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“It’s my house, John. Denise came to live with me after she…” She cleared her throat. “Think I swallowed a bug,” she apologized. “I was going to say, after her divorce.”
Rebus nodded at the explanation. “Well, it’s a peaceful spot, I’ll give you that. Easy out here to forget all about the job.”
The light from the kitchen caught her smile. “I get the feeling it wouldn’t work for you. I’m not sure anything short of a sledgehammer would.”
“Or a few of those,” Rebus countered, nodding toward the row of empty wine bottles lined up beneath the kitchen window.
He took it slow, driving back into town. Loved the city at night, the taxicabs and lolling pedestrians, warm sodium glare from the streetlamps, darkened shops, curtained tenements. There were places he could go-a bakery, a night watchman’s desk, a casino-places where he was known and where tea would be brewed, gossip exchanged. Years back, he could have stopped for a chat with the working girls on Coburg Street, but most of them had either moved on or died. And after he, too, was gone, Edinburgh would remain. These same scenes would be enacted, a play whose run was never ending. Killers would be caught and punished; others would remain at large. The world and the underworld, coexisting down the generations. By week’s end, the G8 circus would have trundled elsewhere. Geldof and Bono would have found new causes. Richard Pe
Close…but never quite close enough.
The Meadows seemed deserted as he turned up Marchmont Road. Parked at the top of Arden Street and walked back downhill to his tenement. Two or three times a week he got flyers through his mailbox, firms eager to sell his apartment for him. The one upstairs had gone for two hundred K. Add that sort of money to his CID pension and he was, as Siobhan herself had said, “on Easy Street.” Problem was, it wasn’t a destination that appealed. He stooped to pick up the mail from inside the door. There was a menu from a new Indian take-out. He’d pin it up in the kitchen, next to the others. Meantime, he made himself a ham sandwich, ate it standing in the kitchen, staring at the array of empty cans on the work surface. How many bottles had there been in Ellen Wylie’s garden? Fifteen, maybe twenty. A lot of wine. He’d seen an empty Tesco’s bag in the kitchen. She probably did a regular recycling run, same time she did the shopping. Say every two weeks. Twenty bottles in two weeks; ten a week-Denise came to stay with me after she…after her divorce. Rebus hadn’t seen any nighttime insects illuminated against the kitchen window. Ellen had looked washed out. Easy to blame it on the day’s events, but Rebus knew it went deeper. The lines under her bloodshot eyes had taken weeks to accumulate. Her figure had been thickening for some time. He knew that Siobhan had once seen Ellen as a rival-two DSes who’d have to fight tooth and nail for promotion. But lately, Siobhan had stopped saying as much. Maybe because Ellen didn’t look quite so dangerous to her these days…
He poured a glass of water and took it into the living room, gulped it down until only half an inch was left, then added a slug of malt to the remainder. Tipped it back and felt the heat work its way down his throat. Topped it up and settled into his chair. Too late now to put any music on. He rested the glass against his forehead, closed his eyes.
Slept.
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
11
The best Glenrothes could offer was a lift to the railway station at Markinch.
Siobhan sat on the train-too early yet for the commuter rush-and looked out at the passing countryside. Not that she saw any of it: her mind was replaying footage of the riot, the same hours of footage she had just walked away from. Sound and fury, swearing and swinging, the clatter of hurled objects and the grunts of exertion. Her thumb was numb from pressure on the remote control. Pause…slow back…slow forward…play. Fast forward…rewind…pause…play. In some of the still photographs, faces had been circled-people the force would want to question. The eyes burned with hatred. Of course, some of them weren’t demonstrators at all-just local troublemakers ready to rumble, smothered in Burberry scarves and baseball caps. In the U.S., they’d probably be called juvenile delinquents, but up here they were neds. One of the team, bringing her coffee and a chocolate bar, had said as much as he stood behind her shoulder.
“Neddy the Ned from Nedtown.”
The woman across from Siobhan on the train had the morning paper open. The riot had made the front page. But so, too, had Tony Blair. He was in Singapore, pitching for London to win the Olympic bid. The year 2012 seemed a long way off; so did Singapore. Siobhan couldn’t believe he was going to make it back to Gleneagles in time to shake all those hands-Bush and Putin, Schröder and Chirac. The paper also said there was little sign of Saturday’s Hyde Park crowd heading north.
“Sorry, is this seat taken?”
Siobhan shook her head and the man squeezed in beside her.
“Wasn’t yesterday terrible?” he said. Siobhan grunted a reply, but the woman across the table said she’d been shopping in Rose Street and had only just escaped being caught up in it. The two then started trading war stories, while Siobhan stared out the window again. The skirmishes had been just that. Police tactics had been unchanged: go in hard; let them know the city’s ours, not theirs. From the footage, there’d been obvious provocation. But they’d been forewarned-no point in joining a demonstration if it didn’t make the news. Anarchists couldn’t afford ad campaigns. Baton charges were their equivalent of free publicity. The photos in the paper proved it: cops with gritted teeth swinging their clubs; rioters defenseless on the ground, being dragged away by faceless uniforms. All very George Orwell. None of it got Siobhan any closer to finding out who had attacked her mother, or why.
But she wasn’t about to give up.
Her eyes stung when she blinked, and every few blinks the world seemed to swim out of focus. She needed sleep but was wired on caffeine and sugar.
“Sorry, but are you all right?”
It was her neighbor again. His hand was brushing her arm. When she blinked her eyes open, she could feel the single tear ru
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a bit tired.”
“Thought maybe we’d upset you,” the woman across the table was saying, “going on about yesterday…”
Siobhan shook her head, saw that the woman had finished with her paper. “Mind if I…?”
“No, pet, you go ahead.”
Siobhan managed a smile and opened the tabloid, studying the pictures, looking for the photographer’s name…
At Haymarket she lined up for a cab. Got out at the Western General and went straight to the ward. Her father was slurping tea in the reception area. He’d slept in his clothes and hadn’t managed a shave, the bristles gray on his cheeks and chin. He looked old to her, old and suddenly mortal.
“How is she?” Siobhan asked.
“Not too bad. Due to get the scan just before lunch. How about you?”
“Still haven’t found the bastard.”
“I meant, how are you feeling?”
“I’m all right.”
“You were up half the night, weren’t you?”
“Maybe a bit more than half,” she conceded with a smile. Her phone beeped: not a message, just warning her its battery was low. She switched it off. “Can I see her?”
“They’re getting her ready. Said they’d tell me when they’d finished. How’s the outside world?”
“Ready to face another day.”
“Can I buy you a coffee?”
She shook her head. “I’m swimming in the stuff.”
“I think you should get some rest, love. Come see her this afternoon, after the tests.”