As if on command, Sara put the phone to her ear. “She’s on her way,” she said.
“I’ll bet she is.” Rebus’s eyes were still on Steelforth, but there was another figure a little way behind him: Siobhan. “Bar still open, is it?” Rebus asked the concierge. The man desperately wanted to say no, but the lie would have been blatant. He gave a little nod instead. “I won’t ask you to join me,” Rebus said to Steelforth. He brushed past both men and climbed the steps to the Palm Court. Stood at the bar and waited for Siobhan to catch up. He took a deep breath and reached into his jacket for a cigarette.
“Little problem with the management?” Siobhan asked.
“You saw our friend from SO12?”
“Nice perks they get in Special Branch.”
“I don’t know if he’s staying here, but a guy called Ben Webster was.”
“The Labor MP?”
“That’s the one.”
“I feel there’s a story behind this.” Her shoulders seemed to slump a little, and Rebus remembered that she, too, had had adventures this evening.
“You go first,” he insisted. The barman had placed bowls of nibbles in front of them. “ Highland Park for me,” Rebus told him. “Vodka tonic for the lady.” Siobhan nodded her agreement. As the barman turned away, Rebus reached for one of the paper napkins. Took a pen from his pocket and jotted something down. Siobhan angled her head to get a better look.
“Who or what is Pennen Industries?”
“Whoever they are, they’ve got deep pockets and a London postal code.” From the corner of his eye, Rebus could see Steelforth watching from the doorway. He made a show of waving the napkin at him before folding and pocketing it.
“So who was it that attacked your car-CND, Greenpeace, Stop the War?”
“Niddrie,” Siobhan stated. “More specifically, the Niddrie Young Team.”
“Think we can persuade the G8 to list them as a terror cell?”
“Few thousand marines would sort things nicely.”
“Sadly, however, Niddrie has yet to strike oil.” Rebus reached a hand out toward the tumbler of whiskey. Slightest of tremors, that was all. Toasted his drinking partner, the G8, and the marines…and would have toasted Steelforth, too.
Had the doorway not been empty.
Saturday, July 2, 2005
3
Rebus awoke to daylight and realized he hadn’t closed the curtains the previous night. The TV was showing early-morning news. Seemed mostly to be about the concert in Hyde Park. They were talking to the organizers. No mention of Edinburgh. He switched it off and went into the bedroom. Changed out of the previous day’s clothes and into a short-sleeved shirt and chinos. Splashed some water on his face, studied the results, and knew he needed something more. Grabbed his keys and phone-he’d left it charging overnight; couldn’t have been that drunk-and left his apartment. Down two flights of stairs to the tenement’s main door. His area of town, Marchmont, was a student enclave, the upside of which was that it was quiet during the summer. He’d watched them pour out at the end of June, loading cars belonging to them or their parents, stuffing duvets into the chinks of spare space. There had been parties to celebrate the end of exams, meaning Rebus had twice had to remove traffic cones from the roof of his car. He stood now on the pavement and sucked in what was left of the overnight chill, then headed for Marchmont Road, where the local market was just opening. A couple of single-decker buses trundled past. Rebus thought they must be lost, until he remembered. And now he could hear it: workmen’s hammers, a PA system being tested. He paid the shopkeeper and unscrewed the top from the Irn-Bru bottle. Downed it in one, which was fine; he’d added a backup of the soda to his purchases. Unpeeled and ate the banana as he walked-not straight back home, but down to the bottom of Marchmont Road, where it connected with the Meadows. The Meadows had been just that, several centuries back: meadowland on the outskirts of the city, Marchmont itself not much more than a farm with surrounding fields. Nowadays the Meadows was used for games of soccer and cricket, for jogging or picnics.
But not today.
Melville Drive had already been cordoned off, turning an important traffic artery into a bus lot. There were dozens of them, stretching to the curve of the road and beyond, three abreast in some places. They were from Derby and Macclesfield and Hull, Swansea and Ripon, Carlisle and Epping. People dressed in white were getting off. White: Rebus remembered that everyone had been asked to wear the same color. It meant that when they marched around the city, they would create a vast and visible ribbon. He checked his own clothes: the chinos were fawn, the shirt pale blue.
Thank Christ for that.
A lot of the bus people looked elderly, some quite frail. But they all sported their wristbands and their sloganed shirts. Some carried homemade banners. They looked delighted to be there. Farther along, marquees had been constructed. Vans were arriving, ready to sell fries and meat-free burgers to the hungry masses. Stages had been erected, and there was a display of huge wooden jigsaw pieces laid out next to a series of cranes. It took Rebus only a matter of seconds to spell out the words MAKE POVERTY HISTORY. There were uniformed cops in the vicinity, but nobody Rebus knew; probably not even local. He looked at his watch. It was just after nine, another three hours till kickoff. Hardly a cloud in the sky. A police van had decided that its quickest route would entail mounting the curb, forcing Rebus to backtrack onto the grass. He scowled at the driver, who returned the look. The side window opened.
“What’s your problem, granddad?”
Rebus made a rude gesture, willing the driver to stop. The pair of them could have a nice little chat. But the van had other ideas; it kept moving. Rebus finished his banana, thought about dropping the skin but figured he’d be pounced on by the Recycling Police. Headed over to a trash can instead.
“Here you go,” a young woman said, smiling and holding out a plastic bag. Rebus looked inside: a couple of stickers and a Help the Aged T-shirt.
“Hell do I want this for?” he growled. She took it back, trying hard to retain the traces of her original smile.
He moved away, opening the reserve bottle of Irn-Bru. His head felt less gummy, but there was sweat on his back. A memory had been trying to force its way through, and now he grasped it: Mickey and himself, church outings to Burntisland links. Buses took them there, trailing streamers from their windows. Lines of buses waiting to take them home after the picnic and the organized races across the grass-Mickey always able to beat him from a standing start, so that Rebus had stopped trying eventually-his only weapon against his kid brother’s sinewy determination. White cardboard boxes containing their lunch: jam sandwich, iced cake, maybe a hard-boiled egg.
They always left the egg.
Summer weekends, appearing endless and unchangeable. Nowadays, Rebus hated them. Hated that so little would happen to him. Monday mornings were his true release, a break from the sofa and the bar stool, the supermarket and curry house. His colleagues returned to work with stories of shopping exploits, soccer games, bike rides with the family. Siobhan would have been to Glasgow or Dundee, seeing friends, catching up. Cinema trips and walks by the Water of Leith. Nobody asked Rebus anymore how he spent the weekend. They knew he’d just shrug.
Nobody’d blame you for coasting…
Except that coasting was the one thing he had no time for. Without the job, he almost ceased to exist. Which was why he punched a number into his phone and waited. Listened to the voice-mail message.
“Good morning, Ray,” he said when prompted, “this is your wake-up call. Every hour on the hour till I start to get some answers. Speak to you soon.” He ended the call, immediately make another, leaving the same message on Ray Duff’s home machine. Cell and landline taken care of, there wasn’t much he could do but wait. The Live 8 concert started around two, but he didn’t think either The Who or Pink Floyd would appear until evening. Plenty of time for him to go over the Colliar case notes. Plenty of time for follow-up on Ben Webster. Pushing Saturday along until it turned into Sunday.