‘We do a numberplate check once a fortnight,’ he said.
‘So a stolen car, to give an example, could sit here fourteen days before you’d have an inkling?’
‘That’s the policy.’ The man looked to Rebus like a drinker: grey stubble, hair in need of a wash, eyes red-rimmed. There was probably a bottle of something hidden away in his control room, to be added to the daily round of teas and coffees.
‘What sort of shifts do you work?’
‘Seven till three or three till eleven. I seem to prefer the mornings. Five days on, two off; there’s other guys usually do the weekends.’
Rebus checked his watch: twenty minutes till the changeover.
‘Your colleague will be starting soon - is that the same one who’d have been here last night?’
Wills nodded. ‘Name’s Gary.’
‘You haven’t spoken to him since yesterday?’
Wills shrugged. ‘Here’s what I know about Gary: lives in Shandon, supports Hearts and has a stoater of a missus.’
‘That’s a start,’ Rebus muttered. Then: ‘Let’s go look at your CCTV.’
‘What for?’ The man’s eyes were glassy as he met Rebus’s glare.
‘To see if the tapes caught anything.’ From the look on Wills’s face, Rebus knew what was coming next, a single word forming echo and question both.
‘Tapes . . .?’
They walked back up the exit slope anyway. Wills’s lair was a small booth with greasy windows and a radio playing. Five flickering black-and-white screens, plus a sixth which was blank.
‘Top storey,’ Wills explained. ‘It’s playing up.’
Rebus studied the remaining five. The pictures were blurry; he couldn’t pick out any individual licence plates. The figures from the floor below were indistinct, too. ‘What the hell use is this?’ he couldn’t help asking.
‘Bosses seem to think it gives the clients a sense of security.’
‘Bloody false at best, as the poor sod in the mortuary can testify.’ Rebus turned away from the screens.
‘One of the cameras used to point pretty much at that spot,’ Wills said. ‘But they get moved around . . .’
‘And you don’t keep any recordings?’
‘Machine packed in a month back.’ Wills nodded towards a dusty space below the monitors. ‘Not that we bothered much. All the bosses were interested in was when anyone tried conning their way out without paying. System’s pretty foolproof, didn’t happen often.’ Wills thought of something. ‘There’s a set of stairs between the top storey and the pavement, we had a punter attacked there last year.’
‘Oh?’
‘I said at the time they should get CCTV into the stairwell, but nothing ever happened.’
‘At least you tried.’
‘Don’t know why I bother ... job’s on the way out anyway. They’re replacing us with just the one guy on a motorbike, scooting between half a dozen car parks.’
Rebus was looking around the cramped space. Kettle and mugs, a few tattered paperbacks and magazines, plus the radio - these were all on the work surface opposite the monitors. He guessed that for most of the time, the guards would be facing away from the screens. Why the hell not? Minimum wage, bosses only a distant threat, no job security. One or two buzzes on the intercom per day, people who’d lost their tickets or didn’t have change. There was a rack of CDs, bands whose names Rebus vaguely recognised: Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Killers, Strokes, White Stripes . . .
‘No CD player,’ he commented.
‘They’re Gary’s,’ Wills explained. ‘He brings one of those little machines with him.’
‘With headphones?’ Rebus guessed, watching as Wills nodded. ‘Just wonderful,’ he muttered. ‘You were working here last year, Mr Wills?’
‘Been here three years next month.’
‘And your colleague?’
‘Eight, maybe nine months. I tried his shift but couldn’t hack it. I like my afternoons and evenings free.’
‘The better to do some drinking?’ Rebus cajoled. Wills’s face hardened, encouraging Rebus to press on. ‘Ever been in trouble, Mr Wills?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Police trouble.’
Wills made show of scratching dandruff from his scalp. ‘Long time ago,’ he eventually said. ‘The bosses know about it.’
‘Fighting, was it?’
‘Thieving,’ Wills corrected him. ‘But that was twenty years back.’
‘What about your car? You said you’d had a prang?’
But Wills was peering through the window. ‘Here’s Gary now.’ A pale-coloured car had drawn to a halt outside the cabin, its driver locking it after him.
The door burst open. ‘Hell’s going on downstairs, Joe?’ The guard called Gary wasn’t yet quite in uniform. Rebus guessed the jacket was in his carrier bag, along with a sandwich box. He was a few years younger than Wills, a lot leaner, and half a foot taller. He dumped two newspapers on to the worktop but couldn’t get any further into the room - with Rebus there, space was at a premium. The man was shrugging out of his coat: crisp white shirt beneath, but no tie - probably a clip-on tucked into a pocket somewhere.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Rebus,’ Rebus told him. ‘Last night, a man was severely beaten.’
‘On Level Zero,’ Wills added.
‘Is he dead?’ the new arrival asked, wide-eyed. Wills made a cut-throat gesture with accompanying sound effect. ‘Bloody hell. Does the Reaper know?’
Wills shook his head and saw that Rebus needed an explanation. ‘It’s what we call one of the bosses,’ he said. ‘She’s the only one we ever see. Wears a long black coat with a pointy hood.’
Hence the name. Rebus nodded his understanding. ‘I’ll need to take a statement,’ he told the new arrival. Wills seemed suddenly keen to leave, gathering up his bits and pieces and stuffing them into his own supermarket carrier.
‘Happened on your watch, Gary,’ he said with a tut. ‘The Reaper won’t be happy.’
‘Now there’s a turn-up for the books.’ Gary had moved out of the cabin, giving Wills room to make his exit. Rebus came out, too, needing the oxygen.
‘We’ll talk again,’ he warned the departing figure. Wills waved without looking back. Rebus turned his attention to Gary. Lanky, he’d have called him, and round-shouldered as if awkwardly aware of his height. A long face with a square jaw and well-defined cheekbones, plus a mop of dark hair. Rebus almost said it out loud: you should be on a stage in a band, not stuck in a dead-end job. But maybe Gary didn’t see it that way. Good-looking, though, which explained the ‘stoater of a missus’. Then again, Rebus couldn’t tell just how high or low Joe Wills’s standards might be ...
Twenty minutes got him nothing except a retread: full name, Gary Walsh; maisonette in Shandon; nine months on the job; tried taxi-driving before that but didn’t like the night shift; had seen and heard nothing unusual the previous evening.
‘What happens at eleven?’ Rebus had asked.
‘We shut up shop - metal shutters come down at the entrance and exit.’
‘Nobody can get in or out?’ Walsh had shaken his head. ‘You check no one’s locked in?’ A nod. ‘Were any cars left on Level Zero?’
‘Not that I remember.’
‘You always park next to the cabin?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But when you drive out, you exit on Level Zero?’ A nod from the guard. ‘And you didn’t see anything?’
‘Didn’t hear anything either.’
‘There would have been blood on the ground.’
A shrug.
‘You like your music, Mr Walsh.’
‘Love it.’
‘Lie back in your chair, feet up, headphones on, eyes shut . . . Some security guard you make.’
Rebus had stared at the monitors again, ignoring Walsh’s glower. There were two covering Level Zero. One was fixed on the exit barriers, the other trained on the far corner. You’d have had better luck with a c
amera-phone.
‘Sorry I can’t be more help,’ Walsh had said, not bothering to sound sympathetic. ‘Who was he anyway?’
‘A Russian poet called Todorov.’
Walsh had thought for a moment. ‘I never read poetry.’
‘Join the club,’ Rebus had told him. ‘Bit of a waiting list, mind . . .’
6
CR Studios took up the top floor of a converted warehouse just off Constitution Street. Charles Riordan’s hand, when Clarke shook it, was pudgy and moist, seeming to leave a residue on her palm which rubbing couldn’t remove. There were rings on his right hand, but not the left, and a chunky gold watch loose around his wrist. Clarke noted sweat stains at the armpits of Riordan’s mauve shirt. He’d rolled his sleeves up, showing arms matted with curled black hairs. The way he moved, she could tell he always wanted to appear busy. There was a receptionist at a desk just inside the door, and some sort of engineer pushing buttons at a control desk, eyes fixed to a screen showing what Clarke guessed were sound waves.‘The Kingdom of Noise,’ Riordan announced.
‘Impressive,’ Clarke allowed. Through a window, she could see two separate booths, but no sign of anyone in them. ‘Bit tight for a band, though.’
‘We can accommodate singer-songwriters,’ Riordan said. ‘One man and his guitar - that sort of thing. But really we’re for the spoken word - radio commercials, audio books, TV voice-overs ...’
A pretty specialised kingdom, Clarke couldn’t help thinking. She asked if there was an office where they could talk, but Riordan just stretched out his arms.
A specialised small kingdom.
‘Well,’ she began, ‘as I said on the phone—’
‘I know!’ Riordan burst out. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead!’
Neither receptionist nor engineer batted an eyelid; Riordan had obviously told them the minute he’d come off the phone.
‘We’re trying to account for Mr Todorov’s last movements. ’ Clarke had opened her notebook for effect. ‘I believe you had a few drinks with him, the night before last.’
‘I saw him more recently than that, sweetheart.’ Riordan couldn’t help making it sound like a boast. He’d been wearing sunglasses, but now slipped them off, showing large, dark-rimmed eyes. ‘I treated him to a curry.’
‘Yesterday evening?’ Clarke watched the man nod. ‘Where was this?’
‘West Maitland Street. We’d had a couple of beers near Haymarket. He’d been through to Glasgow for the day.’
‘Any idea why?’
‘Just wanted to see the place. He was trying to figure out the difference between the two cities, in case it helped explain the country - and bloody good luck to him! I’ve been here most of my life and still can’t make sense of it.’ Riordan shook his head slowly. ‘He did try explaining it to me - his theory about us - but it went in one ear and out the other.’
Clarke noticed the receptionist and engineer share a look, and assumed this was nothing new as far as they were concerned.
‘So he spent the day in Glasgow,’ she recapped. ‘What time did you meet up?’
‘Around eight. He’d been waiting till rush hour was past, meant he got a cheap ticket. Met him off the train and we hit a couple of pubs. Weren’t the first drinks he’d had that day.’
‘He was drunk?’
‘He was voluble. Thing about Alex was, when he drank he got more intellectual. Which was a bugger, because if you were drinking with him you soon started to lose the plot.’
‘What happened after the curry?’
‘Not much. I had to be heading home, he said he was getting thirstier. If I know him, he would have gone on to Mather’s.’
‘On Queensferry Street?’
‘But he’s just as likely to have wandered into the Caledonian Hotel.’
Leaving Todorov at the west end of Princes Street, not a stone’s throw from King’s Stables Road.
‘What time was this?’
‘Must’ve been around ten.’
‘I’m told by the Scottish Poetry Library that you recorded Mr Todorov’s recital the previous night.’
‘That’s right. I’ve done a lot of poets.’
‘Charlie’s done a lot of everything,’ the engineer added. Riordan laughed nervously.
‘He means my little project . . . I’m putting together a sort of soundscape of Edinburgh. From poetry readings to pub chatter, street noise, the Water of Leith at sunrise, football crowds, traffic on Princes Street, the beach at Portobello, dogs being walked in the Hermitage ... hundreds of hours of the stuff.’
‘Thousands more like,’ the engineer corrected him.
Clarke tried not to be deflected. ‘Had you met Mr Todorov before?’
‘I taped another performance of his at a café.’
‘Which one?’
Riordan shrugged. ‘It was for a bookshop called Word Power.’
Clarke had seen it that very afternoon, opposite the pub where she’d had lunch with Rebus. She remembered a line in one of Todorov’s poems - Nothing connects - and thought again how wrong he was.
‘How long ago was that?’
‘Three weeks back. We had a drink that night, too.’
Clarke tapped her pen against her notebook. ‘Do you have a receipt for the restaurant?’
‘Probably.’ Riordan reached into his pocket and brought out a wallet.
‘First sighting this year,’ the engineer said, eliciting a laugh from the receptionist. She’d clamped a pen between her teeth and was playing with it. Clarke decided the two of them were an item, whether their employer knew it or not. Riordan had pulled out a mass of receipts.
‘Reminds me,’ he muttered, ‘need to get some stuff to the accountant ... Ah, here it is.’ He handed it over. ‘Mind if I ask why you want it?’
‘Shows the time you got the bill, sir. Nine forty-eight - much as you said.’ Clarke slipped the piece of paper into the back of her notebook.
‘One question you haven’t asked,’ Riordan said teasingly. ‘Why did we meet up at all?’
‘All right then . . . why did you?’
‘Alex wanted a copy of his gig. Seemed to him it had gone well.’
Clarke thought back to Todorov’s flat. ‘Did he ask for any particular format?’
‘I burned it on to a CD.’
‘He didn’t have a CD player.’
Riordan gave a shrug. ‘Plenty of people do.’
True enough, but the CD itself hadn’t turned up, most likely taken with the other stuff . . .
‘Could you make another copy for me, Mr Riordan?’ Clarke asked.
‘How would that help?’
‘I’m not sure, but I’d like to hear him in full flow, as it were.’
‘The master’s back at my home studio. I could get it burnt by tomorrow.’
‘I’m based at Gayfield Square - any chance someone could pop it in?’
‘I’ll have one of the children do it,’ Riordan agreed, eyes taking in the engineer and receptionist.
‘Thanks for your help,’ Clarke said.
When smoking had been banned, back in March, Rebus had foreseen disaster for places like the Oxford Bar - traditional pubs catering to basic needs: a pint, a cigarette, horse-racing on TV and a hotline to the local turf accountant. Yet most of his haunts had survived, albeit with reduced takings. True to form, however, the smokers had formed a stubborn little gang that would congregate outside, trading stories and gossip. Tonight, the talk was the usual mix: someone was giving his views on a recently opened tapas bar, while the woman alongside wanted to know what the quietest time was to visit Ikea; a pipe-smoker was arguing for full-scale independence, while his English-sounding neighbour teased that the south would be glad of the break-up - ‘and no bloody alimony!’‘North Sea oil’s the only alimony we’ll need,’ the pipe-smoker said.
‘It’s already running out. Twenty years and you’ll be back with the begging-bowl.’
‘In twenty years we’ll be Norway.’
?
??Either that or Albania.’
‘Thing is,’ another smoker interrupted, ‘if Labour lost its Scottish seats at Westminster, it’d never get elected again south of the border.’
‘Fair point,’ the Englishman said.
‘Just after opening or just before closing?’ the woman was asking.
‘Bits of squid and tomato,’ her neighbour stated. ‘Not bad once you got the taste . . .’
Rebus stubbed out his cigarette and headed indoors. The round of drinks was waiting for him, along with his change. Colin Tibbet had emerged from the back room to help out.
‘You can take your tie off, you know,’ Rebus teased him. ‘We’re not in the office.’
Tibbet smiled but said nothing. Rebus pocketed the change and hefted the two glasses. He liked that Phyllida Hawes drank pints. Tibbet was on orange juice, Clarke sticking to white wine. They’d taken the table at the far end. Clarke had her notebook out. Hawes raised her fresh glass in a silent toast to Rebus. He scraped himself back into the chair.
‘Drinks took longer than I thought,’ he offered by way of apology.
‘Managed a quick smoke, though,’ Clarke chided him. He decided to ignore her.
‘So what have we got?’ he asked instead.
Well, they had a time-line for Todorov’s last two or three hours of life. They had a growing list of items missing - presumed removed - from the deceased. They had a new locus, the car park.
‘Is there anything,’ Colin Tibbet piped up, ‘to suggest that we’re dealing with something other than a particularly brutal mugging?’
‘Not really,’ Clarke offered, but she met John Rebus’s eyes and he gave a slow blink of acknowledgement. It didn’t feel right; Clarke could sense it, too. It just didn’t feel right. His phone, which he’d laid on the tabletop, started to vibrate, sending tremors across the surface of the pint glass next to it. He picked it up and moved away, either for a better signal or to escape the hubbub. They weren’t alone in the back room: a group of three tourists sat bewildered in one corner, showing too much interest in the various artefacts and adverts on the walls. Two men in business suits were hunched over another table, arguing near-silently about something. The TV was on, tuned to a quiz show.