a deep breath and exhaled noisily through his nostrils. 1 did say that I wished he was dead, but those, too, were merely words.'

'Nevertheless, could Boris Aksanov have acted on them?'

'Have you met Boris? He is no killer; he's a teddy bear.'

'Bears have claws,' Starr felt it necessary to comment. Andropov glowered at him.

'Thank you for that information – being a Russian, of course, I would not have known that.'

Starr had started blushing. To deflect attention from the fact, he hit the play button again and they eavesdropped once more.

Pausing the recording, Starr tapped the machine again. 'I'd say we've got grounds to charge you,' he stated.

'Really? Well, let us see what one of your famed Edinburgh barristers will say about that.'

'We don't have barristers in Scotland,' Starr spat back.

'They're called advocates,' Clarke explained. 'But actually, at this point it's a solicitor you'd want – if we were charging you.' Her words were aimed at Starr, appealing for him not to take it any further – not just yet.

'Well?' Andropov, taking her meaning, was asking the question of Derek Starr. Starr's mouth twitched but he said nothing. 'In other words, I am free to leave?' Andropov had moved his attention to Clarke, but it was Starr who barked out a response.