Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead

“Three times,” the man confirmed. “In the back. Wounds don’t look all that deep to me.”

“Doesn’t take much,” Rebus stated. “What sort of knife?”

“Hard to tell as yet.” The doctor peered over his half-moon glasses. “Blade about an inch wide, maybe a little less.”

“Anything missing?”

“He’s got some cash on him…credit cards and such. Made identification that bit easier.” The doctor gave a tired smile and turned his clipboard toward Rebus. “If you could countersign here, Inspector.”

But Rebus held his hands up. “Not my case, Doc.” The doctor looked toward Siobhan, but Rebus shook his head slowly and walked off to join her.

“Three stab wounds,” he informed her.

She was staring at Tench’s face, and seemed to be trembling a little.

“Feeling the chill?” he asked.

“It’s really him,” she said quietly.

“You thought he was indestructible?”

“Not quite.” She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the body.

“I suppose we should tell someone.” He looked around for a likely candidate.

“Tell them what?”

“That we’ve been giving Tench a bit of grief. Bound to come out sooner or-”

She had snatched his hand and was dragging him toward the sports center’s gray concrete wall.

“What’s up?”

But she wasn’t about to answer, not until she felt they were far enough away. Even then, she stood so close to him that they could have been readying to waltz. Her face was hidden in shadow.

“Siobhan?” he prompted her.

“You must know who did this,” she said.

“Who?”

“Keith Carberry,” she growled. Then, when he didn’t respond, she raised her face to the heavens and screwed shut her eyes. Rebus noticed that her hands had become clenched fists, her whole body tensed.

“What is it?” he asked quietly. “Siobhan, what the hell have you done?”

Eventually, she opened her eyes, blinking back tears and getting her breathing back under control. “I saw Carberry this morning. We told him-” She paused. “I told him I wanted Gareth Tench.” She glanced back in the direction of the corpse. “Must be his way of delivering…”

Rebus waited for her to meet his eyes. “I saw him this afternoon,” he said. “He was keeping watch on Tench at the city chambers.” He slid his hands into his pockets. “You said we, Siobhan…”

“Did I?”

“Where did you talk to him?”

“The pool hall.”

“Same one Cafferty told us about?” He watched as she nodded. “Cafferty was there, too, wasn’t he?” Her look was the only answer he needed. He pulled his hands from his pockets and slapped one of them against the wall. “For Christ’s sake!” he spat. “You and Cafferty?” She just nodded again. “When he gets his claws into you, Shiv, they don’t come out. All these years you’ve known me, you must’ve seen that.”

“What do I do now?”

He thought for a moment. “If you keep your mouth shut, Cafferty knows he’s got you.”

“But if I own up-”

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Bounced back into uniform maybe.”

“Might as well type out my resignation right now.”

“What did Cafferty say to Carberry?”

“Just that he was to hand us the councilman.”

“Who’s the us, Cafferty or the law?”

She gave a shrug.

“And how was he going to deliver?”

“Hell, John, I don’t know…You’ve said yourself, he was shadowing Tench.”

Rebus looked toward the murder scene. “Bit of a leap from there to stabbing him in the back three times.”

“Maybe not in Keith Carberry’s mind.”

Rebus thought about this for a moment. “We keep it quiet for now,” he decided. “Who else saw you with Cafferty?”

“Just Carberry. There were people in the pool hall, but upstairs it was just the three of us.”

“And you knew Cafferty would be there?” He watched her nod. “Because you’d set the whole thing up with him?” Another nod. “Without thinking to tell me.” He struggled to keep the anger out of his voice.

“Cafferty came to my flat last night,” Siobhan confessed.

“Jesus…”

“He owns the pool hall…that’s how he knew Carberry goes there.”

“You’ve got to stay away from him, Shiv.”

“I know.”

“Damage is done, but we can try some running repairs.”

“Can we?”

He stared at her. “By we I meant I.”

“Because John Rebus can fix anything?” Her face had hardened a little. “I can take my own medicine, John. You don’t always get to do the knight-in-shining-armor thing.”

He placed his hands on his hips. “Are we finished mixing our metaphors?”

“You know why I listened to Cafferty? Why I went to that pool hall knowing he’d be there?” Her voice was shaking with emotion. “He was offering me something I knew I wouldn’t get from the law. You’ve seen it here this week-how the rich and powerful operate, how they get away with anything they like. Keith Carberry went down to Princes Street that day because he thought it’s what his boss wanted. He thought he had Gareth Tench’s blessing to cause as much mayhem as he liked.”

Rebus waited to see if there would be more, then touched his hands to her shoulders. “Cafferty,” he said quietly, “wanted Gareth Tench put out to pasture, and he was happy to use you as a means to that end.”

“He told me he didn’t want him dead.”

“And he told me he did. I had quite a descriptive little rant from him on that subject.”

“We didn’t tell Keith Carberry to kill him,” she stated.

“Siobhan,” Rebus reminded her, “you said it yourself just a minute ago-Keith does pretty much what he thinks people want him to do-powerful people, people who’ve got some measure of control over him. People like Tench…and Cafferty…and you.” He pointed a finger at her.

“So I’m to blame?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“We can all make a mistake, Siobhan.”

“Well, thanks for that.” She turned on her heels and started striding back across the playing field. Rebus looked down at his feet and gave a sigh, then reached into his pocket for cigarettes and lighter.

The lighter was empty. He shook it, tipped it up, blew on it, rubbed it for luck…not so much as a spark. He sauntered back toward the line of police vehicles, asked one of the uniforms if he had a light. His colleague was able to oblige, and Rebus decided he might as well beg another favor.

“I need a lift,” he said, watching Siobhan’s taillights receding into the night. Couldn’t believe Cafferty had gotten his claws into her. No…he could believe it all too readily. Siobhan had wanted to prove something to her parents-not just that she’d made a success of her job, but that it meant something in the greater scheme. She’d wanted them to know there were always answers, always solutions. Cafferty had promised her both.

But at a price-his price.

Siobhan had stopped thinking like a cop, turning back into a daughter again. Rebus thought of how he had let his own family drift away from him, first his wife and daughter, and then his brother. Pushing them away because the job seemed to demand it, demanded his unconditional attention. No room for anyone else…Too late now to do anything about it.

But not too late for Siobhan.

“You still want that lift?” one of the uniforms was asking. Rebus nodded and got in.

His first stop: Craigmillar police station. He got himself a cup of coffee and waited for the team to reconvene. Stood to reason they’d set up the murder room here. Sure enough, the cars started to arrive. Rebus didn’t know the faces, but introduced himself. The detective angled his head.