Exit Music

Her phone rang, 556 prefix: someone was calling from Gayfield Square. She thought she could guess who.

'Hello?'

Sure enough, it was Derek Starr. 'You've snuck out on me,' he said, trying to inject some surface levity into the accusation.

'Had to go talk to West End.'

'What about?'

'Sol Goodyear.'

There was a momentary silence. 'Remind me,' he said.

'Lives close to where Todorov was found. It was a friend of his who discovered the body.'

'And?'

'Just wanted to confirm a few details.'

He would know damned well she was holding something back, just as she knew there was nothing he could do about it.

'So when can we expect to see you back in the body of the kirk, DS Clarke?'

'I've got one more stop to make at the City Chambers.'

'CCTV?' he guessed.

'That's right. I should only be half an hour or so.'

'Heard anything from Rebus?'

'Not a dicky-bird.'

'DCI Macrae tells me he's been suspended.'

'That's about the size of it.'

'Not much of a swansong, is it?'

'Was there anything else, Derek?'

Tou're my number two, Siobhan. That's how it stays unless I think you're playing away.'

'Meaning what exactly?'

'Don't want you picking up any more bad habits from Rebus.'

Unable to take any more, she ended the call. 'Pompous git,' she muttered, turning the ignition.

'So what did you get up to last night, then?' Hawes asked. She was in the passenger seat, Colin Tibbet driving.

'Couple of drinks with some mates.' He glanced in her direction.

Tou jealous, Phyl?'

'Jealous of you and your beery pals? Sure am, Col.'

'Thought so,' he said with a grin. They were heading for the south-east corner of the city, towards the bypass and the green belt. It hadn't surprised too many of the locals when FAB had been granted permission to construct their new HQ on what had previously been designated as protected land. A badger's sett had been relocated and a nine-hole golf course purchased for the exclusive use of employees. The huge glass building was just under a mile from the new Royal Infirmary, which Hawes guessed was handy for any bank employees suffering paper cuts from counting all those notes. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise her if the FAB compound turned out to have its own BUPA sickbay.

'I stayed in, since you ask,' she said now, watching Col slow to a halt as the lights ahead turned red. He did that thing they taught you in driving schools – not braking hard but changing back down through the gears. Up till now, everyone she'd met had started

ignoring the manoeuvre as soon as they passed their test, but not Colin. She bet he ironed his underpants, too.

It was really starting to rile her that despite each deep-seated fault she located, she still fancied him. Maybe it was a case of any port in a storm. She hated the idea that she couldn't live her life perfectly adequately without a bloke in tow, but it was beginning to look that way.

'Anything good on the box?' he asked her.

'A documentary about how men are becoming women.' He looked at her, trying to work out whether she was lying. 'It's true,' she insisted. 'All that oestrogen in the tap water. You lot gulp it down and then start growing breasts.'

He concentrated for a moment. 'How does oestrogen get into the tap water?'

'Do I have to spell it out?' She mimed the action of flushing a toilet. 'Then there's all the additives in meat. It's changing your chemical balance.'

'I don't want my chemical balance changed.'

She had to laugh at that. 'Might explain something, though,' she teased him.

'What?'

'Why you've started fancying Derek Starr.' He scowled, and she laughed again. 'Way you were watching him give that speech… Might've been Russell Crowe in Gladiator or Mel Gibson in Braveheart.'

'I saw Braveheart in the cinema,' Tibbet told her. 'The audience were on their feet, cheering and punching the air. Never seen anything like it.'

'That's because Scots don't often get to feel good about themselves.'

Tou think we need independence?'

'Maybe,' she conceded. 'Just so long as people like First Albannach don't go scuttling south.'

'What was their profit last year?'

'Eight billion, something like that.'

Tou mean eight million?'

'Eight billion,' she repeated.

'That can't be right.'

You calling me a liar?' She was wondering how he'd managed to turn the conversation around without her noticing.

'Makes you wonder, doesn't it?' he asked now.

'Wonder what?'

'Where the real power is.' He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at her. 'Want to do something later?'

'With you, you mean?'

He offered a shrug. 'Christmas fair opens tonight. We could go take a look.'

'We could.'

'And a bite of supper after.'

'I'll think about it.'

They were signalling to turn in at the gates of First Albannach Bank's HQ. Ahead of them lay a glass and steel structure four storeys high and as long as a street. A guard emerged from the gatehouse to take their names and the car's registration.

'Parking bay six-oh-eight,' he told them. And though there were plenty of spaces closer to their destination, Hawes watched her colleague head obediently towards 608.

'Don't worry,' she told him as he pulled on the handbrake, 'I can walk from here.'

And walk they did, passing serried ranks of sports cars, family saloons and 4x4s. The grounds were still being landscaped, and just behind one corner of the main complex could be glimpsed gorse bushes and one of the golf course's fairways. When the doors slid open, they were in a triple-height atrium. There was an arcade of shops behind the reception desk: pharmacy, supermarket, cafe, newsagent. A noticeboard provided information about the creche, gym and swimming pool. Escalators led to the next level up, with glass-fronted lifts serving the floors above that. The receptionist beamed a smile at them.

'Welcome to FAB,' she said. 'If you'll just sign in and show me some photo ID…'

They did so, and she announced that Mr Janney was in a meeting but his secretary was expecting them.

'Third floor. She'll meet you at the lift.' They were handed laminated passes and another smile. A security guard processed them through a metal-detector, after which they scooped up keys, phones and loose change.

'Expecting trouble?' Hawes asked the man.

'Code green,' he intoned solemnly.

'A relief to us all.'

The lift took them to the third floor, where a young woman in a black trousersuit was waiting. The A4-sized manila envelope was held out in front of her. As Hawes took it, the woman nodded once, then turned and marched back down a seemingly endless corridor.

Tibbet hadn't even had a chance to exit the lift, and as Hawes stepped back into it the doors slid shut and they were on their way back down again. No more than three minutes after entering the building, they were out in the cold and wondering what had just happened.

'That's not a building,' Hawes stated. 'It's a machine.'

Tibbet signalled his agreement by whistling through his teeth, then scanned the car park.

'Which bay are we in again?'

'The one at the end of the universe,' Hawes told him, starting to cross the tarmac.

Back in the passenger seat, she pulled open the envelope and xbrought out a dozen sheets: photocopied bank statements. There Was a yellow Post-it stuck to the front. The handwritten message speculated that Todorov had funds elsewhere, as indicated by the client when he opened his account. There was a single transfer involving a bank in Moscow. The note was signed 'Stuart Janney'.