But Mungo had to get to his next job, and Siobhan was heading for the hospital, leaving Rebus alone in the pub.
“One for the road,” he muttered to himself. Standing at the bar, waiting for his drink to be poured, staring at the optics, he thought again of that photo...the woman with the braids...Siobhan called her Santal, but she reminded Rebus of someone. Screen had been too small for him really to get a good look. Should have asked Mungo for a print...
“Day off?” the barman asked as he placed the pint in front of Rebus.
“Man of leisure, that’s me,” Rebus confirmed, lifting the glass to his mouth.
“Thanks for coming back in,” Rebus said. “How was court?”
“I wasn’t needed.” Ellen Wylie placed her shoulder bag and attaché case on the floor of the CID room.
“Can I fix you a coffee?”
“Got an espresso machine?”
“In here, we call it by its proper Italian name.”
“And what’s that?”
“A kettle.”
“That joke’s as weak as I suspect the coffee will be. How can I help you, John?” She eased her jacket off. Rebus was already in shirt sleeves. Summer, and the station’s heating was on. No apparent means of adjusting the radiators. Come October, they’d be lukewarm. Wylie was looking at the case notes spread across three desks.
“Am I in there?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“But I will be.” She picked up one of the Cyril Colliar mug shots, held it by its corner, as if fearing contamination of some kind.
“You didn’t tell me about Denise,” Rebus commented.
“I don’t remember you asking.”
“She had an abusive partner?”
Wylie’s face twisted. “He was a piece of work.”
“Was?”
She stared at him. “All I mean is, he’s out of our lives. You’re not going to find bits of him at Clootie Well.” A photo of the site was pinned to the wall; she studied it, angling her head. Then she turned and cast her gaze around the room. “Got your work cut out, John,” she stated.
“Some help wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Where’s Siobhan?”
“Other business.” He was looking at her meaningfully.
“Why the hell should I help you?”
Rebus shrugged. “Only one reason I can think of—you’re curious.”
“Just like you, you mean?”
He nodded. “Two killings in England, one in Scotland. I’m finding it hard to work out how he’s choosing them. They weren’t listed together on the site...didn’t know each other...crimes they committed are similar but not identical. They chose all sorts of victims...”
“All three served time, right?”
“Different jails though.”
“All the same, word travels. Ex-cons might talk to other ex-cons, pass along the name of a particular sleazeball. Sex offenders aren’t liked by other inmates.”
“It’s a point.” Rebus pretended to consider it. Really, he didn’t see it, but he wanted her thinking.
“You’ve spoken to the other police forces?” she asked.
“Not yet. I think Siobhan sent written requests.”
“Don’t you need the personal touch? See what they can tell you about Isley and Guest?”
“I’m a bit swamped, Ellen.”
Their eyes met. He could see she was hooked—for the moment.
“You really want me helping?” she asked.
“You’re not a suspect, Ellen,” he said, trying for sincerity. “And you know more about all of this than Siobhan and me.”
“How’s she going to feel about me coming on board?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” She thought for a moment, then gave a sigh. “I posted one message on the site, John. I never met the Jensens...”
Rebus merely shrugged. She took a minute to make the decision. “They arrested him, you know—Denise’s—” Swallowed back the next word, couldn’t bring herself to say partner, lover, man. “Nothing ever came of it.”
“What you mean is, he was never jailed.”
“She’s still terrified of him,” she said quietly, “and he’s still out there.” She unbuttoned the sleeves of her blouse and started rolling them up. “Okay, tell me who I should be calling.”
He gave her numbers for Tyneside and Lancashire, then got on the phone himself. Inverness sounded disbelieving at first. “You want us to what?” Rebus could hear a hand unsuccessfully smothering the mouthpiece at the other end. “Edinburgh want us taking snaps o’ the Clootie Well. We used to go there for picnics when I was a lad...” The receiver changed hands.
“This is DS Johnson. Who am I speaking to?”
“DI Rebus, B Division in Edinburgh.”
“Thought you lot had your hands full with all the Trots and Chairman Maos.” There was laughter in the background.
“That may be so, but we also have three murders. Evidence from all three was found in Auchterarder, at a local spot known as the Clootie Well.”
“There’s only one Clootie Well, Inspector.”
“Apparently not. Might be that the one you’ve got up there also has bits of evidence draped over its branches.”
Bait the detective sergeant could not refuse. Few enough moments of excitement in the Northern Constabulary.
“Let’s start with photos of the scene,” Rebus went on. “Plenty of close-ups, and check for anything intact—jeans, jackets. We found a cash card in a pocket. Best if you can send me the photos as an e-mail. If I can’t open it, somebody here will be able to.” He looked across to Ellen Wylie. She sat on the corner of a desk, skirt straining at the thigh. She was playing with a pen as she talked into her receiver.
“Your name again?” DS Johnson was asking.
“DI Rebus. I’m based at Gayfield Square.” Rebus gave a contact number and his e-mail. He could hear Johnson writing the information down.
“And if we do have anything up here?”
“Means our guy has been busy.”
“All right with you if I call this in? Just want to be sure you’re not winding me up.”
“Be my guest. My chief constable’s called James Corbyn—he knows all about it. But don’t waste more time than you have to.”
“There’s a constable here, his dad does portraits and graduations.”
“Doesn’t mean to say the constable knows one end of a camera from the other.”
“I wasn’t thinking of him—I was thinking of his dad.”
“Whatever works,” Rebus said, putting down the phone just as Ellen Wylie was doing the same.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“They’re going to send a photographer, if he’s not too busy at a wedding or kid’s birthday. How about you?”
“The officer in charge of the Guest investigation, I couldn’t speak to him personally but one of his colleagues filled me in. There’s some additional paperwork on its way to us. Reading between the lines, they weren’t busting a gut on the case.”
“It’s what they always tell you in training—the perfect murder is where nobody’s looking for the victim.”
Wylie nodded. “Or in this case, where no one’s grieving. They thought maybe it was a drug deal gone wrong.”
“Now that’s original. Any evidence that Mr. Guest was a user?”
“Apparently so. Could have been dealing, too, owed money for goods and couldn’t...” She saw the look on Rebus’s face.
“Lazy thinking, Ellen. Same thing might explain why no one thought to connect the three killings.”
“Because nobody was trying very hard?” she guessed.
Rebus nodded slowly.
“Well,” she said, “you can ask him yourself.”
“Ask who?”
“Reason I couldn’t talk to the boss is that he’s right here.”
“Here?”
“Sent to Lothian and Borders CID.” She glanced down at her
notes. “He’s a detective sergeant, name of Stan Hackman.”
“So where can I find him?”
“His pal suggested the student residences.”
“Pollock Halls?”
She shrugged, picked up the notepad and turned it toward him. “I’ve got his cell, if that helps.” As Rebus stalked toward her, she tore off the sheet and held it out to him. He snatched at it.
“Get on to whoever led the Isley inquiry,” he said, “see what you can get from them. I’ll go have a word with Hackman.”
“You forgot to say thank you.” Then, watching him shrug his arms back into the sleeves of his jacket: “Remember Brian Holmes?”
“I used to work with him.”
She nodded. “He told me once you had a nickname for him. Used to call him Shoeleather because he did all the donkey work.”
“Donkeys don’t wear shoes, do they?”
“You know what I mean, John. You’re swanning off and leaving me here—it’s not even my office! What does that make me?” She had picked up the telephone receiver and was waving it as she spoke.
“Switchboard, maybe?” he pretended to guess, heading for the exit.
13
Siobhan wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I think,” Teddy Clarke said to his wife, “maybe we should listen to her this time.”
Siobhan’s mother wore a gauze patch over one eye. Her other eye was bruised, and there was a cut to the side of her nose. The painkillers seemed to have dulled her resolve; she just nodded when her husband spoke.
“What about clothes?” Mr. Clarke said as they got into the taxi.
“You can go to the camp later,” Siobhan told him, “bring back what you need.”
“We’d booked places on the bus for tomorrow,” he mused as Siobhan gave the driver directions to her place. She knew he meant one of the protest buses: a convoy heading to the G8. His wife said something he didn’t quite catch. He leaned closer, squeezing her hand, and she repeated it for him.
“We’re still going.” Her husband looked hesitant. “Doctor doesn’t see a problem,” Eve Clarke went on, clearly enough for Siobhan to hear.
“You can decide in the morning,” Siobhan said. “Let’s concentrate on today first, eh?”
Teddy Clarke smiled at his wife. “Told you she’d changed,” he reminded her.
When they reached the apartment, Siobhan paid for the taxi, waving aside her father’s offer of money, then headed upstairs ahead of her parents, checking the living room and bedroom. No underwear on the floor or empty Smirnoff bottles lying around.
“In you come,” she told them. “I’ll get the kettle on. Make yourselves at home.”
“Must be ten years since we’ve been here,” her father commented, making a little tour of the living room.
“I couldn’t have bought the place without your help,” Siobhan called from the kitchen. She knew what her mother would be looking for: signs of male occupation. Whole point of giving her money toward the deposit had been to help her “get settled,” that great euphemism. Steady boyfriend, then marriage, then kids. Not a route Siobhan had ever managed to start on. She took in the teapot and mugs, her father rising to help.
“You can pour,” she told him. “I just need to sort some things in the bedroom.”
She opened the wardrobe and hauled out her overnight bag. Tugged open drawers as she considered what she would need. With a bit of luck, she might not need any of it, but it was best to be safe. Change of clothes, toothbrush, shampoo...She delved to the bottom of a couple of drawers, finding the scruffiest, least-ironed items. Overalls she’d painted the hall in, one shoulder strap held on with a safety pin; a gauzy cotton shirt that had been left behind by a three-night stand.
“We’re driving you out,” her father said. He was in the doorway, holding a mug of tea toward her.
“There’s a trip I have to make, nothing to do with the two of you being here. I might not be back till tomorrow.”
“We could be gone to Gleneagles by then.”
“Might see you there,” she answered with a wink. “The pair of you will be all right tonight? Plenty of shops and places to eat. I’ll leave you a key.”
“We’ll be fine.” He paused. “This trip, is it to do with what happened to your mother?”
“Might be.”
“Because I’ve been thinking...”
“What?” She looked up from her packing.
“You’re a cop, too, Siobhan. If you keep on with this, chances are you’ll just make enemies.”
“It’s not a popularity contest, Dad.”
“All the same...”
She zipped the bag shut, left it on the bed, and took the mug from him. “I just want to hear him say he was wrong.” She took a sip of the lukewarm tea.
“Is that likely to happen?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
Her father had settled himself on a corner of the bed. “She’s determined to go to Gleneagles, you know.”
Siobhan nodded. “I’ll drive you to the camp, bring your things back here before I leave.” She crouched down in front of him, pressing her free hand to his knee. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”
“We’ll be fine. What about you?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Dad. I’ve got a force field around me, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I think I might have caught a glimpse of it in Princes Street.” He placed his own hand over hers. “All the same, take care, eh?”
She smiled and stood up, saw that her mother was watching from the hallway, and shared the smile with her, too.
Rebus had been to the cafeteria before. In term time it was crowded with students, many of them just starting at the university, looking wary and even downright scared. A few years back, a second-year undergraduate had been dealing drugs; Rebus arrested him over breakfast.
The students who used the cafeteria brought laptops and iPods with them, so that even when busy the place was never noisy, except for the trilling of cell phones.
But today, the cafeteria rang with the sounds of harsh, raised voices. Rebus could sense the crackle of testosterone in the air. Two tables had been put together to form a temporary bar, from which small bottles of French lager were being sold. The No Smoking signs were being disregarded as uniformed officers slapped each other on the back and shared awkward approximations of the American high five. Stab vests had been removed, lined up against one wall, and the busy female staff were dishing out plates of fried food, red-faced either from exertion or the exaggerated compliments of the visitors.
Rebus was on the hunt for visual clues, for some sort of Newcastle insignia. At the gatehouse, he’d been directed to an old baronial-style building behind it, where a civilian assistant had found a room number for Hackman. But Rebus had knocked on the door without answer, so he had come here—the assistant’s next suggestion.
“Of course, he could still be in the field,” she’d cautioned, relishing the chance to use the phrase.
“Message received and understood,” Rebus had replied, helping to make her day even more satisfying.
There wasn’t a single Scottish accent in the cafeteria. Rebus saw uniforms from the Met and the London Transport Police, South Wales and Yorkshire...He decided to buy a mug of tea, only to be told there was no charge, having heard which he added a sausage roll and Mars Bar to his purchases. Asked a table if he could sit with them. They shifted to make some room.
“CID?” one of them guessed. Sweat had matted the man’s hair, and his face was flushed.
Rebus nodded, realizing he was the only bloke in the place not wearing a white shirt open at the neck. There was a smattering of female uniforms, too, but they were seated together, ignoring the various remarks launched in their direction.
“Looking for one of my number,” Rebus remarked casually. “A DS called Hackman.”
“You from round here then?” one of the other uniforms asked, placing Rebus’s accent. “Blood
y beautiful city you’ve got. Shame we had to mess it up a bit.” His laughter was shared by his colleagues. “Don’t know any Hackman though.”
“He’s from Newcastle,” Rebus added.
“That lot over there are from Newcastle.” The officer was pointing to a table farther toward the window.
“They’re from Liverpool,” his neighbor corrected him.
“All look the bloody same to me.” There was more laughter at this.
“Where are you from then?” Rebus asked.
“Nottingham,” the first officer replied. “Guess that makes us the sheriffs. Food’s shit though, isn’t it?” He was nodding toward Rebus’s half-eaten sausage roll.
“I’ve had worse—at least it’s free.”
“That’s a proper Jock talking and no mistake.” The man laughed again. “Sorry we can’t help you find your friend.”
Rebus just shrugged. “Were you in Princes Street yesterday?” he asked, as if making conversation.
“Half the bloody day.”
“Nice bit of overtime,” his neighbor added.
“We had the same thing a few years back,” Rebus added. “Commonwealth heads of government meeting. Choggum, we called it. Few of the lads chipped a lump off their mortgages that week.”
“Mine’s going toward a vacation,” the uniform said. “Wife fancies Barcelona.”
“And while she’s there,” his neighbor said, “where will you be taking the girlfriend?” More laughter, elbows digging into ribs.
“You earned it yesterday though,” Rebus stated, getting them back on track.
“Some did,” came the reply. “Most of us sat on the bus, waiting for things to really kick off.”
His neighbor nodded. “Compared to what we’d been warned might happen, it was a walk in the park.”
“Photos in the paper this morning, at least some of you drew a bit of blood.”
“The Met boys probably. They train against Millwall fans, so yesterday was nothing special.”
“Can I try another name on you?” Rebus asked. “Guy called Jacko, might be with the Met.”
They shook their heads. Rebus decided he wasn’t going to get much more, so tucked his Mars Bar into his pocket and rose to his feet. Told them to take care and went for a wander. There were plenty of other uniforms milling about outside. If rain hadn’t been threatening, he suspected they’d be lying on the lawns. He overheard nothing approximating a Newcastle accent, and nothing about giving innocent protesters a good beating. He tried Hackman’s cell, but it was still switched off. On the verge of giving up, he decided to try Hackman’s room one last time.