Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead

“Us, too, sir,” Siobhan said, “in a manner of speaking.”

“How’s that?” Steelforth asked, looking amused.

“Murder inquiry, sir,” Rebus said. “Tends to act as a VIP pass.”

“VVIP,” Siobhan corrected him.

“You’re saying Ben Webster was murdered?” Steelforth asked, eyes on Rebus.

“Not quite,” Rebus answered. “But we’ve an inkling why he died. And it seems to connect to the Clootie Well.” He shifted his gaze to Corbyn. “We can fill you in later, sir, but right now it’s Commander Steelforth we need to talk to.”

“I’m sure it can wait,” Corbyn snapped.

Rebus turned back to Steelforth, who offered another smile, this time for Corbyn’s benefit.

“I think I’d better listen to what the inspector and his colleague have to say.”

“Very well,” the chief constable relented. “Fire away.”

Rebus paused, exchanging a glance with Siobhan. Steelforth was quick to catch on. He made a show of handing his untouched glass to Corbyn.

“I’ll be right back, Chief Constable. I’m sure your officers will explain everything to you in due course…”

“They’d better,” Corbyn stressed, eyes boring into Siobhan. Steelforth patted his arm reassuringly and walked away, Rebus and Siobhan close behind. When all three reached the low white picket fence, they stopped. Steelforth faced away from the crowd, toward the course, where groundsmen were hard at work replacing divots and raking sand traps. He slid his hands into his pockets.

“What is it you think you know?” he asked nonchalantly.

“I think you know,” Rebus answered. “When I mentioned the link between Webster and the Clootie Well, you didn’t blink. Makes me think you already suspected something. Stacey Webster’s your officer, after all. You probably like to keep tabs on her…maybe started wondering why she was making sorties north to places like Newcastle and Carlisle. Also makes me wonder what you saw on the security film that night at the castle.”

“Spit it out,” Steelforth hissed.

Siobhan took over. “We think Stacey Webster is our serial killer. She wanted Trevor Guest, but was prepared to kill two more men to hide the fact.”

“And when she went to tell her brother the news,” Rebus continued, “well, he didn’t take it well. Maybe he jumped; maybe he was appalled and threatened to go public…she decided he had to be silenced.” He gave a shrug.

“Fanciful stuff,” Steelforth commented, still not looking at either of them. “Being good detectives, you’ll have put together a watertight case?”

“Should be easy enough, now we know what we’re looking for,” Rebus told him. “Of course, it’ll be damaging for SO12…”

Steelforth gave a twitch of the mouth, turned 180 degrees to watch the feasting. “Until about an hour ago,” he drawled, “I’d have told the pair of you to go fuck yourselves. Know why?”

“Pennen offered you a job,” Rebus said. Steelforth raised an eyebrow. “Educated guess,” Rebus explained. “It’s him you’ve been protecting throughout. Must’ve been a reason for it.”

Steelforth nodded slowly. “It so happens, you’re right.”

“But you’ve changed your mind?” Siobhan added.

“You just need to look at him. It’s all crumbling to dust, isn’t it?”

“Like a statue in the desert,” Siobhan commented, eyes on Rebus.

“Monday, I was tendering my resignation,” Steelforth said ruefully. “Special Branch could have gone to hell.”

“Some might say it already has,” Rebus stated, “when one of its operatives is allowed to slaughter left and right…”

Steelforth was still staring at Richard Pennen. “Funny the way it sometimes works-it’s the tiniest flaws that bring a structure down.”

“Like Al Capone,” Siobhan added helpfully. “They only got him for tax evasion, didn’t they?”

Steelforth ignored her, and turned his attention to Rebus instead. “The security video wasn’t conclusive,” he admitted.

“It showed Ben Webster meeting someone?”

“Ten minutes after he took a call on his cell.”

“Do we need to check the phone company records, or shall we assume it was Stacey?”

“As I say, the video wasn’t conclusive.”

“So what did it show?”

Steelforth gave a shrug. “Two people talking…Webster seeming to remonstrate…grabbing the other person by the shoulders as if to shake some sense into them…”

“And?”

“A push in the chest, enough to make him lose his balance. If you ask me, it was hardly enough to send him over the parapet.” Steelforth locked eyes with Rebus. “In that instant, he wanted it to happen.”

There was silence for a moment, broken by Siobhan. “And you’d have swept it all under the carpet, so as not to make a fuss. Just like you’ve dispatched Stacey Webster to London.”

“Yes, well…good luck discussing that with DS Webster.”

“What do you mean?”

He turned toward her. “She’s not been heard of since Wednesday. Seems she boarded the night train to Euston.”

Siobhan’s eyes narrowed. “The London bombings?”

“Be a miracle if we ID’d every victim.”

“Screw that,” Rebus said, pressing his face close to Steelforth’s. “You’re hiding her!”

Steelforth gave a laugh. “You do see conspiracies everywhere, don’t you, Rebus?”

“You knew what she’d done. Bombs were the perfect cover for her to vanish!”

Steelforth’s face hardened. “She’s gone,” he said. “So go ahead and compile any evidence you can find-somehow I doubt it’ll get you anywhere.”

“It’ll dump a trailerload of dung on your head,” Rebus warned.

“Will it?” Steelforth’s jaw jutted out, barely an inch from Rebus’s face. “Good for the land though, isn’t it, the occasional bit of manure? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get absolutely smashed at Richard Pennen’s expense.” He strode away from them, removing his hands from his pockets so he could take his glass back from Corbyn. The chief constable said something, and gestured toward the two Lothian and Borders detectives. Steelforth just shook his head, then leaned a little toward Corbyn and said something that caused the chief constable to arch his neck, presaging a loud-and entirely genuine-guffaw.

What kind of result is that?” Siobhan asked, not for the first time. They were back in Edinburgh, seated in a bar on Broughton Street, just around the corner from her place.

“Hand those photos from the gardens over,” Rebus told her, “and your little skinhead friend might get the custodial sentence he deserves.”

She stared at him and gave a wild, humorless laugh. “Is that it? Four men, dead because of Stacey Webster, and we’ve got that?”

“We’ve got our health,” Rebus reminded her. “And the whole bar listening in on us.”

Eyes turned away as she strafed the clientele. Four vodka tonics she’d had so far, to Rebus’s pint and three Laphroaigs. They were seated in a booth. The bar was busy and had been relatively noisy until she’d started mentioning multiple murders, a suspicious death, a stabbing, sex offenders, George Bush, Special Branch, the Princes Street riots, and Bianca Jagger.

“We’ve still got to put the case together,” Rebus reminded her. She responded by blowing a raspberry.

“What good will that do?” she queried. “Can’t prove anything.”

“Plenty of circumstantial.”

This time she merely snorted and started counting on her fingers. “Richard Pennen, SO12, the government, Cafferty, Gareth Tench, a serial killer, the G8…looked for a little while like they all connected. They do all connect when you start to think of it!” She was holding up seven fingers in front of his face. When he didn’t respond, she lowered them and seemed to be studying him. “How can you be so calm about it?”