“Not a bad guess, sir, but your eyes deceive you.”
“This is DI Rebus,” Macrae was explaining. “I’m DCI Macrae, Lothian and Borders.”
“Based where?” Steelforth asked.
“Gayfield Square,” Macrae answered.
“In Edinburgh,” Rebus added.
“You’re a long way from home, gentlemen.” Steelforth was heading down the path.
“A man was murdered in Edinburgh,” Rebus explained. “Some of his clothing has turned up here.”
“Do we know why?”
“I intend keeping a lid on it, Commander,” Macrae stated. “Once the SOCOs are finished, that’s us done and dusted.” Macrae was at Steelforth’s heels, Rebus bringing up the rear.
“No plans for any premiers or presidents to come leave a wee offering?” Rebus asked.
Instead of answering, Steelforth marched into the clearing. The senior SOCO stuck a hand against his chest. “More fucking footprints,” he growled.
Steelforth glared at the hand. “Do you know who I am?”
“Don’t give a bollocks, pal. Fuck up my crime scene, you’ll answer for it.”
The Special Branch man considered for a moment, then relented, retracing his steps to the edge of the clearing, content to watch the operation. His cell sounded, and he answered it, moving farther away to prevent being overheard. Siobhan gave a questioning look. Rebus mouthed the word later and dug into his pocket, bringing out a ten-pound note.
“Here,” he said, offering it to the SOCO.
“What’s that for?”
Rebus just winked, and the man pocketed the money, adding the word “Cheers.”
“I always tip for service beyond the norm,” Rebus told Macrae. Nodding, Macrae dug into his own pocket and found a fiver for Rebus.
“Halfers,” the DCI said.
Steelforth was returning to the clearing. “I need to get back to more important matters. When will you be finished here?”
“Half an hour,” one of the other SOCOs answered.
“Longer if need be,” Steelforth’s nemesis added. “A crime scene’s a crime scene, no matter what other wee sideshows there are.” Like Rebus before him, he hadn’t been slow to work out Steelforth’s role.
The Special Branch man turned to Macrae. “I’ll inform ACC Finnigan, shall I? Let him know we have your full understanding and cooperation?”
“As you wish, sir.”
Steelforth’s face softened a little. His hand made contact with Macrae’s arm. “I’m willing to bet you didn’t see everything there is to see. When you’re finished here, come see me at Gleneagles. I’ll give you the proper tour.”
Macrae melted; a kid on Christmas morning. But he recovered well, stiffening his spine.
“Thank you, Commander.”
“Call me David.”
Crouched as if for evidence gathering some way behind Steelforth’s back, the senior SOCO made a show of sticking a finger down his throat.
Three cars would be making their way separately to Edinburgh. Rebus shuddered to think what the ecologists would say to that. Macrae peeled off first, heading for Gleneagles. Rebus had driven past the hotel earlier. When you approached Auchterarder from Kinross, you saw the hotel and its grounds a long time before you reached the town. Thousands of acres but few signs of security. He had caught just the one glimpse of fencing, alerted by a temporary structure which he took to be a watchtower. Rebus shadowed Macrae on the way back, his boss sounding the horn as he turned into the hotel’s driveway. Siobhan had guessed Perth as the quickest road, Rebus opting to retrace his cross-country route, pick up the M90 eventually. Still plenty of blue in the sky. Scottish summers were a blessing, a reward for the long winter’s twilight. Rebus turned down the music and called Siobhan’s cell.
“Hands-free, I hope...” she told him.
“Don’t be smart.”
“...otherwise you’re setting a bad example.”
“First time for everything. What did you make of our friend from London?”
“Unlike you, I don’t have those hang-ups.”
“What hang-ups?”
“With authority...with the English...with...” She paused. “Want me to go on?”
“Last time I looked, I still outrank you.”
“So?”
“So I could cite you for insubordination.”
“And give the chiefs a good laugh?”
His silence conceded the point. Either she’d gotten lippier down the years, or he was getting rusty. Both, probably. “Think we can talk the lab techs into a Saturday shift?” he asked.
“Depends.”
“What about Ray Duff? One word from you and he’d do it.”
“And all I’d have to do in return is spend a whole day with him, touring in that smelly old car.”
“It’s a design classic.”
“Something he won’t begin to tire of telling me.”
“Rebuilt it from scratch...”
Her sigh was audible. “What is it with forensics? They all have these hobbies.”
“So you’ll ask him?”
“I’ll ask him. Are you carousing this evening?”
“Night shift.”
“Same day as a funeral?”
“Someone’s got to do it.”
“I’m betting you insisted.”
He didn’t answer, instead asked what her own plans were.
“Getting my head down. Want to be up bright and early for the march.”
“What have they got you doing?”
She laughed. “I’m not working, John—I’m going because I want to.”
“Bloody hell.”
“You should come too.”
“Aye, right. That’s going to make all the difference in the world. I’d rather stay at home to make my protest.”
“What protest?”
“Against Bob bloody Geldof.” She was laughing in his ear again. “Because if as many turn up as he wants, it’ll look like it’s all because of him. Can’t have that, Siobhan. Think about it before you sign your name to the cause.”
“I’m going, John. If nothing else, I need to look out for my mum and dad.”
“Your...?”
“They’re up from London—and not because of anything Geldof said.”
“They’re going on the march?”
“Yes.”
“Do I get to meet them?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re just the sort of cop they’re afraid I’ll become.”
He was supposed to laugh at this but knew she was only half joking.
“Fair point” was all he said.
“Have you shaken off the boss?” A conscious change of subject.
“Left him at valet parking.”
“Don’t joke—they actually have that at Gleneagles. Did he toot the horn at you?”
“What do you think?”
“I knew he would. This whole trip, it’s shaken years off him.”
“Kept him out of the station, too.”
“So everybody wins.” She paused. “You think you’ve got a crack at this, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Cyril Colliar. The next week or so, nobody’s going to be holding your leash.”
“I didn’t realize I was up there in your estimation.”
“John, you’re a couple of years away from retirement. I know you want one last go at Cafferty.”
“And it seems I’m transparent, too.”
“Look, I’m just trying to—”
“I know, and I’m touched.”
“You really think Cafferty could be responsible?”
“If he’s not, he’ll want whoever was. Look, if it all gets a bit fraught with your parents...” Now who was changing the subject? “Send me a text and we’ll meet for a drink.”
“All right, I will. You can turn the Elbow CD up now.”
“Well spotted. Talk to you later.”
> Rebus cut the connection and did as he was told.
2
The barriers were going up. Down George IV Bridge and all along Princes Street, workmen were busy putting them in place. Road repairs and building projects had been put on hold, scaffolding removed so it couldn’t be taken apart and used as missiles. Mailboxes had been sealed shut and some shops boarded up. Financial institutions had been warned, staff advised not to wear formal clothing—it would make them easy targets. For a Friday evening, the town was quiet. Police vans cruised the central streets, metal grilles fixed to their windshields. More vans were parked out of sight in unlit side roads. The cops on board wore riot gear and laughed among themselves, swapping stories from previous engagements. A few veterans had seen action during the last wave of miners’ strikes. Others tried to match these memories with stories of soccer battles, poll-tax demonstrations, the Newbury Bypass. They exchanged rumors about the expected size of the Italian anarchist contingent.
“Genoa toughened them up.”
“Just the way we like it, eh, lads?”
Bravado and nerves and camaraderie. The talk faltering whenever a radio crackled to life.
The uniformed police working the train station wore bright yellow jackets. Here, too, barriers were being erected. They were blocking exits, so there remained a single route in and out. Some officers carried cameras with which to record the faces of arrivals from the London trains. Special cars had been added on for the protesters, which made them easy to identify. Not that such skills were really needed: they sang songs, carried backpacks, wore badges and T-shirts and wristbands. They carried flags and banners, were dressed in baggy pants, camouflage jackets, hiking boots. Intelligence reports said busloads had already left from the south of England. First estimates had stated fifty thousand. The latest guess was north of a hundred thousand. Which, added to the summer tourists, would swell Edinburgh’s population nicely.
Somewhere in the city there was a rally signaling the start of G8 Alternatives, a weeklong series of marches and meetings. More police would be there. If needed, some of these would be on horseback. Plenty of dog handlers, too, including four on Waverley Station’s concourse. The plan was simple: visible strength. Let any potential troublemakers know what they’d be dealing with. Visors and billly clubs and handcuffs, horses and dogs and patrol vans.
Force of numbers.
Tools of the trade.
Tactics.
Earlier in its history, Edinburgh was prone to invasion. Its inhabitants hid behind walls and gates, and when those were breached they retreated to the warrenlike tunnels below the castle and the High Street, leaving the city empty and the victory hollow. It was a talent the denizens continued to bring to the annual August festival. As the population swelled, the locals became less visible, blending in to the background. It might also explain Edinburgh’s reliance on invisible industries such as banking and insurance. Until lately, it was said that St. Andrew Square was the richest in Europe, boasting several corporate HQs. But with space at a premium, new building projects had prospered on Lothian Road and farther west toward the airport. The Royal Bank’s HQ at Gogarburn, recently completed, was seen as a target. So, too, buildings owned and staffed by Standard Life and Scottish Widows. Driving through the streets, killing some time, Siobhan figured the city would be tested in the coming days as never before.
A police convoy, sirens blaring, pulled out to pass her. No mistaking the schoolboy grin on the driver’s face; he was loving every minute. Edinburgh provided his own personal racetrack. A purple Nissan filled with local youths was riding the slipstream. Siobhan gave it ten seconds, then signaled to move back out into the flow of traffic. She was on her way to a temporary campsite in Niddrie, one of Edinburgh’s less genteel areas. Instead of pitching their tents in people’s gardens, marchers were being told to go there.
Niddrie.
The council had chosen the grasslands around the Jack Kane Center. They were planning for ten thousand visitors, maybe even fifteen. Portable toilets and showers had been provided and a private security firm put in charge. Probably, Siobhan couldn’t help thinking, to keep the neighborhood gangs out rather than the marchers in. The local joke was that there’d be a lot of tents and camping gear for sale around the pubs in the next few weeks. Siobhan had offered to let her parents stay at her place. Of course she had: they’d helped her buy it. They could have her bed; she’d crash on the sofa. But they’d been adamant: they would be traveling by bus and camping with the others. They’d been students in the 1960s and had never quite shaken themselves free of the period. Though now nearing sixty—Rebus’s generation—her dad still kept his hair tied back in a sort of ponytail. Her mum still wore dresses that were mostly caftans. She thought of her words to Rebus earlier: You’re just the sort of cop they’re afraid I’ll become. Thing was, part of her felt now that she’d joined the police mostly because she’d thought they wouldn’t approve. After all the care and affection they’d doled out, she’d needed to rebel. Payback for the times their teaching jobs had led to yet another move, another new school. Payback simply because it was in her power. When she’d told them, their looks had almost made her recant. But that would have been weak. They’d been supportive, of course, while hinting that police work might not be the most fulfilling use of her skills. That was enough to make her dig in her heels.
So she’d become a cop. Not in London, where her parents lived, but in Scotland, which she hadn’t really known at all until attending college there. One final heartfelt plea from her mum and dad: “Anywhere but Glasgow.”
Glasgow, with its hard-man image and knife culture, its sectarian divide. Yet, as Siobhan had found, a great place to shop. A place she sometimes went with friends—all-girl parties which led to them staying the night at some boutique hotel or other, sampling the nightlife, steering clear of any bars with bouncers at the door—a point of drinking protocol on which she and John Rebus agreed. While Edinburgh, meantime, had proved more deadly than her parents could ever have imagined.
Not that she would ever tell them that. During Sunday phone calls she tended to brush off her mum’s inquiries, asking her own questions instead. She’d offered to meet them at the bus, but they’d said they would need time to get the tent ready. Stopped at traffic lights, she pictured this, and the image made her smile. Nearly sixty, the pair of them, and messing around with a tent. They’d taken early retirement the previous year from their teaching jobs. Owned a fair-sized house in Forest Hill, the mortgage paid off. Always asking her if she needed money...
“I’ll pay for a hotel room,” she’d told them on the phone, but they’d remained resolute. Pulling away from the lights, she wondered if it might be some form of dementia.
She parked on the Wisp, ignoring the orange traffic cones, and stuck a POLICE BUSINESS notice on her windshield. At the sound of her idling engine, a yellow-jacketed security guard had come for a look. He shook his head and pointed at the notice. Then he drew a hand across his throat and nodded toward the nearest housing development. Siobhan removed the sign but left the car where it was.
“Local gangs,” the guard was saying. “Sign like that’s a red rag to a bull.” He slid his hands into his pockets, puffing up his already substantial chest. “So what brings you here, Officer?”
His head was shaved, but he sported a full, dark beard and a tangle of eyebrows.
“Social call, actually,” Siobhan said, showing him her ID. “A couple by the name of Clarke. Need a word with them.”
“In you come then.” He led her to a gate in the perimeter fence. In miniature, it was a bit like the Gleneagles security. There was even a sort of watchtower. Every ten yards or so along the fence stood another guard. “Here, put this on,” her new friend was saying, handing her a wristband. “Makes you less conspicuous. It’s how we keep tabs on our band of happy campers.”
“Quite literally,” she said, taking it from him. “How’s everything going so far?”
“Local yout
h don’t like it much. They’ve tried coming in, but that’s about it.” He shrugged. They were walking along a metal walkway, stepping off it for a moment as a young girl roller-skated past, her mother watching cross-legged from the ground next to her tent.
“How many are here?” Siobhan found it hard to judge.
“Maybe a thousand. There’ll be more tomorrow.”
“You’re not keeping count?”
“Not taking names either—so I’m not sure where you’re going to find your friends. Only thing we’re allowed to take from them is the fee for their site.”
Siobhan looked around. The summer had been dry, and the earth underfoot was solid. Beyond the skyline of apartment buildings and houses she could make out other, more ancient shapes: Holyrood Park and Arthur’s Seat. She could hear some low chanting and a few guitars and pennywhistles. Children’s laughter and a baby ready for its next feeding. Hand claps and chatter. Silenced suddenly by a megaphone, carried by a man with his hair crammed into an outsize woolly hat. Patchwork trousers lopped off at the knees and flip-flops on his feet.
“Big white tent, people—that’s where it’s happening. Vegetable curry at four quid, thanks to the local mosque. Only four quid...”
“Maybe that’s where you’ll find them,” Siobhan’s guide said. She thanked him and he headed back to his post. The “big white tent” seemed to serve as a general meeting place. Someone else was calling out that a group would be heading into town for a drink. Meet in five minutes by the red flag. Siobhan had passed a row of portable toilets and some standpipes and showers. All that was left for her to explore now were tents. The line for curry was orderly. Someone tried to hand her a plastic spoon, and she shook her head before remembering that it was a while since she’d eaten. Her Styrofoam plate heaped high, she decided to take a slow walk through the camp. People were cooking their own food on camp stoves. One pointed at her.
“Remember me from Glastonbury?” he called. Siobhan just shook her head. And then she saw her parents and broke into a smile. They were doing the camping thing with style: a big red tent with windows and a covered porch, foldaway table and chairs, and an open bottle of wine with real glasses next to it. They got up when they saw her, exchanged hugs and kisses, apologized that they’d only brought two chairs.