‘She works fast, your stepdaughter,’ Rebus told the banker. And Addison was no slouch himself; no more than ninety minutes since Rebus had left Gill Morgan’s flat, and here they all were. ‘Nice to have friends, isn’t it?’
‘Gill’s explained everything,’ Addison was saying. ‘Seems she’s fallen in with a bad lot, but her mother and I will deal with that.’
‘Her mother knows, does she?’ Rebus decided to probe.
‘We’re hoping that may not be necessary . . .’
‘Wouldn’t want her falling off the wagon,’ Rebus agreed.
The banker seemed stunned by this; Corbyn took the silence as his cue. ‘Look, John, I can’t see what you’ve got to gain from pressing the point.’ His use of Rebus’s first name was a message that they were all on the same side here.
‘What point might that be, sir?’ Rebus asked, refusing to play along.
‘You know what I mean. Young girls are susceptible ... maybe Gill was scared to tell the truth.’
‘Because she’d be losing her supplier?’ Rebus pretended to guess. He turned towards Addison. ‘The friend’s called Nancy Sievewright, by the way - mean anything to you?’
‘I’ve never met her.’
‘One of your colleagues has, though - name of Roger Anderson. Seems he can’t keep away from her.’
‘I know Roger,’ Addison admitted. ‘He was there when that poet’s body was found.’
‘Found by Nancy Sievewright,’ Rebus stressed.
‘And does any of this,’ Corbyn broke in, ‘really concern Gill?’
‘She lied to a murder inquiry.’
‘And now she’s told you the truth,’ Corbyn pressed. ‘Surely that’s good enough?’
‘Not really, sir.’ He turned to Addison. ‘Here’s another name for you - Stuart Janney.’
‘Yes?’
‘He works for you, too.’
‘He works for the bank rather than for me personally.’
‘And spends his days hanging out with MSPs and trying to protect dodgy Russians.’
‘Now wait a minute.’ Addison’s fleshy face had gone from pink to red, highlighting razor-rash at the neck.
‘I’ve just been talking with my colleagues,’ Rebus ploughed on, ‘about how everything’s connected. Country the size of Scotland, city as small as Edinburgh, you start to see the truth of it. Your bank’s hoping to do some big deals with the Russians, isn’t it? Maybe you took some time out of your busy schedule for a round of golf with them at Gleneagles? Stuart Janney making sure everything went smoothly ...?’
‘I really don’t see what any of this has to do with my stepdaughter.’
‘Might be a bit embarrassing if it turns out she’s linked to the Todorov murder . . . doesn’t matter how many degrees of separation you try to make out there are. She leads straight to you, straight to the top of FAB. Don’t suppose Andropov and his pals will be too thrilled with that.’
Corbyn banged his fists against the table, eyes like burning coals. Addison was shaking, levering himself to his feet. ‘This was a mistake,’ he was saying. ‘I blame myself for not wanting to see her hurt.’
‘Michael,’ Corbyn started to say, but then broke off, having nothing with which to finish the sentence.
‘I notice your stepdaughter hasn’t taken your surname, sir,’ Rebus said. ‘Doesn’t stop her asking for favours, though, does it? And that lovely apartment of hers - owned by the bank, is it?’
Addison’s overcoat and scarf were hanging on a peg behind the door, and that was his destination.
‘An appeal to common decency, that’s all,’ the banker was saying, more to himself than anyone else. He’d managed to get one arm into a sleeve but was struggling with the other. Nevertheless, his need to get out was too great, and the coat was hanging off him as he left. The door stayed open. Corbyn and Rebus were on their feet, facing one another.
‘That seemed to go well,’ Rebus commented.
‘You’re a bloody fool, Rebus.’
‘What happened to “John”? Reckon he’ll hike your mortgage, just out of spite?’
‘He’s a good man - and a personal friend,’ Corbyn spat.
‘And his stepdaughter is a lying drug-user.’ Rebus offered a shrug. ‘Like they say, you can’t choose your family. You can, however, choose your friends . . . but FAB’s friends seem to be a fairly rum bunch, too.’
‘First Albannach is one of the few bloody success stories this country has!’ Corbyn erupted again.
‘Doesn’t make them the good guys.’
‘I suppose you opt to see yourself as the “good guy”?’ Corbyn let out a jagged laugh. ‘Christ, you’ve got a nerve.’
‘Was there anything else, sir? Maybe a neighbour who wants CID to focus its scant resources on the theft of a garden gnome?’
‘Just one last thing.’ Corbyn had seated himself again. His next three words were spaced evenly. ‘You .. . are . . . history.’
‘Thanks for the reminder.’
‘I mean it. I know you’ve got three days left till retirement, but you’re going to spend them on suspension.’
Rebus stared hard at the man. ‘Isn’t that just a tiny bit petty and pathetic, sir?’
‘In which case, you’re going to love the rest of it.’ Corbyn took a deep breath. ‘If I hear you’ve so much as crossed the threshold at Gayfield Square, I’ll demote each and every officer within your compass. What I want you to do, Rebus, is crawl away from here and tick off the days on the calendar. You’re no longer a serving detective, and never will be.’ He held out the palm of one hand. ‘Warrant card, please.’
‘Want to fight me for it?’
‘Only if you’re ready to spend time in the cells. I think we could hold you for three days without too much trouble.’ The hand twitched, inviting Rebus’s cooperation. ‘I can think of at least three chief constables before me who would love to be here right now,’ Corbyn cooed.
‘Me, too,’ Rebus agreed. ‘We’d get a barbershop quartet going and sing about the fuckwit sitting in front of us.’
‘And that,’ Corbyn added triumphantly, ‘is the reason you’re being suspended.’
Rebus couldn’t believe the hand was still there. ‘You want my warrant card,’ he said quietly, ‘send the boys round for it.’ He turned and headed for the door. There was a secretary standing there, clutching a file to her chest, eyes and mouth gawping. Rebus confirmed with a nod that her ears had not deceived her, and mouthed the word ‘fuckwit’, just to be on the safe side.
Outside in the car park he unlocked his Saab, but then stood there, hand on the door handle, staring into space. For a while now, he’d known the truth - that it wasn’t so much the underworld you had to fear as the overworld. Maybe that explained why Cafferty had, to all purposes and appearances, gone legit. A few friends in the right places and deals got done, fates decided. Never in his life had Rebus felt like an insider. From time to time he’d tried - during his years in the army and his first few months as a cop. But the less he felt he belonged, the more he came to mistrust the others around him with their games of golf and their ‘quiet words’, their stitch-ups and handshakes, palm-greasing and scratching of backs. Stood to reason someone like Addison would go straight to the top; he’d done it because he could, because in his world it felt entirely justified and correct. Rebus had to admit, though, he’d underestimated Corbyn, hadn’t expected him to pull that particular trick. Kicked into touch until gold-watch day.
‘Fuckwit,’ he said out loud, this time aiming the word at no one but himself.
That was that, then. End of the line, end of the job. These past weeks, he’d been trying so hard not to think about it - throwing himself into other work, any work. Dusting off all those old unsolveds, trying to get Siobhan interested, as if she didn’t have more than enough on her plate in the here and now - a situation unlikely to change in the future. The alternative was to take the whole lot home with him ... call it his retirement gift; something to keep his br
ain active when the idea of the pub didn’t appeal. For three decades now this job of his had sustained him, and all it had cost him was his marriage and a slew of friendships and shattered relationships. No way he was ever going to feel like a civilian again; too late for that; too late for him to change. He would become invisible to the world, not just to revelling teenagers.
‘Fuck,’ he said, drawing the word out way past its natural length.
It was the casual arrogance that had flipped his switch, Addison sitting there in the full confidence of his power - and the stepdaughter’s arrogance, too, in thinking one weepy phone call would make everything better. It was, Rebus realised, how things worked in the overworld. Addison had never woken from a beating in a piss-stained tenement stairwell. His stepdaughter had never worked the streets for money for her next fix and the kids’ dinner. They lived in another place entirely - no doubt part of the buzz Gill Morgan got from mixing with the likes of Nancy Sievewright.
The same buzz Corbyn got from having one of the most powerful men in Europe come to him with a favour.
The same buzz Cafferty got, buying drinks for businessmen and politicians ... Cafferty: unfinished business, and likely to remain that way if Rebus heeded Corbyn’s orders. Cafferty unfettered, free to commute between underworld and overworld. Unless Rebus went back indoors right now and apologised to the Chief Constable, promising to toe the line.
The scrapheap’s hurtling towards me as it is ... give me this one last chance . . . please, sir . . . please ...
‘Aye, right,’ Rebus said, yanking open the car door and stabbing the key into the ignition.
23
‘Nancy, we’re going to record this, okay?’Sievewright’s mouth twitched. ‘Do I need a lawyer?’
‘Do you want a lawyer?’
‘Dunno.’
Clarke nodded for Goodyear to switch on the deck. She’d slotted home both tapes herself - one for them and one for Sievewright. But Goodyear was hesitating and Clarke had to remind herself that he’d not done this sort of thing before. Interview Room 1 felt stuffy and sweltering, as if it was sucking all the heat from the rooms around it. The central heating pipes hissed and gurgled and couldn’t be turned down. Even Goodyear had taken off his jacket, and there were damp patches beneath his arms. Yet IR3, two doors along, was freezing, maybe because IR1 was keeping all the heat to itself.
‘That one and that one,’ she explained, pointing to the relevant buttons. He pressed them, the red light came on, and both tapes started running. Clarke identified herself and Goodyear, her final few words drowned by the scrape of his chair as he drew it in towards the desk. He gave a little grimace of apology, and she repeated herself, then asked Sievewright to state her name, before adding date and time to the recording. Formalities done with, she sat back a little in her chair. The Todorov file was in front of her, autopsy photo uppermost. She had padded the file itself with blank sheets of copy paper, to make it seem more impressive and, perhaps, more threatening. Goodyear had nodded admiringly. Same went for the post-mortem photo, plucked from the Murder Wall to remind Sievewright of the grim seriousness of the case. The young woman certainly looked unnerved. Hawes and Tibbet had explained nothing of their appearance at her door, and had kept tight-lipped during the drive to Gayfield Square. Sievewright had then been left in IR1 for the best part of forty minutes, without any offer of tea or water. And when Clarke and Goodyear had come in, they’d both been carrying a fresh brew - even though Goodyear himself had insisted he wasn’t thirsty.
‘For effect,’ Clarke had told him.
Next to the file on the table sat Clarke’s mobile phone, and next to that a pad of paper and a pen. Goodyear, too, was bringing out a notebook.
‘Now then, Nancy,’ Clarke began. ‘Want to tell us what you were really up to the night you found the victim?’
‘What?’ Sievewright’s mouth stayed open long after the question had left it.
‘The night you were out at your friend’s flat . . .’ Clarke made show of consulting the file. ‘Gill Morgan.’ Her eyes met Sievewright’s. ‘Your good friend Gill.’
‘Yes?’
‘Your story was that you’d been round to her flat and were on your way home. But that was a lie, wasn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘Well, somebody’s lying to us, Nancy.’
‘What’s she been saying?’ The voice taking on a harder edge.
‘We’re led to believe, Nancy, that you were on your way to her flat, not from it. Did you have the drugs on you when you tripped over the body?’
‘What drugs?’
‘The ones you were going to share with Gill.’
‘She’s a lying cow!’
‘I thought she was your friend? Enough of a friend to stick to the story you gave her.’
‘She’s lying,’ Sievewright repeated, eyes reduced to slits.
‘Why would she do that, Nancy? Why would a friend do that?’
‘You’d have to ask her.’
‘We already have. Thing is, her story fits with other facts in the case. A woman was seen hanging around outside the car park . . .’
‘I already told you, I never saw her.’
‘Maybe because you were her?’
‘I look nothing like that picture you showed me!’
‘See, she was offering herself for sex, and we know why some women will do that, don’t we?’
‘Do we?’
‘Money for drugs, Nancy.’
‘What?’
‘You needed the money to buy drugs you could sell on to Gill.’
‘She’d already given me the money, you dozy cow!’
Clarke didn’t bother replying; just waited for Nancy’s outburst to sink in. The teenager’s face crumpled and she knew she’d said more than she should.
‘What I mean is ...’ she stumbled, but the lie wouldn’t come.
‘Gill Morgan gave you money to buy her some dope,’ Clarke stated. ‘To be honest with you - and this is for the record - I couldn’t give a monkey’s. Doesn’t sound to me like you’re some big-shot dealer. If you had been, you’d have scarpered that night rather than sticking around to wait for us. But that makes me think you didn’t have anything on you at the time, which means you were either waiting to score or on your way to score.’
‘Yes?’
‘I wouldn’t mind knowing which it was.’
‘The second one.’
‘On your way to meet your dealer?’
Sievewright just nodded. ‘Nancy Sievewright nods,’ Clarke said for the benefit of the slowly spooling tapes. ‘So you weren’t hanging around outside the car park?’
‘I already said, didn’t I?’
‘Just want to make sure.’ Clarke made show of turning to another page in the file. ‘Ms Morgan has ambitions to be an actress,’ she stated.
‘Yeah.’
‘Ever seen her in anything?’
‘Don’t think she’s been in anything.’
‘You sound sceptical.’
‘First she was going to write for the papers, then it was TV presenting, then modelling . . .’
‘What we might call a gadfly,’ Clarke agreed.
‘You call it what you want.’
‘Must be fun, though, hanging out with her?’
‘She gets good invites,’ Sievewright admitted.
‘But she doesn’t always take you with her?’ Clarke guessed.
‘Not often.’ Sievewright shifted in her chair.
‘I forget, how did you two meet?’
‘At a party in the New Town ... got talking to one of her pals in a pub, and he said I could tag along with them.’
‘You know who Gill’s father is?’
‘I know he must have a few quid.’
‘He runs a bank.’
‘Figures.’
Clarke turned to another sheet of paper. Really, she wanted Rebus there, so she could bounce ideas off him, and let him do some of the running while she collected her thoughts betwee
n rounds. Todd Goodyear looked stiff and uncertain and was gnawing away at his pen like a beaver with a particularly juicy length of timber.
‘She works on one of the city’s ghost tours, did you know that?’ Clarke asked eventually.
‘Can I get a drink or something?’
‘We’re nearly done.’
Sievewright scowled, like a kid on the verge of a major sulk. Clarke repeated her question.
‘She took me along with her one time,’ the teenager admitted.
‘How was it?’
Sievewright shrugged. ‘Okay, I suppose. Bit boring really.’
‘You weren’t scared?’ The question received a snorted response. Clarke closed the file slowly, as if winding up. But she had a few more questions. She waited until Sievewright was readying to get up before asking the first of them. ‘Remember the cloak Gill wears?’
‘What cloak?’
‘When she’s being the Mad Monk.’
‘What about it?’
‘Ever seen it at her flat?’
‘No.’
‘Has she ever been to your flat?’
‘Came to a party once.’
Clarke pretended to spend a few moments considering this. ‘You know I’m not going to be chasing you for drugs offences, Nancy, but I wouldn’t mind knowing your dealer’s address.’
‘No chance.’ The teenager sounded adamant. She was still poised to get up; in her mind, she was already leaving, meaning she’d want to give quick answers to any further questions. Clarke rapped her fingernails against the closed file.
‘But you know him pretty well?’
‘Says who?’
‘I’m guessing you had some dope on you at that first party; explains how you made friends so quickly.’
‘So?’
‘So you’re not going to give me a name?’
‘Bloody right I’m not.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘Through a friend.’
‘Your flatmate? The one with the eyeliner?’
‘None of your business.’
‘The day I was there, quite an aroma was wafting from the living room . . .’ Sievewright stayed tight-lipped. ‘You in touch with your parents, Nancy?’