Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead

Santal just rolled her eyes. A phone was ringing, and she searched her pockets, bringing out two. The screen on one was lit up. She studied it, then stared over Siobhan’s right shoulder. “Gang’s all here,” she said. Siobhan wasn’t sure what she meant. Oldest trick in the book, but she turned and looked anyway.

John Rebus, standing there with a phone in one hand and what looked like a business card in the other.

“I’m not sure of the etiquette,” he commented, coming closer. “If I light up something that’s a hundred percent tobacco, does that make me a slave to the evil empire?” He shrugged and brought out the pack of cigarettes anyway.

“Santal here is a plant,” Siobhan explained to him.

“This just might not be the safest place to announce that fact,” Santal hissed.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Siobhan snorted.

“I think I can oblige,” Rebus said. But his eyes were on Santal. “Beyond the call of duty,” he told her, “skipping your own brother’s funeral.”

She glared at him. “You were there?”

He nodded. “I have to admit, though, I stared and stared at the photo of Santal, and it still took an age to dawn on me.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should.”

“I wanted to be there, you know.”

“What sort of excuse did you give?”

Only at this point did Siobhan butt in. “You’re Ben Webster’s sister?”

“The penny drops,” Rebus commented. “DS Clarke, meet Stacey Webster.” Rebus’s eyes were still on Stacey. “But I’m guessing we should keep calling you Santal?”

“Bit late for that now,” Stacey replied. As if on cue, a young man with a red bandanna around his forehead started toward them.

“Everything cool here?”

“Just catching up with an old friend,” Rebus warned him.

“You look like pigs to me.” His eyes shifted between Rebus and Siobhan.

“Hey, I can handle it.” Santal was back in character: the strong woman, able to fight her own battles. She stared the young man down.

“If you’re sure…” He was already retreating. As she turned back toward Rebus and Siobhan, she became Stacey again.

“You can’t stay here,” she stated. “I’m due to be relieved in an hour-we can talk then.”

“Where?”

She considered for a moment. “Inside the security fence. There’s a field behind the hotel, that’s where the drivers hang out. Wait for me there.”

Siobhan looked at the crowds surrounding them. “And how exactly do we get there?”

Stacey offered a sour smile. “Show some initiative.”

“I think,” Rebus explained, “she’s telling us to get ourselves arrested.”

It took Rebus a good ten minutes to push his way to the front of the throng, Siobhan tucking herself in behind him. With his body pressed to a scratched and scrawled riot shield, Rebus palmed his ID against the see-through reinforced plastic, level with the cop’s eye line.

“Get us out of here,” he mouthed. The cop wasn’t falling for it. Called out instead for his boss to decide. The red-faced officer appeared over the cop’s shoulder, recognized Siobhan straight off. She was trying to look suitably chastened.

The officer gave a sniff, then an order. The cordon of shields opened a fraction, and hands hauled at Rebus and Siobhan. The noise level rose perceptibly on the other side of the line.

“Show them your ID,” the officer ordered. Rebus and Siobhan were happy to oblige. The officer held a megaphone in front of him and let the crowd know no arrests had been made. When he identified Rebus and Siobhan as police detectives, a huge jeer went up. All the same, the situation seemed to be easing.

“I should put you on report for that little escapade,” he told Siobhan.

“We’re murder squad,” Rebus lied fluently. “There was someone we needed to talk to-what else could we do?”

The officer stared at him, but suddenly found himself with more pressing concerns. One of his men had fallen over, and the protesters were aiming to exploit this breach in the barricade. He barked out orders on his megaphone, and Rebus gestured to Siobhan that maybe they should make themselves scarce.

Van doors were opening, more cops spilling out to provide backup on the front line. A medic asked Siobhan if she was okay.

“I’m not injured,” she told him. A small helicopter was sitting on the road, rotor blades turning. Rebus got into a crouch and went to talk to the pilot, then waved Siobhan across.

“He can take us to the field.”

The pilot was nodding from behind mirrored sunglasses. “Not a problem,” he called out in an American accent. Thirty seconds later they were installed, and the machine was rising into the air, whipping up dust and litter below it. Rebus whistled a bit of Wagner-a nod to Apocalypse Now-but Siobhan ignored him. Hard to hear anything, which didn’t stop her asking Rebus what he’d told the pilot. She read his lips as he replied:

Murder squad.

The hotel was a mile to the south. From the sky, it was easy to make out the security fence and the watchtowers. Thousands of acres of deserted hillside, and pockets of demonstrators being corralled by black uniforms.

“I’m not allowed to go near the hotel itself,” the pilot was yelling. “A missile would have us down if I did.”

He sounded serious, and he took a wide arc around the hotel’s security fence. There were lots of temporary structures, probably to shelter the world’s media. Satellite dishes on the tops of anonymous-looking vans. Television, or maybe the secret service. Rebus could make out a track that led from a large white canopy toward the security fence. The field had been reduced to stubble, and someone had spray-painted a giant letter H to let the chopper know where to land. Their flight had taken only a couple of minutes. Rebus shook the pilot’s hand and jumped out, Siobhan following.

“My day for traveling in style,” she mused. “A motorbike brought me up the A9.”

“Siege mentality,” Rebus explained. “This week, it’s us and them as far as this lot are concerned.”

There was a soldier approaching, dressed in combat fatigues and toting a submachine gun. He looked far from pleased at their arrival. Both showed their ID, but this was not enough for the soldier. Rebus noted that there was no insignia on his uniform, nothing to identify his nationality, or which branch of the armed services he belonged to. He insisted on taking their badges from them.

“Wait right there,” he ordered, pointing to where they were standing. As he turned away, Rebus did a little soft-shoe shuffle and gave Siobhan a wink. The soldier had disappeared into a huge trailer. Another armed soldier guarded its door.

“I get the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Rebus offered.

“Does that make me Toto?”

“Let’s see what’s over there,” Rebus suggested, heading for the canopy. Its roof was a fixed structure of plastic sections, held up by a series of poles. Beneath it sat rows of limousines. Liveried drivers shared cigarettes and stories. Strangest of all, a chef, dressed in white jacket and checkered trousers, and with a toque perched on his head, was cooking what appeared to be omelets. He stood behind a sort of platform, a large red bottle of cooking gas by his side. The food was being dished out on proper plates, with silver cutlery. Tables had been set up for the drivers’ use.

“I heard about this when I was up here with the DCI,” Siobhan said. “Hotel staff are using a back route into the compound, leaving their vehicles in the next field over.”

“I’m assuming they’ve all been vetted,” Rebus said, “which is what’s happening to us right now.” He glanced toward the trailer, then nodded a greeting to one group of drivers. “Omelets all right, lads?” he asked, receiving replies in the affirmative. The chef was awaiting fresh orders.