The Naming Of The Dead (2006) (25 page)

Steelforth shrugged. “Up to the pair of you.”

“Dependent on our conduct? Like not pushing for the tapes to be made available?”

Steelforth shrugged again. “You can survive this—but just barely. I can make you look like heroes or villains—” The radio clipped to Steelforth’s belt crackled to life. Report from one of the watchtowers: security fence breached. Steelforth held the radio to his mouth and ordered a Chinook’s worth of reinforcements, then strode back toward the Land Rover. One of the chauffeurs intercepted him.

“Wanted to introduce myself, Commander. Name’s Steve and I’ll be driving you to the Open—”

Steelforth snarled some sort of oath, stopping Steve dead. The other drivers started joking that he wouldn’t be getting much of a tip this weekend. Steelforth’s Land Rover, meantime, was already revving its engine.

“Not even a farewell kiss?” Rebus called out, offering a wave of his hand. Siobhan stared at him.

“You’ve got retirement to look forward to—some of us were hoping for a career.”

“You see what he’s like, Shiv: moment this is all over, we’ll have fallen off his radar.” Rebus kept waving as the vehicle roared away. The soldier was standing in front of them, holding out their badges.

“Off you go now,” he snapped.

“Where exactly?” Siobhan asked.

“Or, more to the point, how?” Rebus added.

One of the drivers cleared his throat and stretched out an arm, drawing attention to the array of luxury cars. “I just got a text—one of the suits has to get back to Glasgow. I could drop you off somewhere.”

Siobhan and Rebus shared a look. Siobhan then smiled at the driver and nodded toward the cars.

“Do we get to choose?” she asked.

They ended up sitting in the back of a six-liter Audi A8, four hundred miles on its clock, most of them added since first thing that morning. Pungent aroma of new leather and the bright gleam of chrome. Siobhan asked if the TV was working. Rebus gave her a look.

“Just wondering if London got the Olympics,” she explained.

Their IDs were scrutinized at three separate checkpoints between the field and the hotel grounds.

“We don’t go near the hotel itself,” the driver said. “I’ll pick up the suit from the meet ’n’ greet next to the media center.” Both were situated near the hotel’s main car lot. Rebus saw that no one was playing the golf course. Pitch-and-putt and croquet lawns—both empty, except for dapper, slow-paced security men.

“Hard to believe there’s anything happening,” Siobhan commented. Her voice was just above a whisper; something about the place...Rebus felt it, too. You didn’t want to draw attention to yourself.

“Just be a sec,” the driver said, stopping the car. He pulled on his chauffeur’s peaked cap as he exited. Rebus decided to get out, too. He couldn’t see any rooftop marksmen, but figured they were probably there nevertheless. They had parked to one side of the main baronial building, near a vast conservatory that Rebus guessed was probably the restaurant.

“Weekend here would do me grand,” he confided to Siobhan as she emerged from the backseat.

“Cost you a grand, too, no doubt,” she countered. Inside the media center—a tented structure with solid sides—reporters could be glimpsed hammering copy into their laptops. Rebus had lit a cigarette. He heard a sound and turned to see a bicycle round the corner of the hotel. Its rider was bent low, aiming for speed, another bike tucked in directly behind. The leading cyclist passed within thirty feet, caught sight of them, and offered a wave. Rebus gave a flick of his cigarette in acknowledgment. But lifting his fingers from the handlebars had unbalanced the rider. His front wheel wobbled, slewing across the gravel. The other cyclist tried to avoid him, but ended up going over his own handlebars. Men in dark suits arrived as if from nowhere, making a rapid huddle around the two sprawled figures.

“Did we just do that?” Siobhan asked quietly. Rebus said nothing, just dumped the cigarette and eased himself back into the car. Siobhan followed his example, and they watched through the windshield as the first cyclist was helped to his feet, rubbing his grazed knuckles. The other rider was still on the ground, but no one seemed to be paying him much heed. A question of protocol, Rebus guessed.

The needs of President George W. Bush must always come first.

“Did we just do that?” Siobhan repeated, her voice trembling a little. The Audi driver had emerged from the meet ’n’ greet, followed by a man in a gray suit. The man carried two bulging briefcases. Like the driver, he paused for a moment to watch the commotion. The chauffeur held open the passenger-side door and the civil servant got in without so much as a nod of greeting in the direction of the backseat. The chauffeur got behind the steering wheel, his cap grazing the Audi’s roof, and asked them what was going on.

“Wheels within wheels,” Rebus offered. At last, the civil servant decided to acknowledge that he was—possibly to his chagrin—not the only passenger.

“I’m Dobbs,” he said. “F.C.O.”

Meaning foreign and commonwealth office. Rebus reached out a hand.

“Call me John,” he invited. “I’m a friend of Richard Pennen’s.”

Siobhan looked to be taking none of this in. Her attention, as the car drew away, was on the scene unfolding behind them. Two men in green paramedics’ uniforms were being prevented from reaching the U.S. president by his insistent security detail. Hotel staff had emerged to watch, as had a couple of the reporters from the media center.

“Happy birthday, Mr. President,” Siobhan sang huskily.

“Pleased to meet you,” Dobbs was telling Rebus.

“Richard been here yet?” Rebus asked casually.

The civil servant frowned. “Not sure he’s on the list.” He seemed worried that he might have been kept out of the loop.

“Told me he was,” Rebus lied blithely. “Thought the foreign sec had a role for him.”

“Quite possibly,” Dobbs stated, trying to sound more confident than he looked.

“George Bush just fell off his bike,” Siobhan commented. It was as if the words needed to be spoken before they could become fact.

“Oh, yes?” Dobbs said, not really listening. He was opening one of the briefcases, ready to immerse himself in some reading. Rebus realized the man had suffered enough small talk, his mind geared to higher things: statistics and budgets and trade figures. He decided on one last try.

“Were you at the castle?”

“No,” Dobbs drawled. “Were you?”

“I was, as a matter of fact. Hellish about Ben Webster, wasn’t it?”

“Ghastly. Best PPS we had.”

Siobhan seemed suddenly to realize what was going on. Rebus offered her a wink.

“Richard’s not too sure he jumped,” Rebus commented.

“Accident, you mean?” Dobbs replied.

“Pushed,” Rebus stated. The civil servant lowered his sheaf of papers, turned his head toward the backseat.

“Pushed?”
He watched Rebus slowly nod. “Who the hell would do that?”

Rebus offered a shrug. “Maybe he made enemies. Some politicians do.”

“Almost as many as your chum Pennen,” Dobbs countered.

“How do you mean?” Rebus tried to sound slighted on his friend’s behalf.

“That company of his used to belong to the taxpayer. Now he’s making a packet out of R and D
we
paid for.”

“Serves us right for selling it to him,” Siobhan chipped in.

“Maybe the government was badly advised,” Rebus teased the civil servant.

“Government knew bloody well what it was doing.”

“Then why sell to Pennen?” Siobhan asked, genuinely curious now. Dobbs was shuffling through his papers again. The driver was on the phone to someone, asking which routes were open to them.

“R and D departments are costly,” Dobbs was saying. “When the MoD needs to make cuts, it always looks bad if it’s regiments taking the brunt. Ditch a few techs, the media doesn’t so much as blink.”

“I’m still not sure I get it,” Siobhan admitted.

“Thing about a private company,” Dobbs went on, “is that they can sell to pretty much anyone they like—fewer constraints than the MoD, F.C.O., or department of industry. Result? Faster profits.”

“Profits made,” Rebus added, “from selling to suspect dictators and spit-poor nations already up to their eyes in debt.”

“I thought he was your...?” Dobbs flinched as he realized he was not necessarily among friends. “Who did you say you were again?”

“John,” Rebus reminded him. “And this is my colleague.”

“But you don’t work for Pennen Industries?”

“Never implied that we did,” Rebus insisted. “We’re Lothian and Borders Police, Mr. Dobbs. And I want to thank you for your frank answers to our questions.” Rebus stared over the seat toward the civil servant’s lap. “You seem to be crushing all your lovely papers. Is that to save on a shredder...?”

Ellen Wylie was busy manning the phones when they got back to Gayfield Square. Siobhan had called her parents, discovering that they’d given up on the trip to Auchterarder and had kept clear of the angry protest in Princes Street. There had been trouble stretching from the Mound to the Old Town—disgruntled protesters, prevented from leaving the city, clashing with riot police. As Rebus and Siobhan walked into the CID suite, Wylie gave them a look. Rebus thought she was on the verge of a protest herselfalone all day in the station. But then a figure emerged from Derek Starr’s private office—not Starr himself, but Chief Constable James Corbyn. His hands were clasped behind his back, showing impatience. Rebus stared at Wylie, who shrugged a response, indicating that Corbyn had stopped her from texting a warning.

“Pair of you, in here,” Corbyn snapped, retreating back into Starr’s airless domain. “Close the door after you,” he added. He was seating himself; no other chairs in the room, so Rebus and Siobhan stayed standing.

“I’m glad you could make time, sir,” Rebus stated, getting his retaliation in first. “I wanted to ask you about the night Ben Webster died.”

Corbyn was caught off guard. “What about it?”

“You were at the dinner, sir...something you should probably have declared from the start.”

“We’re not here to talk about
me,
DI Rebus. We’re here so that I can formally suspend the pair of you from active duty with immediate effect.”

Rebus nodded slowly, as if this were a given. “All the same, sir, now you
are
here, best if we get your statement. Looks like we’re hiding something otherwise. Papers are flocking around like vultures. Hardly in the interests of public relations for the chief constable to be—”

Corbyn rose to his feet. “Maybe you weren’t listening, Inspector. You’re no longer taking part in any inquiry. I want the pair of you off the premises in the next five minutes. You’ll go home and sit by the phone, waiting for news of my investigation into your conduct. Is that clear?”

“I need a few minutes to update my notes, sir. Need to make our conversation a matter of record.”

Corbyn stabbed a finger toward Rebus. “I’ve heard all about you, Rebus.” His gaze shifted to Siobhan. “Might explain why you were so reluctant to give me your colleague’s name when I put you in charge.”

“You never actually asked, sir, if you don’t mind me saying,” Siobhan retorted.

“But you knew damned well trouble couldn’t be far off.” His attention was firmly back on Rebus. “Not with Rebus here in the vicinity.”

“With respect, sir—” Siobhan started to argue.

Corbyn slammed his fist against the desk. “I told you to put the whole thing on ice! Instead of which, it makes the front pages, and then you proceed to end up at Gleneagles! When I tell you you’re off the case, that’s all you need to know. End of game. Sayonara. Finito.”

“Picked up a few words at the dinner, eh, sir?” Rebus responded with a wink. Corbyn’s eyes bulged from his head. Just their luck if he were to collapse with an aneurysm. But instead he stalked from the room, almost sending Siobhan and a bookcase toppling as he passed them. Rebus exhaled noisily, ran a hand through his hair, and scratched his nose.

“So what do you want to do now?” he asked.

Siobhan just looked at him. “Pack my things?” she guessed.

“Packing certainly comes into it,” Rebus replied. “We pack all the case files off to my place, set up camp there.”

“John...”

“You’re right,” he said, choosing to misinterpret her tone. “They’ll be noticed if they go missing. So we need to copy them instead.”

This time he got a smile.

“I’ll do it if you want,” he added. “I know you’ve got a hot date.”

“In the pouring rain.”

“Only excuse Travis needs to play that bloody song of theirs.” He emerged from Starr’s office. “Did you catch any of that, Ellen?”

She was putting the phone down. “I couldn’t warn you,” she began.

“Don’t apologize. I suppose Corbyn knows who you are now?” He perched on the corner of her desk.

“Didn’t seem that interested. He got my name and rank, never bothered to ask if I was a regular here.”

“Perfect,” Rebus told her. “Means you can keep being our ears and eyes.”

“Hang on a second,” Siobhan interrupted. “That’s not your call to make.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Siobhan ignored him, focusing on Ellen Wylie. “This is
my
show, Ellen. Understood?”

“Don’t worry, Siobhan, I can tell when I’m not wanted.”

“I’m not saying you’re not wanted, but I need to know you’re on our side.”

Wylie prickled visibly. “As opposed to whose?”

“Ladies, ladies,” Rebus said, stepping between them like an old-fashioned wrestling referee. His eyes were on Siobhan. “An extra pair of hands wouldn’t go amiss, boss, you have to admit that.”

She smiled eventually—
boss
had done the trick. But her gaze stayed fixed on Wylie. “Even so,” she said, “we can’t ask you to spy for us. It’s one thing for John and me to get into trouble, another to land you in the mire.”

“I don’t mind,” Wylie said. “Nice overalls, by the way.”

Siobhan’s smile reappeared. “I suppose I should change before the show.”

Rebus exhaled noisily: flash point avoided. “So what’s been happening here?” he asked Wylie.

“Trying to alert all the offenders listed on BeastWatch. I’ve asked the various police authorities to tell them to be on their guard.”