Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead

“That’s a bit unfair,” Greig started to protest, but Tench waved the complaint aside. “And how’s that colleague of yours?” he was asking Siobhan.

“You mean DI Rebus?”

“That’s the one. Seems a bit too friendly with the criminal fraternity, if you ask me.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you work together…I’m sure he confides in you. The other night?” As if jogging her memory. “ Craigmillar Faith Center? I was making a speech when your man Rebus showed up with a monster called Cafferty.” He paused. “I’m assuming you know him?”

“I know him,” Siobhan confirmed.

“Seems strange to me that the forces of law and order would need to…” He seemed to be searching for the right word. “Fraternize,” he decided. Then he paused, eyes boring into Siobhan’s. “I’m presuming DI Rebus wouldn’t have kept any of this from you. I mean, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know?”

Siobhan felt like a fish worried by an insistent hook.

“We all have our private lives, Mr. Tench” was the only reply she could muster. Tench seemed disappointed. “And what about yourself?” she continued. “Hoping to persuade a few bands into playing the Jack Kane Center?”

He rubbed his hands again. “If the opportunity presents…” His voice drifted away as he saw a face he recognized. Siobhan knew it too: Marti Pellow from Wet Wet Wet. The name reminded her to raise her umbrella. The rain tom-tommed off it as Tench moved away toward his target.

“What was all that about?” Greig asked. She just shook her head. “Why do I get the feeling you’d rather be elsewhere?”

“Sorry,” she said.

Greig was watching Tench and the singer. “Works fast, doesn’t he? Not shy either. I think that’s why people listen. You ever heard him when he’s giving a speech? The hairs on your arms start to rise.”

Siobhan nodded slowly. She was thinking about Rebus and Cafferty. It didn’t surprise her that Rebus hadn’t said anything. She looked at her phone again. She had an excuse now to call him, but still she held back.

I’m owed a private life, an evening off.

Otherwise, she’d become just like Rebus-obsessed and sidelined; cranky and mistrusted. He’d been stuck at inspector rank for the best part of two decades. She wanted more. Wanted to do the job well, but be able to switch off now and again. Wanted a life outside her job, rather than a job that became her life. Rebus had lost family and friends, pushing them aside in favor of corpses and con men, killers, petty thieves, rapists, thugs, racketeers, and racists. When he went out drinking, he did so on his own, standing quietly at the bar, facing the row of optics. He had no hobbies, didn’t follow any sports, never took a vacation. If he had a week or two off, she could usually find him at the Oxford Bar, pretending to read the paper in a corner, or staring dully at daytime TV.

She wanted more.

This time, she made the call. It was picked up and she broke into a smile. “Dad?” she said. “You still in the restaurant? Tell them to squeeze in an extra place setting for dessert.”

Stacey Webster was herself again.

Dressed much as she had been the time Rebus had met her outside the morgue. Her T-shirt had long sleeves.

“That to hide the tattoos?” he asked.

“They’re temporary,” she told him. “They’ll fade in time.”

“Most things do.” He saw the suitcase. It was standing on end, carry handle retracted. “Back to London?”

“Sleeper car.” She nodded.

“Look, I’m sorry if we…” Rebus looked around the reception area, as though reluctant to make eye contact.

“It happens,” she said. “Maybe my cover wasn’t breached, but Commander Steelforth doesn’t like to risk his officers.” She seemed awkward and uncertain, brain stuck in the no-man’s-land between two very separate identities.

“Time for a drink?” he asked.

“I came to see Siobhan.” She slid a hand into her pocket. “Is her mum okay?”

“Recuperating,” Rebus said. “Staying at Siobhan’s.”

“Santal never got the chance to say good-bye.” She was holding her hand out toward Rebus. A clear plastic wallet, within which sat a silver disk. “CD-ROM,” she said. “Film copied from my camera, that day on Princes Street.”

Rebus nodded slowly. “I’ll see she gets it.”

“The commander would kill me if…”

“Our secret,” Rebus assured her, tucking the disk into his breast pocket. “Now let’s get you that drink.”

Plenty of pubs available to them on Leith Walk. But the first they walked past looked busy, the Murrayfield concert blaring from the TV. Farther downhill they found what they wanted-a quiet, traditional place with a jukebox sound track and a one-armed bandit. Stacey had left her suitcase behind the desk at Gayfield Square. She told him she wanted to off-load some Scottish money-her excuse for getting the round. They settled at a corner table.

“Ever used the sleeper car before?” Rebus asked.

“That’s why I’m drinking gin and tonic-only way to sleep on that damned train.”

“Is Santal gone for good?”

“Depends.”

“Steelforth said you were undercover for months.”

“Months,” she agreed.

“Can’t have been easy in London…always the chance someone would recognize you.”

“I walked past Ben once…”

“As Santal?”

“He never knew.” She sat back. “That’s why I let Santal get close to Siobhan. Her parents had told me she was CID.”

“You wanted to see if your cover would hold?”

Rebus watched her nod, thinking now that he understood something. Stacey would have been devastated by her brother’s death, but to Santal it would have mattered very little. Problem was, all that grief was still caged-something he knew a bit about.

“ London wasn’t really my main base though,” Stacey was saying. “A lot of the groups have moved out-too easy for us to monitor them there. Manchester, Bradford, Leeds…that’s where I spent most of my time.”

“You think you made a difference?”

She gave this some thought. “We hope we do, don’t we?”

He nodded his agreement, sipped at his own pint, then put it down. “I’m still looking into Ben’s death.”

“I know.”

“The commander told you?” He watched her nod. “He’s been putting obstacles in my way.”

“He probably sees it as his job, Inspector. It’s nothing personal.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trying to protect a man called Richard Pennen.”

“Pennen Industries?”

It was Rebus’s turn to nod. “Pennen was picking up your brother’s hotel tab.”

“Strange,” she said. “There wasn’t much love lost.”

“Oh?”

She stared at him. “Ben had visited plenty of war zones. He knew the horrors inflicted by the arms trade.”

“The line I keep being fed is that Pennen sells technology rather than guns.”

She snorted. “Only a matter of time. Ben wanted to make things as awkward as possible. You should look back at Hansard-speeches he made in the House, asking all sorts of difficult questions.”

“Yet Pennen paid for his room.”

“And Ben would have loved that. He’d take a room from a dictator, then spend the whole trip slamming them.” She paused and swirled her drink, then turned her eyes back toward him. “You thought it was bribery, didn’t you? Pennen buying Ben off?” His silence answered her question. “My brother was a good man, Inspector.” At last, tears were welling in her eyes. “And I couldn’t even go to his bloody funeral.”

“He’d have understood,” Rebus offered. “My own…” Had to stop and clear his throat. “My own brother died last week. We cremated him on Friday.”