Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead

“Suppose so,” he said, with no real enthusiasm. “Some of them are going in a bit strong…Not our lot-the ones from the Met.”

Siobhan turned to face her father. “Any chance you can ID him?”

“Who?”

“The one who hit Mum.”

He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

She made a small, angry sound and led him up the hill toward Queen Street.

There was a line of parked patrol cars. Unbelievably, there was also traffic: all the cars and trucks diverted from the main drag, crawling past as if it were just another day, another commute. Siobhan explained to one police driver what she wanted. He seemed relieved at the thought of being elsewhere. She got into the back with her dad.

“Blues and twos,” she ordered the driver. Cue flashing lights and siren. They pulled past the line of traffic and got going.

“Is this the right way?” the driver shouted.

“Where are you from?”

“ Peterborough.”

“Straight ahead, I’ll tell you when to turn.” She squeezed her father’s hand. “You’re not hurt?”

He shook his head, fixed her with his eyes. “How about you?”

“What about me?”

“You’re amazing.” Teddy Clarke gave a tired smile. “Way you acted back there, taking control…”

“Not just a pretty face, eh?”

“I never realized…” There were tears in his eyes again. He bit his bottom lip, blinked them back. She gave his hand a tighter squeeze.

“I never really appreciated,” he said, “how good you might be at this.”

“Just be thankful I’m not in uniform, or it might’ve been me wielding one of those batons.”

“You wouldn’t have hit an innocent woman,” her father stated.

“Straight across at the lights,” she told the driver, before turning her attention back to her father. “Hard to say, isn’t it? We don’t know what we’ll do till we’re there.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said determinedly.

“Probably not,” she conceded. “What the hell were you doing there anyway? Did Santal take you?”

He shook his head. “I suppose we were…we thought we’d be spectators. The police didn’t see it that way.”

“If I find whoever…”

“I didn’t really see his face.”

“Plenty of cameras there-hard to hide under that sort of coverage.”

“Photographs?”

She nodded. “Plus security, the media, and us, of course.” She looked at him. “The police will have filmed everything.”

“But surely…”

“What?”

“You can’t sift through the whole lot?”

“Want to bet on it?”

He studied her for a moment. “No, I’m not sure I do.”

Almost a hundred arrests. The courts would be busy on Tuesday. By evening, the standoff had moved from Princes Street Gardens to Rose Street. Cobbles were torn from the road surface, becoming missiles instead. There were skirmishes on Waverley Bridge, Cockburn Street, and Infirmary Street. By nine thirty, things were calming. The final bit of trouble had been outside McDonald’s on South St. Andrew Street. The uniforms were back at Gayfield Square now and had brought burgers with them, the aroma making its way into the CID suite. Rebus had the TV playing-a documentary about an abattoir. Eric Bain had just forwarded a list of e-mail addresses, regular users of BeastWatch. His e-mail had ended with the words Shiv, let me know how you got on! Rebus had tried calling her cell, but no one was answering. Bain’s e-mail had stipulated that the Jensens had given him no grief but had been only “grudgingly cooperative.”

Rebus had the Evening News open beside him. On its cover, a picture of Saturday’s march and the headline “Voting with Their Feet.” They’d be able to use the headline again tomorrow, with a photo of a rioter kicking at a police shield. The TV page gave him the title of the abattoir film-Slaughterhouse: The Task of Blood. Rebus stood up and walked to one of the free desks. The Colliar notes stared up at him. Siobhan had been busy. They’d been joined by police and prison reports on Fast Eddie Isley and Trevor Guest.

Guest: burglar, thug, sexual predator.

Isley: rapist.

Colliar: rapist.

Rebus turned to the BeastWatch notes. Details of twenty-eight further rapists and child molesters had been posted. There was a long and angry article from someone calling herself Tornupinside-felt to Rebus as if the author was female. She railed against the court system and its iron-clad ruling on rape versus sexual assault. Hard enough to get a conviction for rape anyway-but sexual assault could be every bit as ugly, violent, and degrading, yet with lesser penalties attached. She seemed to know her law: hard to tell if she was from north or south of the border. He skimmed through the text again, looking for burglar or burglary-the term in Scotland was housebreaking. But all she’d used were assault and assailant. Still, Rebus decided a reply was merited. He logged on to Siobhan’s terminal and accessed her Hotmail account-she used the same password for everything: Hibsgirl. Ran a finger down Eric Bain’s list until he found an address for Tornupinside. Started typing:

I’ve just finished reading your piece at BeastWatch. It really interested me, and I would like to talk to you about it. I have some information that you may find interesting. Please call me on…

He thought for a moment. No way of knowing how long Siobhan’s cell would be out of commission. So he typed in his own number instead, but signed off as Siobhan Clarke. More chance, he felt, of the writer replying to another woman. He read the message through, decided it looked as if it had been written by a cop. Gave it another go:

I saw what you said on BeastWatch. Did you know they’ve shut the site down? I’d like to talk to you, maybe by phone.

Added his number and Siobhan’s name-just her first name this time; less formal. Clicked on Send. When his phone started trilling only a few minutes later, he knew it was too good to be true-and so it proved.

“Strawman,” the voice drawled: Cafferty.

“Think you’ll ever get fed up of that nickname?”

Cafferty chuckled coldly. “How long has it been?”

Maybe sixteen years…Rebus giving evidence, Cafferty in the dock, one of the lawyers confusing Rebus for a previous witness called Stroman…

“Anything to report?” Cafferty was asking.

“Why should I tell you?”

Another chuckle, even colder than the first. “Say you catch him and it goes to court…how would it look if I suddenly piped up that I’d helped you out? Lot of explaining to do…could even lead to a mistrial.”

“I thought you wanted him caught.” Cafferty stayed silent. Rebus weighed up what to say. “We’re making progress.”

“How much progress?”

“It’s slow.”

“Only natural, with the city in chaos.” That chuckle again; Rebus wondered if Cafferty had been drinking. “I could have pulled off any size heist today, and you lot would have been too stretched to notice.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Changed man, Rebus. On your side now, remember? So, if there’s anything I can do to help…”

“Not right now.”

“But if you needed me, you’d ask?”

“You said it yourself, Cafferty-more you’re involved, harder it might be to get a conviction.”

“I know how the game’s played, Rebus.”

“Then you’ll know when it’s best to miss a turn.” Rebus turned away from the TV. A machine was flaying the skin from a carcass.

“Keep in touch, Rebus.”

“Actually…”

“Yes?”

“There are some cops I could do with talking to. They’re English, but they’re here for the G8.”

“So talk to them.”

“Not so easy. They don’t wear any insignia, run around town in an unmarked car and van.”