Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead

“Which is why you phoned Siobhan back? I recognized your voice straight off.”

“Yes, that was particularly devious of you.”

“My middle name…”

Now, seated in her garden with a cold breeze blowing, Rebus buttoned his jacket and asked about the Web site. How did she find it? Did she know the Jensens? Had she ever met with them…?

“I remember the case” was all she said.

“Vicky Jensen?” She nodded slowly. “Did you work on it?”

A shake of the head. “But I’m glad he’s dead. Show me where he’s buried and I’ll dance a little jig.”

“Edward Isley and Trevor Guest are dead, too.”

“Look, John, all I did was write a bit of a blog…I was letting off steam.”

“And now three of the men listed on the site are dead. A blow to the head and a smack overdose. You’ve worked murders, Ellen…what does that MO tell you?”

“Someone with access to hard drugs.”

“Anything else?”

She thought for a moment. “You tell me.”

“Killer didn’t want a face-to-face with the victims. Maybe because they were bigger and stronger. Didn’t really want them to suffer either-a straight KO and then the injection. Doesn’t that sound like a woman to you?”

“How’s your tea, John?”

“Ellen…”

She slapped a palm against the tabletop. “If they were listed on BeastWatch, they were grade-A scumbags…don’t expect me to feel sorry for them.”

“What about catching the killer?”

“What about it?”

“You want them to get away with it?”

She was staring into the darkness again. The wind was rustling the trees nearby. “Know what we had today, John? We had a war, cut-and-dried-good guys and bad…”

Rebus’s thought: Tell that to Siobhan.

“But it isn’t always like that, is it?” she went on. “Sometimes the line blurs.” She turned her gaze on him. “You should know that better than most, number of corners I’ve seen you cut.”

“I make a lousy role model, Ellen.”

“Maybe so, but you’re planning to find him, aren’t you?”

“Him or her. That’s why I need to get a statement from you.” She opened her mouth to complain, but he held up a hand. “You’re the only person I know who used the site. The Jensens have closed it down, so I can’t be sure what might have been on there.”

“You want me to help?”

“By answering a few questions.”

She gave a harsh, quiet laugh. “You know I’ve got court later today?”

Rebus was lighting another cigarette. “Why Cramond?” he asked. She seemed surprised by the change of subject.

“It’s a village,” she explained. “A village inside a city-best of both worlds.” She paused. “Has the interview already started? Is this you getting me to drop my guard?”

Rebus shook his head. “Just wondered whose idea it was.”

“It’s my house, John. Denise came to live with me after she…” She cleared her throat. “Think I swallowed a bug,” she apologized. “I was going to say, after her divorce.”

Rebus nodded at the explanation. “Well, it’s a peaceful spot, I’ll give you that. Easy out here to forget all about the job.”

The light from the kitchen caught her smile. “I get the feeling it wouldn’t work for you. I’m not sure anything short of a sledgehammer would.”

“Or a few of those,” Rebus countered, nodding toward the row of empty wine bottles lined up beneath the kitchen window.

He took it slow, driving back into town. Loved the city at night, the taxicabs and lolling pedestrians, warm sodium glare from the streetlamps, darkened shops, curtained tenements. There were places he could go-a bakery, a night watchman’s desk, a casino-places where he was known and where tea would be brewed, gossip exchanged. Years back, he could have stopped for a chat with the working girls on Coburg Street, but most of them had either moved on or died. And after he, too, was gone, Edinburgh would remain. These same scenes would be enacted, a play whose run was never ending. Killers would be caught and punished; others would remain at large. The world and the underworld, coexisting down the generations. By week’s end, the G8 circus would have trundled elsewhere. Geldof and Bono would have found new causes. Richard Pennen would be in his boardroom, David Steelforth back at Scotland Yard. Sometimes it felt to Rebus that he was close to seeing the mechanism that connected everything.

Close…but never quite close enough.

The Meadows seemed deserted as he turned up Marchmont Road. Parked at the top of Arden Street and walked back downhill to his tenement. Two or three times a week he got flyers through his mailbox, firms eager to sell his apartment for him. The one upstairs had gone for two hundred K. Add that sort of money to his CID pension and he was, as Siobhan herself had said, “on Easy Street.” Problem was, it wasn’t a destination that appealed. He stooped to pick up the mail from inside the door. There was a menu from a new Indian take-out. He’d pin it up in the kitchen, next to the others. Meantime, he made himself a ham sandwich, ate it standing in the kitchen, staring at the array of empty cans on the work surface. How many bottles had there been in Ellen Wylie’s garden? Fifteen, maybe twenty. A lot of wine. He’d seen an empty Tesco’s bag in the kitchen. She probably did a regular recycling run, same time she did the shopping. Say every two weeks. Twenty bottles in two weeks; ten a week-Denise came to stay with me after she…after her divorce. Rebus hadn’t seen any nighttime insects illuminated against the kitchen window. Ellen had looked washed out. Easy to blame it on the day’s events, but Rebus knew it went deeper. The lines under her bloodshot eyes had taken weeks to accumulate. Her figure had been thickening for some time. He knew that Siobhan had once seen Ellen as a rival-two DSes who’d have to fight tooth and nail for promotion. But lately, Siobhan had stopped saying as much. Maybe because Ellen didn’t look quite so dangerous to her these days…

He poured a glass of water and took it into the living room, gulped it down until only half an inch was left, then added a slug of malt to the remainder. Tipped it back and felt the heat work its way down his throat. Topped it up and settled into his chair. Too late now to put any music on. He rested the glass against his forehead, closed his eyes.

Slept.

Tuesday, July 5, 2005

The best Glenrothes could offer was a lift to the railway station at Markinch.

Siobhan sat on the train-too early yet for the commuter rush-and looked out at the passing countryside. Not that she saw any of it: her mind was replaying footage of the riot, the same hours of footage she had just walked away from. Sound and fury, swearing and swinging, the clatter of hurled objects and the grunts of exertion. Her thumb was numb from pressure on the remote control. Pause…slow back…slow forward…play. Fast forward…rewind…pause…play. In some of the still photographs, faces had been circled-people the force would want to question. The eyes burned with hatred. Of course, some of them weren’t demonstrators at all-just local troublemakers ready to rumble, smothered in Burberry scarves and baseball caps. In the U.S., they’d probably be called juvenile delinquents, but up here they were neds. One of the team, bringing her coffee and a chocolate bar, had said as much as he stood behind her shoulder.

“Neddy the Ned from Nedtown.”

The woman across from Siobhan on the train had the morning paper open. The riot had made the front page. But so, too, had Tony Blair. He was in Singapore, pitching for London to win the Olympic bid. The year 2012 seemed a long way off; so did Singapore. Siobhan couldn’t believe he was going to make it back to Gleneagles in time to shake all those hands-Bush and Putin, Schröder and Chirac. The paper also said there was little sign of Saturday’s Hyde Park crowd heading north.