The Naming Of The Dead (2006) (14 page)

“We’re just bystanders,” the woman was shrieking. “All we want to do is get out, but the police are treating us all the same, mothers with babies, old folk...”

“You’re saying the police are overreacting?” the journalist in the studio asked. Siobhan used the remote to change channels:
Columbo
on one side,
Diagnosis: Murder
on another, and a film on Channel 4.

“That’s
Kidnapped,
” Bain said. “Brilliant.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, finding another of the news channels. Same riots; different angles. The same protester she’d seen in Canning Street was still on top of his wall. He sat swinging his feet, only his eyes showing through the gap in his ski mask. He was holding a cell phone to his ear.

“That reminds me,” Bain said, “I had Rebus on the phone, asking how an out-of-service number could still be active.”

Siobhan looked at him. “Did he say why?” Bain shook his head. “So what did you tell him?”

“You can clone the SIM card, or specify outgoing calls only.” He gave a shrug. “All kinds of ways to do it.”

Siobhan nodded, eyes back on the TV screen. Bain ran a hand across the back of his neck.

“So what did you think of Molly?” he asked.

“You’re a lucky man, Eric.”

He gave a huge grin. “Pretty much my thinking.”

“But tell me,” Siobhan asked, hating herself for being led down this route, “does she always twitch so much?”

Bain’s grin melted away.

“Sorry, Eric, that was out of order.”

“She said she likes you,” he confided. “She’s not got a bad bone in her body.”

“She’s great,” Siobhan agreed. Even to her own ears, the sentiment sounded hollow. “So how did you two meet?”

Bain froze for a moment. “A club,” he said, recovering.

“Never took you for a dancer, Eric.” Siobhan glanced in his direction.

“Molly’s a great dancer.”

“She’s got the body for it...” Relief washed over her as her own cell sounded. She hoped to hell it would offer the excuse to be anywhere but here. It was her parents’ number.

“Hello?”

At first she mistook the noise on the line for static, then she realized: yells and catcalls and whistles. Same noises she’d just been hearing on the report from Princes Street.

“Mum?” she said. “Dad?”

And now a voice, her father’s. “Siobhan? Can you hear me?”

“Dad? What the hell are you doing down there?”

“Your mum...”

“What? Dad, put her on, will you?”

“Your mum’s...”

“Has something—”

“She was bleeding...ambulance...”

“Dad, you’re breaking up! Where are you exactly?”

“Kiosk...gardens.”

The line went dead. She looked at its small rectangular screen. Connection lost.

“Connection lost,” she echoed.

“What’s going on?” Bain asked.

“My mum and dad...that’s where they are.” She nodded toward the TV. “Can you give me a lift?”

“Where?”

“There.” She stabbed a finger at the screen.

“There?”

“There.”

9

T
hey didn’t get any farther than George Street. Siobhan got out of the car and told Bain not to forget the Jensens. He was telling her to be careful as she slammed shut the door.

There were protesters here, too, spilling down Frederick Street. Staff watched in fascinated horror from behind the doors and windows of their shops. Bystanders pressed themselves to walls in the hope of blending in. There was debris underfoot. The protesters were being pushed back down into Princes Street. Nobody tried to stop Siobhan crossing the police line in that direction. Easy enough to get in; getting out was the problem.

There was only one kiosk she knew of—just down from the Scott Monument. The gates to the gardens had been closed, so she made for the fence. The skirmishes had moved from the street into the gardens themselves. Trash flew through the air, along with stones and other missiles. A hand grabbed at her jacket.

“No, you don’t.”

She turned to face a policeman. Just above his visor were the letters
XS
. For a brief moment she read it as
excess
—just perfect. She had her ID ready.

“I’m CID,” she yelled.

“Then you must be crazy.” He released his grip.

“It has been said,” she told him, clambering over the spikes. Looking around, she saw that the rioters had been reinforced by what looked like local hooligans: any excuse for a fight. Wasn’t every day they could lash out at the cops and have a good chance of getting away with it. They were disguising their identities with scarves around their mouths, jackets zipped all the way to the chin. At least these days they all wore sneakers rather than Doc Martens boots.

The kiosk: it sold ice cream and cold drinks. Shards of glass lay strewn around it, and it was closed. She circled it in a crouch: no sign of her father. Spots of blood on the ground, and she followed them with her eyes. They stopped short of the gates. Circled the kiosk again. Banged on the serving hatch. Tried again. Heard a muffled voice from inside.

“Siobhan?”

“Dad? You in there?”

The door to the side was yanked open. Her father was standing inside, and next to him the kiosk’s terrified owner.

“Where’s Mum?” Siobhan asked, voice shaking.

“They took her in the ambulance. I couldn’t...they wouldn’t let me past the cordon.”

Siobhan couldn’t remember ever seeing her father in tears, but he was crying now. Crying, and obviously in shock.

“We need to get you out.”

“Not me,” his companion said with a shake of her head. “I’m guarding the fort. But I saw what happened...bloody police. She was only standing there.”

“It was one of their sticks,” Siobhan’s father added. “Right across her head.”

“Blood was gushing out...”

Siobhan silenced the woman with a look. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Frances...Frances Neagley.”

“Well, Frances Neagley, my advice is to get out.” Then, to her shivering father: “Come on, let’s get going.”

“What?”

“We need to go see Mum.”

“But what about...?”

“It’ll be all right. Now
come on
.” She tugged at his arm, felt she would have hauled him out of there bodily if need be. Frances Neagley closed the door on them and locked it.

Another divot flew past. Siobhan knew that tomorrow, this being Edinburgh, the major complaint would be of destruction to the famed flower beds. The gates had been forced open by the demonstrators from Frederick Street. A man dressed as a Pictish warrior was being dragged by his arms behind the police lines. Directly in front of the cordon, a young mother was calmly changing the diaper on her pink-clad baby. A placard was being waved:
NO GODS, NO MASTERS
. The letters
X
and
S
...the baby in pink...the message on the placard...they all seemed incredibly vivid to her, snapshots bright with a significance she couldn’t quite determine.

There’s a pattern here, some meaning of sorts
...

Something to ask Dad later
...

Fifteen years ago, he’d tried explaining semiotics to her, supposedly helping with a school essay, but just getting her more confused. Then, in class, she’d called it
semenotics,
and her teacher laughed out loud.

Siobhan sought out faces she might know. She saw none. But one officer’s vest bore the words
POLICE MEDIC
. She pulled her father toward him, ID held open in front of her.

“CID,” she explained. “This man’s wife’s been taken to hospital. I need to get him there.”

The officer nodded and guided them through the police line.

“Which hospital?” the medic asked.

“What’s your guess?”

He looked at her. “Dunno,” he admitted. “I’m down here from Aberdeen.”

“Western General’s closest,” Siobhan said. “Any transport available?”

He pointed up Frederick Street. “The road that crosses at the top.”

“George Street?”

He shook his head. “Next one.”

“Queen Street?” She watched him nod. “Thanks,” she said. “You better get back there.”

“Suppose so,” he said, with no real enthusiasm. “Some of them are going in a bit strong...Not our lot—the ones from the Met.”

Siobhan turned to face her father. “Any chance you can ID him?”

“Who?”

“The one who hit Mum.”

He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

She made a small, angry sound and led him up the hill toward Queen Street.

There was a line of parked patrol cars. Unbelievably, there was also traffic: all the cars and trucks diverted from the main drag, crawling past as if it were just another day, another commute. Siobhan explained to one police driver what she wanted. He seemed relieved at the thought of being elsewhere. She got into the back with her dad.

“Blues and twos,” she ordered the driver. Cue flashing lights and siren. They pulled past the line of traffic and got going.

“Is this the right way?” the driver shouted.

“Where are you from?”

“Peterborough.”

“Straight ahead, I’ll tell you when to turn.” She squeezed her father’s hand. “You’re not hurt?”

He shook his head, fixed her with his eyes. “How about you?”

“What about me?”

“You’re amazing.” Teddy Clarke gave a tired smile. “Way you acted back there, taking control...”

“Not just a pretty face, eh?”

“I never realized...” There were tears in his eyes again. He bit his bottom lip, blinked them back. She gave his hand a tighter squeeze.

“I never really appreciated,” he said, “how good you might be at this.”

“Just be thankful I’m not in uniform, or it might’ve been me wielding one of those batons.”

“You wouldn’t have hit an innocent woman,” her father stated.

“Straight across at the lights,” she told the driver, before turning her attention back to her father. “Hard to say, isn’t it? We don’t know what we’ll do till we’re there.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said determinedly.

“Probably not,” she conceded. “What the hell were you doing there anyway? Did Santal take you?”

He shook his head. “I suppose we were...we thought we’d be spectators. The police didn’t see it that way.”

“If I find whoever...”

“I didn’t really see his face.”

“Plenty of cameras there—hard to hide under that sort of coverage.”

“Photographs?”

She nodded. “Plus security, the media, and us, of course.” She looked at him. “The police will have filmed everything.”

“But surely...”

“What?”

“You can’t sift through the whole lot?”

“Want to bet on it?”

He studied her for a moment. “No, I’m not sure I do.”

Almost a hundred arrests. The courts would be busy on Tuesday. By evening, the standoff had moved from Princes Street Gardens to Rose Street. Cobbles were torn from the road surface, becoming missiles instead. There were skirmishes on Waverley Bridge, Cockburn Street, and Infirmary Street. By nine thirty, things were calming. The final bit of trouble had been outside McDonald’s on South St. Andrew Street. The uniforms were back at Gayfield Square now and had brought burgers with them, the aroma making its way into the CID suite. Rebus had the TV playing—a documentary about an abattoir. Eric Bain had just forwarded a list of e-mail addresses, regular users of BeastWatch. His e-mail had ended with the words
Shiv, let me know how you got on!
Rebus had tried calling her cell, but no one was answering. Bain’s e-mail had stipulated that the Jensens had given him no grief but had been only “grudgingly cooperative.”

Rebus had the
Evening News
open beside him. On its cover, a picture of Saturday’s march and the headline “Voting with Their Feet.” They’d be able to use the headline again tomorrow, with a photo of a rioter kicking at a police shield. The TV page gave him the title of the abattoir film—
Slaughterhouse: The Task of Blood
. Rebus stood up and walked to one of the free desks. The Colliar notes stared up at him. Siobhan had been busy. They’d been joined by police and prison reports on Fast Eddie Isley and Trevor Guest.

Guest: burglar, thug, sexual predator.

Isley: rapist.

Colliar: rapist.

Rebus turned to the BeastWatch notes. Details of twenty-eight further rapists and child molesters had been posted. There was a long and angry article from someone calling herself Tornupinside—felt to Rebus as if the author was female. She railed against the court system and its iron-clad ruling on rape versus sexual assault. Hard enough to get a conviction for rape anyway—but sexual assault could be every bit as ugly, violent, and degrading, yet with lesser penalties attached. She seemed to know her law: hard to tell if she was from north or south of the border. He skimmed through the text again, looking for
burglar
or
burglary
—the term in Scotland was
housebreaking
. But all she’d used were
assault
and
assailant
. Still, Rebus decided a reply was merited. He logged on to Siobhan’s terminal and accessed her Hotmail account—she used the same password for everything: Hibsgirl. Ran a finger down Eric Bain’s list until he found an address for Tornupinside. Started typing:

I’ve just finished reading your piece at BeastWatch. It really interested me, and I would like to talk to you about it. I have some information that you may find interesting. Please call me on
...

He thought for a moment. No way of knowing how long Siobhan’s cell would be out of commission. So he typed in his own number instead, but signed off as Siobhan Clarke. More chance, he felt, of the writer replying to another woman. He read the message through, decided it looked as if it had been written by a cop. Gave it another go:

I saw what you said on BeastWatch. Did you know they’ve shut the site down? I’d like to talk to you, maybe by phone
.

Added his number and Siobhan’s name—just her first name this time; less formal. Clicked on Send. When his phone started trilling only a few minutes later, he knew it was too good to be true—and so it proved.

“Strawman,” the voice drawled: Cafferty.

“Think you’ll ever get fed up of that nickname?”

Cafferty chuckled coldly. “How long has it been?”

Maybe sixteen years...Rebus giving evidence, Cafferty in the dock, one of the lawyers confusing Rebus for a previous witness called Stroman...

“Anything to report?” Cafferty was asking.

“Why should I tell you?”

Another chuckle, even colder than the first. “Say you catch him and it goes to court...how would it look if I suddenly piped up that I’d helped you out? Lot of explaining to do...could even lead to a mistrial.”

“I thought you wanted him caught.” Cafferty stayed silent. Rebus weighed up what to say. “We’re making progress.”

“How much progress?”

“It’s slow.”

“Only natural, with the city in chaos.” That chuckle again; Rebus wondered if Cafferty had been drinking. “I could have pulled off any size heist today, and you lot would have been too stretched to notice.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Changed man, Rebus. On
your
side now, remember? So, if there’s anything I can do to help...”

“Not right now.”

“But if you needed me, you’d ask?”

“You said it yourself, Cafferty—more you’re involved, harder it might be to get a conviction.”

“I know how the game’s played, Rebus.”

“Then you’ll know when it’s best to miss a turn.” Rebus turned away from the TV. A machine was flaying the skin from a carcass.

“Keep in touch, Rebus.”

“Actually...”

“Yes?”

“There are some cops I could do with talking to. They’re English, but they’re here for the G8.”

“So talk to them.”

“Not so easy. They don’t wear any insignia, run around town in an unmarked car and van.”

“Why do you want them?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Descriptions?”

“I think they might be the Met. Work in a team of three. Tanned faces...”

“Meaning they’ll stand out from the crowd up here,” Cafferty interrupted.

“...leader’s called Jacko. Could be working for a Special Branch guy called David Steelforth.”

“I know Steelforth.”

Rebus leaned back against one of the desks. “How?”

“He’s put away a number of my acquaintances over the years.” Rebus remembered: Cafferty had links to the old-school London mob. “Is he here, too?”

“Staying at the Balmoral.” Rebus paused. “I wouldn’t mind knowing who’s picking up his room tab.”

“Just when you think you’ve seen it all,” Cafferty said, “John Rebus comes asking you to go sniffing around Special Branch....I get the feeling this has got nothing to do with Cyril Colliar.”

“Like I said, I’ll tell you later.”

“So what are you up to just now?”

“Working.”

“Want to meet for a drink?”

“I’m not that desperate.”

“Me neither, just thought I’d offer.”

Rebus considered for a moment, almost tempted. But the line had gone dead. He sat down and drew a pad of paper toward him. The sum total of his evening’s efforts was listed there: