“It’s just that I do the same thing. Or I used to. I’m that bit older and lazier these days.”
“Maybe there are dozens of us out there, only we don’t know about each other.”
“Maybe,” he conceded.
“Or maybe it’s just you and me.” She rested her head against the back of the sofa. “So tell me about the others on this course.”
“What’s to tell?”
“What are they like?”
“What would you expect them to be like?”
She shrugged. “Mad, bad and dangerous to know?” she suggested.
“Bad for relationships, certainly,” he confessed.
She caught his meaning immediately. “Uh-oh. What happened?”
So he told her.
11
When Siobhan arrived at work on Tuesday morning, clutching a bag of paperwork and a cup of coffee, someone was seated at her desk, staring at her computer screen. The someone was Derek Linford. There was a new message scrolling across the screen itself: I SEE LOVER BOY’S BACK.
“I’m assuming this isn’t your work?” Linford asked.
Siobhan put the bag down. “No,” she said.
“Do you think they mean me?”
She prized the lid from her coffee and took a sip.
“Who’s doing it, do you know?” Linford asked. She shook her head. “You’re not surprised, so I’m guessing this isn’t the first time . . .”
“Correct. Now if you wouldn’t mind getting out of my chair.”
Linford stood up. “Sorry,” he said.
“That’s all right.” She sat down and hit the mouse so that the screen saver disappeared.
“Did you switch the monitor off before you left last night?” Linford was standing too close to her for comfort.
“Saves energy,” she told him.
“So someone powered the system back up.”
“Looks like.”
“And knew your password.”
“Everyone knows everyone else’s password,” she said. “Not enough computers to go round; we have to share.”
“And by everyone, you mean . . . ?”
She looked at him. “Let’s just drop it, Derek.” The office was filling up. DCI Bill Pryde was making sure the “bible” — the MMI —was up to date. Phyllida Hawes was halfway down a list of phone calls. The previous afternoon she’d rolled her eyes at Siobhan, indicating that cold-calling wasn’t the most thrilling part of an inquiry. Grant Hood had been called to DCS Templer’s office, probably so they could talk media liaison — Hood’s specialty.
Linford took half a step back. “So what’s your schedule for the day?”
Linford rested his hands against the side of her desk. “The deceased’s financial affairs. A bloody minefield they are, too . . .” He was studying her face. “You look tired.”
“Thanks.”
“Out carousing last night?”
“Party animal, that’s me.”
“Really? I don’t tend to go out much these days . . .” He waited for her to say something, but she was concentrating on blowing on her coffee, even though it was little more than lukewarm.
“Yes,” Linford plowed on, “Mr. Marber’s financial wheeler-dealings will take some unpicking. Half a dozen bank accounts . . . investment portfolio . . . VCTs . . .”
“Property?”
“Just the house in Edinburgh, and his villa in Tuscany.”
“All right for some.”
“Mmm, a week in Tuscany would just about do me right now . . .”
“I’d settle for a week at home on the sofa.”
“You set your standards too low, Siobhan.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
He didn’t catch her tone. “One slight anomaly in the bank statements . . .”
It was a tease, but she reacted anyway. “Yes?” she prompted. Phyllida Hawes was putting down the receiver, ticking off another name, starting to scribble some notes to herself.
“Tucked away in one of his accounts,” Linford was saying. “Quarterly payments to a lettings agency.”
“A lettings agency?” She watched Linford nod. “Which one?”
Linford frowned. “Does it matter?”
“It might. So happens I was at MGC Lettings yesterday, talking to the owner: Big Ger Cafferty.”
“Cafferty? Wasn’t he one of Marber’s clients?”
Siobhan nodded. “Which is why I’m curious.”
“Yes, me too. I mean, why would someone with as much money as Marber need to rent a place anyway?”
“And the answer is . . . ?”
“I haven’t quite got there yet. Give me a second . . .” He retreated to his desk — Rebus’s old desk — and started shifting sheets of paper. Siobhan had some digging of her own to do, and DCI Pryde would have the answers.
“What can I do for you, Siobhan?” he asked as she approached him.
“The taxi that took the victim home, sir,” she said. “Which company was it?”
Pryde didn’t even need to look it up: that was what she liked about him. She wondered if he did his homework every night, memorizing facts and figures. The man was a walking MMI.
“Driver’s name is Sammy Wallace. He has a few priors: housebreaking, fencing. Years back, mind. We’ve checked him out. He looks clean.”
“But which company does he work for?”
“MG Private Hire.”
“Owned by Big Ger Cafferty?”
Pryde stared at her, unblinking. He had a clipboard held to his chest, fingers drumming against it. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“All right if I check?”
“Go right ahead. You talked to Cafferty yesterday . . .”
She nodded. “And now Linford’s come up with a lettings agency that was getting regular payments from Mr. Marber.”
Pryde’s mouth opened in an
“Yes, sir.”
She trawled the office, noticing that Linford was still sifting through paperwork. Grant Hood came up to her, holding a photocopied page from Marber’s guest book.
“What do you reckon that says?” he asked.
She examined the signature. “Could be Marlowe.”
“Only there was no one called Marlowe on the guest list.” He exhaled noisily.
“Templer’s got you trying to sort out who was there that night?” Siobhan guessed.
