Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead

Rebus had taken a couple of paintings down from one wall of his living room. Details of the three victims were now pinned there instead. He was seated at the dining table while Siobhan lay stretched out along the sofa. Both were busy reading, asking occasional questions or pitching a notion.

“Don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to listen to the Ellen Wylie tape?” Rebus asked at one point. “Not that it really matters…”

“Plenty more subscribers we could talk to.”

“Need to know who they are first: think Brains could do that without Corbyn or Steelforth getting a whiff?”

“Tench talked about motive…could we be missing something?”

“Some connection between all three?”

“Come to that, why’s he stopped at three?”

“Usual explanations: he’s gone elsewhere, or we’ve arrested him for something else, or he knows we’re onto him.”

“But we’re not onto him.”

“Media say otherwise.”

“Why the Clootie Well in the first place? Because we were bound to go there?”

“Can’t rule out a local connection.”

“What if this has nothing to do with BeastWatch?”

“Then we’re wasting precious time.”

“Could he be sending a message to the G8? Maybe he’s here right now, holding a banner somewhere.”

“Photo might be on that CD-ROM…”

“And we’d never know.”

“If those clues were left to taunt us, how come he hasn’t followed up? Shouldn’t he be trying to make more of a game of it?”

“Maybe he doesn’t need to follow up.”

“Meaning what?”

“He could be closer than we think…”

“Thanks for that.”

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Go on then.”

“Actually, it’s your turn-I paid for the coffees.”

“There’s got to be a pattern, you know. We are missing something.”

Siobhan’s phone bleeped: text message. She studied it. “Turn on the TV,” she said.

“Which show are you missing?”

But she’d swung her legs off the sofa and punched the button herself. Found the remote and flipped channels. NEWS FLASH across the bottom of the screen. BLASTS IN LONDON.

“Eric sent the text,” she said quietly. Rebus came and stood next to her. There didn’t seem to be much information. A series of blasts or explosions…the London Underground…casualties, several dozen.

“Suspected power surge,” the broadcaster was saying. He didn’t sound convinced.

“Power surge, my ass,” Rebus growled.

Major railway stations closed. Hospitals on alert. The public advised not to try entering the city. Siobhan slumped back onto the sofa, elbows on knees, head in hands.

“Blindsided,” she said quietly.

“Might not just be London,” Rebus replied, but he knew it probably was. Morning rush hour…all those commuters…and transport police sent packing to Scotland for the G8. All those officers sent off from the Met to Scotland. He squeezed shut his eyes, thinking: Lucky it wasn’t yesterday, thousands of revelers in Trafalgar Square, cheering the Olympic result; or Saturday night in Hyde Park…two hundred thousand.

The National Grid had just confirmed that there were no apparent problems with its systems.

Aldgate.

King’s Cross.

Edgware Road.

And fresh speculation that a bus had also been wrecked. The broadcaster’s face was pale. An emergency number was running along the foot of the screen.

“What do we do?” Siobhan asked quietly as the TV showed live pictures from one of the scenes-medics running pell-mell, smoke billowing, wounded sitting curbside. Glass and sirens and the alarms from cars and nearby offices.

“Do?” Rebus echoed. He was saved from answering by Siobhan’s phone. She put it to her ear.

“Mum?” she said. “Yes, we’re watching it right now.” She paused, listening. “I’m sure they’re fine…Yes, you could call the number. Might take a while to get through though.” Another pause to listen. “What? Today? They might have locked down King’s Cross…” She’d half turned from Rebus. He decided to leave the room, let her say whatever needed saying. In the kitchen, he ran the tap, filled the kettle. Listened to the water running: such a basic sound, he almost never heard it. It was just there…

Normal.

Everyday.

And when he closed the tap, there was a faint gurgle. Funny how he couldn’t remember having caught it before. When he turned, Siobhan was standing there.

“Mum wants to go home,” she said, “make sure the neighbors are okay.”

“I don’t even know where they live.”

“Forest Hill,” she told him. “South of the Thames.”

“No lunch then?”

She shook her head. He handed a strip of paaper towel to her and she blew her nose.

“Puts things in perspective, something like this,” she said.

“Not really. It’s been in the air all week. There were times I could almost taste it.”

“That’s three tea bags,” she said.

“What?”

“You’ve just put three tea bags in that mug.” She handed him the teapot. “This what you were thinking of?”

“Maybe,” he conceded. In his mind he was seeing a statue in the desert, smashed to smithereens…

Siobhan had gone home. She would help her parents, maybe take them to the train if that was still the plan. Rebus watched TV. The red double-decker had been ripped apart, its roof lying in the road in front of it. And yet there were survivors. A small miracle, it seemed to him. His instinct was to open the bottle and pour, but so far he’d resisted. Eyewitnesses were telling their stories. The prime minister was on his way south, leaving the foreign secretary in charge at Gleneagles. Blair had made a statement before leaving, flanked by his G8 colleagues. You could just make out the Band-Aids on President Bush’s knuckles. Back on the news, people were talking about crawling over body parts to get out of the trains. Crawling through smoke and blood. Some had used their camera phones to capture the horror. Rebus wondered what instinct had kicked in to make them do that, turning them into war correspondents. The bottle was on the mantelpiece. The tea was cold in his hand. Three bad men had been chosen for death by a person or persons unknown. Ben Webster had fallen to his doom. Big Ger Cafferty and Gareth Tench were squaring up for violence. Puts things in perspective-Siobhan’s words. Rebus wasn’t so sure. Because now more than ever he wanted answers to questions, wanted faces and names. He couldn’t do anything about London or suicide bombers or casual carnage on the scale in front of him. All he could do was lock up a few bad people now and then. Results that didn’t seem to change the bigger picture. Another image came to mind: Mickey as a kid, maybe Kirkcaldy Beach or some holiday in St. Andrews or Blackpool. Frantically scooping up lines of damp sand, creating a barrier against the creeping sea. Working as if his life depended on it. And big brother John, too, using the small plastic shovel to pile the sand on, Mickey patting it down. Twenty, thirty feet long, maybe six inches high…But the first flecks of foam would be arriving before they had a chance, and they’d have to watch their edifice melt, becoming one with its surroundings. Squealing in defeat, stamping their feet and waving their tiny fists at the lapping water and the treacherous shore and the unmoved sky.

And God.

God above all else.

The bottle seemed to be swelling in size, or maybe it was that he was growing smaller. He thought of some lines in a Jackie Leven song: But my boat is so small, and your sea is so immense. Immense, yes, but why did it have to be so full of bloody sharks? When the phone started ringing, he considered not answering. Considered for all of ten seconds. It was Ellen Wylie.