Exit Music (2007) (24 page)

“He was an old-fashioned Communist?”

“You know the English word ‘bolshie’? It has its roots in ‘bolshevism,’ a Russian word. The Bolsheviks were fairly ruthless themselves, but these days ‘bolshie’ just means awkward or stubborn . . . that’s what Alexander was.”

“You knew he was living in Edinburgh?”

“I think I saw it mentioned in a newspaper.”

“Did the two of you meet?”

“No.”

“Funny he started drinking here . . .”

“Is it?” Andropov shrugged again and took another sip of water.

“So here you both are in Edinburgh, two men who grew up together, famous in your separate ways, and you didn’t think to get in touch?”

“We would have had nothing to say to one another,” Andropov declared. Then: “Would you like another drink, Inspector?”

Rebus noticed that he’d finished the whisky. He shook his head and started to rise from the booth.

“I’ll be sure to mention to Mr. Bakewell that you dropped by,” Andropov was saying.

“Mention it to Cafferty, too, if you like,” Rebus retorted. “He’ll tell you, once I get my teeth into something, I don’t let go.”

“And yet the pair of you seem very similar. . . . A pleasure talking to you, Inspector.”

Outside, Rebus tried to get a cigarette lit in the swirling breeze. He had his head tucked into his jacket when the taxi pulled up, which meant he escaped the attention of Megan Macfarlane and Roddy Liddle, the MSP and her assistant marching into the hotel lobby, eyes fixed ahead of them. Rebus, blowing smoke skywards, wondered if Sergei Andropov would hesitate to tell them, too, about his recent visitor . . .

30

A
s Siobhan Clarke walked into the narrow CID room at West End police station, there was applause. Only two of the six desks were occupied, but both men wanted to show their appreciation.

“Feel free to keep Ray Reynolds as long as you like,” DI Shug Davidson added with a grin, before introducing her to a detective constable called Adam Bruce. Davidson had his feet up on the desk, chair tilted back.

“Nice to see you hard at it,” Clarke commented. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Probably getting some Christmas shopping done. Can I expect a little something from you this year, Shiv?”

“I was thinking of sticking some gift wrap on Ray and posting him back.”

“Don’t you dare. Any joy with Sol Goodyear?”

“I’m not sure ‘joy’ is quite the right word.”

“He’s a sod, isn’t he? Couldn’t be more different from his brother. You know Todd goes to church on a Sunday?”

“So he said.”

“Talk about chalk and cheese . . .” Davidson was shaking his head slowly.

“Can we talk about Larry Fintry instead?”

“What about him?”

“Is he on remand?”

Davidson gave a snort. “Cells are bursting at the seams, Shiv—you know that as well as I do.”

“So he’s out on bail?”

“Anything short of genocide and cannibalism these days, bail’s a nap.”

“So where can I find him?”

“He’s in a hostel up in Bruntsfield.”

“What sort of hostel?”

“Addiction problems. Doubt he’d be there this time of day, though.” Davidson checked his watch. “Hunter Square or the Meadows, maybe.”

“I was just in a café off Hunter Square.”

“See any nutters hanging around?”

“I saw a few street people,” Clarke corrected him. She’d noticed that although Bruce was glued to a computer screen, he was actually playing Minesweeper.

“The benches behind the old hospital,” Davidson was saying, “he likes to hang out there sometimes. Might be a bit chilly, though. Drop-in centers on the Grassmarket and Cowgate are another possibility. . . . What is it you want him for?”

“I’m starting to wonder if there might be a price on Sol Goodyear’s head.”

Davidson gave a hoot. “Little turd’s not worth it.”

“All the same . . .”

“And no one in their right mind would give Crazy Larry the job. All this comes down to, Shiv, is Sol hassling Larry for money owed. It was probably when Sol said there’d be no more dope coming that Larry blew one of his last remaining fuses.”

“Rewiring, that’s what the guy needs,” DC Bruce added, eyes still fixed on the game in front of him.

“If you want to go traipsing after Crazy Larry,” Davidson said, “that’s fine, but don’t expect to get anything out of him. And I still don’t see Sol Goodyear as the target of a hit.”

“He must have enemies.”

“But he’s got friends, too.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes. “Meaning?”

“Word is, he’s back in Big Ger’s employ. Well, not ‘employ’ exactly, but selling with Cafferty’s blessing.”

“Any proof of that?”

Davidson shook his head. “After we spoke on the phone, I made a few calls, and that’s what I started to hear. Tell you something else, though . . .”

“What?”

“Birdies are saying Derek Starr’s been brought back from Fettes to head
your
inquiry.” At the next desk, Bruce started to make a little clucking sound. “Bit of a kick in the teeth, isn’t it?” Davidson added.

“Stands to reason Derek would take over—he’s a rank above me.”

“Didn’t seem to bother the bosses when it was you and a certain DI called Rebus . . .”

“I really am going to send Reynolds back here,” Clarke warned him.

“You’ll have to ask Derek Starr’s permission.”

She stared him out, and he burst into a laugh. “Have your fun while you can,” she told him, heading for the door.

Back in her car, she wondered what else she could do to keep away from Gayfield Square. Answer: not much. Rebus had mentioned CCTV. Maybe she could make a detour by way of the City Chambers and put in that request. Or she could call Megan Macfarlane and arrange another meeting, this time to talk about Charles Riordan and his taping of her committee. Then there was Jim Bakewell—Rebus wanted her to ask about the drink he’d had with Sergei Andropov and Big Ger Cafferty.

Cafferty . . .

He seemed to loom over the city, and yet very few of Edinburgh’s citizens would even know of his existence. Rebus had spent half his career trying to bring the gangster down. With Rebus retired, the problem would become hers, not because
she
wanted it but because she doubted Rebus would let it go. He’d want her to finish what he couldn’t. She thought again of the nights they’d been staying late at the office, Rebus running his most galling unsolveds past her. What was she supposed to do with them, these legacies? They felt to her like unwanted baggage. She had a pair of ugly pewter candlesticks at home, gifted to her in an aunt’s will. Couldn’t bring herself to throw them out, so they lay tucked away at the back of a drawer—also, she felt, the best place for Rebus’s old case notes.

Her phone rang, 556 prefix: someone was calling from Gayfield Square. She thought she could guess who.

“Hello?”

Sure enough, it was Derek Starr. “You’ve snuck out on me,” he said, trying to inject some surface levity into the accusation.

“Had to go talk to West End.”

“What about?”

“Sol Goodyear.”

There was a momentary silence. “Remind me,” he said.

“Lives close to where Todorov was found. It was a friend of his who discovered the body.”

“And?”

“Just wanted to confirm a few details.”

He would know damned well she was holding something back, just as
she
knew there was nothing he could do about it.

“So when can we expect to see you back in the body of the kirk, DS Clarke?”

“I’ve got one more stop to make at the City Chambers.”

“CCTV?” he guessed.

“That’s right. I should only be half an hour or so.”

“Heard anything from Rebus?”

“Not a dicky bird.”

“DCI Macrae tells me he’s been suspended.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Not much of a swan song, is it?”

“Was there anything else, Derek?”

“You’re my number two, Siobhan. That’s how it stays unless I think you’re playing away.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“Don’t want you picking up any more bad habits from Rebus.”

Unable to take anymore, she ended the call. “Pompous git,” she muttered, turning the ignition.

“So what did you get up to last night, then?” Hawes asked. She was in the passenger seat, Colin Tibbet driving.

“Couple of drinks with some mates.” He glanced in her direction. “You jealous, Phyl?”

“Jealous of you and your beery pals? Sure am, Col.”

“Thought so,” he said with a grin. They were heading for the southeast corner of the city, towards the bypass and the green belt. It hadn’t surprised too many of the locals when FAB had been granted permission to construct its new HQ on what had previously been designated as protected land. A badger’s sett had been relocated and a nine-hole golf course purchased for the exclusive use of employees. The huge glass building was just under a mile from the new Royal Infirmary, which Hawes guessed was handy for any bank employees suffering paper cuts from counting all those notes. On the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise her if the FAB compound turned out to have its own sick bay.

“I stayed in, since you ask,” she said now, watching Col slow to a halt as the lights ahead turned red. He did that thing they taught you in driving schools—not braking hard but changing back down through the gears. Up till now, everyone she’d met had started ignoring the maneuver as soon as they passed the test, but not Colin. She bet he ironed his underpants, too.

It was really starting to rile her that despite each deep-seated fault she located, she still fancied him. Maybe it was a case of any port in a storm. She hated the idea that she couldn’t live her life perfectly adequately without a bloke in tow, but it was beginning to look that way.

“Anything good on the box?” he asked her.

“A documentary about how men are becoming women.” He looked at her, trying to work out whether she was lying. “It’s true,” she insisted. “All that estrogen in the tap water. You lot gulp it down and then start growing breasts.”

He concentrated for a moment. “How does estrogen get into the tap water?”

“Do I have to spell it out?” She mimed the action of flushing a toilet. “Then there’s all the additives in meat. It’s changing your chemical balance.”

“I don’t want my chemical balance changed.”

She had to laugh at that. “Might explain something, though,” she teased him.

“What?”

“Why you’ve started fancying Derek Starr.” He scowled, and she laughed again. “Way you were watching him give that speech. . . . Might’ve been Russell Crowe in
Gladiator
or Mel Gibson in
Braveheart
.”

“I saw
Braveheart
in the cinema,” Tibbet told her. “The audience were on their feet, cheering and punching the air. Never seen anything like it.”

“That’s because Scots don’t often get to feel good about themselves.”

“You think we need independence?”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “Just so long as people like First Albannach don’t go scuttling south.”

“What was their profit last year?”

“Eight billion, something like that.”

“You mean eight million?”

“Eight
billion,
” she repeated.

“That can’t be right.”

“You calling me a liar?” She was wondering how he’d managed to turn the conversation around without her noticing.

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” he asked now.

“Wonder what?”

“Where the real power is.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at her. “Want to do something later?”

“With you, you mean?”

He offered a shrug. “Christmas fair opens tonight. We could go take a look.”

“We could.”

“And a bite of supper after.”

“I’ll think about it.”

They were signaling to turn in at the gates of First Albannach Bank’s HQ. Ahead of them lay a glass and steel structure four stories high and as long as a street. A guard emerged from the gatehouse to take their names and the car’s registration.

“Parking bay six-oh-eight,” he told them. And though there were plenty of spaces closer to their destination, Hawes watched her colleague head obediently towards 608.

“Don’t worry,” she told him as he pulled on the hand brake, “I can walk from here.”

And walk they did, passing serried ranks of sports cars, family saloons, and 4x4s. The grounds were still being landscaped, and just behind one corner of the main complex could be glimpsed gorse bushes and one of the golf course’s fairways. When the doors slid open, they were in a triple-height atrium. There was an arcade of shops behind the reception desk: pharmacy, supermarket, café, newsagent. A notice board provided information about the crèche, gym, and swimming pool. Escalators led to the next level up, with glass-fronted lifts serving the floors above that. The receptionist beamed a smile at them.

“Welcome to FAB,” she said. “If you’ll just sign in and show me some photo ID . . .”

They did so, and she announced that Mr. Janney was in a meeting, but his secretary was expecting them.

“Third floor. She’ll meet you at the lift.” They were handed laminated passes and another smile. A security guard processed them through a metal detector, after which they scooped up keys, phones, and loose change.

“Expecting trouble?” Hawes asked the man.

“Code green,” he intoned solemnly.

“A relief to us all.”

The lift took them to the third floor, where a young woman in a black trouser suit was waiting. The A4-sized manila envelope was held out in front of her. As Hawes took it, the woman nodded once, then turned and marched back down a seemingly endless corridor. Tibbet hadn’t even had a chance to exit the lift, and as Hawes stepped back into it the doors slid shut and they were on their way back down again. No more than three minutes after entering the building, they were out in the cold and wondering what had just happened.

“That’s not a building,” Hawes stated. “It’s a machine.”

Tibbet signaled his agreement by whistling through his teeth, then scanned the car park.

“Which bay are we in again?”

“The one at the end of the universe,” Hawes told him, starting to cross the tarmac.

Back in the passenger seat, she pulled open the envelope and brought out a dozen sheets: photocopied bank statements. There was a yellow Post-it stuck to the front. The handwritten message speculated that Todorov had funds elsewhere, as indicated by the client when he opened his account. There was a single transfer involving a bank in Moscow. The note was signed “Stuart Janney.”

“He was comfortable enough,” Hawes announced. “Six grand in the current account and eighteen in savings.” She checked the transaction dates: no significant deposits or withdrawals in the days leading up to his death, and no transactions at all thereafter. “Whoever took his cash card, they don’t seem to be using it.”

“They could have cleaned him out,” Tibbet acknowledged. “Twenty-four K . . . so much for the starving artist.”

“Garrets mustn’t be as fashionable these days,” Hawes agreed. She was punching a number into her phone. Clarke picked up, and Hawes relayed the highlights to her. “Took out a hundred the day he was killed.”

“Where from?”

“Machine at Waverley Station.” Hawes frowned suddenly. “Why did he leave Edinburgh from one station but come back to the other?”

“He was meeting Charles Riordan. I think Riordan frequented some curry house nearby.”

“Can’t really check with him, though, can we?”

“Not really,” Clarke admitted. Hawes could hear voices in the background; all the same, it sounded a lot calmer than Gayfield Square.

“Where are you, Shiv?” she asked.

“City Chambers, asking about CCTV.”

“How long till you’re back at base?”