Ian Rankin - Exit Music

Rebus considered this. 'So that's what it comes down to after all these years – you want me drinking myself to death?'

'And we've booked the Cafe St Honore for nine o'clock – staggering distance from the Ox.'

'And staggering distance back again,' Hawes added.

'Just the four of us?' Rebus asked.

'A few more faces might drop by – Macrae's promised to look in.

Tarn Banks and Ray Duff… Professor Gates and Dr Curt… Todd and his girlfriend…'

'I hardly know them,' Rebus complained.

Clarke folded her arms. 'He needed a bit of persuading, so don't think I'm suddenly going to uninvite them!'

'My party, but your rules, eh?'

'And Shug Davidson's coming, too,' Hawes reminded Clarke.

Rebus rolled his eyes. I'm still a bloody suspect for the assault on Cafferty!'

'Shug doesn't seem to think so,' Clarke said.

'What about Calum Stone?'

'Didn't think he'd want to come.'

You know full well what I mean.'

'Are we ready for the off?' Hawes asked. They all looked at Rebus and he nodded. Really, he wanted five minutes on his own, to say a proper goodbye to the place. But he didn't suppose it mattered. Gayfield Square was just another cop-shop. This old priest Rebus had known, dead several years back, had said that cops were like the priesthood, the world their confessional. Stuart Janney had yet to confess. He would have a night in the cells to consider his options. Tomorrow or Monday, with a lawyer present and Siobhan Clarke seated opposite, he would lay out his version of the story. Rebus didn't suppose Siobhan saw herself as any kind of a priest. He watched her now as she slipped her arms into her coat and made sure everything she needed was in her shoulder bag. Their eyes met for a moment and they shared a smile. Rebus walked into Macrae's office and placed his warrant card on the corner of the desk. He thought back to all the police stations he'd known: Great London Road, St Leonard's, Craigmillar, Gayfield Square. Men and women he'd worked with, most retired, some of them long dead. Cases solved and left unresolved, days in court, hours spent waiting to give testimony. Paperwork and legal wrangling and cock-ups. Tear-stained evidence from victims and their families. Sneers and denials from the accused. Human folly exposed, all those biblical deadly sins laid bare, with a few more besides.

Monday morning, his alarm clock would be redundant. He could spend all day over breakfast, stick his suit back in the wardrobe, to be pulled out again only for funerals. He knew all the scare stories – people who left work one week and were in a wooden box by the

next, loss of work equalling loss of purpose in the great scheme of things. He'd wondered often if the only thing for it was to clear out of the city altogether. His flat would buy him a fair-sized house elsewhere – the Fife coastline, or west to one of the distillery-strewn islands, or south into reiver country. But he couldn't see himself ever leaving Edinburgh. It was the oxygen in his bloodstream, but still with mysteries to be explored. He'd lived there for as long as he'd been a cop, the two – job and city – becoming intertwined.

Each new crime had added to his understanding, without that understanding ever coming near to completion. Bloodstained past mingling with bloodstained present; Covenanters and commerce; a city of banking and brothels, virtue and vitriol…

Underworld meeting overworld…

'Penny for them.' It was Siobhan, standing in the doorway.

“You'd be wasting your money,' he told her.

'Somehow I very much doubt that. Are you ready?' Hoisting her bag on to her shoulder.

'As I'll ever be.'

He decided this much was true.

There were just the four of them at the Oxford Bar to start with.

The back room had indeed been set aside for their use – with the help of strips of crime-scene tape.

'Nice touch,' Rebus admitted, hoisting his first pint of the evening.

After the best part of an hour, they headed to the restaurant. A bag of gifts was waiting there. From Siobhan, an iPod. Rebus protested that he would never master the technology.

'I've already loaded it,' she told him. 'The Stones, Who, Wishbone Ash… you name it.'

'John Martyn? Jackie Leven?'

'Even a bit of Hawkwind.'

'My exit music,' Rebus commented with a look close to contentment.

From Hawes and Tibbet, a bottle of 25-year-old malt, and a book of historical walks through Edinburgh. Rebus kissed the bottle and patted the book, then insisted on wearing headphones for the first part of the meal.

'Listening to Jack Bruce beats you lot any day,' he explained.

Just the two bottles of wine with dinner, then back to the Ox, where Gates, Curt and Macrae had arrived, the bar providing a couple of bottles of champagne. Todd Goodyear and his girlfriend

Sonia were the last to arrive. It was almost eleven and Rebus was on his fourth pint. Colin Tibbet was outside, taking gulps of fresh air while Phyllida Hawes rubbed his back encouragingly.

'Looks in a bad way,' Goodyear commented.

'Seven double brandies will do that to a man.'

There was no music, but then it wasn't needed. The various conversations were unforced and full of laughter. Anecdotes were recounted, with the two pathologists telling the best of them. Macrae shook Rebus's hand warmly and told him he had to get home.

'Remember to drop by and see us,' were his parting words.

Derek Starr was standing in a corner, discussing work with a bored-looking Shug Davidson. The fact he'd come at all meant his wine bar chat-ups had failed yet again. Each time Davidson glanced over, Rebus offered him a winced commiseration. When a tray appeared with the next round of drinks, Rebus found himself next to Sonia.

'Todd tells me you work scene-of-crimes,' he said.

'That's right.'

'Sorry I don't recognise the face.'

'I've usually got a hood over my head,' she said with a shy smile.

She was short, maybe five feet, with cropped blonde hair and green eyes. The dress she was wearing looked Japanese, and suited her slight, thin-boned figure.

'How long have you and Todd been an item?'

'A year and a bit.'

Rebus looked over to where Goodyear was handing out drinks.

'Must be doing something right,' he commented.

'He's quite brilliant, you know. CID's got to be the next step.'

'Might be a vacancy,' Rebus conceded. 'So how do you like sceneof-crimes?'

'It's all right.'

'I heard you were at Raeburn Wynd, the night Todorov was killed.'

She nodded. 'And at the canal, too. I was on call-out.'

'Mucked up your plans with Todd,' Rebus sympathised.

'How do you mean?' Her eyes had narrowed.

'Nothing,' Rebus said, wondering if maybe he'd started slurring his words.

'It was me who found the overshoe,' she added. Then her eyes widened and she put her free hand to her mouth.

'Don't worry about it,' Rebus assured her. 'I'm no longer in the frame, apparently.'

She relaxed and gave a little laugh. 'But it says a lot about Todd's skills, don't you think?'

'Absolutely,' Rebus agreed.

'Anything floating in that part of the canal, chances are it would end up getting stuck under the bridge – that's what he said.'

'And he was right,' Rebus admitted.

'Which is why CID would be mad not to take him.'

'Our sanity's often been questioned,' Rebus warned her.

'But you got a result on Todorov,' she stated.

'Yes, we did,' Rebus agreed with a tired smile. Goodyear was chatting to Siobhan Clarke now. Whatever he said made her laugh.

Rebus decided it was time for a cigarette break and reached out to take Sonia's hand, planting a kiss on the back of it.

'The perfect gentleman,' she was saying as he moved towards the door.

'If only you knew, kid…'