Ian Rankin: The Naming of the Dead

Vicky’s friends had been questioned too, none of them ready to own up. Rebus moved to the next table. Morris Gerald Cafferty stared back at him from photographs and interview transcripts. Rebus had needed to argue his case before Macrae would let him anywhere near. Feeling was, their shared history ran too deep. Some knew them for enemies; others thought them too similar…and way too familiar with each other. Starr for one had voiced his concerns in front of both Rebus and DCI Macrae. Rebus’s snarled attempt to grab his fellow DI by the shirtfront had been, in Macrae’s later words, “just another goal for the other team, John.”

Cafferty was dexterous: fingers in every imaginable criminal pie. Saunas and protection, muscle and intimidation. Drugs, too, which would give him access to heroin. And if not him personally, Colliar’s fellow bouncers for sure. It wasn’t unknown for clubs to be shut down when it emerged that the so-called doormen were controlling the flow of dope into the premises. Any one of them could have decided to get rid of the Rape Beast. Might even have been personal: a disrespectful remark; a slight against a girlfriend. The many and varied possible motives had been explored at length and in detail. On the surface, then, a by-the-book investigation. Nobody could say otherwise. Except…Rebus could see the team’s heart hadn’t been in it. A few questions missed here and there; avenues left unexplored. Notes typed up sloppily. It was the sort of thing only someone close to the case would spot. Effort had been spared throughout, just enough to show what the officers really thought of their victim.

The autopsy, however, had been scrupulous. Professor Gates had said it before: it didn’t bother him who was lying on his slab. They were human beings, and somebody’s daughter or son.

“Nobody’s born bad, John,” he’d muttered, leaning over his scalpel.

“Well, nobody makes them do bad things either,” Rebus had retorted.

“Ah,” Gates had conceded. “A conundrum pored over by wiser heads than ours through the centuries. What makes us keep doing these terrible things to each other?”

Gates hadn’t offered an answer. But something else he’d pointed out resonated with Rebus now as he moved to Siobhan’s desk and picked up one of the postmortem photographs of Colliar. In death we all return to innocence, John…It was true that Colliar’s face seemed at peace, as though nothing had ever troubled it.

The phone was ringing again in Starr’s office. Rebus let it ring, picked up Siobhan’s extension instead. There was a Post-it note affixed to the side of her hard disk: rows of names and phone numbers. He knew better than to try the lab, punched in the cell number instead.

Picked up almost immediately by Ray Duff.

“Ray? It’s DI Rebus.”

“Inviting me to join him on a Friday-night pub crawl?” Rebus’s silence was answered with a sigh. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I’m surprised at you though, Ray, shirking your duties.”

“I don’t sleep in the lab, you know.”

“Except we both know that’s a lie.”

“Okay, I work the odd night…”

“And that’s what I like about you, Ray. See, we’re both driven by that passion for the job.”

“A passion I’m jeopardizing by showing my face at my local pub’s trivia night?”

“Not my place to judge you, Ray. Just wondering how this new Colliar evidence is shaping up.”

Rebus heard a tired chuckle at the other end of the phone. “You never let up, do you?”

“It’s not for me, Ray. I’m just helping out Siobhan. This could mean a big promotion for her if she nails it. She’s the one who found the patch.”

“The evidence only came in three hours ago.”

“Ever heard of striking while the iron is hot?”

“But the beer in front of me is cold, John.”

“It would mean a lot to Siobhan, Ray. She’s looking forward to you claiming that prize.”

“What prize?”

“The chance to show off that car of yours. A day out in the country, just the two of you on those winding roads…Who knows, maybe even a hotel room at the end of it if you play your cards right.” Rebus paused. “What’s that music?”

“One of the trivia questions.”

“Sounds like Steely Dan, ‘Reelin’ in the Years.’”

“But how did the band get their name?”

“A dildo in a William Burroughs novel. Now tell me you’re heading to the lab straight after.”

Well satisfied with the outcome, Rebus treated himself to a mug of coffee and a stretch of the legs. The building was quiet. The desk sergeant had been replaced by one of his juniors. Rebus didn’t know the face, but nodded anyway.

“Been trying to get CID to take a call,” the young officer said. He ran a finger along his shirt collar. His neck was pitted with acne or some species of rash.

“That’ll be me then,” Rebus told him. “What’s the emergency?”

“Trouble at the castle, sir.”

“Have the protests started early?”

The uniform shook his head. “Reports of a scream and a body landing in the gardens. Looks like someone fell from the ramparts.”

“Castle’s not open this time of night,” Rebus stated, brow creasing.

“Dinner for some of the bigwigs…”

“So who ended up going over the edge?”

The constable just shrugged. “Shall I tell them there’s no one available?”

“Don’t be crazy, son,” Rebus announced, heading off to fetch his jacket.

As well as being a major tourist attraction, Edinburgh Castle acted as a working barracks, something Commander David Steelforth stressed to Rebus when he intercepted him just inside the portcullis.

“You get about a bit,” Rebus said by way of response. The Special Branch man was dressed formally: bow tie and cummerbund, dinner jacket, patent shoes.

“Thing is, that means it is quite properly under the aegis of the armed forces.”

“I’m not sure what aegis means, Commander.”

“It means,” Steelforth hissed, losing patience, “military police will be looking into the whys and wherefores of what occurred here.”

“Good dinner, was it?” Rebus was still walking. The path wound uphill, fierce gusts whipping around both men.

“There are important people here, DI Rebus.”

As if on cue, a car appeared from some sort of tunnel ahead. It was making for the gates, forcing Rebus and Steelforth to stand aside. Rebus caught a glimpse of the face in the back: a glint from metal-rimmed glasses; long, pale, worried-looking face. But then the foreign secretary often seemed to look worried, as Rebus pointed out to Steelforth. The Special Branch man frowned, disappointed at the recognition.

“Hope I don’t need to interview him,” Rebus added.

“Look, Inspector…”

But Rebus was moving again. “Here’s the thing, Commander,” he said over his shoulder. “Victim may have fallen-or jumped, or any other ‘why’ or ‘wherefore’-and I’m not disputing he was on army turf when he did, but he landed a few hundred feet farther south, in Princes Street Gardens”-Rebus proffered a smile-“and that makes him mine.”

Rebus started walking again, trying to remember the last time he’d been inside the castle walls. He’d brought his daughter here, of course, but twenty-odd years ago. The castle dominated the Edinburgh skyline. You could see it from Bruntsfield and Inverleith. On the drive in from the airport, it took on the aspect of a lowering Transylvanian lair, and made you wonder if you’d lost your color vision. From Princes Street, Lothian Road, and Johnston Terrace its volcanic sides seemed sheer and impregnable-and so they had proved over the years. Yet approaching from the Lawnmarket, you climbed a gentle slope to its entrance, with little hint of its enormous presence.