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And he was moving again, shaking another hand, rubbing another child’s head. The reporter had spotted Siobhan and came bounding over to her, holding out the tape machine.
“Care to add a police perspective, DS Clarke?”
“No.”
“I hear that’s two nights ru
“I’m not in the mood, Mairie.” Siobhan paused. “You’re really going to write a story about this?”
“Eyes of the world are on us.” She shut off the machine. “Tell John I hope he got the package.”
“What package?”
“The stuff about Pe
“He’ll come up with something.”
Mairie nodded. “Just hope he remembers me when he does.” She was studying Siobhan’s cup. “Is that tea? I’m gasping.”
“From the tent,” Siobhan said, nodding in that direction. “It’s a bit weak though. Tell them you want it strong.”
“Thanks,” the reporter said, moving away.
“Don’t mention it,” Siobhan said quietly, pouring the contents of her cup onto the ground.
The Live 8 concert was on the late-night news. Not just London, but Philadelphia and the Eden Project and elsewhere. Viewing figures in the hundreds of millions, and worries that with the concert ru
“Tut-tut,” Rebus said, draining the dregs from a last can of beer. The Make Poverty History march was on the screen now, a noisy celeb stating that he just felt the need to be “here on this day, making history by helping make poverty a thing of the past.” Rebus flipped to Cha
Cyril Colliar, muscle for Big Ger Cafferty. Looking like a targeted hit at first, but now almost certainly not. Wrong place, wrong time.
Trevor Guest…so far only a piece of plastic, but all those coded numbers would yield an identity. Rebus had been through the phone book for Guests, found almost twenty. Called half of those, with only four answering-and none of them knew a Trevor.
Keogh’s Garage…There were a dozen Keoghs in the Edinburgh phone book, but by then Rebus had given up on the notion that all three victims would be from the city. Draw a wide enough circumference around Auchterarder and you would take in Dundee and Stirling as easily as Edinburgh – Glasgow and Aberdeen, too, at a push. The victims could have come from anywhere. Nothing to be done about it till Monday.
Nothing except sit and brood, drinking beers and making a sortie to the corner shop for an oven-ready di
Rebus had nodded his agreement.
One autopsy on a member of parliament. Three victims of some anonymous killer.
Somehow, amazing didn’t quite do it justice.
SIDE TWO. Dance with the Devil
Sunday, July 3, 2005
6
So how was The Who?” Siobhan asked. It was late morning on Sunday, and she’d invited Rebus over for brunch. His contribution: a packet of sausages and four floury rolls. She’d put them to one side and made scrambled eggs instead, topping each helping with slices of smoked salmon and a few capers.
“The Who was good,” Rebus said, using his fork to maneuver the capers to the side of his plate.
“You should try one,” she admonished him. He wrinkled his nose and ignored the advice.
“Floyd was good, too,” he told her. “No major fallings-out.” They were facing each other across the small foldaway table in her living room. She lived in a tenement just off Broughton Street, five minutes’ walk from Gayfield Square. “What about you?” he asked, looking around the room. “No signs of Saturday-night debauchery.”
“Chance would be a fine thing.” Her smile grew thoughtful, and she told him about Niddrie.
“Lucky to get out in one piece,” Rebus commented.
“Your friend Mairie was there, writing a piece on Councilman Tench. She said something about some notes she’d sent you…”
“Richard Pe
“So are you getting anywhere?”
“Onward and upward, Shiv. I also tried phoning a few Guests and Keoghs-with nothing to show for it. Might as well have been chasing a few hoods around the houses.” He’d cleared his plate-capers aside-and was leaning back in his chair. Wanted a cigarette but knew he should wait till she’d finished eating. “Oh, and I had an interesting encounter myself, as it happens.”
So he told her about Cafferty, and by the time he was done her plate was empty.
“He’s the last thing we need,” she said, rising to her feet. Rebus made the begi
Siobhan’s rules.
“More coffee?” she called.
“Keep it coming,” he answered.
She came in from the kitchen carrying a fresh pot. “There’s another march later on,” she said. “Stop the War Coalition.”
“Bit late for all that, I’d have thought.”
“And the G8 Alternatives…George Galloway’s going to be speaking.”
Rebus gave a snort, stubbed out his cigarette on the windowsill. Siobhan had wiped clean the table, lifted one of the boxes onto it. The boxes she’d asked Rebus to bring.
The Cyril Colliar case.
The offer of double pay-sanctioned by James Corbyn-had persuaded the Scene of Crime Unit to put a team together. They were on their way to the Clootie Well. Siobhan had warned them to keep a low profile: “Don’t want local CID getting sniffy.” Advised that SOCOs from Stirling had covered the same area two days before, one of the Edinburgh team had given a chuckle.
“Time we let the grown-ups try it then” was all he’d said.
Siobhan wasn’t hopeful. All the same, on Friday all they’d been doing was bagging evidence of one crime. Now, the signs pointed to two more. It was worth a bit of sifting and lifting.
She started unloading files and folders from the boxes. “You’ve been through this lot already?” she asked.
Rebus slid the window closed. “And all I learned was that Colliar was a big bad bastard. Chances are, he had more enemies than friends.”
“And the odds of him falling prey to a random killing?”
“Slim-we both know that.”
“And yet that appears to be what happened.”
Rebus held up a finger. “We’re reading a lot into a couple of items of clothing, owners unknown.”
“I tried Trevor Guest with Missing Persons.”
“And?”
She shook her head. “Not on any local register.” She tossed an emptied box onto the sofa. “It’s a Sunday morning in July, John…not a hell of a lot we can do before tomorrow.”
He nodded. “Guest’s bank card?”
“It’s HSBC. They’ve only one branch in Edinburgh -precious few in Scotland as a whole.”
“Is that good or bad?”
She gave a sigh. “I got through to one of their call centers. They told me to try the branch on Monday morning.”
“Isn’t there some sort of branch code on the card?”
Siobhan nodded. “Not the sort of information they give out over the phone.”
Rebus sat down at the table. “Keogh’s Garage?”
“Information did what they could. No listing on the Web.”
“The name’s Irish.”
“There are a dozen Keoghs in the phone book.”
He looked at her and smiled. “So you checked too?”
“Soon as I’d sent the SOCOs off.”