‘Hardly anyone uses it at night, I’ve noticed that. Plenty of people turning into Castle Terrace, but almost no one into King’s Stables.’
‘And no woman in a hood?’
‘Not yet.’
MacLeod consoled Rebus with a pat on the shoulder, then went back to work. It didn’t make sense to Rebus: why would some woman be hanging around there, doling out offers of sex? They only had the one witness’s word for it. Could it have been some fantasy he’d been harbouring? Rebus felt his vertebrae snap back into place as he stretched his spine. He wanted a break, but knew if he took one he might not be tempted back. He could always go home - it was what everybody wanted. But then his phone rang and he scooped it from his pocket. Caller ID: Siobhan.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, cupping the phone to his mouth so he wouldn’t be overheard.
‘Megan Macfarlane’s just called DCI Macrae. She’s not happy you’ve been harassing Sergei Andropov.’ She paused. ‘Want to tell me about it?’
‘Happened to run into him last night.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Caledonian Hotel.’
‘Your regular watering-hole?’
‘No need for sarcasm, young lady.’
‘And you didn’t think to let me in on it?’
‘I really did just bump into him, Shiv. No big deal.’
‘To you maybe, but Andropov seems to think it is, and now Megan Macfarlane thinks so, too.’
‘Andropov’s Russian, probably used to politicians controlling the police . . .’ Rebus was thinking out loud.
‘Macrae wants to see you.’
‘Tell him I’m banned from Gayfield.’
‘I’ve told him. He was furious about that, too.’
‘Corbyn’s fault for not alerting him.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Any word from Jim Bakewell’s office?’
‘No.’
‘So what are you up to?’
‘Trying to make space for the new recruits. Four have arrived from Torphichen and two from Leith.’
‘Anyone we know?’
‘Ray Reynolds.’
‘He’s not even a good imitation of a detective,’ Rebus stated. Then he asked her if she was going to do anything about Sol Goodyear.
‘Soon as I’ve worked out what to say to Todd,’ she decided.
‘Good luck with that.’
One of the CCTV operators suddenly called to her colleague that she had the shoplifter on Camera 10, entering the bus station. Clarke’s groan was almost audible.
‘You’re at the City Chambers,’ she stated.
‘We’ll make a detective of you yet.’
‘You’re on suspension, John.’
‘It keeps slipping my mind.’
‘Studying the tapes from that night?’
‘Correct.’
‘Trying to place who at the scene exactly?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘Why in God’s name would Cafferty want a Russian poet killed?’
‘Maybe he gets annoyed when verses don’t rhyme. By the by, here’s a strange one for you - that CD Sievewright’s flatmate gave me was recorded at Riordan’s studio.’
‘Yet another coincidence.’ But she was silent for a moment. ‘Think it’s worth talking to the engineer about?’
‘You’re mob-handed, Shiv - it’s worth chasing every single lead, no matter how brittle.’
‘I’m not great at delegating.’
‘Me neither. Still headed straight home from work?’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘I’ll be thinking of you, then.’
‘John, just promise me one thing - no more drinks at the Caledonian Hotel.’
‘Yes, boss. Talk to you later.’ He ended the call but sat there staring at the phone. Macrae, Macfarlane and Andropov - all annoyed as hell with him.
‘Good,’ he said quietly, reaching for the next videotape.
‘Can I ask you about your brother?’Clarke had led Todd Goodyear into the corridor for a bit of privacy. She’d already set the new recruits to work. Some were studying the ‘bible’ - the collating of everything pertaining to the case - while others had been assigned the Riordan tapes. It wasn’t exactly a collection of the brightest and the best - no CID unit wanted to give up its star players to a rival team. A detective from Goodyear’s own station had recognised him and asked what he thought he was up to, ‘masquerading as a proper cop’.
‘Sol?’ Goodyear was asking now, looking puzzled. ‘What about him?’
‘He was in a fight - what night was that?’
‘Last Wednesday.’
Clarke nodded. Same night Todorov was attacked. ‘Can you give me an address for him?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Turns out he might know Nancy Sievewright.’
‘You’re kidding me.’ He’d started laughing.
‘No joke,’ she assured him. ‘We think he was her dealer. Did you know he was still in the game?’
‘No.’ The blood was rising up Goodyear’s neck.
‘So I need his address.’
‘I don’t know it. I mean, it’s somewhere around the Grassmarket ...’
‘I thought he lived in Dalkeith.’
‘Sol’s always on the move.’
‘How did you know he’d been in a fight?’
‘He called me.’
‘So you’re still in touch?’
‘He has my mobile number.’
‘Meaning you’ve got his?’
Goodyear shook his head. ‘He keeps changing it.’
‘This fight he had . . . any idea where it happened?’
‘A pub in Haymarket.’
Clarke nodded to herself. The SOCO, Tam Banks, had got a message about the incident, hadn’t he? Mentioned it at the Todorov scene. A stabbing ... ‘So you don’t keep in touch, but he phones you when he’s been stabbed?’
Goodyear ignored this. ‘What does it matter if he knows Nancy Sievewright?’
‘Just another loose end that needs tying.’
‘We’ve got more of those than a frayed rug.’ Clarke offered up a tired smile and Goodyear sighed, shoulders slumping. ‘When you find Sol’s address, do you want me along?’
‘Can’t happen,’ she said. ‘You’re his brother.’
He nodded his understanding.
‘I’m assuming West End took an interest in the stabbing? ’ she asked. Meaning the police station on Torphichen Place. Goodyear nodded again.
‘They asked him a few questions at A&E. By the time I saw him, he’d been transferred to a ward. Just the one night, for observation.’
‘Do you think he told the officers anything?’
Goodyear shrugged. ‘All he said was, he was having a drink and this guy took against him. It moved outside and Sol came off worst.’
‘And the other guy?’
‘Didn’t say anything about him.’ Goodyear bit his bottom lip. ‘If Sol’s connected ... does that mean a conflict of interest? Back to my old station and uniform?’
‘I’ll have to ask DCI Macrae.’
He nodded again, but dolefully this time. ‘I didn’t know he was still dealing,’ he stressed. ‘Maybe Sievewright’s lying . . .’
Clarke imagined herself placing a hand on his arm, offering comfort. But in the real world, she just moved past him and back into the already overcrowded CID suite. Chairs had been borrowed from the interview rooms, and she had to weave between them as she made for her desk. There was another officer stationed there. He apologised but didn’t move. Three more detectives were huddled around Rebus’s desk. Clarke picked up her phone and called Torphichen. She was patched through to CID and found herself talking to Detective Inspector Shug Davidson.
‘Want to thank you,’ he chuckled, ‘for taking Ray Reynolds off our hands.’ She looked across the room towards Reynolds, a detective constable these past nine years, promotion never on the cards. He was standing in front of the Murder Wall and
rubbing his stomach as if preparing for another of his infamous belches.
‘That’s good,’ she told Davidson, ‘because I’m after a favour in return.’
‘What’s this I hear about John getting booted into touch?’
‘News travels . . .’
‘Age has not softened him - that’s a quote from somewhere. ’
‘Listen, Shug, do you remember last Wednesday night, a fight outside a pub at Haymarket?’
‘Sol Goodyear, you mean?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’ve got his brother on secondment, I’m told. Seems like a decent bloke. I think he’s embarrassed about Sol - and rightly so. Sol’s got a fair bit of form.’
‘So this fight he got into ...?’
‘If you ask me, there was money owed by one of his punters. Guy didn’t fancy paying up, so decided to have a go at Sol. We’re considering making it attempted murder.’
‘Todd says he was only in hospital the one night.’
‘With eight stitches in his side. More of a slice than a proper stabbing, meaning he got lucky.’
‘You caught the attacker?’
‘He’s pleading self-defence, naturally. Name’s Larry Fintry - Crazy Larry, he gets called. Should be in the nut-house, if you ask me.’
‘Care in the community, Shug.’
‘Aye, with the pharmaceuticals dispensed by Sol Goodyear.’
‘I need to speak to Sol,’ Clarke said.
‘Why’s that?’
‘The Todorov murder. We think the girl who found the body was on her way to Sol’s.’
‘More than likely,’ Davidson agreed. ‘Last address I have for him is Raeburn Wynd.’
Clarke’s whole body froze for a moment. ‘That’s where we found the body.’
‘I know.’ Davidson was laughing. ‘And if Sol hadn’t been getting himself stabbed at Haymarket around the exact same time, I might have thought to mention it earlier.’
In the end, she took Phyllida Hawes with her. Tibbet had looked distraught, as if fearing Siobhan had already made up her mind who should replace her at sergeant level when she was promoted. She hadn’t bothered reminding him that she would have little or no say over anyone’s fate. Instead, she had simply told him that he was in charge until her return, which perked him up a little.They’d taken Clarke’s car, sticking to shop talk interrupted only occasionally by awkward silences - Hawes wanting to know about life post-Rebus (but not daring to ask), while Clarke didn’t quite get round to bringing up Hawes’s relationship with Tibbet. It was a mercy when the car finally stopped at the foot of Raeburn Wynd. The lane was L-shaped. From the main road, all you could see were garages and lock-ups, but around the corner, buildings which at one time would have housed horses and their coaches had been turned into mews flats.
‘None of the neighbours heard anything?’ Hawes asked.
‘Might send the team out to ask them again and flash that e-fit,’ Clarke considered.
‘Can Ray Reynolds be one of them, please?’
Clarke managed a smile. ‘Didn’t take long.’
‘I’d heard the stories,’ Hawes said, ‘but nothing quite prepares you . . .’
They’d turned the corner into the mews proper. Clarke stopped at one of the doors, checked the address she’d copied into her notebook, and pressed the bell. After twenty seconds, she tried again.
‘I’m coming!’ someone yelled from within. There was the sound of feet thumping down a flight of stairs, and the door was opened by Sol Goodyear. Had to be him: same eyelashes and ears as his brother.
‘Solomon Goodyear?’ Clarke checked.
‘Christ, what do you lot want?’
‘Well spotted. I’m DS Clarke, this is DC Hawes.’
‘Got a warrant?’
‘Want to ask you a couple of questions about the murder. ’
‘What murder?’
‘The one at the bottom of your street.’
‘I was in hospital at the time.’
‘How’s the wound?’
He lifted his shirt to show a large white compress, just above the waistband of his underpants. ‘Itches like buggery, ’ he admitted. Then, catching on: ‘How did you know about it?’
‘DI Davidson at Torphichen filled me in. Mentioned Crazy Larry, too. Bit of a tip for you, actually - before you square up to someone, always check their nickname.’
Sol Goodyear snorted at that, but still didn’t show any great desire to let them in. ‘My brother’s a cop,’ he said instead.
‘Oh, yes?’ Clarke tried to sound surprised. She reckoned Sol would try this line on any police officer he met.
‘He’s still in uniform, but not for much longer. Todd’s always been a fast-track kind of guy. He was the white sheep of the family.’ He gave a little laugh at what Clarke reckoned was another of his well-rehearsed lines.
‘That’s a good one,’ Hawes obliged, managing to sound as though she meant the opposite. The laugh died in Sol Goodyear’s throat.
‘Well, anyway,’ he sniffed, ‘I wasn’t here that night. They didn’t discharge me till the evening after.’
‘Did Nancy come to see you at the hospital?’
‘Nancy who?’
‘Your girlfriend Nancy. She was on her way here when she tripped over the body. You were going to sell her some stuff for a friend of hers.’
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ he stated, having decided in the blinking of an eye that there was no point lying about things they already knew.
‘She seems to think she is.’
‘She’s mistaken.’
‘You’re just her dealer, then?’
He scowled as though pained by this turn in the conversation. ‘What I am, officer, is the victim of a stabbing. The painkillers I’m on make it highly unlikely that anything I say could be used in a court of law.’
‘Clever boy,’ Clarke said, sounding admiring, ‘you know your loopholes.’
‘Learned the hard way.’
She nodded slowly. ‘I’ve heard it was Big Ger Cafferty got you started on the selling - do you still see him?’
‘Don’t know who you’re talking about.’
‘Funny, I’ve never heard of a stabbing affecting someone’s memory before ...’ Clarke looked to Hawes for confirmation of this.
‘Think you’ve got the patter, don’t you?’ Sol Goodyear was saying. ‘Well try this for a pay-off.’
And with that, he slammed the door in their faces. From behind it, as he started climbing the stairs again, could be heard a stream of invective. Hawes raised an eyebrow.
‘Bitches and lesbians,’ she repeated. ‘Always nice to learn something new about yourself.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘So now we’ve got one brother involved, I suppose that means the other has to be taken off the case?’
‘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.
‘You 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 eyes/Ensuring he would not have to testify.”’
‘The sort of lesson Nancy might have learned from Sol Goodyear.’
‘Yes,’ Clarke agreed. ‘Yes, 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 Johnny Cash’s Live at San Quentin that he hadn’t got round to playing. Kept forgetting to put it in the car, and wondered how it would sound on 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 channel, vocals on the other, so that he couldn’t listen to both together. It had taken him ages to buy his first CD player, and even now he preferred vinyl. Siobhan said it was because he was ‘wilful’.