Saints of the Shadow Bible

details anyway and jotted them down. He remembered the driver had been on her way home from her supermarket job in Livingston. He phoned her mobile and caught her at work. She asked how Jessica Traynor was doing.

‘Recovering,’ Rebus told her. ‘Meantime, I’ve a couple of follow-up questions, if that’s okay. When you stopped your car, you didn’t see any other signs of life?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing to indicate that she might not have been on her own at the time of the smash?’

‘Was there someone else there?’

‘We’re just trying to establish a picture, Mrs Muir.’

‘She was in the driver’s seat.’

‘And her door was open?’

‘I think so.’

‘What about the boot?’

‘I’ve really no idea. I suppose the impact could have. .’

‘You don’t remember whether it was open or closed?’

‘No.’ She paused, then apologised and asked if it was important.

‘Not really,’ Rebus assured her. ‘And you didn’t see any other vehicle? No lights further down the road?’ ‘No.’

‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but did you pass any cars travelling in the other direction in the minutes before you reached the scene?’

‘I was thinking about my supper. And I had the radio on, singing along most likely.’

‘So you don’t remember?’

‘I don’t.’

Rebus thanked her and hung up. He reckoned she would have remembered if some boy racer had come roaring out of nowhere. He got up from his desk and walked across to Christine Esson’s. ‘What have you got for me?’ he asked.

She pointed towards the printer. ‘You being old school, I decided you’d want it on paper.’

‘Are we out of papyrus then?’ He scooped up the thirty or so printed sheets.

‘There was more,’ she told him. ‘But it was all mergers and acquisitions — and a lot of duplication.’

‘This’ll do to start,’ Rebus said, returning to his desk and angling his chair so he could stretch his legs out. Then he began to read the internet’s version of Owen Traynor’s life and times. Age fifty-two, married for seventeen years to Josephine Gray, acrimonious (and costly) divorce. Traynor had been declared bankrupt in his mid twenties but come good again within ten years. He was Croydon-born, and had told one interviewer that he’d attended the ‘university of hard knocks’. More than one profile spoke of his rapid change of mood whenever a subject he didn’t like was raised. An interviewer even confided that Traynor had threatened to hang him by the feet from the window — while making it sound like a joke. Not so much of a joke when that irate investor had started kicking up a fuss — attacked on his doorstep, ending up in intensive care. Charges never pressed. There had been other instances of flare-ups, Traynor’s temper getting the better of him. Barred from at least one racecourse and one five-star hotel in London.

Quite the character, Mr Owen Traynor.

Rebus tapped the number for the Infirmary into his phone and asked how Jessica Traynor was faring.

‘She’s been released,’ he was told.

‘So soon?’

‘There’ll be a series of physio sessions and the like. .’

‘But she can manage stairs?’ Rebus was thinking of the three steep flights to her Great King Street flat.

‘Her father’s booked her into a hotel for a few days.’

In the room next to his, Rebus presumed. He thanked the nurse, ended the call and skimmed through the sheets of notes again. He realised the case was disappearing, as though it had been hoisted on to a trailer and was on its way for scrap. He looked around the office. Page was at some meeting, taking Clarke with him. Ronnie Ogilvie was prepping to give evidence at a trial. Christine Esson was studying statements. Was this what he had craved during his retirement? He had forgotten the lulls, the hours spent on paperwork, the hanging around. He thought of Charlie Watts — hadn’t he said something about life as a Rolling Stone? Fifty years in the band, ten spent drumming and the other forty waiting for something to happen. Segue to Peggy Lee: ‘Is That All There Is?’

‘Bollocks to that,’ Rebus muttered, getting to his feet. Probably just about enough time had passed. He patted his pockets, checking for cigarettes, matches, phone.

‘Leaving so soon?’ Esson teased him.

‘Just for a few minutes.’

‘Acting as boss has taken its toll, eh?’

‘I don’t mind acting,’ Rebus told her, heading for the door. ‘In fact, I’m just heading to another audition. .’

The small car park was a courtyard of sorts, the grey concrete cop shop hemming it in. Rebus was almost always the only smoker to use it. He called Police HQ and asked to be put through to Professional Standards — ‘or whatever they’ve decided to call it this week’. The extension rang half a dozen times before being answered.

‘Sergeant Kaye,’ the voice said by way of identification. Tony Kaye: Rebus had had dealings with him.

‘Is your boyfriend there? Tell him John Rebus wants a word.’

‘He’s in conference.’

‘He’s not Alan fucking Sugar,’ Rebus complained.

‘A meeting, then — sorry, I didn’t realise grammar was your strong point.’

‘Vocabulary, you arsehole, not grammar.’

‘Mind and get a refund from that charm school, eh?’

‘Soon as I’ve spoken to your generalissimo. Is this meeting of his with the fragrant Ms Macari, by any chance?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I’m a detective, son. A proper detective.’

‘You forget I’ve seen your files. Plenty six-letter words, but “proper” got scratched from the dictionary the day you left the academy.’

‘I think I’m a little bit in love with you, Sergeant Kaye. Let me give you my vital statistics.’ He reeled off his mobile number. ‘Tell Fox I think I can help him. Have him call me once Macari unzips his gimp mask.’ He ended the call before Kaye could respond. Staring at the screen of his phone, he broke into a smile. He did like Kaye, didn’t know what the hell the guy was doing in the Complaints. When a text arrived, he peered at it.

Blow me, it said, followed by three kisses. Dispatched, presumably, from Kaye’s own mobile. Rebus added the number to his contacts and paced the space between the rows of cars, finishing his cigarette in peace.

6

It turned out the Solicitor General had given Fox his own little office within the Sheriff Court on Chambers Street, not half a minute’s walk from her own fiefdom.

‘Cosy,’ Rebus said, examining his surroundings. The building was relatively new, but he was struggling to remember what had been there before. He had passed stressed lawyers outside, gabbling into phones, plus, nearby, their devil-may-care clients, sharing cigarettes and war stories and comparing tattoos.

Fox was seated behind a desk that was too big for his immediate needs, in a room that was a riot of wood panelling. He sat with a pen gripped between both hands. To Rebus, it seemed like a pose the man had spent too long preparing. Fox looked stiff and unconvincing, and maybe he sensed this himself — placing the pen on the desk in front of him as Rebus took the seat opposite.