“Take a look. His name is Eric Lomax.” Rebus knew the name. His heart missed a beat. “Beaten to death with something resembling a baseball bat or pool cue. Hit with such force that splinters of wood were embedded in the skull.” The photo landed in front of Rebus. It showed the body at the scene of crime, an alleyway illuminated by the photographer’s flash, raindrops falling into puddles. Rebus touched the photo but didn’t pick it up, afraid that his hand might tremble. Of all the unsolveds still moldering in their boxes and storerooms, why did it have to be this one? He focused on Tennant, seeking a clue.
“Eric Lomax,” Tennant was saying, “died in the center of our biggest, ugliest city on a busy Friday night. Last seen a bit the worse for wear, leaving his usual pub. About five hundred yards from this alley. The alley itself used by ladies of the night for knee-tremblers and God knows what else. If any of them stumbled across the body, they didn’t come forward at the time. A punter on his way home phoned it in. We’ve still got the tapes of his call.” Tennant paused. He was back at the head of the table, and this time he sat down.
“All this was six years ago: October 1995. Glasgow CID handled the original investigation, but came to a slow stop.” Gray had looked up. Tennant nodded towards him. “Yes, DI Gray, I appreciate that you were part of that inquiry. It doesn’t make any difference.” Now his eyes scanned the table, fixing each man in turn. But Rebus’s gaze had shifted to Francis Gray. Gray had worked the Lomax case . . .
“I don’t know any more about this case than you do, gentlemen,” Tennant was telling them. “By the end of the morning, you should know more than me. We’ve got a session each day, and if some of you want to continue in the evening after your other classes, you won’t find me complaining. The door will always be open. We’re going to sift the paperwork, study the transcripts, see if anything was missed. We’re not looking for cock-ups: as I say, I’ve no idea what we’re going to find in these boxes.” He patted one of the files. “But for ourselves, and Eric Lomax’s family, we’re going to have a bloody good go at finding his killer.”
“Which do you want me to be: good cop or bad cop?”
“What?” Siobhan was busy looking for a parking spot, didn’t think she’d quite heard him.
“Good cop, bad cop,” DC Davie Hynds repeated. “Which one am I?”
“Jesus, Davie, we just go in and ask our questions. Is that Fiesta pulling out, do you think?” Siobhan braked, flashed her lights. The Fiesta moved from its curbside spot. “Hallelujah,” Siobhan said. They were at the north end of the New Town, just off Raeburn Place. Narrow streets lined with cars. The houses were known as “colonies”: split into upper and lower halves, exterior stone stairs giving the only clue that these weren’t normal terraces. Siobhan stopped again just in front of the space, preparing to reverse into it, then saw that the car behind was nosing in, stealing her precious parking place.
“What the —” She sounded her horn, but the driver was ignoring her. The rear end of his car was jutting out into the street, but he seemed happy enough, was reaching over to the passenger seat to pick up some papers. “Look at this sod!” Siobhan said. Then she undid her seat belt and got out of the car, Hynds following.
He watched her tap on the driver’s window. The man pushed open his door, getting out.
“Yes?” he said.
“I was backing in here,” Siobhan told him, pointing to her own car.
“So?”
“So I’d like you to move.”
The man pressed the button on his ignition key, locking all the doors. “Sorry,” he said, “but I’m in a hurry, and possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
“That may be so” — Siobhan was opening her warrant card, holding it up before him — “but I happen to be the other tenth, and right now that’s the part that matters.”
The man looked at the card, then at Siobhan’s face. There was a dull clunk as the car’s locks sprang open again. The man got in and started his ignition.
“Stand there,” Siobhan told Hynds, gesturing to the spot the man’s car was leaving. “Don’t want any other bugger trying that trick.”
Hynds nodded, watched her making for her own car. “I think this means I’m the good guy,” he said, but not loud enough for her to hear.
Malcolm Neilson lived in one of the upper colonies. He answered the door wearing what looked like pajama trousers — baggy, with vertical pink and gray stripes — and a fisherman’s thick pullover. He was barefoot and sported wild, frazzled hair, as if he’d just pulled his finger out of a light socket. The hair was graying, the face round and unshaven.
“Mr. Neilson?” Siobhan asked, opening her warrant card again. “I’m DS Clarke, this is DC Hynds. We spoke on the phone.”
Neilson leaned out from his doorway, as if to look up and down the street. “You better come in then,” he said, closing the door quickly after them. The interior was cramped: living room with a tiny kitchen off, plus maybe two bedrooms maximum. In the narrow hallway, a ladder led up through a trapdoor into the loft.
“Is that where you . . . ?”
“My studio, yes.” He glanced in Siobhan’s general direction. “Out of bounds to visitors.”
He led them into the chaotic living room. It was split-leveclass="underline" sofa and stereo speakers down below, dining table above. Magazines were strewn around the floor, most with pictures and pages torn from them. Album sleeves, books, maps, empty wine bottles with the labels peeled off. They had to be careful where they put their feet.
“Come in if you can get in,” the artist said. He seemed nervous, shy, never meeting his visitors’ eyes. He smeared an arm along the sofa, clearing its contents onto the floor. “Sit down, please.”
They sat. Neilson seemed content to crouch in front of them, sandwiched by the loudspeakers.
“Mr. Neilson,” Siobhan began, “as I said on the phone, it’s just a few questions about your relationship with Edward Marber.”
“We didn’t have a relationship,” the artist snapped.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean we didn’t speak, didn’t communicate.”
“You’d had a falling-out?”
“The man rips off his customers and his artists both! How is it possible to have a relationship under those circumstances?”
“Just to remind you that Mr. Marber’s dead,” Siobhan said quietly. The artist’s eyes almost met hers for an instant.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just that you talk about him in the present tense.”
“Oh, I see.” He grew thoughtful. Siobhan could hear his breathing; it was loud and hoarse. She wondered if he might be asthmatic.
“Do you have any proof?” she asked at last.
“That he was a cheat?” Neilson considered this, then shook his head. “It’s enough that I know it.”
From the corner of her eye, Siobhan noticed that Hynds had taken out his notebook and was busy with his pen. The doorbell rang and Neilson bounded to his feet with a muttered apology. When he’d gone, Siobhan turned to Hynds.
“Not even the offer of a cuppa. What are you writing?”
He showed her. It was just a series of squiggles. She looked at him for an explanation.
“Concentrates the mind wonderfully if they think everything they say is likely to be recorded.”
“Learn that in college?”
He shook his head. “All those years in uniform, boss. You learn a thing or two.”
“Don’t call me boss,” she said, watching as Neilson led another visitor into the room. Her eyes widened. It was the parking-space thief.