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She’d nodded, given him a wink and a smile. Gestures she’d learned from him, used whenever he was pla
A wink and a smile, and then she was gone.
Someone had painted a large anarchy symbol on the doors of the C Division police HQ in Torphichen Place. It was an old, crumbling building, with twice the atmosphere of Gayfield Square. Street sweepers were gathering debris and overtime outside. Broken glass, bricks and stones, fast-food cartons.
The desk sergeant buzzed Rebus in. Some of the Ca
Reynolds didn’t bother to stifle a belch as Rebus walked into the room. “It’s the specter at the feast!” he called out in recognition. “I hear you’re about as welcome near the G8 as the Rebel Clown Army.” But he raised his can in a toast anyway.
“That cuts to the quick, Ray. Been hectic, has it?”
“We should be on bonuses.” Reynolds held up a fresh beer, but Rebus shook his head.
“Come to see where the action is?” Davidson added.
“Just need a word with Ellen,” Rebus explained, nodding in the direction of the room’s only other occupant. DS Ellen Wylie looked up from the report she was hiding behind. Her blond hair was cut short, with a center parting. She’d put on some weight since the days when Rebus had worked a couple of cases with her. Her cheeks had filled out, and were now flushed, something Reynolds could not resist referring to by rubbing his hands together and then holding them out in her direction, as though warming them at an open fire.
She was rising to her feet, but without making eye contact with the intruder. Davidson asked if it was anything he should know about. Rebus just shrugged. Wylie had lifted her jacket from the back of her chair, picked up her shoulder bag.
“I was calling it a night anyway,” she a
“What do you reckon, Shug? Nice when love blossoms between colleagues.” Laughter followed her out of the room. In the corridor, she leaned against the wall and let her head drop.
“Long day?” Rebus guessed.
“You ever tried questioning a German anarcho-syndicalist?”
“Not recently.”
“All had to be processed tonight so the courts could have them tomorrow.”
“Today,” Rebus corrected her, tapping his watch. She checked her own.
“Is that really the time?” She sounded exhausted. “I’ll be back here in six hours.”
“I’d offer to buy you a drink if the pubs were still open.”
“I don’t need a drink.”
“A lift home?”
“My car’s outside.” She thought for a moment. “No, it’s not-didn’t bring it in today.”
“Good move, considering.”
“We were warned not to.”
“Foresight is a wonderful thing. And it means I can give you that lift home after all.” Rebus waited until her eyes met his. He was smiling. “You still haven’t asked what I want.”
“I know what you want.” She bristled slightly, and he raised his hands in surrender.
“Easy now,” he told her. “Don’t want you getting all…”
“All what?”
Walking straight into his punch line. “Torn up inside,” he obliged.
Ellen Wylie shared a house with her divorced sister.
It was a terrace in Cramond. The back garden ended in a sheer drop to the River Almond. The night being mild, and Rebus needing to smoke, they sat at a table outside. Wylie kept her voice low-didn’t want the neighbors complaining, and besides, her sister’s bedroom window was open. She brought out mugs of milky tea.
“Nice spot,” Rebus told her. “I like that you can hear the water.”
“There’s a stream just over there.” She pointed into the darkness. “Masks the noise of the planes.”
Rebus nodded his understanding: they were directly under the flight path into Turnhouse Airport. This time of night, it had only taken them fifteen minutes from Torphichen Place. On the way, she’d told him her story.
“So I wrote something for the Web site…not against the law, is it? I was just so pissed off at the system. We bust a gut to get these animals to court, and then the lawyers do their damnedest to get their sentences whittled away to nothing.”
“Is that all it was?”
She’d shifted in the passenger seat. “What else?”
“Tornupinside-sounds like it was more personal.”
She’d stared through the windshield. “No, John, just angry…Too many hours spent on rape cases, sexual assault, domestic abuse-maybe it takes a woman to understand.”
“Which is why you phoned Siobhan back? I recognized your voice straight off.”
“Yes, that was particularly devious of you.”
“My middle name…”
Now, seated in her garden with a cold breeze blowing, Rebus buttoned his jacket and asked about the Web site. How did she find it? Did she know the Jensens? Had she ever met with them…?
“I remember the case” was all she said.
“Vicky Jensen?” She nodded slowly. “Did you work on it?”
A shake of the head. “But I’m glad he’s dead. Show me where he’s buried and I’ll dance a little jig.”
“Edward Isley and Trevor Guest are dead, too.”
“Look, John, all I did was write a bit of a blog…I was letting off steam.”
“And now three of the men listed on the site are dead. A blow to the head and a smack overdose. You’ve worked murders, Ellen…what does that MO tell you?”
“Someone with access to hard drugs.”
“Anything else?”
She thought for a moment. “You tell me.”
“Killer didn’t want a face-to-face with the victims. Maybe because they were bigger and stronger. Didn’t really want them to suffer either-a straight KO and then the injection. Doesn’t that sound like a woman to you?”
“How’s your tea, John?”
“Ellen…”
She slapped a palm against the tabletop. “If they were listed on BeastWatch, they were grade-A scumbags…don’t expect me to feel sorry for them.”
“What about catching the killer?”
“What about it?”
“You want them to get away with it?”
She was staring into the darkness again. The wind was rustling the trees nearby. “Know what we had today, John? We had a war, cut-and-dried-good guys and bad…”
Rebus’s thought: Tell that to Siobhan.
“But it isn’t always like that, is it?” she went on. “Sometimes the line blurs.” She turned her gaze on him. “You should know that better than most, number of corners I’ve seen you cut.”
“I make a lousy role model, Ellen.”
“Maybe so, but you’re pla
“Him or her. That’s why I need to get a statement from you.” She opened her mouth to complain, but he held up a hand. “You’re the only person I know who used the site. The Jensens have closed it down, so I can’t be sure what might have been on there.”
“You want me to help?”
“By answering a few questions.”
She gave a harsh, quiet laugh. “You know I’ve got court later today?”
Rebus was lighting another cigarette. “Why Cramond?” he asked. She seemed surprised by the change of subject.
“It’s a village,” she explained. “A village inside a city-best of both worlds.” She paused. “Has the interview already started? Is this you getting me to drop my guard?”
Rebus shook his head. “Just wondered whose idea it was.”