‘They all think I had something to do with it,’ she blurted out. ‘Eyes on me as I walk past. Facebook and the rest ready to burn me at the stake. Your lot need fingerprints, a hair sample for DNA; they need a statement, a formal identification. And they’re just getting started.’ The fire inside her began to die back a little. ‘We’d had a row that night. Not much of one in the grand scheme of things, but your pal Creasey won’t see it like that. I’m so tired and I’m at my wits’ end and Keith’s dead and I have to keep Carrie from seeing me falling apart.’ She blinked the world back into some kind of focus. ‘Any words of wisdom, Detective Inspector?’
‘I’m here for you, Samantha.’
‘Same as you ever were, eh? Phone call twice a year if Mum and me were lucky.’ She sucked in some air and gestured towards the washer-dryer. ‘When that’s done, I want you to leave.’
‘Christ’s sake, Samantha … ’
‘I mean it. I can manage. I’m going to have to.’ She wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘I heard they fixed your car, so there’s really no excuse.’
‘There’s every excuse – you’re the only family I’ve got, you and Carrie. I want to help.’
‘Then answer me this.’ Her eyes were boring into his as she approached, until their faces were inches apart. ‘Am I a suspect?’
‘The police need to be able to rule you out.’
‘And until then I’m ruled in, is that it? By you and them both?’ She shook her head slowly. Her voice when she spoke again had lost all its force. ‘Just go, Dad. Don’t be here when I get back.’ She hoisted the bag over one shoulder, paused at the door to the outside world.
‘A dead man’s clothes,’ she said, more to herself than for his benefit. And then she was gone.
He considered following her, tailing her all the way back into the village. Didn’t Carrie deserve to see him? Couldn’t Samantha be made to see sense? But instead he slumped onto one of the kitchen chairs and waited for the machine to finish its cycle.
Thirty minutes later, he walked into The Glen. The place was busy. Conversation quietened as he entered. One local was being interviewed by a journalist, a phone held up to record whatever story was being told. Rebus marched up to the bar. May Collins’ attention was on the two bags of clothes he was carrying rather than on Rebus himself. Eventually she lifted her eyes to meet his.
‘Don’t suppose this place has rooms?’ he asked.
12
A bar five minutes’ walk from the MIT base at Leith police station had become the team’s haunt of an evening. Graham Sutherland would sense that motivation was flagging or fatigue setting in and would announce that ‘The downing of tools will be replaced by the downing of beverages’. As ever, it was his debit card that paid for the first two rounds – boss’s rules. There was a corner table that seemed always to be available, supplemented by stools dragged from elsewhere in the bar. Sutherland had admitted to Siobhan Clarke that he phoned ahead and requested ‘the usual spot’.
‘Meaning a favour owed,’ Clarke had responded. ‘Careful, Graham, that’s a slippery slope.’
‘It’s not like in Rebus’s day. No trips to the back room for a bung or a bottle of Grouse.’ Not even a discount – Sutherland had checked that wasn’t happening, regardless of whose round it was.
There were six of them around the table this evening. Ronnie Ogilvie’s attention was on a TV quiz show, calling out the answers before any of the contestants. Esson and Leighton were busy on their phones, their drinks almost untouched. Fox was focused on the two bags of ridge-cut crisps that lay splayed on the table, licking his fingers after each mouthful.
‘Cheers,’ Sutherland said, hoisting his half-pint before taking a sip. Clarke had a gin and tonic with an extra bottle of tonic on the side. She thought again of Rebus’s generation, doubted many of them would have worried about being breathalysed. It wasn’t just that these were different times; it was more that Clarke and her colleagues were cut from very different cloth. There was still the occasional big night out, a release of pressure, but mostly they tended to treat the job as just that – a job. Gamble and Yeats had gone home, one to dinner cooked by his partner and the other to a regular five-a-side game. They were damned if police work was going to consume their every waking hour. Clarke looked across the table to Sutherland and wondered if that was why neither of them had managed to commit to the other, fearing their relationship would become swamped by the job and vice versa. A bit of breathing space was necessary.
Which was why she’d convinced herself to go to the author talk with Esson. They’d grab a quick bite somewhere near the venue, then switch off for a couple of hours. Turning her attention to Malcolm Fox as he washed more crisps down with a mouthful of Appletiser, she saw that his mind was elsewhere. He was pretending to be interested in the same quiz show as Ronnie Ogilvie, but only so he wouldn’t have to engage with anyone else. He was deep in thought, working things through, not perturbed exactly but filled with a nervous energy she doubted any of the others could see. He’d said nothing about his visit to Cafferty; had just got to work on his computer, going through the details of Salman bin Mahmoud’s friends and acquaintances, even phoning the Met to give them a further nudge. Walking past and pausing to listen, Sutherland had given him a pat on the shoulder by way of encouragement.
Fox shifted his eyes from the TV only when he
