Exit Music (2007) (33 page)

“Bringing us to Charles Riordan.”

Clarke’s mind was moving now. “Aksanov got agitated about that when I questioned him—kept going on about how
he’d
been at Gleneagles all the time.”

“Maybe afraid that we’d be putting him in the frame.”

“You think Andropov . . . ?”

Rebus shrugged. “Rather depends on whether we can prove he left Gleneagles that night or early morning.”

“Wouldn’t he just have phoned Cafferty instead, got him to do something about it?”

“Possible,” Rebus admitted, still tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel. They were silent for the best part of a minute, collecting their thoughts. “Remember the trouble we had getting the Cale-donian Hotel to cough up details of their guests? Don’t suppose Gleneagles will be any easier.”

“But we’ve got a secret weapon,” Clarke said. “Remember during the G8? DCI Macrae’s pal was in charge of security at the hotel. Macrae even got a tour of the premises.”

“Meaning he may have met the manager? Got to be worth a try.” They fell back into silence.

“You know what this means?” Clarke finally asked.

Rebus nodded again. “We still don’t know who killed Todorov.”

“Whichever way you look at it, Andropov said he wanted him dead . . .”

“Doesn’t mean he turned words into deeds. If I topped someone every time I cursed them, there’d be precious few students and cyclists left in Edinburgh—or anyone else for that matter.”

“Would I still be here?” she asked.

“Probably,” he allowed.

“Despite the three out of ten?”

“Don’t push your luck, DS Clarke.”

42

T
odd Goodyear not joining us?” Rebus asked.

“Has he grown on you?”

They were in Kay’s Bar—a compromise. It did decent grub, but the beer was good, too. Slightly larger than the Oxford Bar, but managing to be cozy at the same time—the predominant color was red, extending to the pillars that separated the tables from the actual bar. Clarke had ordered chili, Rebus declaring that salted peanuts would be enough for him.

“You’ve managed to keep him below Derek Starr’s radar?” Rebus asked, in place of an answer to her question.

“DI Starr thinks Todd is CID.” She stole another of Rebus’s peanuts.

“Do I get to dunk my fingers in your chili when it comes?”

“I’ll buy you another packet.”

He swallowed a mouthful of IPA. She was drinking a toxic-looking mix of lime juice and soda water.

“Anything planned for tomorrow?” he asked.

“The team’s on duty all day.”

“So no surprise party for the old guy?”

“You didn’t want one.”

“So you’ve just chipped in and bought me something nice?”

“Meant digging deep into the overdraft. . . . What time does your suspension end?”

“Around lunchtime, I suppose.” Rebus thought back to the scene in Corbyn’s office . . . Sir Michael Addison storming out. Sir Michael was Gill Morgan’s stepfather. Gill knew Nancy Sievewright. Nancy and Gill and Eddie Gentry had been spied on, the recording watched by Roger Anderson, Stuart Janney, and Jim Bakewell. Everything in Edinburgh seemed connected. As a detective, Rebus had noticed time and again how true this was. Everything and everyone. Todorov and Andropov, Andropov and Cafferty, the overworld and the underworld. Sol Goodyear knew Nancy and her crew, too. Sol was Todd Goodyear’s brother, and Todd led back to Siobhan and to Rebus himself. Shifting partners in one of those endurance dances. What was the film? Something about shooting horses. Dance and keep on dancing because nothing else matters.

Problem was, Rebus was about to bow out. Siobhan’s chili had arrived, and he watched her unfold a paper napkin onto her lap. Day after tomorrow, he’d be seated at the edge of the dance floor. Give it a few weeks, and he’d be yet farther back, merging with the other spectators, no longer a participant. He’d seen it with other cops: they retired and promised to keep in touch, but each visit to the old gang merely underlined how far apart they’d grown. There would be an arrangement to share drinks and gossip one night a month. Then it’d be once every few months. Then not at all.

Clean break was the best thing, so he’d been told. Siobhan was asking if he wanted some of her food. “Grab a fork and tuck in.”

“I’m fine,” he assured her.

“You were in a world of your own there.”

“It’s the age I’m at.”

“So you’ll come to the station tomorrow lunchtime?”

“No parties, right?”

She shook her head in agreement. “And by end of play, we’ll have closed all the cases.”

“Of course we will.” He gave a wry smile.

“I’ll miss you, you know.” She kept her eyes on the food as she scooped it up.

“For a little while maybe,” he conceded, waving his empty glass at her. “Time for a refill.”

“You’re driving, remember.”

“Thought you could give me a lift.”

“In your car?”

“I’ll get you a taxi home after.”

“That’s mighty generous.”

“Didn’t say I’d pay for it,” Rebus told her, heading for the bar.

He did, though, pressing a ten-pound note into her hand and saying he’d see her tomorrow. She’d found a parking space for his Saab near the top of Arden Street. He’d been about to invite her in when a black cab rumbled into view, its roof light on. Siobhan Clarke had given the driver a wave, then handed Rebus his car keys.

“Bit of luck,” she’d said, referring to the taxi. Rebus had held out the tenner, and she’d eventually taken it.

“Straight home, mind,” he’d warned her. Watching the cab pull away, he wondered if he was going to take his own advice. It was almost 10:00, the temperature well above zero. He walked down the hill towards his door, staring up at the bay window of his living room. Darkness up there. No one waiting to welcome him. He thought about Cafferty, wondered what dreams the gangster would be having. Did you dream in a coma? Did you do anything else? Rebus knew he could visit him, sit with him. Maybe one of the nurses would bring a cup of tea. Maybe she’d be a good listener. Alexander Todorov’s skull had been smashed from behind. Cafferty had been attacked from behind—but attacked cleanly while the poet had been roughed up first. Rebus kept trying to see the connection—Andropov was the obvious one. Andropov, with his friends in high places—Megan Macfarlane, Jim Bakewell. Cafferty hosting parties, wining and dining Bakewell and the bankers, all lads together . . . Andropov readying to bring his business to Scotland, where his new friends would cosset him, protect him. Business was business, after all: what did it matter if Andropov faced corruption charges back home? Rebus realized that he was still staring at his flat’s unlit and unwelcoming windows.

“Nice night for a walk,” he told himself, continuing downhill with hands in pockets. Marchmont itself was quiet, Melville Drive devoid of vehicles. Jawbone Walk, the path leading through the Meadows, boasted only a handful of pedestrians, students heading home from nights out. Rebus walked beneath the arches created from an actual whale’s jawbone, and wondered—not for the first time—at its purpose. When his daughter was a kid, he would pretend they were being swallowed by the whale, like Jonah or Pinocchio. . . . There was some drunken singing in the distance from a couple of tramps on a bench, worldly goods stacked in bags by the side of them. The old infirmary compound was being transformed into new apartment blocks, changing the skyline. He kept walking, reaching Forrest Road. Instead of heading straight on in the direction of the Mound, he took a fork at Greyfriars Bobby and descended into the Grassmarket. Plenty of pubs still open, and people loitering outside the homeless hostels. When he’d first moved to Edinburgh, the Grassmarket had been a dump—much of the Old Town, in fact, had been in dire need of a face-lift. Hard now to remember just how bad it had all been. There were people who said that Edinburgh never changed, but this was patently untrue—it was changing all the time. Smokers were standing in clusters outside the Beehive and Last Drop pubs. The fish ’n’ chip shop had a queue. A gust of fat-frying hit Rebus as he walked past, and he breathed deeply, savoring it. At one time, the Grassmarket had boasted a gallows, dozens upon dozens of Covenanters dying there. Maybe Todorov’s ghost would bump into them. Another fork in the road was approaching. He took the right-hand option, into King’s Stables Road. Passing the car park, he stopped for a moment. There was just the one vehicle on Level Zero, the ground floor. Driver would have to get a move on, the place was due to close in the next ten or so minutes. The car was parked in the bay next to where Todorov had been attacked. There was no sign of any hooded woman begging for sex. Rebus lit a cigarette and kept moving. He didn’t know what his plan was. King’s Stables Road would join Lothian Road in a minute, and he’d be facing the Caledonian Hotel. Was Sergei Andropov still there? Did Rebus really intend a further confrontation?

“Nice night for it,” he repeated to himself.

But then he thought of those Grassmarket pubs. It would make more sense to retrace his steps, have a nightcap, and take a taxi home. He turned on his heels and started back. As he approached the car park again, he saw the last car leaving. It stopped curbside, and its driver got out, retreating to the exit. He unlocked some metal shutters, which started to creep downwards with an electric hum. The driver didn’t wait to watch them drop. He was in the car and heading towards the Grassmarket.

The good-looking security guard, Gary Walsh. Parked on Level Zero. . . . Hadn’t he told Rebus he always parked next to the security cabin on the next floor up? The shutters were closed now, but there was a little viewing window at chest height. Rebus crouched a little so he could peer inside. The lights were still on; maybe they stayed that way all night. Up in the corner, he could see the security camera. He remembered what Walsh’s colleague had said:
camera used to point pretty much at that spot . . . but it gets moved around. . . .
Made sense to Rebus—if you worked in a multistory you’d want your car where the cameras could keep an eye on it. Sod anyone else, just so long as
your
car was safe . . .

Macrae’s words:
less to this than meets the eye.
All those connections . . . Cath Mills, aka the Reaper, asking Rebus about one-night stands and flings with workmates . . . Alexander Todorov, on his way back from a day in Glasgow: a curry with Charles Riordan, one drink on Cafferty’s tab, and semen on his underpants.

The woman in the hood.

Less to this than meets the eye . . .

Cherchez la femme . . .

The poet and his libido. There was a Leonard Cohen album called
Death of a Ladies’ Man.
One of its tracks: “Don’t Go Home with Your Hard-On.” Another: “True Love Leaves No Traces.”

Trace evidence: blood on the car park floor, oil on the dead man’s clothes, semen stains . . .

Cherchez la femme.

The answer was so close, Rebus could almost taste it.

DAY NINE

Saturday 25 November 2006

43

B
right and early that morning, Rebus took his ticket from the machine and watched the barrier shudder upwards. He had entered by the car park’s top level on Castle Terrace but followed the signs to the next level down. There were plenty of empty bays near the guardroom. Rebus walked over to the door and gave a knock before pushing it open.

“What’s up?” Joe Wills asked, hands cupped around a mug of black tea. His eyes narrowed as he placed Rebus.

“Hello again, Mr. Wills—rough night, was it?” Wills hadn’t shaved, his eyes were red-rimmed and bleary, and he hadn’t got round to putting his tie on yet.

“Few drinks I was having,” the man started to explain, “and the Reaper catches me on the mobile—Bill Prentice has gone and pulled a sickie and can I do his morning shift?”

“And despite everything, you were happy to oblige—that’s what I call loyalty.” Rebus saw the newspaper on the worktop. Polonium-210 was being blamed for Litvinenko’s death; Rebus had never heard of it.

“What do you want anyway?” Joe Wills was asking. “Thought you lot had finished.” Rebus noticed that Wills’s mug was emblazoned with the name of a local radio station, Talk 107. “Don’t suppose you’ve any milk on you?” the man asked. But Rebus’s attention was on the CCTV screens.

“Do you drive to work, Mr. Wills?”

“Sometimes.”

“I remember you saying you’d had a ‘prang.’ ”

“Car still runs.”

“Is it here just now?”

“No.”

“Why’s that, then?” But Rebus held up a finger. “You’d still not pass a Breathalyzer, am I right?” He watched Wills nod. “Very sensible of you, sir. But the times you
do
drive to work, I’m betting you keep the car where you can see it?”

“Sure.” Wills took a sip of tea, squirming at its bitterness.

“Covered by one of the cameras, in other words?” Rebus nodded towards the bank of screens. “Always park in the same spot?”

“Depends.”

“How about your colleague? Would I be right in thinking Mr. Walsh prefers the ground floor?”

“How do you know that?”

Again, Rebus ignored the question. “When I was here the first time,” he said instead, “day after the murder, if you remember . . .”

“Yes?”

“. . . the cameras downstairs weren’t covering the spot where the attack took place.” He gestured towards one of the screens. “You told me one camera used to, but it got moved around. But now I see it’s been shifted again, so it’s covering . . . here’s another wild guess coming up—the bay where Mr. Walsh parks?”

“Is this going anywhere?”

Rebus managed a smile. “Just wondering this, Mr. Wills: when exactly did that camera get moved?” He was leaning over the figure of the guard. “Last shift you did before the murder, I’m betting it was pointing where it is now. Between times, someone tampered with it.”

“I told you—it gets moved around.”

Rebus wasn’t six inches from Wills when he next spoke. “You know, don’t you? You’re not the sharpest tack in the carpet, but you worked it out before any of us. Have you told anyone, Mr. Wills? Or are you good at keeping secrets? Maybe you just want the quiet life, a few drinks at night and some milk to go with your tea. You’re not about to grass up a mate, are you? But here’s my advice, Mr. Wills, and it really would be in your interest to take it.” Rebus paused, ensuring he had the man’s undivided attention. “Don’t say a fucking word to your workmate. Because if you do, and I get to hear about it, I’ll have
you
in the cells rather than him, understood?”

Wills had stopped moving, the mug trembling slightly in his hands.

“Do we have an understanding?” Rebus persisted. The guard did no more than nod, but Rebus hadn’t quite finished with him.

“An address,” he said, placing his notebook on the worktop. “Write it down for me.” He watched Joe Wills put down the mug and start to comply. Walsh’s batch of CDs was in its usual place; Rebus doubted Wills would have much use for them. “And one last thing,” he said, taking the notebook back. “When my Saab reaches the exit, I want you to override the barrier for me. Money you charge in this place is absolutely criminal.”

Shandon was on the west side of the city, tucked in between the canal and Slateford Road. Not much more than a fifteen-minute drive, especially at the weekend. Rebus had switched on his CD player, only to find himself listening to Eddie Gentry. He ejected the disc and tossed it onto the back seat, replacing it with Tom Waits. But the patented gravel of Waits’s voice was too obtrusive, so he settled for silence instead. Gary Walsh lived at number 28, a terraced house in a narrow street. There was a space next to Walsh’s car, so Rebus parked the Saab and locked it. The upstairs window at number 2 was curtained. Stood to reason: when a man worked the late shift, he slept late, too. Rebus decided to leave the doorbell alone and knocked instead. When the door opened, a woman in full makeup stood there. Her hair was immaculate, and she was dressed for work, minus her shoes.

“Mrs. Walsh?” Rebus said.

“Yes.”

“I’m Detective Inspector Rebus.” As she studied his warrant card, he studied her. Late thirties or early forties, meaning maybe ten years older than her partner. Gary Walsh, it seemed, was a toyboy. But when Joe Wills had called Mrs. Walsh a “looker” he hadn’t been kidding. She was well preserved and glowing with life. “Ripe” was the word Rebus found himself thinking. On the other hand, those looks wouldn’t last much longer—nothing stayed ripe forever.

“Mind if I come in?” he asked.

“What’s it about?”

“The murder, Mrs. Walsh.” Her green eyes widened. “The one at your husband’s place of work.”

“Gary didn’t say anything.”

“The Russian poet? Found dead at the bottom of Raeburn Wynd?”

“It was in the papers . . .”

“The attack started in the car park.” Her eyes were losing some of their focus. “It was last Wednesday night, just before your husband finished work . . .” He paused for a moment. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“He didn’t tell me.” Some of the color had drained from her face. Rebus went into his notebook and pulled out a newspaper cutting. It showed a photo of the poet, taken from one of his book jackets.

“His name was Alexander Todorov, Mrs. Walsh.” But she had dashed back into the house, not quite closing the door behind her. Rebus paused for a moment, then pushed it open again and followed her inside. The hallway was small, with half a dozen coats hanging on hooks next to the staircase. Two doors off: kitchen and living room. She was in the latter, seated on the edge of the settee as she tied a pair of high-heeled shoes around her ankles.

“I’m going to be late,” she muttered.

“Where do you work?” Rebus was scanning the room. Big TV, big hi-fi, and shelves filled to the brim with CDs and tapes.

“Perfume counter,” she was saying.

“I don’t suppose five minutes will hurt . . .”

“Gary’s sleeping—you can come back later. He’s got to take the car to the garage, though, get the player fixed . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“What is it, Mrs. Walsh?”

She was rubbing her hands together as she got to her feet. Rebus doubted that her unsteadiness was due to the heels.

“Nice duffel coat, by the way,” he told her. She looked at him as though he’d started using a foreign language. “In the hall,” he explained. “The black one with the hood . . . looks right cozy.” He smiled without humor. “Ready to tell me about it, Mrs. Walsh?”

“There’s nothing to tell.” She was looking around the room as if for an escape hatch. “We have to get the car fixed . . .”

“So you keep saying.” Rebus narrowed his eyes and peered out of the window towards the Ford Escort. “What is it you’ve remembered, Mrs. Walsh? Maybe we should wake Gary, eh?”

“I have to get to work.”

“There are some questions that need answering first.”
Less than meets the eye:
those words kept bouncing around the inside of Rebus’s skull. Todorov had led him to Cafferty and Andropov, and he’d latched onto both because
they
were the ones who interested him—because they were the ones he
wanted
to be guilty. Seeing conspiracies and cover-ups where none existed. Andropov had panicked because of that single outburst—didn’t mean he’d killed the poet . . .

“How did you find out about Gary and Cath Mills?” Rebus asked quietly. Cath Mills . . . admitting to Rebus that night in the bar that she’d
almost
given up on one-night stands.

Walsh’s wife gave a look of horror and slumped onto the sofa again, face in hands, smearing the perfect makeup. Started muttering the words “Oh God” over and over. Then, eventually: “He kept telling me it had just been that one time . . . just the once, and a mistake at that. A
huge
mistake.”

“But you thought you knew better,” Rebus added. Yes, Gary Walsh would be tempted again, would stray again. He was young and chiseled and rock-star handsome, whereas his wife was getting older by the day, makeup doing only so much to cover the working of time. . . . “A pretty desperate measure,” Rebus stated quietly. “Wearing that hood so he’d get the message. Hanging around the street, offering yourself to strangers . . .”

Smudgy tears were coursing down both cheeks, her shoulders heaving.

Alexander Todorov: wrong place, wrong time. A voluptuous woman offering no-strings sex, leading him into the car park where they’d be in full view of the camera. Gary Walsh’s car their destination—not that Todorov was to know that. Screwing a man she’d only just met, so that her watching husband would know the price of further infidelity.

“Did you do it against the car?” he asked. “On the bonnet maybe?” He was still peering out at the Escort, thinking: fingerprints, blood, maybe even semen.

“Inside.” Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.

“Inside?”

“I had a set of keys.”

“Is that where . . . ?” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. She was nodding, meaning Walsh and the Reaper had enjoyed
their
tryst in the same place.

“Not my idea,” she said, and Rebus had to strain to make out the words.

“The man you’d picked up,” he realized. “He wanted to do it inside the car?”

She nodded again.

“Bit more comfortable, I suppose,” he offered. But then a thought hit him. The missing CD . . . Todorov’s final performance, as recorded by Charles Riordan. . . .
Car to the garage . . . get the player fixed. . . .
“What’s wrong with the CD player, Mrs. Walsh?” Rebus asked, keeping his voice level. “It’s his CD, isn’t it? He wanted to hear it while you were . . . ?”

She stared at him through a mess of mascara and eyeliner. “It’s stuck in the machine. But I didn’t know, I didn’t know . . .”

“Didn’t know he was dead?”

She shook her head wildly from side to side, and Rebus believed her. All she’d needed was a man, any man, and when it was over she’d pushed it from her mind. Hadn’t asked his name or nationality, probably hadn’t looked at his face. Maybe she’d taken a couple of strong drinks for courage.

And her husband hadn’t wanted to talk about it afterwards . . . hadn’t told her anything.

Rebus stood by the window, deep in thought. So many domestics down the years, partners abusing partners, lies and deceit, fury and festering resentment.
There’s a fury here. . . .
Sudden or protracted violence, mind games, power struggles. Love turning sour or stale as the years passed . . .

And now here came sleepy-faced Gary Walsh, descending the staircase, calling out to his wife. “You still here?” Through the hall and into the living room, barefoot in faded denims and with his torso naked, rubbing one hand up and down his hairless chest as he wiped at his eyes with the other. Blinking as he realized there was a stranger in the room . . . looking to his wife for an explanation . . . her face creased in pain, tears dripping from her chin . . . then back to Rebus, placing him now, eyes turning towards the door in contemplation of flight.

“With no shoes on, Gary?” Rebus chided him.

“I could outrun you in diving boots, you fat bastard,” Walsh sneered.

“And there’s that sudden rage we’ve been looking forward to,” Rebus said with just a hint of a smile. “Care to tell your wife what happened to Alexander Todorov when you got hold of him?”

“He fell asleep in the car,” Mrs. Walsh was saying, playing the scene back in her mind, eyes stinging and red but fixed on her young husband. “I realized he was drunk, couldn’t rouse him . . . so I left him.” Gary had leaned his head against the door frame, arms behind him, hands pressed to the jamb.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he eventually drawled. “Really I don’t.”

Rebus had his mobile in his hand, punching in the necessary number. He kept his eyes on Walsh, Walsh staring back at him, still thinking about doing a runner. Rebus pressed the phone to his ear.

“Siobhan?” he said. “Bit of news to brighten your morning.” He’d started giving the address when Gary Walsh spun round, hand snaking ahead of him, readying to unlock the front door. It was a few inches open, freedom shining in, when Rebus’s weight smashed into him from behind, expelling all the air from Walsh’s chest and the power from his legs. The door slammed shut again, and he slid onto his knees, coughing and spluttering and with blood dripping from his crumpled nose. His wife appeared not to have noticed, wrapped up in her own drama as she sat, head in hands, on the sofa’s edge. Rebus picked his mobile up from the carpet, aware of the adrenaline pounding through him, his heart racing. One perk of the job he really was going to miss . . .

“Sorry about that,” he told Clarke. “Just ran into someone . . .”