“Chicken.” She watched him peel open the plastic containers. “So how did it go?”
“I found Hackman.”
“And?”
“He wanted a tour of the fleshpots.”
“Yuck.”
“I told him I couldn’t oblige, and in return he told me very little we don’t already know.”
“Or couldn’t have guessed?” She’d come over to join Rebus at the kettle. Picked up one of the wraps and examined its sell-by date: July 5. “Half-price,” she commented.
“I knew you’d be impressed. But there’s even more.” He produced the Mars Bar from his pocket and handed it over. “So what news of Edward Isley?”
“Again, there’s more paperwork coming north,” she said, “but the DI that I spoke to was one of the brighter lights on the tree. Recited most of it from memory.”
“Let me guess: no shortage of enemies…someone with a grudge…keeping an open mind…no progress to report?”
“Just about sums it up,” Wylie admitted. “I got the impression a few stops had been left unpulled.”
“Nothing to connect Fast Eddie to Mr. Guest?”
She shook her head. “Different prisons, no sign of shared associates. Isley didn’t know Newcastle, and Guest hadn’t been hanging around Carlisle or the M6.”
“And Cyril Colliar probably knew neither of them.”
“Bringing us back to their shared appearance on BeastWatch.” Wylie watched Rebus pour water onto the noodles. He offered her a spoon and they stirred their individual pots.
“Have you spoken to anyone at Torphichen?” he asked.
“Told them you were short-handed.”
“Rat-ass probably hinted we were involved in a bunk-up.”
“How well you know DC Reynolds,” she said with a smile. “By the way, some JPEGS arrived from Inverness.”
“That was quick.” He watched as she logged on at the computer. The photos appeared as thumbnails, but Wylie enlarged each one.
“It looks just like Auchterarder,” Rebus commented.
“Photographer got some close-ups,” Wylie said, bringing them up on screen. Tattered remnants of cloth, but none of it looking recent. “What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t see anything for us, do you?”
“No,” she agreed. One of the phones started ringing. She picked up and listened.
“Send him up,” she said, replacing the receiver. “Guy called Mungo,” she explained. “Says he has an appointment.”
“More of an open invitation,” Rebus said, sniffing the contents of the wrap he’d just opened. “Wonder if he likes chicken tikka…”
Mungo did indeed, and demolished the gift in two huge bites while Rebus and Wylie examined the photographs.
“You work fast,” Rebus said by way of thanks.
“What are we looking at?” Ellen Wylie asked.
“Friday night,” Rebus explained, “a dinner at the castle.”
“Ben Webster’s suicide?”
Rebus nodded. “That’s him there,” he said, tapping one of the faces. Mungo had been as good as his word: not just his own snatched shots of the motorcade and its passengers, but copies of the official portraits. Lots of well-dressed smiling men shaking hands with other well-dressed smiling men. Rebus recognized only a few: the foreign secretary, defense secretary, Ben Webster, Richard Pennen…
“How did you get these?” Rebus asked.
“Openly available to the media-just the sort of PR opportunity the politicos like.”
“Got any names to put to the faces?”
“That’s a job for a sub-editor,” the photographer said, swallowing the last of the wrap. “But I dug out what I could.” He reached into his bag and pulled out sheets of paper.
“Thanks,” Rebus said. “I’ve probably already seen them…”
“But I haven’t,” Wylie said, taking them from Mungo. Rebus was more interested in the photos from the dinner.
“I didn’t realize Corbyn was there,” he mused.
“Who’s he when he’s at home?” Mungo asked.
“Our esteemed chief constable.”
Mungo looked to where Rebus was pointing. “Didn’t stay long,” he said, sifting through his own prints. “Here he is leaving again. I was just packing up…”
“So how long was that after it all kicked off?”
“Not even half an hour. I’d been biding my time in case of latecomers.”
Richard Pennen hadn’t made it into any of the official portraits, but Mungo had snapped his car as it entered the compound, Pennen caught unawares, mouth agape…
“It says here,” Ellen Wylie piped up, “Ben Webster helped try to negotiate a truce in Sierra Leone. Also visited Iraq, Afghanistan, and East Timor.”
“Racked up a few air miles,” Mungo commented.
“And liked a bit of adventure,” she added, turning a page. “I didn’t realize his sister was a cop.”
Rebus nodded. “Met her a few days back.” He paused for a moment. “Funeral’s tomorrow, I think. I was supposed to be calling her…” Then he went back to studying the official photographs. They’d all been posed, leaving little for him to glean: no tête-à-têtes caught in the background; nothing these powerful men didn’t want the world to see. Just like Mungo said: a PR exercise. Rebus picked up the phone and called Mairie on her cell.
“Any chance you could drop in to Gayfield?” he asked her. He could hear the clacking of her keyboard.
“Need to polish this off first.”
“Half an hour?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“There’s a Mars Bar riding on it.” Wylie’s face showed her displea sure. Rebus ended the call and watched Wylie unwrap the chocolate and bite into it.
“Bang goes my bribe,” Rebus told her.
“I’ll leave these with you,” Mungo was saying, brushing flour from his fingers. “They’re yours to keep anyway-but not for publication.”
“Our eyes only,” Rebus agreed. He spread out the photos of the various backseat passengers. Most were blurred, the result of vehicles refusing to slow for the photographer. A few of the foreign dignitaries were smiling, however, perhaps pleased to be noticed.
“And can you give these to Siobhan?” Mungo added, handing over a large envelope. Rebus nodded and asked what they were. “The Princes Street demonstration. She was interested in the woman on the edge of the crowd. I’ve managed to zoom in a little.”
Rebus opened the envelope. The young woman with braided hair held her own camera to her face. Santal, was that what she was called? Meaning sandalwood. Rebus wondered if Siobhan had run the name past Operation Sorbus. The face seemed focused on its job, the mouth a thin line of concentration. Dedicated; maybe a professional. In other snaps, she was holding the camera away from her, looking to left and right. As if on the lookout for something. Totally uninterested in the array of riot shields. Not scared of the flying debris. Not excited or in awe.
Just doing her job.
“I’ll see she gets them,” Rebus told Mungo as the photographer strapped his bag shut. “And thanks for these. I owe you.”
Mungo nodded slowly. “Maybe a tip-off, next time you’re first at a scene?”
“Seldom happens, son,” Rebus warned him. “But I’ll keep it in mind.”
Mungo shook both officers’ hands. Wylie watched him leave. “You’ll keep him in mind?” she echoed.
“Bugger is, Ellen, at my time of life the memory’s not what it was.” Rebus reached for the noodles, only to find they’d gone cold.
Good as her word, Mairie Henderson turned up within the half hour, her look turning sour as she saw the Mars Bar wrapper on the desk.
“Don’t blame me,” Rebus apologized, holding up his hands.
“Thought you might like to see this,” she said, unfolding a printout of the next morning’s front page. “We got lucky: no big stories.”
“Police Probe G8 Murder Mystery.” Plus photos of the Clootie Well and Gleneagles Hotel. Rebus didn’t bother reading the text.
“What was it you were just saying to Mungo?” Wylie teased.