Resurrection Men ir-13

by Ian Rankin

  She smiled, made for her desk. Someone had borrowed her chair — again. Looking around, the nearest spare was Rebus’s. He’d taken it from the Farmer’s office when the old DCS had retired. That no one had touched it was testament to Rebus’s reputation, which didn’t stop her pushing it across the floor and making herself comfortable.

  Her computer screen was blank. She hit a key, bringing it back to life. A new screen saver was flickering across her vision. PROVE IT THEN — POINT ME OUT. She looked up from the screen, scanning the room. Two primary targets: DC Grant Hood and DS George “Hi-Ho” Silvers. They had their heads together, standing by the far wall. Maybe they were discussing the following week’s rota, swapping assignments. Grant Hood had had a thing about her not that long back. She thought she’d managed to damp those flames without making an enemy of him. But he did like his boxes of tricks: computers; video games; digital cameras. It would be just his style to start sending her messages.

  Hi-Ho Silvers was different. He liked his practical jokes, had made her his victim before. And though he was married, he had a reputation. He’d propositioned Siobhan half a dozen times over the past few years — she could always depend on him for some lurid suggestion at the Christmas party. But she wasn’t sure he’d know how to change a screen saver. He could barely change misspelled words when he was typing his reports.

  Other candidates . . . ? DC Phyllida Hawes, on temporary transfer from Gayfield Square . . . newly promoted Detective Chief Inspector Bill Pryde . . . Neither of them seemed to fit the bill. When Grant Hood turned his head in her direction, she pointed at him. He frowned, shrugged his shoulders as if to ask what she wanted. She indicated her computer screen, then wagged her finger. He broke off his conversation with Silvers and started towards her. Siobhan tapped a key, so that the screen saver disappeared, replaced with a fresh page from the word-processing software.

  “Got a problem?” Hood asked.

  She shook her head slowly. “I thought I had. The screen saver . . .”

  “What about it?” He was at her shoulder now, studying the screen.

  “It was slow to shift.”

  “Could be your memory,” he said.

  “Nothing wrong with my memory, Grant.”

  “I mean the memory on the hard disk. If it’s filling up, everything slows down.”

  She knew as much but pretended she didn’t. “Oh, right.”

  “I’ll check it, if you like. Only take two ticks.”

  “Wouldn’t want to keep you from your little chitchat.”

  Hood looked over to where George Silvers was now perusing the Wall of Death: a montage of photos and documents relating to the case, stuck to the far wall with Blu-Tac.

  “Hi-Ho’s turned malingering into an art form,” Hood said quietly. “He’s been over there half the day, says he’s trying to get a ‘feel’ for events.”

  “Rebus does the same thing,” she stated. Hood looked at her.

  “Hi-Ho’s no John Rebus. All George Silvers wants is a quiet life until his pension maxes out.”

  “Whereas?”

  “Whereas Rebus will be lucky to still be around to collect his.”

  “Is this a private confab, or can anyone join in?” Davie Hynds was standing not three feet away, hands in trouser pockets to indicate that he was at a loose end.

  Grant Hood straightened up, slapped a hand onto Hynds’s shoulder. “And how’s the new boy shaping up, DS Clarke?”

  “So far, so good.”

  Hood whistled, making a show of reappraising Hynds. “That’s high marks, coming from DS Clarke, Davie. You’ve obviously wangled your way into her affections.” With an exaggerated wink, he moved off, heading once more for the Wall of Death.

  Hynds took a step towards Siobhan’s desk. “Is there some history between you two?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “DC Hood obviously doesn’t like me.”

  “It’ll take a while, that’s all.”

  “But am I right? Is there a history?”

  She shook her head slowly, keeping her eyes on his. “You reckon yourself a bit of an expert, don’t you, Davie?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “As an amateur psychologist.”

  “I wouldn’t say —”

  She was resting against the back of Rebus’s chair. “Let’s give you a test: what did you make of Malcolm Neilson?”

  Hynds folded his arms. “I thought we’d covered this.”

  By which he meant their conversation as Siobhan drove them from Neilson’s home back to St. Leonard’s. They hadn’t learned very much from the meeting, Neilson admitting it was no secret he wasn’t on speaking terms with the art dealer. He’d further admitted being annoyed that he’d suddenly been excluded from the New Colorists.

  “That bugger Hastie couldn’t paint a living room wall, and as for Celine Blacker . . .”

  “I quite like Joe Drummond though,” Hynds had interrupted. Siobhan had given him a warning look, but Neilson wasn’t listening anyway.

  “Celine’s not even her real name,” he was saying.

  In the car, Siobhan had asked if Hynds knew anything about painting.

  “I did read up on the Colorists a bit,” he’d admitted. “Case like this, thought it might come in handy . . .”

  Now, he rested his knuckles against the edge of Siobhan’s desk, leaning in towards her. “He’s not got much of an alibi,” he stated.

  “But did he act like a man who might need one?”

  Hynds considered this. “He called his lawyer . . .”

  “Yes, but that was a moment’s panic. Once we actually got talking, didn’t you think he relaxed?”

  “He was pretty confident.”

  Siobhan, gazing into the middle distance, found herself locking eyes with George Silvers. She pointed to her computer screen, then wagged the finger at him. He ignored her, went back to his pretense of studying the wall.

  Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer was suddenly standing in the doorway.

  “Noise Abatement Society been leafleting again?” she bellowed. “A quiet office is one that isn’t working hard enough.” She narrowed in on Silvers. “Think you’re going to solve the case by osmosis, George?” There were smiles, but no laughter. The officers were trying to look busy but focused.

  Templer was heading relentlessly for Siobhan’s desk. “How did you get on with the artist?” she asked, her voice dropping several decibels.

  “Says he was in a few pubs that evening, ma’am. Got a take-away and went home to listen to Wagner.”

  “Tristan und Isolde,” Hynds confided. Then, when Templer turned her laser glare on him, he blurted out that Neilson had wanted a solicitor present at the interview.

  “Did he now?” The beams switched to Siobhan.

  “It’ll go in my report, ma’am.”

  “But you didn’t think it worth mentioning?”

  The side of Hynds’s neck was reddening as he realized he’d dropped Siobhan in it.

  “We don’t think it really means anything . . .” His voice fell away as he found himself the center of attention again.

  “That’s your judgment, is it? Well, I can see I’m completely surplus to requirements. DC Hynds,” Templer announced to the room, “thinks he’s competent to make all the decisions around here.”

  Hynds tried for a smile, failed.

  “But just in case he’s wrong . . .” Templer was moving towards the doorway again, gesturing into the corridor. “Seeing how we’re down a DI, the Big House have let us borrow one of theirs.”

  Siobhan sucked air between her teeth as a body and face she recognized walked into the room.

  “DI Derek Linford,” Templer stated by way of introduction. “Some of you may already know him.” Her eyes turned towards Hi-Ho Silvers. “George, you’ve been staring at that wall long enough. Maybe you can bring Derek up to speed on the case, eh?”

  With that, Templer left the room. Linford looked around, then walked
stiffly towards George Silvers, shaking the proffered hand.

  “Christ,” Hynds was saying in an undertone, “I felt like I was on her petri dish for a minute back there . . .” Then he noticed Siobhan’s face. “What is it?”

  “What you were saying before . . . about Grant and me.” She nodded her head in Linford’s direction.

  “Oh,” Davie Hynds said. Then: “Fancy another coffee?”

  Out at the machine she gave him an edited version of events, telling him that she’d gone out with Linford on a couple of occasions, but leaving out the fact that Linford had started spying on her. She added that there was bad blood between Linford and Rebus, too, with the former blaming the latter for a severe beating he’d been given.

  “You mean DI Rebus beat him up?”

  Siobhan shook her head. “But Linford blames him all the same.”

  Hynds gave a low whistle. He seemed about to say something, but now Linford himself was walking down the corridor, sorting out some loose coins in his hand.

  “Change for fifty pee?” he asked. Hynds immediately reached into his own pocket, allowing Linford and Siobhan to share a look.

  “How are you, Siobhan?”

  “Fine, Derek. How are you?”

  “Better.” He nodded slowly. “Thanks for asking.” Hynds was slotting coins home, refusing Linford’s offer of the fifty-pence piece.

  “Was it tea or coffee you were after?”

  “I think I’m capable of pushing the button myself,” Linford told him. Hynds realized he was trying too hard, took half a step back.

  “Besides,” Linford added, “knowing this machine, it hardly makes any difference.” He managed a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “Why him?” Siobhan asked.

  She was in DCS Templer’s office. Gill Templer had just got off the phone and was scribbling a note in the margin of a typewritten sheet.

  “Why not?”

  It struck Siobhan that Templer hadn’t been chief super back then. She didn’t know the full story.

  “There’s . . .” — she found herself echoing Hynds’s word — “history.” Templer glanced up. “Between DI Linford and DI Rebus,” Siobhan went on.

  “But DI Rebus is no longer part of this team.” Templer lifted the sheet of paper as if to read it.

  “I know that, ma’am.”

  Templer peered at her. “Then what’s the problem?”

  Siobhan took the whole office in with a sweep of her eyes. Window and filing cabinets, potted plant, a couple of family photographs. She wanted it. She wanted someday to be sitting where Gill Templer was.

  Which meant not giving up her secrets.

  Which meant seeming strong, not rocking the boat.

  “Nothing, ma’am.” She turned towards the door, reached out for the handle.

  “Siobhan.” The voice was more human. “I respect your loyalty to DI Rebus, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good thing.”

  Siobhan nodded, keeping her face to the door. When her boss’s phone rang again, she made what she felt was a dignified exit. Back in the murder room, she checked her screen saver. No one had tampered with it. Then she had a thought, and walked the short distance back across the corridor, knocking on the door, putting her head around without waiting. Templer put a hand across the receiver’s mouthpiece.

  “What is it?” she asked, her voice once again iron.

  “Cafferty,” Siobhan said simply. “I want to be the one who interviews him.”

  Rebus was slowly circling the long oval table. Night had fallen, but the slat blinds remained open. The table was strewn with stuff from the box-files. What it lacked as yet was some order. Rebus didn’t think it was his job to impose order, yet that was what he was doing. He knew that come the morning, the rest of the team might want to rearrange everything, but at least he’d have tried.

  Interview transcripts, reports from the door-to-door inquiries, medical and pathology, forensics and Scene of Crime . . . There was a lot of background on the victim, as was to be expected: how could they hope to solve the crime until they had a motive? The area’s prostitutes had been reluctant to come forward. No one had claimed Eric Lomax as a client. It didn’t help that there had been a series of murders of Glasgow prostitutes and that the police had been accused of not caring. Nor did it help that Lomax — known to his associates as Rico — had operated on the fringes of the city’s criminal community.

  In short, Rico Lomax was a lowlife. And even on this morning’s evidence, Rebus could see that some of the officers on the original inquiry had felt that all his demise did was erase another name from the game. One or two of the Resurrection Men had mooted similar feelings.

  “Why give us a scumbag to work on?” Stu Sutherland had asked. “Give us a case we want to see solved.”

  Which remark had earned him a roasting from DCI Tennant. They had to want to see all their cases solved. Rebus had watched Tennant throughout, wondering why the Lomax case had been chosen. Could it be random chance, or something altogether more threatening?

  There was a box of newspapers from the time. A lot of interest had been shown in them, not least because they brought back memories. Rebus sat himself down now and leafed through a couple. The official opening of the Skye Road Bridge . . . Raith Rovers in the UEFA Cup . . . a bantamweight boxer killed in the ring in Glasgow . . .

  “Old news,” a voice intoned. Rebus looked up. Francis Gray was standing in the open doorway, feet apart, hands in pockets.

  “Thought you were down the pub,” Rebus said.

  Gray sniffed as he came in, rubbed a hand across his nose. “We just ended up discussing all this.” He tapped one of the empty box-files. “The lads are on their way over, but looks like you beat us all to it.”

  “It was all right when it was just tests and lectures,” Rebus said, leaning back in his chair so he could stretch his spine.

  Gray nodded. “But now there’s something for us to take seriously, eh?” He pulled out the chair next to Rebus’s, sat down and concentrated on the open newspaper. “But you seem to be taking it more seriously than most.”

  “I just got here first, that’s all.”

  “That’s what I mean.” Gray still wasn’t looking at him. He wet a thumb and turned back a page. “You’ve got a bit of a rep, haven’t you, John? Sometimes you get too involved.”

  “Oh aye? And you’re here for always toeing the line?”

  Gray allowed himself a smile. Rebus could smell beer and nicotine from his clothes. “We’ve all crossed the line sometime, haven’t we? It happens to good cops as well as bad. Maybe you could even say it’s what makes the good cops good.”

  Rebus studied the side of Gray’s head. Gray was at Tulliallan because he’d disobeyed one order too many from a senior officer. Then again, as Gray had said: “My boss was, is, and will forever be a complete and utter arsehole.” A pause. “With respect.” That final phrase had cracked the table up. The problem with most of the Resurrection Men was, they didn’t respect those above them in the pecking order, didn’t trust them to do a good job, make the right decision. Gray’s “Wild Bunch” would be returned to duty only when they’d learned to accept and respond to the hierarchy.

  “See,” Gray was saying now, “give me a boss like DCI Tennant any day of the week. Guy like that’s going to call a spade a shovel. You know where you stand with him. He’s old school.”

  Rebus was nodding. “At least he’s going to give you a bollocking to your face.”

  “And not go shafting you from behind.” Now Gray found himself at the newspaper’s front page. He held it up for Rebus to see: ROSYTH BID BRINGS HOPE OF 5,000 JOBS . . . “Yet we’re still here,” Gray said quietly. “We haven’t quit and they haven’t made us. Why do you think that is?”

  “We’d cause too much trouble?” Rebus guessed.

  Gray shook his head. “It’s because deep down they understand something. They know that they need us more than we need them.” Now he turned to m
atch Rebus’s gaze, seemed to be waiting for Rebus to say something in reply. But there were voices in the corridor, and then faces in the doorway. Four of them, toting a couple of shopping bags from which were produced cans of beer and lager and a bottle of cheap whiskey. Gray rose to his feet, quickly took over.

  “DC Ward, you’re in charge of finding us some mugs or glasses. DC Sutherland, might as well shut the blinds, eh? DI Rebus here has already got the ball rolling. Who knows, maybe we’ll wrap this up tonight and put Archie Tennant’s gas at a peep . . .”

  They knew they wouldn’t, but that didn’t stop them trying, starting with a brainstorming session that went all the better for the loosening effects of the alcohol. Some of the theories were wild, and got wilder, but there were nuggets among the dross. Tam Barclay made a list. As Rebus had suspected would happen, the separate clusters of paperwork on the table soon collided, restoring chaos to the whole. He didn’t say anything.

  “Rico Lomax wasn’t expecting anything,” Jazz McCullough stated at one point.

  “How do you reckon?”

  “Wary men tend to change their routine, but here’s Rico, cool as you like, at his usual spot in his usual bar on the same night as always.”

  There were nods of agreement. Their thinking had been: some gangland falling-out, an organized hit.

  “We all spoke to our snitches at the time,” Francis Gray added. “A lot of pieces of silver crossed a good many undeserving palms. Result: zip.”

  “Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a contract on him,” Allan Ward said.

  “Still with us, Allan?” Gray said, sounding surprised. “Is it not time you were tucked up in bed with your teddy?”

  “Tell me, Francis, do you buy your one-liners wholesale? Only they’re well past their sell-by.”

  There was laughter at this, and a few fingers pointed at Gray, as if to say: The lad got you, Francis! He definitely got you!

  Rebus watched Gray’s mouth twist itself into a smile so thin it could have graced a catwalk.

  “I can see this is going to be a long night,” Jazz McCullough said, bringing them back to earth.

  After a can of beer, Rebus excused himself to visit the toilet. It was at the end of the corridor and down a flight of stairs. As he left the room, he could hear Stu Sutherland repeating one of the earlier theories: