The Naming of the Dead

“It’s not enough, is it?” she repeated. “Just…symbolic…because there’s nothing else you can do.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked with a smile.

“The naming of the dead,” she told him, resting her head against his shoulder.

Epilogue

29

Monday morning he was on the first train south. Left Waverley at six, due into King’s Cross just after ten. At eight, he called Gayfield Square and told them he was sick, which wasn’t so far from the truth. If they’d asked him the cause, he might have had some problems.

“Spending the overtime” was all the duty sergeant said.

Rebus went to the restaurant car and ate his fill of breakfast. Back at his seat, he read the paper and tried to avoid his fellow passengers. There was a surly-looking youth across the table, nodding along to the guitar music leaking from his earphones. Businesswoman next to him, a

“Fine” was all Rebus had said. The newsstand at Waverley had opened only a few minutes before the train was due to leave, but Rebus had managed to grab a Scotsman. Mairie’s piece had made the front page. It wasn’t the main story, and it was full of words like alleged and perhaps and potentially, but the headline still gladdened Rebus’s heart: “Arms Boss in Parliment Loans Mystery.”

Rebus knew an opening salvo when he saw one; Mairie would be holding back plenty of ammo for the future. He’d brought no luggage with him; fully intended being on the last train back. There was the option to upgrade to a sleeper compartment, and it might even come to that-a chance to question the crew, see if any of them had worked the sleeper south from Edinburgh on Wednesday. Rebus had, it seemed, been the last person to see Stacey Webster-unless the GNER staff could oblige. If he’d followed her to Waverley that night, he could have satisfied himself that she’d actually taken the train. As it was, she could be anywhere-including tucked away somewhere until Steelforth could arrange a new identity for her.

Rebus doubted she’d have any trouble picking up a new life. It had dawned on him last night: all those multiple personalities of hers: cop, Santal, sister, killer. Bloody quadrophenic, just like the Who album said. On Sunday, Ke

“They were in the will,” Ke

After they’d hauled the whole lot up two flights of stairs, and Ke

And Quadrophenia, of course, its corners creased, the vinyl scarred but still playable.

Sitting on the train, Rebus remembered Stacey’s last words to him: Never told him you were sorry…Just before she’d bolted to the toilet. He’d thought she’d been talking about Mickey, but now realized she was meaning her and Ben, too. Sorry she’d killed three men? Sorry she’d gone and told her brother? Ben realizing he would have to turn her in, feeling the thick stone rampart behind him, sensing the drop immediately behind it…Rebus thought of Cafferty’s memoirs-Changeling. Decided it was a title most people could use for their own autobiographies. People you knew, they might always look the same on the surface-a few gray hairs or a thickening around the middle-but you could never tell what was going on behind their eyes.

It was Darlington before his phone rang, waking his softly snoring neighbor. The number was Siobhan’s. Rebus ignored it, so she sent a text, which-newspaper finished and countryside boring-he eventually opened.

WHERE R U? CORBYN WANTS 2 TALK 2 US. NEED 2 TELL HIM STH. CALL ME.

He knew he couldn’t, not from the train-she’d guess where he was headed. To delay the inevitable, he waited half an hour and then texted a reply.

IN BED NOT WELL TALK LATER

Hadn’t mastered any of the punctuation. She texted straight back:

HANGOVER?

LOCH LOMOND OYSTERS, he responded.

Switched the phone off to save its battery, then closed his eyes, just as the conductor a

“Next and final,” the loudspeaker repeated.

There had been an a

“All right,” Steelforth had said, properly wary. Background noise: Edinburgh airport; the commander heading home. Rebus on the other end of the line, having just fed him a sack of crap, and now asking for a favor.

Result: a name, an address, and a street map.

Steelforth had even apologized for Pe

Control…

Rebus picturing Councilman Tench again, trying to manage an entire community, unable to alter his own destiny.

Less than an hour’s walk, Rebus had estimated. And not a bad day for it. One of the bombs had gone off on a subway train between Russell Square and King’s Cross, another on a bus heading from Euston to Russell Square. All three were on the map he held in his hands. The sleeper would have arrived at Euston around seven that morning.

8:56 a.m.-the subway blast.

9:47 a.m.-the bus blast.