“Speaking of which, some of us still have work to be getting on with.”
Linford angled his head, trying to read the fax. Siobhan turned it facedown on her desk. “Hiding something from your colleagues, Siobhan?” he teased. “That’s hardly being a team player, is it?”
“So?”
“So maybe you’ve been learning all the wrong lessons from DI Rebus. Make sure you don’t end up like him, kicked into rehab . . .”
He turned to go, but she called him back. “When you’re having your hand shaken by the Chief, just remember . . .” She pointed a finger at him. “It was Davie Hynds who found the money Marber paid to Malcolm Neilson. You’d already been through Marber’s bank statements and hadn’t spotted it. Bear that in mind when you’re taking all the credit for solving the case, Derek.”
He gave her a cold smile, said nothing. When he was gone, she tried getting back to her reading but found it impossible to concentrate. Scooping up the fax, she decided she wanted to be elsewhere when the brass from the Big House came calling.
Settling for the Engine Shed, she bought herself some herbal tea and sat at a table by the window. A couple of mums were feeding jars of food to their infants. Otherwise, the place was quiet. Siobhan had turned off her mobile, pulled out a pen, and was preparing to mark any interesting snippets.
Having read the fax through once, she found that she’d underlined just about the whole damned thing. She realized that her hand was trembling slightly as she poured out more tea. Taking a deep breath, trying to clear her head, she started reading again.
The money to fund Ellen Dempsey’s cab company hadn’t come from shady businessmen; it had come from a few years’ work as a prostitute. She’d been employed in at least two saunas, undergoing a single arrest in each when they were visited by police. The busts had been eighteen months apart. There was an additional note to the effect that Dempsey had also worked for an escort agency and had been questioned after a foreign businessman “mislaid” his cash and credit cards after a visit by Dempsey to his hotel room in the city. She was never charged. Siobhan looked for evidence that one or both of the saunas had been owned by Cafferty, but couldn’t find any. Names were given, but they were the names of local entrepreneurs, one Greek in origin, one Italian. After the police raids, HM Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise had opened their own inquiries, looking into profits and VAT left undeclared. The owners had shut up shop and moved on.
By which time Ellen Dempsey was already running her small-time cab company. There were a couple of minor cases: a driver assaulted by a passenger who’d refused to pay the fare. The passenger — ready for an argument at the end of a long night’s drinking — had found in the driver a willing sparring partner. The result had made it as far as an overnight stay in the cells, but had fallen short of a court appearance. The second case was similar, only Ellen Dempsey had been the driver, and she’d sprayed the client with mace. As mace was banned in Scotland, it was Ellen who’d ended up being charged, the passenger claiming that he’d only wanted a good-night kiss and that the two of them “knew one another of old.”
Though this last phrase wasn’t explored, Siobhan got an inkling of what had really happened. One of Ellen’s old punters, probably not believing that she’d given up the sauna life, deciding that if he pressed, she’d be willing.
But she’d reached for the mace instead.
It might explain the move to Edinburgh. How could she operate a legitimate business from Dundee without the threat of more ghosts appearing? Impossible to escape her old life, her old self . . . So she’d set up in Edinburgh instead, and bought herself a house in Fife, somewhere she wouldn’t be recognized, somewhere she could hide from the world.
Siobhan poured more tea, though it was tepid now and too strong. But it gave her something to do while she collected her thoughts. She flicked back four or five sheets, found the page she was looking for. There was a name not only underlined there, but circled, too. It cropped up a couple of times, once in connection with the raid on the sauna, once to do with the mace case.
A detective sergeant called James McCullough.
Or Jazz, as everyone seemed to call him.
Siobhan wondered if Jazz might be able to shed more light on Ellen Dempsey, always supposing there was light to shed. She thought back to Cafferty’s words. There was no indication in the fax of any “friends” Dempsey might have. She’d never been married, had no children. She seemed always to have supported herself . . .
Pictures flickered across Siobhan’s vision: Jazz McCullough, visiting the Marber inquiry, keeping up with developments . . . Francis Gray, seated on one of the desks, reading transcripts . . . Allan Ward buying Phyl dinner and pumping her for information.
Ellen Dempsey . . . tangential to the case . . . maybe worried, contacting her friends. Jazz McCullough and Ellen Dempsey . . . ?
Coincidence or connection? Siobhan turned her mobile on, called Rebus on his. He picked up.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“St. Leonard’s. You?”
“Leith. Supposedly helping with the Diamond killing.”
“Are the others there with you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I want to ask you about Jazz McCullough.”
“What about him?”
“It may be nothing . . .”
“You’ve got me curious. Want to meet?”
“Where?”
“Can you come down to Leith?”
“That would make sense. I can ask McCullough a few questions while I’m there . . .”
“Don’t expect me to be much use in that department.”
She drew her eyebrows together. “Why not?”
“I don’t think Jazz is talking to me. Nor is anyone else, for that matter.”
“Hang in there,” Siobhan said. “I’m on my way.”
Sutherland and Barclay had traveled to Leith in Rebus’s car. A period of uncomfortable silence had been broken by some stilted conversation, before Barclay plucked up courage and asked Rebus if it was maybe worth reconsidering his accusations.
Rebus had just shaken his head slowly.
“No use arguing with the man,” Sutherland had muttered. “Thank Christ for the weekend . . .”
At Leith police station, the atmosphere had been hardly less strained. They’d presented a report to Hogan and one of his colleagues, Rebus saying little as he concentrated on spotting anything the trio might be trying to leave out. Hogan had been aware of the tension in the room, his eyes requesting some sort of explanation from Rebus. None had been forthcoming.
“We don’t mind sticking around,” Jazz had said at the end of the report. “If you feel we’ve a contribution to make. . .” Then he’d shrugged. “You’d be doing us a favor, keeping us away from Tulliallan.”
Hogan had smiled. “All I can promise is office grind.”
“Better than classroom lessons,” Gray had opined, speaking, it seemed, for all of them.
Hogan had nodded. “Fair enough then, maybe just for today.”
The inquiry room was old-fashioned and high-ceilinged, with peeling paint and chipped desks. The kettle seemed to be on constantly, with the most junior officers on a milk-buying roster. There wasn’t much room for the Tulliallan contingent, which suited Rebus, as it meant they had to split up, sharing desk space with disgruntled locals. Rebus waited a good twenty minutes after Siobhan’s call before she put her head around the door. He got up, joined her in the corridor, having signaled to Hogan with his palm spread, meaning he was taking five. He knew Hogan would relish the chance of a word, realizing something was up and wanting to know what it was. But Hogan was in charge of the team, his time at a premium. So far, they hadn’t managed a moment alone.
“Let’s go walkies,” Rebus told Siobhan. When they got outside it was drizzling. Rebus pulled his jacket around him and took out his cigarettes. He gestured with his head, letting her know they were walking down towards the docks. He didn’t know exactly where the Diamond Dog’s body had been discovered, but it couldn’t have been too far from here . . .