‘You don’t like it?’ Hammell asked.
‘Not as hungry as I thought.’ Rebus lifted the whisky to his lips.
‘Darryl tells me you’re working cold cases. So how come you’re suddenly interested in Annette?’
Rebus considered how to answer. ‘There may be a pattern.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Other young women have vanished down the years. Three that we know of, the first in 1999. All of them were on the A9 or near it at the time.’
‘First I’ve heard.’
‘I wanted you to know.’
Hammell stared at Rebus, narrowing his eyes a little. ‘Why?’
‘Because you’re probably drawing up a list of enemies, thinking one of them might have her.’
‘What makes you think I’ve got enemies?’
‘Business you’re in, I’d say it’s an occupational hazard.’
‘You think I’ll go after your old pal Cafferty? Is that what this is about — you covering his arse?’
‘If you want Cafferty, be my guest, but I think you’d be making a mistake.’ Rebus put down the half-empty glass. ‘How’s Annette’s mum doing?’
‘How do you think? It’s ripping her to shreds. You really reckon there’s some sick bastard out there who’s done this before? How come he’s kept himself under the radar?’
‘As of now, it’s only a theory. .’
‘But you believe it?’
‘It’s a theory,’ Rebus repeated. ‘But one you need to be aware of, if things aren’t to get ugly.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘How long has Darryl been working for you?’
‘Since before he left school.’
‘I notice he kept his dad’s surname.’
Hammell glowered at Rebus. ‘Kid can do what he likes — free country last time I looked.’
‘I assume the dad knows about Annette?’
‘Of course.’
‘You’ve known the family a while.’
‘What business is that of yours?’
Rebus offered a shrug and watched Hammell do some thinking.
‘Anything I can do to help?’ the man asked eventually. Rebus shook his head. ‘A bit of cash, maybe? Case of hooch?’
Rebus pretended to consider this. ‘Maybe just don’t charge me for the pizza.’
‘What makes you think I paid for it in the first place?’ Frank Hammell answered with a snort.
16
Siobhan Clarke lived in a high-ceilinged first-floor flat that was part of a Georgian terrace just off Broughton Street. A five-minute walk took her to work each morning, and she liked the area’s mix of bars and restaurants. There was a cinema complex at the top of the hill, a concert venue nearby, and every kind of shop you could ever wish for on Leith Walk. The flat shared a drying green at the back of the building and she’d got to meet most of her neighbours down the years. Edinburgh had a reputation for being cold and distant, but she’d never found that. Some residents were shy or quiet, just wanting to get on with their lives without fuss or incident. Her neighbours knew her as a police officer, but had yet to ask for help or a favour. When one of the ground-floor flats had been broken into, everyone had gone out of their way to let Clarke know they didn’t blame her for the eventual lack of a result.
She had been thinking about an evening visit to her gym, and had even changed in readiness before slumping on the sofa and checking the TV schedules instead. When her phone let her know she had a message, she decided to ignore it. Then her door buzzer sounded. She went into the hall and pushed the button next to the intercom.
‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘DI Clarke? It’s Malcolm Fox.’
Clarke sucked air in between her teeth. ‘How do you know where I live, or is that a stupid question?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘I’m expecting someone.’
‘DCI Page, perhaps?’
Christ, the Complaints really did know everything. .
‘Something to hide, DI Clarke?’ Fox was asking.
‘I just like my privacy.’
‘Yes, me too. And that time we happened to bump into one another — I was trusting that you’d have understood our little chat was meant to be kept private.’
‘Then you should have said.’
‘Still, I can appreciate that John Rebus is an old and dear friend. You probably feel no qualms about sharing information with him.’ Though two doors, seventeen stone steps and a passageway separated them, it felt as if his mouth was only an inch or so from her face. She could hear each of his individual breaths.
‘John Rebus is proving invaluable to the McKie inquiry,’ she stated.
‘You mean he’s not gone out on one of his famous limbs yet — not as far as you’re aware.’
‘Why can’t you just leave him alone?’
‘Why can’t you see that he’s the same liability he’s always been? Don’t tell me life wasn’t simpler before he managed to inveigle his way on to the McKie case. .’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why do you think he’s there? What titbits might he be passing back to his good friend Cafferty? Working cold cases is one thing, but now he has access to an entire floor of CID offices in Gayfield Square.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I know a cop gone bad when I see one. Rebus has spent so many years crossing the line, he’s managed to rub it out altogether. As far as he’s concerned, his way’s the right way, no matter how wrong the rest of us might know it to be.’
‘You don’t know him,’ Clarke persisted.
‘Then help me get to know him — talk me through some of the cases the pair of you worked.’
‘So you can twist it all around? I’m not that stupid.’
‘I know you’re not — far from it — and this is your chance to prove it to the people at the top, the people I talk to each and every day.’
‘I grass up my friend and you put in a word come promotion time?’
‘John Rebus should be extinct, Clarke. Somehow the Ice Age came and went and left him still swimming around while the rest of us evolved.’
‘I’d rather bludgeon Darwin with a claw hammer than evolve into you.’
She heard him give a sigh. ‘We’re not so different,’ he said quietly, sounding weary. ‘We’re both conscientious and hard-working. I can even see you joining the Complaints — maybe not this year or next, but sometime.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘My instinct’s usually right.’
‘And yet you couldn’t be more wrong about John Rebus.’
‘That remains to be seen. Meantime, take care around him — I mean that. And feel free to call me any time you think he’s floundering — floundering or diving to the bottom. .’
She released the intercom button and walked back into her living room, crossing to the window and peering down on to the street, craning her neck left and right.
‘Where the hell did he go?’ she said to herself, failing to see Malcolm Fox anywhere. Then she looked at the message on her phone: I’m 5 minutes away and hope we can discuss your friend some more — Fox.
They had her home address and her mobile number.
And they knew about Page.
She sat back down in front of the TV, but her head was swimming.
‘Gym,’ she said, rising again and looking around for her holdall.
17
Rebus was most of the way home when he got a text message. It was from Nina Hazlitt:
Missoni Hotel. Too late for a drink?
He stayed on Melville Drive and took a left at the junction with Buccleuch Street. Then he thought of something and pulled over. Checked his phone again and opened the list of recent callers, adding Hammell’s mobile to his contacts page. Five minutes later he was parking on George IV Bridge. A member of the hotel staff asked him if he was checking in. The man was young and toned and wearing a kilt with a zigzag pattern. Rebus shook his head.