Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead

Wylie nodded. “Or in this case, where no one’s grieving. They thought maybe it was a drug deal gone wrong.”

“Now that’s original. Any evidence that Mr. Guest was a user?”

“Apparently so. Could have been dealing, too, owed money for goods and couldn’t…” She saw the look on Rebus’s face.

“Lazy thinking, Ellen. Same thing might explain why no one thought to connect the three killings.”

“Because nobody was trying very hard?” she guessed.

Rebus nodded slowly.

“Well,” she said, “you can ask him yourself.”

“Ask who?”

“Reason I couldn’t talk to the boss is that he’s right here.”

“Here?”

“Sent to Lothian and Borders CID.” She glanced down at her notes. “He’s a detective sergeant, name of Stan Hackman.”

“So where can I find him?”

“His pal suggested the student residences.”

“Pollock Halls?”

She shrugged, picked up the notepad and turned it toward him. “I’ve got his cell, if that helps.” As Rebus stalked toward her, she tore off the sheet and held it out to him. He snatched at it.

“Get on to whoever led the Isley inquiry,” he said, “see what you can get from them. I’ll go have a word with Hackman.”

“You forgot to say thank you.” Then, watching him shrug his arms back into the sleeves of his jacket: “Remember Brian Holmes?”

“I used to work with him.”

She nodded. “He told me once you had a nickname for him. Used to call him Shoeleather because he did all the donkey work.”

“Donkeys don’t wear shoes, do they?”

“You know what I mean, John. You’re swanning off and leaving me here-it’s not even my office! What does that make me?” She had picked up the telephone receiver and was waving it as she spoke.

“Switchboard, maybe?” he pretended to guess, heading for the exit.

Siobhan wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“I think,” Teddy Clarke said to his wife, “maybe we should listen to her this time.”

Siobhan’s mother wore a gauze patch over one eye. Her other eye was bruised, and there was a cut to the side of her nose. The painkillers seemed to have dulled her resolve; she just nodded when her husband spoke.

“What about clothes?” Mr. Clarke said as they got into the taxi.

“You can go to the camp later,” Siobhan told him, “bring back what you need.”

“We’d booked places on the bus for tomorrow,” he mused as Siobhan gave the driver directions to her place. She knew he meant one of the protest buses: a convoy heading to the G8. His wife said something he didn’t quite catch. He leaned closer, squeezing her hand, and she repeated it for him.

“We’re still going.” Her husband looked hesitant. “Doctor doesn’t see a problem,” Eve Clarke went on, clearly enough for Siobhan to hear.

“You can decide in the morning,” Siobhan said. “Let’s concentrate on today first, eh?”

Teddy Clarke smiled at his wife. “Told you she’d changed,” he reminded her.

When they reached the apartment, Siobhan paid for the taxi, waving aside her father’s offer of money, then headed upstairs ahead of her parents, checking the living room and bedroom. No underwear on the floor or empty Smirnoff bottles lying around.

“In you come,” she told them. “I’ll get the kettle on. Make yourselves at home.”

“Must be ten years since we’ve been here,” her father commented, making a little tour of the living room.

“I couldn’t have bought the place without your help,” Siobhan called from the kitchen. She knew what her mother would be looking for: signs of male occupation. Whole point of giving her money toward the deposit had been to help her “get settled,” that great euphemism. Steady boyfriend, then marriage, then kids. Not a route Siobhan had ever managed to start on. She took in the teapot and mugs, her father rising to help.

“You can pour,” she told him. “I just need to sort some things in the bedroom.”

She opened the wardrobe and hauled out her overnight bag. Tugged open drawers as she considered what she would need. With a bit of luck, she might not need any of it, but it was best to be safe. Change of clothes, toothbrush, shampoo…She delved to the bottom of a couple of drawers, finding the scruffiest, least-ironed items. Overalls she’d painted the hall in, one shoulder strap held on with a safety pin; a gauzy cotton shirt that had been left behind by a three-night stand.

“We’re driving you out,” her father said. He was in the doorway, holding a mug of tea toward her.

“There’s a trip I have to make, nothing to do with the two of you being here. I might not be back till tomorrow.”

“We could be gone to Gleneagles by then.”

“Might see you there,” she answered with a wink. “The pair of you will be all right tonight? Plenty of shops and places to eat. I’ll leave you a key.”

“We’ll be fine.” He paused. “This trip, is it to do with what happened to your mother?”

“Might be.”

“Because I’ve been thinking…”

“What?” She looked up from her packing.

“You’re a cop, too, Siobhan. If you keep on with this, chances are you’ll just make enemies.”

“It’s not a popularity contest, Dad.”

“All the same…”

She zipped the bag shut, left it on the bed, and took the mug from him. “I just want to hear him say he was wrong.” She took a sip of the lukewarm tea.

“Is that likely to happen?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

Her father had settled himself on a corner of the bed. “She’s determined to go to Gleneagles, you know.”

Siobhan nodded. “I’ll drive you to the camp, bring your things back here before I leave.” She crouched down in front of him, pressing her free hand to his knee. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

“We’ll be fine. What about you?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Dad. I’ve got a force field around me, or hadn’t you noticed?”

“I think I might have caught a glimpse of it in Princes Street.” He placed his own hand over hers. “All the same, take care, eh?”

She smiled and stood up, saw that her mother was watching from the hallway, and shared the smile with her, too.

Rebus had been to the cafeteria before. In term time it was crowded with students, many of them just starting at the university, looking wary and even downright scared. A few years back, a second-year undergraduate had been dealing drugs; Rebus arrested him over breakfast.

The students who used the cafeteria brought laptops and iPods with them, so that even when busy the place was never noisy, except for the trilling of cell phones.

But today, the cafeteria rang with the sounds of harsh, raised voices. Rebus could sense the crackle of testosterone in the air. Two tables had been put together to form a temporary bar, from which small bottles of French lager were being sold. The No Smoking signs were being disregarded as uniformed officers slapped each other on the back and shared awkward approximations of the American high five. Stab vests had been removed, lined up against one wall, and the busy female staff were dishing out plates of fried food, red-faced either from exertion or the exaggerated compliments of the visitors.

Rebus was on the hunt for visual clues, for some sort of Newcastle insignia. At the gatehouse, he’d been directed to an old baronial-style building behind it, where a civilian assistant had found a room number for Hackman. But Rebus had knocked on the door without answer, so he had come here-the assistant’s next suggestion.

“Of course, he could still be in the field,” she’d cautioned, relishing the chance to use the phrase.