'I was just about to leave.'
'Before you do, add car keys or a driving licence to the search list. And ask Scarlett Colwell if Todorov had access to a vehicle.
I'm pretty sure she'll say no, but all the same…'
'No sign of any abandoned cars in the multistorey?'
'Good point, Shiv, I'll have someone check. Talk to you later.' The phone went dead, and she managed a little smile, hadn't heard Rebus so fired up in several months. Not for the first time, she wondered what the hell he would do with himself when the work was done.
Answer: bug her, most likely – phone calls daily, wanting to know everything about her case load.
Clarke got through to Dr Colwell on the mobile, Colwell having forgotten to turn her own off.
'Sorry,' Clarke apologised, 'are you in the middle of your tutorial?'
'I had to send them away.'
'I can understand. Maybe you should shut up shop for the day.
You've had quite a shock.'
'And do what exactly? My boyfriend's in London, I've got the whole flat to myself.'
'There must be a friend you could call.' Clarke looked up as Hawes walked back into the room, but this time all Hawes did was offer a shrug: no notebook, keys or cash card. Tibbet had done no better and was sitting on the chair, frowning over one of the poems in Astapovo Blues. 'Anyway,' Clarke rattled on, 'reason I'm phoning is to ask if Alexander owned a car.'
'He didn't.'
'Could he drive?'
'I've no idea. I certainly wouldn't have ventured into any vehicle with him behind the wheel.'
Clarke was nodding towards the route map – stood to reason Todorov would take buses. 'Thanks anyway,' she said.
'Did you talk to Abi Thomas?' Colwell asked abruptly.
'She went to the pub with him.'
'I'll bet she did.'
'But only stayed for one.'
'Oh yes?'
Tou sound as if you don't believe her, Dr Colwell.'
'Abi Thomas got hot flushes just reading Alexander's poems…
imagine how she felt squeezed in next to him at a corner table in some seedy bar.'
'Well, thanks for your help…” But Clarke was talking into a dead phone. She stared at it, then became aware of two pairs of eyes on her: Hawes and Tibbet.
'I don't think we're going to find anything else here, Siobhan,'
Hawes piped up, while her partner clucked his agreement. He was an inch shorter than her and several inches less smart, but knew enough to let her argue their case.
'Back to base?' Clarke suggested, to enthusiastic nods. 'Okay,'
she agreed, 'but take one more recce first – and this time we're after car keys or anything else that might suggest the deceased
would have need of a car-parking space.' Having said which, she relieved Tibbet of his book and swapped places with him, settling back to see if there was anything she'd missed in 'Codex Coda'.
The SOCOs tried pushing the BMW aside, with no success at all.
They then debated jacking it up, or maneuvering a hoist in so they could lift it. The rest of the parking level had become a buzz of activity, as a line of cops in white overalls shuffled along in formation on their knees, checking that the ground held no further clues.
Todd Goodyear was among them, and greeted Rebus with a nod.
Photos and video were being taken, and another team was outside, tracing the route from car park to lane. The SOCOs were trying not to look too shamefaced, knowing they should have spotted the blood trail on the night itself. They gave Ray Duff dirty looks whenever his back was turned.
Such was the scene which greeted the BMW's owner when she returned, briefcase and shopping bags in hand. Todd Goodyear was told to get to his feet and take a brief statement from her.
'Bloody brief,' Tam Banks stressed, keen for his team to start work on the evidence beneath her car.
Rebus was standing alongside the car park's security guard.
The man had just returned from a check of the other levels. His name was Joe Wills and the uniform he was wearing had probably been tailored with someone else in mind. He'd already explained that it would be hard to tell an abandoned car from any of the others.
Tou're open twenty-four hours?' Rebus had asked.
Wills had shaken his head. 'Close at eleven.'
'And you don't look to see if any cars are left?'
Wills had offered a shrug which went beyond the casual. Not much job satisfaction, Rebus had guessed.
Now Wills was explaining that he still couldn't say whether any of the current bays had been occupied overnight.
'We do a numberplate check once a fortnight,' he said.
'So a stolen car, to give an example, could sit here fourteen days before you'd have an inkling?'
'That's the policy.' The man looked to Rebus like a drinker: grey stubble, hair in need of a wash, eyes red- rimmed. There was probably a bottle of something hidden away in his control room, to be added to the daily round of teas and coffees.
'What sort of shifts do you work?'
'Seven till three or three till eleven. I seem to prefer the mornings.
Five days on, two off; there's other guys usually do the weekends.'
Rebus checked his watch: twenty minutes till the changeover.
Tour colleague will be starting soon – is that the same one who'd have been here last night?'
Wills nodded. 'Name's Gary.'
Tou haven't spoken to him since yesterday?'
Wills shrugged. 'Here's what I know about Gary: lives in Shandon, supports Hearts and has a stoater of a missus.'
'That's a start,' Rebus muttered. Then: 'Let's go look at your CCTV.'
'What for?' The man's eyes were glassy as he met Rebus's glare.
'To see if the tapes caught anything.' From the look on Wills's face, Rebus knew what was coming next, a single word forming echo and question both.
'Tapes…?'
They walked back up the exit slope anyway. Wills's lair was a small booth with greasy windows and a radio playing. Five flickering black-and-white screens, plus a sixth which was blank.
'Top storey,' Wills explained. 'It's playing up.'
Rebus studied the remaining five. The pictures were blurry; he couldn't pick out any individual licence plates. The figures from the floor below were indistinct, too. 'What the hell use is this?' he couldn't help asking.
'Bosses seem to think it gives the clients a sense of security.'
'Bloody false at best, as the poor sod in the mortuary can testify.'
Rebus turned away from the screens.
'One of the cameras used to point pretty much at that spot,' Wills said. 'But they get moved around…'
'And you don't keep any recordings?'
'Machine packed in a month back.' Wills nodded towards a dusty space below the monitors. 'Not that we bothered much. All the bosses were interested in was when anyone tried conning their way out without paying. System's pretty foolproof, didn't happen often.' Wills thought of something. 'There's a set of stairs between the top storey and the pavement, we had a punter attacked there last year.'
