Authors: Ian Rankin
Outside in the car park he unlocked his Saab, but then stood there, hand on the door handle, staring into space. For a while now, he’d known the truth—that it wasn’t so much the underworld you had to fear as the
overworld
. Maybe that explained why Cafferty had, to all purposes and appearances, gone legit. A few friends in the right places and deals got done, fates decided. Never in his life had Rebus felt like an insider. From time to time he’d tried—during his years in the army and his first few months as a cop. But the less he felt he belonged, the more he came to mistrust the others around him with their games of golf and their “quiet words,” their stitch-ups and handshakes, palm greasing and scratching of backs. Stood to reason someone like Addison would go straight to the top; he’d done it because he could, because in his world it felt entirely justified and correct. Rebus had to admit, though, he’d underestimated Corbyn, hadn’t expected him to pull that particular trick. Kicked into touch until gold-watch day.
“Fuckwit,” he said out loud, this time aiming the word at no one but himself.
That was that, then. End of the line, end of the job. These past weeks, he’d been trying so hard not to think about it—throwing himself into other work,
any
work. Dusting off all those old unsolveds, trying to get Siobhan interested, as if she didn’t have more than enough on her plate in the here and now—a situation unlikely to change in the future. The alternative was to take the whole lot home with him . . . call it his retirement gift; something to keep his brain active when the idea of the pub didn’t appeal. For three decades now, this job of his had sustained him, and all it had cost him was his marriage and a slew of friendships and shattered relationships. No way he was ever going to feel like a civilian again; too late for that; too late for him to change. He would become invisible to the world, not just to reveling teenagers.
“Fuck,” he said, drawing the word out way past its natural length.
It was the casual arrogance that had flipped his switch, Addison sitting there in the full confidence of his power—and the stepdaughter’s arrogance, too, in thinking one weepy phone call would make everything better. It was, Rebus realized, how things worked in the overworld. Addison had never woken from a beating in a piss-stained tenement stairwell. His stepdaughter had never worked the streets for money for her next fix and the kids’ dinner. They lived in another place entirely—no doubt part of the buzz Gill Morgan got from mixing with the likes of Nancy Sievewright.
The same buzz Corbyn got from having one of the most powerful men in Europe come to him with a favor.
The same buzz Cafferty got, buying drinks for businessmen and politicians . . . Cafferty: unfinished business, and likely to remain that way if Rebus heeded Corbyn’s orders. Cafferty unfettered, free to commute between underworld and overworld. Unless Rebus went back indoors right now and apologized to the Chief Constable, promising to toe the line.
The scrap heap’s hurtling towards me as it is . . . give me this one last chance . . . please, sir . . . please . . .
“Aye, right,” Rebus said, yanking open the car door and stabbing the key into the ignition.
N
ancy, we’re going to record this, okay?”
Sievewright’s mouth twitched. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“Do you want a lawyer?”
“Dunno.”
Clarke nodded for Goodyear to switch on the deck. She’d slotted home both tapes herself—one for them and one for Sievewright. But Goodyear was hesitating, and Clarke had to remind herself that he’d not done this sort of thing before. Interview Room 1 felt stuffy and sweltering, as if it was sucking all the heat from the rooms around it. The central heating pipes hissed and gurgled and couldn’t be turned down. Even Goodyear had taken off his jacket, and there were damp patches beneath his arms. Yet IR3, two doors along, was freezing, maybe because IR1 was keeping all the heat to itself.
“That one and that one,” she explained, pointing to the relevant buttons. He pressed them, the red light came on, and both tapes started running. Clarke identified herself and Goodyear, her final few words drowned by the scrape of his chair as he drew it in towards the desk. He gave a little grimace of apology, and she repeated herself, then asked Sievewright to state her name, before adding date and time to the recording. Formalities done with, she sat back a little in her chair. The Todorov file was in front of her, autopsy photo uppermost. She had padded the file itself with blank sheets of copy paper, to make it seem more impressive and, perhaps, more threatening. Goodyear had nodded admiringly. Same went for the postmortem photo, plucked from the Murder Wall to remind Sievewright of the grim seriousness of the case. The young woman certainly looked unnerved. Hawes and Tibbet had explained nothing of their appearance at her door, and had kept tight-lipped during the drive to Gayfield Square. Sievewright had then been left in IR1 for the best part of forty minutes, without any offer of tea or water. And when Clarke and Goodyear had come in, they’d both been carrying a fresh brew—even though Goodyear himself had insisted he wasn’t thirsty.
“For effect,” Clarke had told him.
Next to the file on the table sat Clarke’s mobile phone, and next to that a pad of paper and a pen. Goodyear, too, was bringing out a notebook.
“Now then, Nancy,” Clarke began. “Want to tell us what you were really up to the night you found the victim?”
“What?” Sievewright’s mouth stayed open long after the question had left it.
“The night you were out at your friend’s flat . . .” Clarke made show of consulting the file. “Gill Morgan.” Her eyes met Sievewright’s. “Your good friend Gill.”
“Yes?”
“Your story was that you’d been round to her flat and were on your way home. But that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“No.”
“Well, somebody’s lying to us, Nancy.”
“What’s she been saying?” The voice taking on a harder edge.
“We’re led to believe, Nancy, that you were on your way
to
her flat, not from it. Did you have the drugs on you when you tripped over the body?”
“What drugs?”
“The ones you were going to share with Gill.”
“She’s a lying cow!”
“I thought she was your friend? Enough of a friend to stick to the story you gave her.”
“She’s lying,” Sievewright repeated, eyes reduced to slits.
“Why would she do that, Nancy? Why would a
friend
do that?”
“You’d have to ask her.”
“We already have. Thing is, her story fits with other facts in the case. A woman was seen hanging around outside the car park . . .”
“I already told you, I never saw her.”
“Maybe because you
were
her?”
“I look nothing like that picture you showed me!”
“See, she was offering herself for sex, and we know why some women will do that, don’t we?”
“Do we?”
“Money for drugs, Nancy.”
“What?”
“You needed the money to buy drugs you could sell on to Gill.”
“She’d already given me the money, you dozy cow!”
Clarke didn’t bother replying, just waited for Nancy’s outburst to sink in. The teenager’s face crumpled, and she knew she’d said more than she should.
“What I mean is . . . ,” she stumbled, but the lie wouldn’t come.
“Gill Morgan gave you money to buy her some dope,” Clarke stated. “To be honest with you—and this is for the record—I couldn’t give a monkey’s. Doesn’t sound to me like you’re some big-shot dealer. If you had been, you’d have scarpered that night rather than sticking around to wait for us. But that makes me think you didn’t have anything on you at the time, which means you were either waiting to score or on your way to score.”
“Yes?”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing which it was.”
“The second one.”
“On your way to meet your dealer?”
Sievewright just nodded. “Nancy Sievewright nods,” Clarke said for the benefit of the slowly spooling tapes. “So you weren’t hanging around outside the car park?”
“I already said, didn’t I?”
“Just want to make sure.” Clarke made show of turning to another page in the file. “Ms. Morgan has ambitions to be an actress,” she stated.
“Yeah.”
“Ever seen her in anything?”
“Don’t think she’s
been
in anything.”
“You sound skeptical.”
“First she was going to write for the papers, then it was TV presenting, then modeling . . .”
“What we might call a gadfly,” Clarke agreed.
“You call it what you want.”
“Must be fun, though, hanging out with her?”
“She gets good invites,” Sievewright admitted.
“But she doesn’t always take you with her?” Clarke guessed.
“Not often.” Sievewright shifted in her chair.
“I forget, how did you two meet?”
“At a party in the New Town . . . got talking to one of her pals in a pub, and he said I could tag along with them.”
“You know who Gill’s father is?”
“I know he must have a few quid.”
“He runs a bank.”
“Figures.”
Clarke turned to another sheet of paper. Really, she wanted Rebus there, so she could bounce ideas off him and let him do some of the running while she collected her thoughts between rounds. Todd Goodyear looked stiff and uncertain and was gnawing away at his pen like a beaver with a particularly juicy length of timber.
“She works on one of the city’s ghost tours, did you know that?” Clarke asked eventually.
“Can I get a drink or something?”
“We’re nearly done.”
Sievewright scowled, like a kid on the verge of a major sulk. Clarke repeated her question.
“She took me along with her one time,” the teenager admitted.
“How was it?”
Sievewright shrugged. “Okay, I suppose. Bit boring, really.”
“You weren’t scared?” The question received a snorted response. Clarke closed the file slowly, as if winding up. But she had a few more questions. She waited until Sievewright was readying to get up before asking the first of them. “Remember the cloak Gill wears?”
“What cloak?”
“When she’s being the Mad Monk.”
“What about it?”
“Ever seen it at her flat?”
“No.”
“Has she ever been to your flat?”
“Came to a party once.”
Clarke pretended to spend a few moments considering this. “You know I’m not going to be chasing you for drugs offenses, Nancy, but I wouldn’t mind knowing your dealer’s address.”
“No chance.” The teenager sounded adamant. She was still poised to get up; in her mind, she was already leaving, meaning she’d want to give quick answers to any further questions. Clarke rapped her fingernails against the closed file.
“But you know him pretty well?”
“Says who?”
“I’m guessing you had some dope on you at that first party; explains how you made friends so quickly.”
“So?”
“So you’re not going to give me a name?”
“Bloody right I’m not.”
“How did you meet him?”
“Through a friend.”
“Your flatmate? The one with the eyeliner?”
“None of your business.”
“The day I was there, quite an aroma was wafting from the living room . . .” Sievewright stayed tight-lipped. “You in touch with your parents, Nancy?”
The question seemed to throw the young woman. “Dad did a runner when I was ten.”
“And your mum?”
“Lives in Wardieburn.”
Not the city’s most salubrious neighborhood. “See her much?”
“Is this turning into a social work interview?”
Clarke smiled indulgently. “Had any more trouble from Mr. Anderson?”
“Not yet.”
“You think he’ll be back?”
“He better think twice.”
“Funny thing is, he works for Gill’s dad’s bank.”
“So what?”
“Gill’s never taken you to any of their parties? No possibility Mr. Anderson could have met you there?”
“No,” Sievewright stated. Clarke let the silence linger, then leaned back in her chair and placed her palms on the tabletop.
“Again, just to be clear, you’re not a prostitute and he’s not one of your clients?” Sievewright glared at her, forming some sort of comeback. Clarke didn’t give her the chance. “I think that’s us, then,” she said. “I want to thank you for coming in.”
“Didn’t have much choice,” Sievewright complained.
“Interview ends at . . .” Clarke checked the time, announced it for the benefit of the recorder, then switched the machine off and ejected both tapes, sealing them in separate polythene bags. She handed one to Sievewright. “Thanks again.” The young woman snatched the bag. “PC Goodyear will see you out.”
“Do I get a lift home?”
“What are we, a taxi service?”
Sievewright gave a curl of the lip, letting Clarke know what she thought of that. Goodyear led her outside, while Clarke gave a twitch of her head to let him know she’d see him upstairs. Once the door was closed, Clarke lifted her phone to her ear.
“You caught all of that?”
“Pretty much,” Rebus’s voice said. She could hear him lighting up.
“This is going to cost us both a fortune in phone bills.”
“That depends on where you do the interviews,” he told her. “Anywhere outside the station, I can sit in. It’s only Gayfield itself Corbyn told me to avoid.”
Clarke slipped the cassette tape into the file and tucked it under her arm. “Do you think I got everything I could out of her?” she asked.
“You did fine. It was good to leave some of the big questions till the end . . . had me wondering if you were going to remember to ask them.”
“Did I leave anything out?”
“Not that I can think of.”
She was out in the corridor now, glad to find it about eight degrees cooler.
“One thing, though,” Rebus was adding. “Why did you ask about her parents?”
“Not sure really. Maybe it’s because we see so many like her— single-parent household, mum probably holding down a job, giving the daughter time to be led astray . . .”
“Are you going to go all liberal on me?”
“Growing up in Wardieburn . . . and then suddenly you’re going to parties in the New Town.”
“And pushing drugs,” Rebus reminded her. Clarke shouldered open the door to the car park. He was there in his Saab, phone to his ear and a cigarette in his other hand. She folded her phone shut as she opened the passenger-side door and slid in, closing it after her. Rebus had put his own phone back in his pocket.
“That everything?” he asked, holding out a hand for the file.
“As much as I could photocopy without the troops suspecting.”
He removed the inch-deep block of unsullied copy paper. “You learned all the right tricks, Kwai Chang Caine.”
“Does that make you Master Po?”
“Didn’t think you were old enough for
Kung Fu.
”
“Old enough for the reruns.” She watched him place the file on the back seat. “All through the interview, I was praying you wouldn’t cough or sneeze.”
“Couldn’t risk lighting a ciggie either,” Rebus replied. She stared at him, but he was avoiding eye contact.
“How come,” she asked eventually, “you couldn’t play nice, just this once?”
“People like Corbyn seem to push my buttons,” he explained.
“Making them part of the majority,” she chided him.
“Maybe so,” he admitted. “Are you going to interview Bakewell at the Parliament?” She nodded slowly. “Am I invited?”
“Remind me, what does it mean to be ‘on suspension’?”
“Last time I looked, Shiv, the public were allowed into the Parliament building. Buy the man a coffee, and I could be seated at the next table over.”
“Or you could go home and let me talk to Corbyn, see if I can change his mind.”
“Won’t happen,” he stated.
“Which—you going home or him changing his mind?”
“Both.”
“God give me strength,” she sighed.
“Amen to that . . . and speaking of the Almighty, I didn’t hear much from young Todd during the interview.”
“He was there to observe.”
“It’s all right, you know . . . you can admit that you missed me.”
“Weren’t you just saying that I covered all the bases?”
She watched Rebus shrug. “Maybe there were bases she kept hidden from us.”
“You’re telling me you’d have teased the dealer’s name out of her?”
“Twenty quid says I’ll have it by day’s end.”
“If Corbyn gets wind that you’re still on the case . . .”
“But I won’t be, DS Clarke. I’ll be a civilian. Not much he can do about that, is there?”
“John . . . ,” she began to caution, but broke off, knowing she’d be wasting her breath. “Keep me posted,” she muttered at last, opening the car door and easing herself out.
“Notice something?” he asked. She leaned back down into the car.
“What?”
He waved his arm, taking in the car park. “The smell’s gone. . . . Wonder if that’s an omen.” He was smiling as he turned the key in the ignition, leaving Clarke with an unasked question:
Good omen or bad?