Ian Rankin - Mortal Causes

Rebus didn't like Ormiston. He had a huge round face marked with freckles, and a semi-permanent grin too close to a sneer for comfort. His hair was thickly brown, always in need of a comb or a cut. He reminded Rebus of an overgrown schoolboy. Seeing him at his desk next to the bald and schoolmasterly Blackwood was, like seeing the classroom dunce placed next to the teacher so an eye could be kept on his work.

But there was something particularly wrong with Ormiston this afternoon. Not that Rebus really cared. All he cared about was the headache which had woken him on the approach to Edinburgh. A midday drinking headache, a glare behind the eyes and a stupor further back in the brain. He'd noticed at the airport, the way Ormiston was looking at Smylie, Smylie not realising it.

'Got any paracetamol on you?’ Rebus asked.

`Sorry.’

And he caught Rebus's eye again, as if trying to communicate something. Normally he was a nosy bugger, yet he hadn't asked about their trip. Even Smylie noticed this.

'What is it, Ormiston? A vow of omerta or something?’

Ormiston still wasn't talking. He concentrated on his driving, giving Rebus plenty of time for thought. He had things to tell Kilpatrick… and things he wanted to keep to himself for the time being.

When Ormiston stopped the car at Fettes, he turned to Rebus.

'Not you. We've got to meet the Chief somewhere.’

`What?’ Smylie, half out of his door, stopped. `What's up?’

Ormiston just shook his head. Rebus looked to Smylie.

Ormiston `See you later then.’

`Aye, sure.’

And Smylie got out, relieving the car's suspension. As soon as he'd closed the door, Ormiston moved off.

`What is it, Ormiston?’

`Best if the Chief tells you himself.’

`Give me a clue then.’

`A murder,' Ormiston said, changing up a gear. `There's been a murder.’

The scene had been cordoned off.

It was a narrow street of tall tenements. St Stephen Street had always enjoyed a rakish reputation, something to do with its mix of student flats, cafes and junk shops. There were several bars, one of them catering mainly to bikers. Rebus had heard a story that Nico, ex-Velvet Underground, had lived here for a time. It could be true. St Stephen Street, connecting the New Town to Raeburn Place, was a quiet thoroughfare which still managed to exude charm and seediness in equal measures.

The tenements either side of the street boasted basements, and a lot of these were flats with their own separate stairwells and entrances. Patience lived in just such a flat not seven minutes' walk away. Rebus walked carefully down the stone steps. They were often worn and slippy. At the bottom, in a sort of damp courtyard, the owner or tenant of the flat had attempted to create a garden of terracotta pots and hanging baskets. But most of the plants had died, probably from lack of light, or perhaps from rough treatment at the hands of the builders. Scaffolding stretched up the front of the tenement, much of it covered with thick polythene, crackling in the breeze.

'Cleaning the facade,' someone said. Rebus nodded. The front door of the flat faced a whitewashed wall, and in the wall were set two doors. Rebus knew what these were, they were storage areas, burrowed out beneath the surface of the pavement. Patience had almost identical doors, but never used the space for anything; the cellars were too damp. One of the doors stood open. The floor was mostly moss, some of which was being scraped into an evidence bag by a SOCO.

Kilpatrick, watching this, was listening to Blackwood, who ran his left hand across his pate, tucking an imaginary hair, behind his ear. Kilpatrick saw Rebus.

'Hello, John.’

'Sir.’

'Where's Smylie?’

Ormiston was coming down the steps. Rebus nodded towards him. 'The Quiet Man there dropped him at HQ. So what's the big mystery?’

Blackwood answered. 'Flat's been on the market a few months, but not selling. Owner decided to tart it up a bit, see if that would do the trick. Builders turned up yesterday: Today one of them decided to take a look at the cellars. He found a body.’

`Been there long?’

Blackwood shook his head. 'They're doing the postmortem this evening.’

'Any tattoos?’

'No tattoos,' said Kilpatrick. 'Thing is, John, it was Calumn.’

The Chief Inspector looked genuinely troubled, almost ready for tears. His face had lost its colour, and had lengthened as though the muscles had lost all motivation. He massaged his forehead with a hand.

`Calumn?’

Rebus shook away his hangover. 'Calumn Smylie?’

He remembered the big man, in the back of the HGV with his brother. Tried imagine him dead, but couldn't. Especially not here, in a cellar…

Kilpatrick blew his nose loudly, then wiped it. `I suppose I'd better get back and tell Ken.’

'No need, sir.’

Ken Smylie was standing at street level, gripping the gloss-black railings. He looked like he might uproot the lot.

Instead he arched back his head and gave a high-pitched howl, the sound swirling up into the sky as a smattering of rain began to fall.

Smylie had to be ordered to go home, they couldn't shift him otherwise. Everyone else in the office moved like automatons. DCI Kilpatrick had some decisions to make, chief among them whether or not to tie together the two murder inquiries.

`He was stabbed,' he told Rebus. `No signs of a struggle, certainly no torture, nothing like that.’

There was relief in his voice, a relief Rebus could understand. 'Stabbed and dumped. Whoever did it probably saw the For Sale sign outside the flat, didn't reckon on the body being found for a while.’

He had produced a bottle of Laphroaig from the bottom drawer of his desk, and poured himself a glass.

`Medicinal,' he explained. But Rebus declined the offer of glass. He'd taken three paracetamol washed down with Irn-Bru. He noticed that the level in the Laphroaig bottle was low. Kilpatrick must have a prescription.

`You think he was rumbled?’

`What else?’ said Kilpatrick, dribbling more malt into his glass.

'I'd have expected another punishment killing, something with a bit of ritual about it.’

`Ritual?’

Kilpatrick considered this. `He wasn't killed there, you know. The pathologist said there wasn't enough blood Maybe they held their "ritual" wherever they killed him. Christ, and I let him go out on a limb He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose, then took a deep breath. 'Well, I've got a murder inquiry to start up, the high hiedyins are going to be asking questions.’

'Yes, sir.’ Rebus stood up, but stopped at the door. 'Two murders, two cellars, two lots of builders.’

Kilpatrick nodded, but said nothing. Rebus opened the door.

'Sir, who knew about Calumn?’

'How do you mean?’

'Who knew he was undercover? Just this office, or anyone else?’

Kilpatrick furrowed his brow. 'Such as?’

'Special Branch, say.’

'Just this office,' Kilpatrick said quietly. Rebus turned to leave. 'John, what did you find out in Belfast?’

'That Sword and Shield exists. That the RUC know it's operating here on the mainland. That they told Special Branch in London.’

He paused. 'That DI Abernethy probably knows all about it.’

Having said which, Rebus left the room. Kilpatrick stared at the door for a full minute.

'Christ almighty,' he said. His telephone was ringing. He was slow to answer it.

'Is it true?’ Brian Holmes asked.

Siobhan Clarke was waiting for an answer too.

'It's true,' said Rebus. They were in the Murder Room at St Leonard's. 'He was working on something that might well be connected to Billy Cunningham.’

'So what now, sir?’

'We need to talk to Millie and Murdock again.’

'We've talked to them.’