Exit Music

'Well, if you do think of anything…' She was rising to her feet, signalling that the meeting was over. Through the glass partition, she could see that there was a hubbub in the outer office. Out of it emerged Todd Goodyear. He knocked once and entered, closing the door after him.

'If I'm going to manage to actually hear what's on those committee recordings, I'm going to need to shift my stuff,' he complained.

'It's like the monkey house out there.' He recognised Terry Grimm and gave a little nod of greeting.

'The Parliament tapes?' Grimm guessed. Tou're still trawling through them?'

'Still trawling.' Goodyear had a sheaf of paper under one arm.

He held the sheets out for Clarke to take. She saw that he had typed up his detailed notes on the contents of each tape. There was screeds of the stuff. In her early days as a detective, she, too, would have been this meticulous… back before Rebus showed her how to cut corners.

'Thanks,' she said. 'And this is for you…' Handing him the memory stick. 'Mr Grimm reckons there's about sixteen hours'

worth.'

Goodyear gave a protracted sigh, and asked Terry Grimm how things were at the studio.

'Just about coping, thanks.'

Clarke was sifting the typed sheets. 'Did anything here jump out at you?' she asked Goodyear.

'Not one single thing,' he informed her.

'Imagine how we felt,' Grimm added, 'sitting there for days on end, listening to politician after politician drone on…'

Goodyear just shook his head, unwilling to imagine himself in that role.

'What you got was the good stuff,' Grimm assured him.

Clarke noticed that it had quietened down in the main office.

What was the noise about?' she asked Goodyear.

'Bit of a free-for-all at the mortuary,' he explained casually, tossing the memory stick into the air and catching it. 'Someone's trying to claim Todorov's body. DI Starr wanted to know who was the fastest driver.' Another toss, another catch. 'DC Reynolds claimed he was. Not everyone agreed…' He had been slow to notice that

Clarke was glaring at him, but now his voice trailed off. 'I should have told you straight off?' he guessed.

'That's right,' she answered in a voice of quiet menace. And then, to Terry Grimm: 'PC Goodyear will see you out. Thanks again for coming.'

She marched downstairs to the car park and got into her car.

Started the ignition and drove. She wanted to ask Starr why he hadn't said anything… why he hadn't asked her. Giving the job to one of his boys instead – Ray Reynolds, at that! Was it because she'd gone off without telling him? Was it so she'd know her place in future?

She had plenty of questions for DI Derek Starr.

She turned right at the top of Leith Street, then hard left on to North Bridge. Straight across at the Tron and a right-hand turn, crossing oncoming traffic and on to Blair Street, passing Nancy Sievewright's flat again. If Talking Heads really did reckon London a 'small city', they should try Edinburgh. No more than eight minutes after leaving Gayfield Square, she was pulling into the mortuary car park, stopping alongside Reynolds's car and wondering if she'd beaten his time. There was another car, a big old Mercedes Benz, parked between two of the mortuary's anonymous white transit vans. Clarke stalked past it to the door marked Staff Only, turned the handle and went in. There was no onen the corridor, and no one in the staff room, though steam was rising from the spout of a recently boiled kettle. She moved through! the holding area and opened another door into a further corridor), up some stairs to the next level. This was where the public entrance was. It was where relatives waited to identify their loved ones and where the subsequent paperwork was taken care of. Usually it was a place of low sobbing, quiet reflection, utter and ghastly silence.

But not today.

She recognised Nikolai Stahov straight off. He wore the same long black coat as when they'd first met. Alongside him stood a man who also looked Russian, maybe five years younger but almost as many inches taller and broader. Stahov was remonstrating in English with Derek Starr, who stood with arms folded, legs apart, as if ready for a ruck. Next to him was Reynolds, and behind them the four mortuary staff.

'We have right,' Stahov was saying. 'Constitutional right…

moral right.'

'A murder inquiry is ongoing,' Starr explained. 'The body has to stay here in case further tests are required.'

Stahov, glancing to his left, had noticed Clarke. 'Help us, please,'

he implored her. She took a few steps forward.

'What seems to be the problem?'

Starr glared at her. 'The consulate wants to repatriate Mr Todorov's remains,' he explained.

'Alexander needs to be buried in his homeland,' Stahov stated.

'Is there anything in his will to that effect?' Clarke asked.

'Will or no will, his wife is buried in Moscow-'

'Something I've been meaning to ask,' Clarke interrupted. Stahov had turned completely towards her, which seemed to a

'What actually happened to his wife?'

'Cancer,' Stahov told her. 'They could have operated, but she would have lost the baby she was carrying. So she continued with the pregnancy.' Stahov offered a shrug. 'The baby was stillborn, and by then the mother only had a few days to live.'

The story seemed to have calmed the whole room. Clarke nodded slowly. 'Why the sudden urgency, Mr Stahov? Alexander died eight days ago… why wait till now?'

'All we want is to return him home, with due respect to his international stature.'

'I wasn't sure he had that much stature in Russia. Didn't you say that the Nobel Prize isn't such a big deal in Moscow these days?'

'Governments can have changes of heart.'

'What you're saying is, you're under orders from the Kremlin?'

Stahov's eyes gave nothing away. 'There being no next of kin, the state becomes responsible. I have the authority to request his body.'

'But we have no authority to release it,' Starr countered, having shuffled around towards Clarke, the better to meet Stahov's eye-line. 'You're a diplomat; you must be aware that there are protocols'

'Meaning what, exactly?'

'Meaning,' Clarke explained, 'we'll be hanging on to the body until instructed otherwise by judgment or decree.'

'It is scandalous.' Stahov busied himself tugging at the cuffs of his coat. 'I'm not sure how such a situation can be kept from public view.'

'Go crying to the papers,' Starr taunted him. 'See where it gets.you…'

'Start the process,' Clarke counselled the Russian. 'That's all you lean do.'

Stahov met her eyes again and nodded slowly, then turned on

his heels and headed for the exit, followed by his driver. As soon as both men had left, Starr grabbed Clarke by the arm.

'What are you doing here?' he hissed.

She twisted out of his grip. I'm where I should have been all along, Derek.'

'I left you in charge at Gayfield.'

“You left without so much as a word.'

Perhaps Starr sensed that this was not an argument he could win. He glanced around at the onlookers – Reynolds; the mortuary staff – and allowed his face to soften. 'A discussion for another time, perhaps,' he offered.

Clarke, though she'd already decided not to push it, let him sweat for a moment as she pretended to think it over. 'Fine,' she said at last.

He nodded and turned to the mortuary attendants. 'You did the right thing, calling us. If they try anything else, you know where we are.'

“Think they'll sneak him out in the middle of the night?' one of the men speculated.

One of his colleagues gave a chuckle. 'Been a while since we've had one of those, Davie,' he commented.