by Ian Rankin
She hadn’t allowed for the Friday-afternoon exodus from the city, ending with a long queue to pay the toll at the Forth Road Bridge. After that, she put her foot down. Her mobile was attached to its charger. Still no word from Hetherington. She picked it up every few minutes, just in case some new text message had escaped her attention. The farther north she traveled, the better she felt. It wouldn’t matter if there was nobody at the office when she arrived. It was good to be out of Edinburgh. It reminded her that there was another world out there. She didn’t know Dundee professionally but had visited the city plenty of times as a football fan. The two Dundee teams had stadiums practically next door to one another. There were a few pubs in the center where Siobhan had enjoyed a drink before kickoff, her Hibs scarf hidden deep down in her shoulder bag. There was a sign off the motorway to the Tay Bridge, but she’d made that mistake once before. It led to a long, winding trail through the villages of Fife. She stuck to the M90, bypassing Perth and heading into Dundee from the west. This approach turned into a seemingly endless series of roundabouts. She was steering the car around one of these when her phone sounded.
“I got your message,” the female voice said.
“Thanks for calling back. As it happens, I’m on the outskirts of town.”
“Christ, it must be serious.”
“Maybe I just fancied a Friday night in Dundee.”
“In which case, delete ‘serious’ and add ‘desperate.’ ”
Siobhan knew she was going to like DS Hetherington. “My name’s Siobhan, by the way,” she said.
“Mine’s Liz.”
“Are you just about ready to shut up shop, Liz? Only, I know the pubs in this city better than I do your HQ.”
Hetherington laughed. “I suppose I could be persuaded.”
“Great.” Siobhan named a pub, and Hetherington said she knew it.
“Ten minutes?”
“Ten minutes,” Hetherington agreed.
“How will we know one another?”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem, Siobhan. Single women in that place tend to be an endangered species.”
She was right.
Siobhan only knew the place from Saturday afternoons, drinking in safety, a pack of Hibs fans around her. But as people clocked off, the weekend stretching ahead of them, the pub took on a very different character. There were office parties, loud laughter. The only people drinking alone were sour-faced men at the bar. Couples were meeting up after work, bringing their day’s gossip with them. Supermarket shopping bags held the evening meal. There was thumping dance music, and a TV sports channel playing silently. The interior was spacious, but Siobhan was having trouble finding somewhere to stand, somewhere she’d be conspicuous to anyone coming in. There were two doors into the place, which didn’t help. Every time she thought she’d found a spot, drinkers would gather nearby, camouflaging her. And Hetherington was late. Siobhan’s glass was empty. She went to the bar for a refill.
“Lime and soda?” the barman remembered. She nodded, quietly impressed. She turned to watch the door and saw that it had opened. A woman was standing there. Something Liz Hetherington had forgotten to mention: she had to be six feet tall or thereabouts. Unlike a lot of tall women, she made no attempt to make herself seem shorter, holding her back straight and wearing shoes with heels. Siobhan waved, and Hetherington joined her.
“Liz?” Siobhan said. Hetherington nodded. “What’re you having?”
“Just a dry ginger . . .” She paused. “No, the hell with it. It’s Friday, right?”
“Right.”
“So make it a Bloody Mary.”
There were no tables left, but they found a ledge by the far wall and placed their drinks there. Siobhan realized that she didn’t want to stand next to Hetherington for too long: she might get a crick in her neck. She fetched two stools from the bar and they sat down.
“Cheers,” she said.
“Cheers.”
Liz Hetherington was in her mid-thirties. Thick shoulder-length black hair, which she kept trimmed without spending a fortune on new styles. Her slender frame thickened considerably at the hips, but her height helped her carry it. No rings on her left hand.
“How long have you been a DS?” Siobhan asked.
Hetherington puffed out her cheeks. “Three years . . . Three and a half actually. You?”
“Nearer three weeks.”
“Congratulations. How’s Lothian and Borders?”
“Much the same as up here, I’d expect. I’ve got a female DCS.”
Hetherington raised an eyebrow. “Good for you.”
“She’s okay,” Siobhan said thoughtfully. “I mean, she’s not the kind to give favors . . .”
“They never are,” Hetherington stated. “Too much to prove.”
Siobhan nodded agreement. Hetherington was savoring a mouthful of her drink.
“Ages since I had one of these,” she explained, swirling the ice in her glass. “So what brings you to the city of the three Js?”
Siobhan smiled. The three Js: jute, jam and journalism, of which, as far as she knew, only the third still provided much in the way of local jobs. “I wanted to thank you for sending me that stuff I asked for.”
“A phone call would have sufficed.”
Siobhan nodded. “There was a name mentioned . . . one of your colleagues. I may have to ask him a few questions.”
“And?”
Siobhan shrugged. “And I was just wondering what he was like. His name’s James McCullough. He’s a DI. Maybe you know someone who can give me a bit of background?”
Hetherington studied Siobhan over her glass. Siobhan wasn’t sure she was falling for the line she’d just spun. Maybe it wouldn’t matter.
“You want to know about Jazz McCullough?”
Meaning Hetherington knew him. “I just want to know how he’ll react if I ask him some questions. Forewarned is forearmed and all that . . .”
“And knowledge is power?” She watched Siobhan shrug again, then gestured towards her drink. “You need a refill.”
Siobhan knew Hetherington was giving herself time. “Lime and soda,” she said.
“Want a gin or anything in that?”
“I’m driving.” Siobhan stared down at her near-empty glass. “Go on then,” she said.
Hetherington smiled and headed for the bar.
When she came back, she’d made her decision. She’d also bought two packets of dry-roasted peanuts.
“Sustenance,” she said, placing them on the ledge. Then, as she sat down again: “The hunters are out.”
Siobhan nodded. She’d seen them: men’s eyes assessing her. Men from the office parties, but also men at the bar. They did, after all, appear to be two women at the start of a night out, making them possible prey . . .
“Good luck to them,” Siobhan said.
“Here’s to professional women,” Hetherington said, chinking glasses. Then she paused. “You don’t realize how lucky you are.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, maybe it isn’t luck. Could be it’s instinct or kismet or something.” She paused to sip her drink. “There are plenty of people in CID who know Jazz McCullough, and some of them might even be willing to talk to you. But not many would say very much.”
“He has a lot of friends?”
“He’s made a lot of friends. Plenty of favors he’s done for people down the years.”
“But you’re not one of them?”
“I’ve worked with him a couple of times in the past. He acted like I was invisible, which, as you can imagine, is quite a feat.”
Siobhan could well imagine it: she reckoned Hetherington was probably a good half-inch taller than McCullough, maybe more.
“He didn’t like you?”
Hetherington shook her head. “I don’t think it went that far. He just didn’t think I was necessary.”
“Because you’re a woman?”
Hetherington shrugged. “Maybe.” She lifted her glass aga
in. “So don’t expect him to welcome you with open arms.”
“I won’t.” Siobhan thought back to the scene in Leith and had to suppress a shiver. The alcohol seemed to surge through her. She lifted a handful of nuts to her mouth.
“What is it you need to ask him anyway?”
“The notes you sent me . . .”
“I forget the woman’s name.”
“Ellen Dempsey. McCullough arrested her a couple of times. Once for prostitution, then again for using mace against someone in a taxi. Dempsey may be part of a case I’m working.”
“What’s it got to do with McCullough?”
“Probably nothing, but I need to ask anyway.”
Hetherington nodded her understanding. “Well, I’ve told you what I know about Jazz . . .”
“You haven’t mentioned that he’s on a course at Tulliallan.”
“Oh, you know about that? Jazz isn’t always very good at following orders.”
“A colleague of mine in Edinburgh’s just the same. Happens to be at Tulliallan too.”
“Which is why you know Jazz is there? It’s not that I was covering up for him, Siobhan. I just didn’t see how it was relevant.”
“Everything’s relevant, Liz,” Siobhan told her. “My feeling — strictly between us” — she waited until Hetherington had nodded her agreement — “is that McCullough may have kept in touch with this Ellen Dempsey character after she left Dundee.”
“Kept in touch in what way?”
“To the extent that he may want to protect her.”
Hetherington was thoughtful for a moment. “I’m not sure I can help. I know he’s married with kids, one of them grown up and studying at university.” She paused. “There’s some sort of separation going on . . .”
“Oh?”
Hetherington winced. “This is going to sound like me having a go at him . . .”
“Not as far as I’m concerned, Liz.” Siobhan waited for her to speak.
Hetherington let out a sigh. “He moved out a couple of months back, according to the rumor mill. Still goes round there . . . I think he moved into a flat only a couple of streets away.”
“He lives in the city?”
Hetherington shook her head. “Just outside, in Broughty Ferry.”
“On the coast?”
Hetherington nodded. “Look, I really don’t want to speak bad of the guy. If you talked to a dozen detectives, you’d hardly find anyone with a —”
“But he has a problem with authority?”
“He just happens to think he knows more than them. Who’s to say he’s wrong?”
“Reminds me of that colleague again,” Siobhan said with a smile.
“Hey, girls, looks like you could do with another drink.” Two men were approaching, pint glasses in hands. They wore jackets, ties and wedding rings.
“Not tonight, fellas,” Hetherington told them. The one who’d spoken gave a shrug.
“Only asking,” he said. Hetherington waved them good-bye.
“Maybe there’s somewhere else you prefer?” Siobhan asked her.
“I really need to be getting home.” She tugged at her watch strap. “If you need to talk to Jazz, just dive in and do it. He won’t bite.”
Siobhan didn’t like to say that she wasn’t sure about that.
They were heading in different directions, so they shook hands outside the pub. The two men followed them out. “Where you lassies off to then?”
“Never mind us, just get on home to your wives.”
The men glowered, then slouched off, muttering curses.
“Thanks for your help, Liz,” Siobhan said.
“I’m not sure I’ve done much.”
“You gave me an excuse to get out of Edinburgh.”
Hetherington nodded, as though she could understand. “Come see us again sometime, DS Clarke.”
“I’ll do that, DS Hetherington.”
She watched the tall, confident figure striding away from her. Hetherington sensed it, threw a wave without bothering to look back.
Siobhan walked downhill to where she’d parked her car. The sky was losing light as she snaked her way back towards the motorway, replacing REM with Boards of Canada. When her mobile rang, she knew instinctively who it would be.
“How was the rest of your day?” she asked.
“I survived,” Rebus told her. “Sorry I couldn’t talk earlier.”
“You were in the same room as them?”
“And sticking as close to Bobby Hogan as I could. You managed to get under Jazz McCullough’s skin — I’m impressed.”
“I should have taken your advice and steered clear.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“John . . . are you ready yet to tell me what the hell’s going on?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m not doing anything else for the next hour.”
There was a long silence on the line. “This has got to stay between us,” he told her.
“You know you can trust me.”
“Like I trusted you to stay away from McCullough?”
“That was more in the way of advice,” she said with a grin.
“Well, all right then. If you’re sitting comfortably . . .”
“I’m ready.”
Another silence, and then Rebus’s voice, sounding eerily disembodied. “Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a king called Strathern. And one day, he called one of his errant knights to him with news of a perilous quest . . .”
Rebus paced his living room as he told Siobhan the story, or as much of it as he felt she needed. He’d clocked off early and come straight home, but now the place felt like a trap. He kept peering from the window, wondering if someone was waiting for him below. The front door was locked, but that wouldn’t keep anyone out. The joiner had replaced the doorjamb, but without adding any extra reinforcement. Another chisel or crowbar would open it as effortlessly as a key. The lights were off throughout the flat, but Rebus wasn’t sure he felt any safer in the darkness.
Siobhan asked him a couple of questions when he was done. She didn’t say anything about whether he’d been right or wrong to take on such a task. She didn’t tell him he was mad for suggesting the drug heist to the trio. Rebus knew then that she was listening to him as a friend as well as a colleague.
“Where are you?” he thought to ask at last. From the sounds, she was still driving. He’d thought she was probably on her way home from St. Leonard’s, but that had been half an hour ago when he’d started his story.
“I’ve just passed Kinross,” she told him. “I’m on my way back from Dundee.”
Rebus knew what Dundee meant. “Digging dirt on Jazz McCullough?”
“Not that there was much to find . . . He’s split from his wife, but that hardly makes him a monster.”
“Split from his wife?” Rebus was thinking back to their first days in Tulliallan. “But he’s always on the phone to her. Made a point of going home when he could.”
“They separated a few months back.”
The happy marriage had been smoke, Rebus realized. “Then where was he going?” he asked.
“I wonder if Ellen Dempsey could tell us.”
“Me too. . .” Rebus grew thoughtful. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Not much. Are you suggesting a stakeout?”
“Maybe a little one, just to see if we can confirm anything.”
“Dempsey lives in North Queensferry. I could be there in ten, fifteen minutes.”
“And McCullough has a house in Broughty Ferry . . .” Rebus went to his dining table, started sifting through the paperwork there. There was a sheet . . . they’d each been given one at the start of the course. Names and ranks of the participants, plus their work and home addresses. He lifted it out. “Got it,” he said.
“Word is, he’s rented a flat a couple of streets away,” Siobhan was saying. “You sure you want to head up there? If his car’s in North Queensferry, it’s a wasted t
rip . . .”
“Anything’s better than sitting here,” Rebus told her. He didn’t add how much he felt like a target.
They agreed to keep in touch by mobile and he placed one last call to Jean, letting her know he would see her later on in the evening, how much later he couldn’t say.
“If the lights are out, don’t bother ringing the bell,” she told him. “Call me in the morning instead.”
“Will do, Jean.”
He walked quickly from the tenement to his car, starting the engine and reversing out of the parking space. He didn’t know what to expect: some ambush perhaps, or a car following him. But it was midevening quiet, and the Edinburgh streets were such that it was hard to tail someone if they were expecting you. It was all stop-start, traffic lights and junctions. Rebus didn’t think he was being followed. The Wild Bunch had dispersed, supposedly on their way home to families, loved ones, drinking cronies. Allan Ward had complained of the long drive he faced: no fast, easy route to Dumfries. But that could have been just talk. Impossible to tell where any of the trio were. Rebus had imagined Jazz heading for the happy home he’d talked into existence. But there was no happy home. Hard to say what was real anymore. Friday night, and the city was coming out to play: girls in short dresses; boys bouncing as they walked, filled with chemical bravado. Men in suits waving down taxis; music pounding from cruising cars. You worked hard all week, then prayed for oblivion. Having left Edinburgh behind, crossing the Forth Bridge, he looked down towards North Queensferry and gave Siobhan a call.
“No sign of life,” she told him. “I’ve driven past a couple of times . . . no car in the driveway.”
“She might still be at work,” Rebus argued. “Busy night and all that.”
“I called to book a cab. It wasn’t her voice.”
Rebus smiled. “Nice move.”
“Where are you?”
“If you wave, I might see you. I’m just crossing the bridge.”
“Let me know when you get there.”
Rebus ended the call, clearing his mind as he drove.
Broughty Ferry was on the coast just east of Dundee itself. It liked to think of itself as genteel and independent, like someone with enough money put aside for a comfortable retirement. He stopped to ask a local for directions, and soon found himself on Jazz McCullough’s street, though mindful that McCullough himself could be in the vicinity. There were plenty of cars parked curbside and in driveways, but no sign of McCullough’s Volvo sedan. Rebus passed his house. It was detached but unostentatious. Maybe four bedrooms, leaded windows in the lounge. Light was pouring through them. There was a driveway but no garage. The car on view was a Honda Accord, probably the wife’s. Rebus turned his Saab round at a neighboring cul-de-sac and managed to park just close enough to the house to keep any comings and goings visible. He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it: the list from Tulliallan. Jazz’s phone number was printed next to his address. Rebus placed the call. A young male voice picked up: the fourteen-year-old son.
