Exit Music

That's a decision for DCI Macrae.'

'How come you didn't tell Sol we've got Todd working with us?'

'Need-to-know basis, Phyl.' Clarke stared at Hawes. You in a hurry to see the back of PC Goodyear?'

'Just so long as he remembers he is a PC. Now that the suite's filling up, he's looking too comfortable in that suit of his.'

'Meaning what exactly?'

'Some of us have worked our way out of uniform, Siobhan.'

'CID's a closed shop, is it?' Clarke turned away from Hawes and started moving, but stopped abruptly at the corner. From where she stood, it was about sixty feet to the spot where Alexander Todorov was murdered.

'What are you thinking?' Hawes asked.

'I'm wondering about Nancy. We're assuming she was on her way to Sol's when she found the body. But she could've walked up here, rung his bell a few times, maybe thumped on his door…'

'Not knowing he's been injured in a brawl?'

'Exactly.'

'And meantime Todorov's managed to stagger from the car park…'

Clarke was nodding.

Tou think she saw something?' Hawes added.

'Saw or heard. Maybe hid around this corner, while Todorov's attacker followed him and delivered the final blow.'

'And her reason for not telling us any of this…?'

'Fear, I suppose.'

'Fear'll do it every time,' Hawes concurred. 'What was that line from Todorov's poem…?'

'”He averted his eyesEnsuring he would not have to testify.“'

'The sort of lesson Nancy might have learned from Sol Goodyear.'

'Yes,' Clarke agreed. Tfes, she might.'

26

Rebus was eating a bag of crisps and listening again to Eddie Gentry's CD on his car stereo. Except that it wasn't stereo exactly, one of the speakers having packed in. Didn't really matter when it was just one man and his guitar. He'd already finished the first packet of crisps, plus a curried-vegetable samosa bought from a corner shop in Polwarth and washed down with a bottle of still water, which he tried to persuade himself made it a balanced meal. He was parked at the bottom end of Cafferty's street and as far as possible from any of the streetlamps. For once, he didn't want the gangster spotting him. Then again, he couldn't even be sure Cafferty was at home: the man's car was in the driveway, but that didn't mean much in itself. Some of the house lights were on, but maybe just to deter intruders. Rebus couldn't see any sign of the bodyguard who lived in the coach-house to the rear of the property. Cafferty never seemed to use him much, leading Rebus to believe he was on the payroll for reasons of vanity rather than necessity. Siobhan had texted a couple of times, ostensibly to ask if he fancied supper one night. He knew she'd be wondering what he was up to.

Two hours he'd been parked there, for no good reason. The fifteen-minute break spent at the corner shop had given Cafferty ample time to head out without Rebus being any the wiser. Maybe for once the gangster would be using his room at the Caledonian.

As a surveillance, it was laughable, but then he wasn't even sure it was a surveillance. Might be it was just a pretext for not going home, where the only thing waiting was a reissue of Joh

a single speaker. First stereo he'd ever owned, one of the speakers had packed in after only a month. There was a track on a Velvet Underground album, all the instruments on one cha

'Either that or I've just not got the herd mentality,' he'd argued back. These days, she had an MP3 player and bought stuff online.

He would tease her by asking if he could take a look at the album cover or lyric sheet.

Tou're missing the big picture,' he'd told her. 'A good album should be more than the sum of its parts.'

'Like police work?' she'd guessed, smiling. He hadn't bothered admitting that he was just coming to that…

He'd finished the crisps and folded the bag into a narrow strip so he could tie it into a knot. Didn't know why he did that, just seemed neater somehow. A mate back in army days had done it, and Rebus had followed suit. It made a change from putting a match under the empty packet and watching it shrivel to a miniature version of itself, like something from a doll's house. Simple pleasures, same as sitting in a car on a quiet nighttime street, music playing and belly full. He would give it another hour. He had The Who's Endless Wire for when he got fed up of Gentry. Hadn't yet worked out what the title meant, but because he'd bought the CD at least he had the lyrics.

A car was reversing out of some gates up the road. Looked to Rebus very much like Cafferty's gates, Cafferty's car. Being driven by the bodyguard, because there was a reading light on in the back seat, illuminating Cafferty's dome of a head. He seemed to be peering at some papers. Rebus waited. The car was turning downhill, meaning it would drive straight past him. He ducked down, waiting until its lights had passed. It signalled right, and Rebus turned the ignition, doing a three-point turn and following. At the Granville Terrace junction, Cafferty's car jumped out in front of a double-decker bus. Rebus had to wait for traffic to clear, but knew there was nothing Cafferty could do now until Leven Street. He stayed behind the bus until it signalled to pick up passengers, then moved out and past it. There was a gap of a hundred yards between him and the car in front. Eventually its brake lights glowed as it reached the traffic lights at the King's Theatre. As Rebus crawled nearer, he saw that something was wrong.

It wasn't Cafferty's car.

He drew up behind it. The car in front of it, stopped on red, wasn't Cafferty either. No way the bodyguard could have passed both cars and got through the lights while they were still on green.

Rebus had been behind the bus for maybe a couple of minutes.

There had been the Viewforth crossroads, but he'd looked both ways and seen no sign of Cafferty. Had to have turned sharpish down one of the narrow side streets, but which one? He did another three-point turn, a taxi sounding a complaint as it waited to follow him back along Gilmore Place. There were a few boarding houses whose front gardens had been paved and turned into car parking, but none of the vehicles matched Cafferty's Bentley.

“You wait two solid hours and then you lose him at the first hurdle,' Rebus muttered to himself. There was a convent, its gates open, but Rebus doubted he'd find the gangster there. Roads off to left and right, but none looked promising. At the Viewforth traffic lights he turned the car again. This time he signalled left and headed down a narrow one-way street towards the canal. It wasn't well lit and wouldn't be used much this time of night, meaning he'd stick out like a sore thumb, so when a kerbside parking space appeared, he reversed into it. There was a bridge across the canal, but it was blocked to everything except bikes and pedestrians. As Rebus headed that way on foot, he finally saw the Bentley. It was parked up next to some wasteland. A couple of canal boats were moored for the night, smoke billowing from the chimney of one of them. Rebus hadn't been down this way in ages. New blocks of flats had appeared from somewhere, but it didn't look as though many of them were occupied. Then he saw a sign stating that they were 'serviced apartments'. The Leamington Lift Bridge was a construction of wrought iron with a wooden roadway. It could be raised to let barges and pleasure boats through, but otherwise lay level with either bank of the canal. Two men were standing in the middle of it, their shadows thrown on to the water by a near-as dammit full moon. Cafferty was doing the talking, throwing out his arms to illustrate each point. The focus of his interest seemed to be the canal's far bank. There was a walkway stretching from Fountainbridge to the city limits and beyond. At one time it had been a treacherous spot, but a new footpath had been built and the canal seemed a lot cleaner than Rebus remembered it. Beyond the footpath stood a high wall, behind which, Rebus knew, was one of Edinburgh 's redundant industrial sites. Until about a year back, it had been a brewery, but now most of the buildings were in the process of being dismantled, the steel mash tuns removed.