'We're keeping an open mind.'
'Was it some obscure isotope like that guy in London?'
'He was beaten to a pulp before someone caved his skull in.'
'Not exactly subtle then.'
'Not exactly. Tell me something, Mr Denholm – how did you come to choose the Urban Regeneration Committee for your project?'
'They chose me, Inspector – we asked if anyone would be interested in taking part, and their chairman said she was up for it.'
'Megan Macfarlane?'
'No shortage of ego there, Inspector – I speak as one who knows.'
'I'm sure you do, sir.' Rebus heard something like a doorbell.
'That'll be room service,' Denholm explained.
'I'll let you go then,' Rebus said. 'Thanks for calling, Mr Denholm.'
'No problem.'
'One last thing, though…' Rebus paused just long enough to ensure he had the artist's full attention. 'Before you let them in, best check that it really is room service.'
He snapped shut his phone and allowed himself a little smile.
32
'Can't be that much of it, if it fits on to one of these,' Siobhan Clarke commented. She was back in the CID suite and, DCI Macrae being elsewhere, had commandeered his room, the better to accommodate Terry Grimm. Seated at her boss's desk, she held the clear plastic memory stick between thumb and forefinger, angling it in the light.
TTou'd be surprised,' Grimm said. 'I'm guessing there's about sixteen hours on there. Could have squeezed more in if there had been anything usable. Unfortunately, the heat of the fire had done for most of it.' He'd brought the evidence sacks with him. They were tied shut, but still carried the faintest aroma of charcoal.
'Did anything catch your eye?' Clarke paused. 'Or ear, I suppose I should say.'
Grimm shook his head. 'Tell you what I did do, though…' He reached into his inside pocket and drew out a CD in a plastic wallet.
'Charlie taped the Russian poet at another event, few weeks back. Happened to come across it at the studio, so I burned you a copy.' He handed it over.
'Thanks,' she said.
'Some lecturer at the university was after the other show Charlie taped, but as far as I know you've got the only existing copy.'
'NameofColwell?'
'That's it.' He stared at the backs of his hands. 'Any nearer to finding out who killed him?'
She gestured in the direction of the main office. You can see we're not exactly resting on our laurels.'
He nodded, but his eyes never left hers. 'Good way of avoiding an answer,' he stated.
'It's a case of finding the “why”, Mr Grimm. If you can help shed some light, we'd be incredibly grateful.'
'I've been turning it over in my head. Hazel and me have bounced it around, too. Still doesn't make any sense.'
'Well, if you do think of anything…' She was rising to her feet, signalling that the meeting was over. Through the glass partition, she could see that there was a hubbub in the outer office. Out of it emerged Todd Goodyear. He knocked once and entered, closing the door after him.
'If I'm going to manage to actually hear what's on those committee recordings, I'm going to need to shift my stuff,' he complained.
'It's like the monkey house out there.' He recognised Terry Grimm and gave a little nod of greeting.
'The Parliament tapes?' Grimm guessed. Tou're still trawling through them?'
'Still trawling.' Goodyear had a sheaf of paper under one arm.
He held the sheets out for Clarke to take. She saw that he had typed up his detailed notes on the contents of each tape. There was screeds of the stuff. In her early days as a detective, she, too, would have been this meticulous… back before Rebus showed her how to cut corners.
'Thanks,' she said. 'And this is for you…' Handing him the memory stick. 'Mr Grimm reckons there's about sixteen hours'
worth.'
Goodyear gave a protracted sigh, and asked Terry Grimm how things were at the studio.
'Just about coping, thanks.'
Clarke was sifting the typed sheets. 'Did anything here jump out at you?' she asked Goodyear.
'Not one single thing,' he informed her.
'Imagine how we felt,' Grimm added, 'sitting there for days on end, listening to politician after politician drone on…'
Goodyear just shook his head, unwilling to imagine himself in that role.
'What you got was the good stuff,' Grimm assured him.
Clarke noticed that it had quietened down in the main office.
What was the noise about?' she asked Goodyear.
'Bit of a free-for-all at the mortuary,' he explained casually, tossing the memory stick into the air and catching it. 'Someone's trying to claim Todorov's body. DI Starr wanted to know who was the fastest driver.' Another toss, another catch. 'DC Reynolds claimed he was. Not everyone agreed…' He had been slow to notice that
Clarke was glaring at him, but now his voice trailed off. 'I should have told you straight off?' he guessed.
'That's right,' she answered in a voice of quiet menace. And then, to Terry Grimm: 'PC Goodyear will see you out. Thanks again for coming.'
She marched downstairs to the car park and got into her car.
Started the ignition and drove. She wanted to ask Starr why he hadn't said anything… why he hadn't asked her. Giving the job to one of his boys instead – Ray Reynolds, at that! Was it because she'd gone off without telling him? Was it so she'd know her place in future?
She had plenty of questions for DI Derek Starr.
She turned right at the top of Leith Street, then hard left on to North Bridge. Straight across at the Tron and a right-hand turn, crossing oncoming traffic and on to Blair Street, passing Nancy Sievewright's flat again. If Talking Heads really did reckon London a 'small city', they should try Edinburgh. No more than eight minutes after leaving Gayfield Square, she was pulling into the mortuary car park, stopping alongside Reynolds's car and wondering if she'd beaten his time. There was another car, a big old Mercedes Benz, parked between two of the mortuary's anonymous white transit vans. Clarke stalked past it to the door marked Staff Only, turned the handle and went in. There was no onen the corridor, and no one in the staff room, though steam was rising from the spout of a recently boiled kettle. She moved through! the holding area and opened another door into a further corridor), up some stairs to the next level. This was where the public entrance was. It was where relatives waited to identify their loved ones and where the subsequent paperwork was taken care of. Usually it was a place of low sobbing, quiet reflection, utter and ghastly silence.
But not today.
She recognised Nikolai Stahov straight off. He wore the same long black coat as when they'd first met. Alongside him stood a man who also looked Russian, maybe five years younger but almost as many inches taller and broader. Stahov was remonstrating in English with Derek Starr, who stood with arms folded, legs apart, as if ready for a ruck. Next to him was Reynolds, and behind them the four mortuary staff.
'We have right,' Stahov was saying. 'Constitutional right…
moral right.'
