“I can sit on the grass,” Siobhan assured them. There was another young woman already doing just that. She hadn’t moved at Siobhan’s approach.
“We were just telling Santal about you,” Siobhan’s mum said. Eve Clarke looked young for her years, only the laugh lines giving the game away. The same could not be said for Siobhan’s dad, Teddy. He’d grown paunchy, and the skin drooped from his face. His hairline had receded, the ponytail sparser and grayer than ever. He refilled the wineglasses with gusto, his gaze never leaving the bottle.
“I’m sure Santal’s been riveted,” Siobhan said, accepting the glass.
The young woman gave the beginnings of a smile. Her hair was neck length and dirty blond, gelled or mistreated so that it emerged in clumps and braids from her scalp. No makeup, but multiple piercings to her ears and one to the side of her nose. Her dark green sleeveless T-shirt showed Celtic tattoos on either shoulder, and her bare midriff showed another piercing to her navel. Plenty of jewelry strung around her neck, and hanging lower still what looked like a digital video camera.
“You’re Siobhan,” she said with a trace of a lisp.
“Afraid so.” Siobhan toasted the company with her glass. Another had been produced from a picnic basket, along with another bottle of wine.
“Steady on, Teddy,” Eve Clarke said.
“Santal needs a refill,” he explained, though Siobhan couldn’t help noticing that Santal’s glass was actually almost as full as her own.
“Did the three of you travel up together?” she asked.
“Santal hitched from Aylesbury,” Teddy Clarke said. “After the bus ride we’ve just endured, I think next time I’d do the same.” He rolled his eyes and fidgeted in his seat, then unscrewed the wine bottle. “Screw-top wine, Santal. Don’t say the modern world doesn’t have its pluses.”
In fact, she didn’t reply at all. Siobhan couldn’t say why she’d taken such an immediate dislike to this stranger, except that Santal was just that: a stranger. Siobhan had wanted some time with her mum and dad. Just the three of them.
“Santal’s got the campsite next to us,” Eve was explaining. “We needed a bit of help with the tent...”
Her husband laughed suddenly and loudly, filling his own glass. “Been a while since we camped,” he said.
“Tent looks new,” Siobhan commented.
“Borrowed from neighbors,” her mother said quietly.
Santal was rising to her feet. “I should go.”
“Not on our account,” Teddy Clarke protested.
“There’s a bunch of us heading to a pub.”
“I like your camera,” Siobhan said.
Santal looked down at it. “Any of the cops take my picture, I want theirs in return. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?” Her unblinking look demanded agreement.
Siobhan turned toward her father. “You’ve told her what I do,” she stated quietly.
“Not ashamed, are you?” Santal all but spat the words out.
“Just the opposite, to be honest.” Siobhan’s eyes shifted from father to mother. Suddenly both her parents seemed intent on the wine in front of them. When she looked back at Santal, she saw that the young woman was pointing the camera at her.
“One for the family album,” Santal said. “I’ll send you a JPEG.”
“Thanks,” Siobhan replied coldly. “Odd name, isn’t it, Santal?”
“Means ‘sandalwood,’” Eve Clarke answered.
“At least people can spell it,” Santal herself added.
Teddy Clarke laughed. “I was telling Santal about how we burdened you with a name nobody down south could pronounce.”
“Shared any more family history?” Siobhan said, bristling. “Any embarrassing stories I need to be aware of?”
“Touchy, isn’t she?” Santal commented to Siobhan’s mother.
“You know,” Eve Clarke admitted, “we never really wanted her to become—”
“Mum, for Christ’s sake!” Siobhan broke in. But her further complaint was cut short by sounds from the direction of the fence. She saw guards jogging toward the scene. There were kids on the outside, making Nazi salutes. They wore regulation dark hooded tops and wanted the guards to send out “all the hippie scum.”
“The revolution starts here!” one of them yelled. “Up against the wall, wankers!”
“Pathetic,” Siobhan’s mother said.
But now there were objects sailing through the darkening sky.
“Get down,” Siobhan warned, all but pushing her mother into the tent, unsure what protection it would offer from the volley of rocks and bottles. Her father had taken a couple of steps toward the trouble, but she hauled him back, too. Santal was standing her ground, pointing her camera toward the melee.
“You’re just a bunch of tourists!” one of the locals was yelling. “Piss off home on the rickshaws that brought you here!”
Raucous laughter; jeers and gestures. If the campers wouldn’t come outside, they wanted the guards. But the guards weren’t that stupid. Instead, Siobhan’s friend was on his radio for reinforcements. Situation like this, it could die down in moments or flare into all-out war. The guard found her standing by his shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure you’re insured...”
It took her a second to get his meaning. “My car!” she shouted, heading for the gate. Had to elbow her way past two more guards. Ran out onto the road. Her hood was dented and scratched, back window fractured, NYT sprayed on one door.
Niddrie Young Team.
They stood there in a line, laughing at her. One of them held up his camera phone to get a picture.
“Take all the photos you want,” she told him. “Makes you even easier to trace.”
“Fuckin’ police!” another of them spat. He was in the center, a lieutenant behind either shoulder.
The leader.
“Police is right,” she said. “Ten minutes in Craigmillar cop-shop and I’ll know more about you than your own mother.” She was pointing for emphasis, but all he did was sneer. Only a third of his face was visible, but she would file it away. A car was drawing up, three men inside. Siobhan recognized the one in the back: local councilman.
“Away you go!” he was yelling as he emerged, waving both arms as if putting sheep back in a pen. The gang’s leader pretended to tremble but could see that his fellow soldiers were wavering. Half a dozen of the security had come from behind the fence, the bearded guard at their head. Sirens in the distance, growing closer.
“Go on, bugger off with you!” the councilman persisted.
“Camp full of lezzies and fags,” the gang’s leader snarled in reply. “And who’s paying for it, eh?”
“I very much doubt you are, son,” the councilman said. The other two men from the car were flanking him now. They were big men, probably hadn’t backed down from a fight in their lives. Just the sort of pollsters a Niddrie politician would need.
The gang leader spat on the ground, then turned and walked off.
“Thanks for that,” Siobhan said, holding out a hand for the councilman to shake.
“Not a problem,” he replied, seeming to dismiss the whole incident, Siobhan included, from his mind. He was shaking the bearded guard’s hand now, the two obviously known to each other.
“Quiet night otherwise?” the councilman asked. The guard chuckled a response.
“Was there something we could do for you, Mr. Tench?”
Councilman Tench looked around him. “Just thought I’d drop by, let all these lovely people know that my district stands firmly behind them in the fight to end poverty and injustice in the world.” He had an audience now, fifty or so campers standing just on the other side of the fence. “We know something about both in this part of Edinburgh,” he bellowed, “but that doesn’t mean we’ve no time for those worse off than us. Bighearted, I like to think we are.” He saw that Siobhan was examining the damage to her car. “Few wild ones in our midst, naturally, but then what community hasn’t
?” Smiling, Tench opened his arms again, this time like a brimstone preacher.
“Welcome to Niddrie!” he told his congregation. “Welcome, one and all.”
Rebus was alone in the CID suite. It had taken him half an hour to find the notes for the murder inquiry: four boxes and a series of folders, floppy disks, and a single CD-ROM. He’d left these latter items on their shelf in the storeroom and now had some of the paperwork spread out in front of him. He’d made use of the half dozen desks available, pushing in-boxes and computer keyboards aside. By walking through the room, he could shift between the different stages of the inquiry: crime scene to initial interviews; victim profile to further interviews; prison record; connection with Cafferty; autopsy and toxicology reports...The phone in the DI’s little booth had rung a few times, but Rebus had ignored it. He wasn’t the senior DI here; Derek Starr was. And the smarmy little bastard was out on the town somewhere, it being a Friday night. Rebus knew Starr’s routine because Starr himself shared it with all and sundry each Monday morning: couple of drinks at the Hallion Club, then maybe home for a shower and change of clothes before coming back into town; back to the Hallion if it was lively, but always heading to George Street afterward—Opal Lounge, Candy Bar, Living Room. Nightcap at Indigo Yard if he hadn’t gotten lucky before then. There was a new jazz place opening on Queen Street, owned by Jools Holland. Starr had already made inquiries about membership.
The phone rang again; Rebus ignored it. If it was urgent, they’d try Starr’s cell. If it was being transferred from the front desk...well, they knew Rebus was up here. He’d wait till they tried his extension rather than Starr’s. Could be they were winding him up, hoping he’d answer so they could apologize and say it was DI Starr they were after. Rebus knew his place in the food chain: somewhere down among the plankton, the price for years of insubordination and reckless conduct. Never mind that there’d been results along the way, too: far as the bigwigs were concerned, these days it was all about how you got the result, about efficiency and accountability, public perceptions, strict rules and protocols.
Rebus’s translation: covering your own ass.
He stopped by a folder of photographs. Some he had already removed and spread out across the surface of the desk. But now he sifted through the others. Cyril Colliar’s public history: newspaper clippings, Polaroids offered by family and friends, the official photos from his arrest and trial. Someone had even snapped a grainy shot of him during his time in prison, reclining on his bed, arms behind his head as he watched TV. It had made the front page of the tabloids: “Could Life Be Any Cushier for Rape Beast?”
Not any longer.
Next desk: details of the rape victim’s family. Name kept secret from the public. She was Victoria Jensen, eighteen at the time of the attack. Vicky to those closest to her. Followed from a nightclub...followed as she walked with two pals to the bus stop. Night bus: Colliar had found himself a seat a couple of rows behind the three. Vicky got off the bus alone. Not much more than five hundred yards from home when he’d struck, hand over her mouth, hauling her into an alley...
Surveillance videos showed him leaving the club straight after her. Showed him boarding the bus and taking his seat. DNA from the attack sealed his fate. Some of his associates had attended the trial, made threats toward the victim’s family. No charges brought.
Vicky’s father was a vet; his wife worked for Standard Life. Rebus himself had delivered the news of Cyril Colliar’s demise to the family home in Leith.
“Thanks for telling us,” the father had said. “I’ll break it to Vicky.”
“You don’t understand, sir,” Rebus had responded, “there are questions I need to ask you...”
Did you do it?
Hire someone to do it for you?
Know anyone who might’ve been compelled?
Vets had access to drugs. Maybe not heroin, but other drugs which could be exchanged for heroin. Dealers sold ketamine to clubbers—Starr himself had made the point. It was used by vets to treat horses. Vicky had been raped in an alley, Colliar killed in one. Thomas Jensen had appeared outraged by the insinuations.
“You mean you’ve really never thought of it, sir? Never planned any sort of revenge?”
Of course he had: images of Colliar rotting in a cell or burning in hell. “But that doesn’t happen, does it, Inspector? Not in this world...”
Vicky’s friends had been questioned too, none of them ready to own up. Rebus moved to the next table. Morris Gerald Cafferty stared back at him from photographs and interview transcripts. Rebus had needed to argue his case before Macrae would let him anywhere near. Feeling was, their shared history ran too deep. Some knew them for enemies; others thought them too similar...and way too familiar with each other. Starr for one had voiced his concerns in front of both Rebus and DCI Macrae. Rebus’s snarled attempt to grab his fellow DI by the shirtfront had been, in Macrae’s later words, “just another goal for the other team, John.”
Cafferty was dexterous: fingers in every imaginable criminal pie. Saunas and protection, muscle and intimidation. Drugs, too, which would give him access to heroin. And if not him personally, Colliar’s fellow bouncers for sure. It wasn’t unknown for clubs to be shut down when it emerged that the so-called doormen were controlling the flow of dope into the premises. Any one of them could have decided to get rid of the Rape Beast. Might even have been personal: a disrespectful remark; a slight against a girlfriend. The many and varied possible motives had been explored at length and in detail. On the surface, then, a by-the-book investigation. Nobody could say otherwise. Except...Rebus could see the team’s heart hadn’t been in it. A few questions missed here and there; avenues left unexplored. Notes typed up sloppily. It was the sort of thing only someone close to the case would spot. Effort had been spared throughout, just enough to show what the officers really thought of their victim.
The autopsy, however, had been scrupulous. Professor Gates had said it before: it didn’t bother him who was lying on his slab. They were human beings, and somebody’s daughter or son.
“Nobody’s born bad, John,” he’d muttered, leaning over his scalpel.
“Well, nobody makes them do bad things either,” Rebus had retorted.
“Ah,” Gates had conceded. “A conundrum pored over by wiser heads than ours through the centuries. What makes us keep doing these terrible things to each other?”
Gates hadn’t offered an answer. But something else he’d pointed out resonated with Rebus now as he moved to Siobhan’s desk and picked up one of the postmortem photographs of Colliar. In death we all return to innocence, John...It was true that Colliar’s face seemed at peace, as though nothing had ever troubled it.
The phone was ringing again in Starr’s office. Rebus let it ring, picked up Siobhan’s extension instead. There was a Post-it note affixed to the side of her hard disk: rows of names and phone numbers. He knew better than to try the lab, punched in the cell number instead.
Picked up almost immediately by Ray Duff.
“Ray? It’s DI Rebus.”
“Inviting me to join him on a Friday-night pub crawl?” Rebus’s silence was answered with a sigh. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m surprised at you though, Ray, shirking your duties.”
“I don’t sleep in the lab, you know.”
“Except we both know that’s a lie.”
“Okay, I work the odd night...”
“And that’s what I like about you, Ray. See, we’re both driven by that passion for the job.”
“A passion I’m jeopardizing by showing my face at my local pub’s trivia night?”
“Not my place to judge you, Ray. Just wondering how this new Colliar evidence is shaping up.”
Rebus heard a tired chuckle at the other end of the phone. “You never let up, do you?”
“It’s not for me, Ray. I’m just helping out Siobhan. This could mean a big promotion for her if she nails it. She’s the one who found the patch.”
 
; “The evidence only came in three hours ago.”
“Ever heard of striking while the iron is hot?”
“But the beer in front of me is cold, John.”
“It would mean a lot to Siobhan, Ray. She’s looking forward to you claiming that prize.”
“What prize?”
“The chance to show off that car of yours. A day out in the country, just the two of you on those winding roads...Who knows, maybe even a hotel room at the end of it if you play your cards right.” Rebus paused. “What’s that music?”
“One of the trivia questions.”
“Sounds like Steely Dan, ‘Reelin’ in the Years.’”
“But how did the band get their name?”
“A dildo in a William Burroughs novel. Now tell me you’re heading to the lab straight after.”
Well satisfied with the outcome, Rebus treated himself to a mug of coffee and a stretch of the legs. The building was quiet. The desk sergeant had been replaced by one of his juniors. Rebus didn’t know the face, but nodded anyway.
“Been trying to get CID to take a call,” the young officer said. He ran a finger along his shirt collar. His neck was pitted with acne or some species of rash.
“That’ll be me then,” Rebus told him. “What’s the emergency?”
“Trouble at the castle, sir.”
“Have the protests started early?”
The uniform shook his head. “Reports of a scream and a body landing in the gardens. Looks like someone fell from the ramparts.”
“Castle’s not open this time of night,” Rebus stated, brow creasing.
“Dinner for some of the bigwigs...”
“So who ended up going over the edge?”
The constable just shrugged. “Shall I tell them there’s no one available?”
“Don’t be crazy, son,” Rebus announced, heading off to fetch his jacket.
As well as being a major tourist attraction, Edinburgh Castle acted as a working barracks, something Commander David Steelforth stressed to Rebus when he intercepted him just inside the portcullis.