Exit Music (2007) (3 page)

Keep the faith, as I have and have not
. . .

The first poem in the collection ended with the lines:

As the country bled and wept, wept and bled,

He averted his eyes,

Ensuring he would not have to testify.

Flicking back to the title page, she saw that the collection had been translated from the Russian by Todorov himself, “with the assistance of Scarlett Colwell.” Clarke settled back and turned to the second poem. By the third of its four stanzas, she was asleep.

DAY TWO

Thursday 16 November 2006

3

T
he Scottish Poetry Library was located down one of the innumerable pends and wynds leading off the Canongate. Rebus and Clarke managed to miss it and ended up at the Parliament and the Palace of Holyrood. Driving more slowly back uphill, they missed it again.

“There’s nowhere to park anyway,” Clarke complained. They were in her car this morning, and therefore dependent on Rebus to spot Crighton’s Close.

“I think it was back there,” he said, craning his neck. “Pull up onto the pavement and we’ll take a look.”

Clarke left the hazard lights on when she locked the car and folded her wing mirror in so it wouldn’t get sideswiped. “If I get a ticket, you’re paying,” she warned Rebus.

“Police business, Shiv. We’ll appeal it.”

The Poetry Library was a modern building cleverly concealed amidst the tenements. A member of the staff sat behind the counter and beamed a smile in their direction. The smile evaporated when Rebus showed her his warrant card.

“Poetry reading a couple of nights back—Alexander Todorov.”

“Oh yes,” she said, “quite marvelous. We have some of his books for sale.”

“Was he in Edinburgh on his own? Any family, that sort of thing . . . ?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she clutched a hand to her cardigan. “Has something happened?”

It was Clarke who answered. “I’m afraid Mr. Todorov was attacked last night.”

“Gracious,” the librarian gasped, “is he . . . ?”

“As a doornail,” Rebus supplied. “We need to speak to next of kin, or at the very least someone who can identify him.”

“Alexander was here as a guest of PEN and the university. He’s been in the city a couple of months . . .” The librarian’s voice was trembling, along with the rest of her.

“PEN?”

“It’s a writers’ group . . . very big on human rights.”

“So where was he staying?”

“The university provided a flat in Buccleuch Place.”

“Family? A wife maybe . . . ?”

But the woman shook her head. “I think his wife died. I don’t recall them having any children—a blessing, I suppose.”

Rebus was thoughtful for a moment. “So who organized his event here? Was it the university, the consulate . . . ?”

“It was Scarlett Colwell.”

“His translator?” Clarke asked, gaining a nod of confirmation.

“Scarlett works in the Russian department.” The librarian started sifting through the slips of paper on her desk. “I’ve got her number here somewhere. . . . What a terrible thing to have happened. I can’t tell you how upsetting it is.”

“No trouble at the reading itself?” Rebus asked, trying to make the question seem casual.

“Trouble?” When she saw he wasn’t about to elucidate, she shook her head. “It all went swimmingly. Terrific use of metaphor and rhythm . . . even when he recited in Russian, you could feel the passion.” She was lost for a moment in reminiscence. Then, with a sigh: “Alexander was happy to sign books afterwards.”

“You make it sound,” Clarke pointed out, “as if that might not always have been the case.”

“Alexander Todorov was a poet, a very
considerable
poet.” As if this explained everything. “Ah, here it is.” She held up the piece of paper but seemed unwilling to relinquish it. Instead, Clarke entered the number into her own mobile before thanking the librarian for taking the trouble.

Rebus was looking around. “Where exactly did the performance happen?”

“Upstairs. We had an audience of over seventy.”

“I don’t suppose anyone filmed it, did they?”

“Filmed it?”

“For posterity.”

“Why do you ask?”

Rebus gave a shrug by way of reply.

“There was a sound recording,” the woman admitted. “Someone from a music studio.”

Clarke had her notebook out. “Name?” she asked.

“Abigail Thomas.” The librarian realized her mistake. “Oh, you mean the name of the recordist? Charlie something . . .” Abigail Thomas screwed shut her eyes with the effort, then opened them wide. “Charles Riordan. He has his own studio in Leith.”

“Thank you, Ms. Thomas,” Rebus said. Then: “Can you think of anyone we should contact?”

“You could talk to PEN.”

“There wasn’t anyone here that night from the consulate?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so.”

“Oh?”

“Alexander was quite vocal in his opposition to the current situation in Russia. He was on the
Question Time
panel a few weeks back.”

“The TV show?” Clarke asked. “I watch that sometimes.”

“So his English was pretty good, then,” Rebus surmised.

“When he wanted it to be,” the librarian said with a wry smile. “If he didn’t like the point you were making, the ability seemed suddenly to desert him.”

“He sounds quite a character,” Rebus had to admit. He saw that a small pile of Todorov’s books had been given their own display on a table near the stairs. “Are these for sale?” he asked.

“Indeed they are. Would you like to buy one?”

“Would they happen to be signed?” He watched her nod. “In that case, make it half a dozen.” He was reaching into his jacket for his wallet as the librarian rose from her seat to fetch them. Feeling Clarke’s eyes on him, he mouthed something to her.

Something very like “eBay.”

The car had not received a ticket, but there were dirty looks from the line of motorists attempting to squeeze past. Rebus threw the bag of books onto the back seat. “Should we warn her we’re coming?”

“Might be wise,” Clarke agreed, punching the keys on her phone and holding it to her ear. “Tell me, do you even
know
how to sell something on eBay?”

“I can learn,” Rebus said. Then: “Tell her we’ll meet her at his flat, just in case he’s lying in a stupor there and we’ve got a looky-likey in the mortuary.” He stuck a fist to his mouth, stifling a yawn.

“Get any sleep?” Clarke asked.

“Probably the same as you,” he told her.

Clarke’s call had connected her to the university switchboard. She asked for Scarlett Colwell and was put through.

“Miss Colwell?” A pause. “Sorry,
Doctor
Colwell.” She rolled her eyes for Rebus’s benefit.

“Ask her if she can fix my gout,” he whispered. Clarke thumped his shoulder as she began to give Dr. Scarlett Colwell the bad news.

Two minutes later, they were heading for Buccleuch Place, a six-story Georgian block that faced the more modern (and far uglier) university edifices. One tower in particular had been voted the building most people in Edinburgh wanted to see condemned. The tower, perhaps sensing this hostility, had begun to self-destruct, great chunks of cladding falling from it at irregular intervals.

“You never studied here, did you?” Rebus asked, as Clarke’s car rumbled across the setts.

“No,” she said, nosing into a parking space. “Did you?”

Rebus gave a snort. “I’m a dinosaur, Shiv—back in the Bronze Age they let you become a detective without a diploma and a mortarboard.”

“Weren’t the dinosaurs extinct by the Bronze Age?”

“Not having been to college, that’s just the sort of thing I wouldn’t know. Reckon there’s any chance of grabbing ourselves a coffee while we’re here?”

“You mean in the flat?” Clarke watched him nod. “You’d drink a dead man’s coffee?”

“I’ve drunk a damn sight worse.”

“You know, I actually believe that.” Clarke was out of the car now, Rebus following. “Must be her over there.”

She was standing at the top of some steps and had already unlocked the front door. She gave a little wave, which Rebus and Clarke acknowledged—Clarke because it was the right thing to do, and Rebus because Scarlett Colwell was a looker. Her hair fell in long auburn waves, her eyes were dark, her figure curvy. She wore a hugging green miniskirt, black tights, and brown calf-length boots. Her Little Red Riding Hood coat reached only as far as her waist. A gust of wind caused her to push the hair back from her eyes, and Rebus felt as if he were walking into a Cadbury’s Flake advert. He saw that her mascara was a bit blurry, evidence that she’d shed a few tears since receiving the news, but she was businesslike as the introductions were made.

They followed her up four flights of tenement stairs to the top floor landing, where she produced another key, unlocking the door to Alexander Todorov’s flat, Rebus arriving, having paused for breath on the landing below, just as the door swung open. There wasn’t much to the apartment: a short, narrow hallway led to the living room with a kitchenette off it. There was a cramped shower room and separate toilet, and a single bedroom with views towards the Meadows. Being in the eaves of the building, the ceilings angled sharply downwards. Rebus wondered if the poet had ever sat up sharply in bed and thumped the crown of his head. The whole flat felt not so much empty as utterly desolate, as though marked by the departure of its most recent resident.

“We’re really sorry about this,” Siobhan Clarke was saying as the three of them stood in the living room. Rebus was looking around him: a wastepaper bin full of crumpled poems, an empty cognac bottle lying next to the battered sofa, an Edinburgh bus map pinned to one wall above a foldaway dining table on which sat an electric typewriter. No sign of a computer or a TV or a music system, just a portable radio whose aerial had been snapped off. Books scattered everywhere, some English, some Russian, plus a few other languages. A Greek dictionary sat on the arm of the sofa. There were empty lager cans on a shelf meant for knickknacks. Invitations on the mantelpiece to parties from the previous month. They had passed a telephone on the floor in the hallway. Rebus asked if the poet had owned such a thing as a mobile. When Colwell shook her head, hair bouncing and swaying, Rebus knew he wanted to ask another question she could answer in the same way. Clarke’s clearing of the throat warned him against it.

“And no computer either?” he asked anyway.

“He was welcome to use the one in my office,” Colwell said. “But Alexander mistrusted technology.”

“You knew him fairly well?”

“I was his translator. When the scholarship was announced, I petitioned hard on his behalf.”

“So where was he before Edinburgh?”

“Paris for a time . . . Cologne before that . . . Stanford, Melbourne, Ottawa . . .” She managed a smile. “He was very proud of the stamps in his passport.”

“Speaking of which,” Clarke interrupted, “his pockets had been emptied—any idea what he would usually carry around with him?”

“A notebook and pen . . . some money, I suppose . . .”

“Any credit cards?”

“He had a cash card. I think he’d opened an account with First Albannach. Should be some statements around here somewhere.” She looked about her. “You say he was mugged?”

“Some sort of attack, certainly.”

“What kind of man was he, Dr. Colwell?” Rebus asked. “If someone confronted him in the street, would he put up a struggle, fight them back?”

“Oh, I’d think so. He was physically robust. Liked good wine and a good argument.”

“Did he have a temper?”

“Not especially.”

“But you said he liked to argue.”

“In the sense that he enjoyed debate,” Colwell corrected herself.

“When did you last see him?”

“At the Poetry Library. He was headed to the pub afterwards, but I wanted to get home—essays to mark before we break for Christmas.”

“So who did he go to the pub with?”

“There were a few local poets in the audience: Ron Butlin, Andrew Greig . . . I’d guess Abigail Thomas would be there, too, if only to pay for the drinks—Alexander wasn’t brilliant with money.”

Rebus and Clarke shared a look: they’d have to talk to the librarian again. Rebus gave a little cough, playing for time before asking his next question. “Would you be willing to identify the body, Dr. Colwell?”

The blood drained from Scarlett Colwell’s face.

“You seem to have known him better than most,” Rebus argued, “unless there’s a next of kin we can approach.”

But she had already made up her mind. “It’s all right, I’ll do it.”

“We can take you there now,” Clarke told her, “if that’s okay with you.”

Colwell nodded slowly, eyes staring into space. Rebus caught Clarke’s attention. “Get on to the station,” he said, “see if Hawes and Tibbet can come give this place a look-see—passport, cash card, notebook. . . . If they’re not here, someone’s either got them or dumped them.”

“Not forgetting his set of keys,” Clarke added.

“Good point.” Rebus’s eyes scanned the room again. “Hard to say if this place has been turned over or not—unless you know better, Dr. Colwell?”

Colwell shook her head again and had to remove a strand of hair from over one eye. “It was always pretty much like this.”

“So no need for Forensics,” Rebus told Clarke. “Just Hawes and Tibbet.” Clarke was nodding as she reached for her phone. Rebus had missed something Colwell had said.

“I’ve a tutorial in an hour,” she repeated.

“We’ll have you back in plenty of time,” he assured her, not particularly caring one way or the other. He held out a hand towards Clarke. “Keys.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re staying here to let Hawes and Tibbet in. I’ll drive Dr. Colwell to the mortuary.”

Clarke tried staring him out, but eventually relented.

“Get one of them to bring you to the Cowgate afterwards,” Rebus said, hoping to sugar the pill.

4

T
he identification was immediate, even though most of the body was kept in its shroud, concealing the work done by the pathologists. Colwell laid her forehead against Rebus’s shoulder for a moment and allowed a single tear to escape from either eye. Rebus regretted not having a clean handkerchief on him, but she reached into her shoulder bag for one, dabbing her eyes and then blowing her nose. Professor Gates was in the room with them, dressed in a three-piece suit that had fitted him beautifully four or five years back. He held his hands in front of him, head bowed, respecting the formalities.

“It’s Alexander,” Colwell was eventually able to say.

“You’re sure of that?” Rebus felt obliged to press.

“Positive.”

“Perhaps,” Gates piped up, raising his head, “Dr. Colwell would like a cup of tea before the paperwork?”

“Just a couple of forms,” Rebus explained quietly. Colwell nodded slowly, and the three of them went to the pathologist’s private office. It was a claustrophobic space with no natural light and the smell of damp wafting in from the shower cubicle next door. The day shift was on, and Rebus didn’t recognize the man who brought the tea. Gates called him Kevin, told him to close the door again on his way out, then opened the folder on his desk.

“By the way,” he said, “was Mr. Todorov any sort of car enthusiast?”

“I don’t think he’d have known the engine from the boot,” Colwell said with a hint of a smile. “He once got me to change the bulb in his desk lamp.”

Gates smiled back at her, then turned his attention to Rebus. “Forensics asked if he maybe worked as a mechanic. There was some oil on the hem of the jacket and the trouser knees.”

Rebus thought back to the crime scene. “Could have been some on the ground,” he admitted.

“King’s Stables Road,” the pathologist added. “A lot of the stables were turned into garages, weren’t they?”

Rebus nodded and glanced towards Colwell, gauging her reaction.

“It’s all right,” she told him. “I’m not going to start blubbing again.”

“Who was it spoke to you?” Rebus asked Gates.

“Ray Duff.”

“Ray’s no slouch,” Rebus said. In fact, Rebus knew damned well that Ray Duff was the best forensic scientist they had.

“What’s the betting he’s at the locus right now,” Gates said, “checking for oil?”

Rebus nodded and lifted the mug of tea to his lips.

“Now that we know the victim really is Alexander,” Colwell said into the silence, “do I need to keep quiet about it? I mean, is it something you want to keep from the media?”

Gates gave a loud snort. “Dr. Colwell, we wouldn’t stand a chance of keeping it from the Fourth Estate. Lothian and Borders Police leaks like the proverbial sieve—as does this very building.” He lifted his head towards the door. “Isn’t that right, Kevin?” he called. They could hear feet beginning to shuffle back down the corridor. Gates gave a satisfied smile and picked up his ringing telephone.

Rebus knew it would be Siobhan Clarke, waiting in reception . . .

After dropping Colwell back at the university, Rebus treated Clarke to lunch. When he’d made the offer, she’d stared at him and asked if anything was wrong. He’d shaken his head, and she’d said he must be after a favor, then.

“Who knows how often we’ll get the chance, once I’m retired,” he’d explained.

They went to an upstairs bistro on West Nicolson Street, where the dish of the day was venison pie. It came with chips and garden peas, over all of which Rebus dumped a quarter of a bottle of HP sauce. He was limiting himself to a half-pint of Deuchar’s and had managed four drags on a cigarette before stepping over the threshold. Between mouthfuls of pie crust, he told her about Ray Duff and asked if everything was okay at Todorov’s flat.

“Reckon young Colin has a thing going for Phyllida?” Clarke mused. Detective Constables Phyllida Hawes and Colin Tibbet shared the CID suite at Gayfield Square with Rebus and Clarke. Until recently, all four had worked under the baleful gaze of Detective Inspector Derek Starr, but Starr, seeking the further advancement that he saw as his right, was on secondment to police headquarters on Fettes Avenue. The rumor was that once Rebus walked into the sunset, Clarke would take his place, promoted inspector. It was a rumor Clarke herself was trying not to listen to.

“Why do you ask?” Rebus lifted his glass, noting that it was already almost empty.

“They just seem very comfortable with one another.”

Rebus stared at her, trying for a look of pained surprise. “And we’re not?”

“We’re fine,” she answered with a smile. “But I think they’ve been on a couple of dates—not that they want anyone to know.”

“You reckon they’re snuggling up just now in the dead man’s bed?”

Clarke wrinkled her nose at the suggestion. Then, half a minute later: “I’m just wondering how to handle it.”

“You mean once I’m out of the way and you’re in charge?” Rebus put down his fork and gave her a glare.

“
You’re
the one who wants all the loose ends tied up,” she complained.

“Maybe so, but I’ve never thought of myself as an agony aunt.” He lifted his glass again, only to find that he’d finished it.

“Do you want coffee?” she asked, making it sound like a peace offering. He shook his head and started patting his pockets.

“What I need is a proper smoke.” He found the packet and rose to his feet. “You get yourself a coffee while I’m outside.”

“What about this afternoon?”

He thought for a moment. “We’ll get more done if we divvy it up—you go see the librarian again, I’ll hit King’s Stables Road.”

“Fine,” she said, not bothering to disguise the fact that it wasn’t really fine at all. Rebus stood his ground for a moment, as if about to muster some words, then waved the cigarette in her direction and headed for the door.

“And thanks for the lunch,” she said, as soon as he was out of earshot.

Rebus thought he knew why they could barely hold a five-minute conversation without starting to snipe at each other. It was bound to be a tense time, him leaving the field of battle, her on the cusp of promotion. They’d worked together so long—been friends almost as long. . . . Bound to be a tense time.

Everyone assumed that they’d slept together at some point down the line, but no way either of them would have let it happen. How could they have worked as partners afterwards? It would have been all or nothing, and they both loved the job too much to let anything else get in the way. The one thing he’d made her promise was that there’d be no surprise parties his last week at work. Their boss at Gayfield Square had even offered to host something, but Rebus had thanked him with a shake of the head.

“You’re the longest-serving officer in CID,” DCI Macrae had persisted.

“Then it’s the folk who’ve put up with me who deserve the medal,” Rebus had retorted.

The cordon was still in place at the bottom of Raeburn Wynd, but one of the locals ducked beneath the blue-and-white-striped tape, resistant to the idea that anywhere in Edinburgh could be off limits to him. Or so Rebus surmised by the hand gesture the man made when warned by Ray Duff that he was contaminating a crime scene. Duff was shaking his head, more in sorrow than anything else, when Rebus approached.

“Gates reckoned this is where I’d find you,” Rebus said. Duff rolled his eyes.

“And now
you’re
walking all over my locus.”

Rebus answered with a twitch of the mouth. Duff was crouching beside his forensics kit, a toughened red plastic toolbox bought from B&Q. Its myriad drawers opened concertina-style, but Duff was in the process of closing them.

“Thought you’d be putting your feet up,” Duff commented.

“No you didn’t.”

Duff laughed. “True enough.”

“Any joy?” Rebus asked.

Duff snapped shut the box and lifted it with him as he got to his feet. “I wandered as far as the top of the lane, checking all the garages along the way. Thing is, if he’d been attacked up there, we’d have traces of blood on the roadway.” He stamped his foot to reinforce the point.

“And?”

“The blood’s elsewhere, John.” He gestured for Rebus to follow and took a left along King’s Stables Road. “See anything?”

Rebus looked hard at the pavement and noticed the trail of splashes. There were intervals between them. The blood had lost most of its color but was still recognizable. “How come we didn’t spot this last night?”

Duff shrugged. His car was parked curbside, and he unlocked it long enough to stow his box of tricks.

“How far have you followed it?” Rebus asked.

“I was just about to get started when you arrived.”

“Then let’s go.”

They began walking, eyes on the sporadic series of drips. “You going to join SCRU?” Duff asked.

“Think they’d want me?” SCRU was the Serious Crime Review Unit. It consisted of three retired detectives, whose job was to look at unsolveds.

“Did you hear about that result we got last week?” Duff said. “DNA from a sweated fingerprint. Sort of thing that can be useful on cold cases. DNA boost means we can decipher DNA multiples.”

“Shame I can’t decipher what you’re saying.”

Duff chuckled. “World’s changing, John. Faster than most of us can keep up with.”

“You’re saying I should embrace the scrap heap?”

Duff just shrugged. They’d covered a hundred yards or so and were standing at the exit to a multistory car park. There were two barriers; drivers could choose either one. Once you’d paid for your ticket, you slid it into a slot and the barrier would rise.

“Have you ID’d the victim?” Duff asked, looking around as he tried to pick up the trail again.

“A Russian poet.”

“Did he drive a car?”

“He couldn’t change his own lightbulbs, Ray.”

“Thing about car parks, John . . . there’s always a bit of oil left lying around.”

Rebus had noticed that there were intercoms fixed alongside either barrier. He pressed a button and waited. After a few moments, a voice crackled from the loudspeaker.

“What is it?”

“Wonder if you can help me —”

“You after directions or something? Look, chief, this is a car park. All we do here is park cars.” It took Rebus only a second to work things out.

“You can see me,” he said. Yes: a CCTV camera high up in one corner, pointing at the exit. Rebus gave it a wave.

“Have you got a problem with your car?” the voice was asking.

“I’m a cop,” Rebus answered. “Want to have a word with you.”

“What about?”

“Where are you?”

“Next floor up,” the voice admitted eventually. “Is this to do with that prang I had?”

“That depends—did you happen to hit a guy and kill him?”

“Christ, no.”

“Might be okay, then. We’ll be there in a minute.” Rebus moved away from the barrier towards where Ray Duff was down on all fours, peering beneath a parked BMW.

“Not keen on these new Beamers,” Duff said, sensing Rebus behind him.

“Found something?”

“I think there’s blood under here . . . quite a bit of it. If you were asking me, I’d say this is trail’s end.”

Rebus walked around the vehicle. There was a ticket on the dashboard, showing that it had entered the car park at 11:00 that morning.

“Next car along,” Duff was saying, “is there something underneath it?”

Rebus did a circuit of the big Lexus but couldn’t see anything. Nothing else for it but to get down on hands and knees himself. A bit of string or wire. He reached a hand beneath the car, fingertips scrabbling at it, eventually drawing it out. Hauled himself back to his feet and held it dangling by thumb and forefinger.

A plain silver neck chain.

“Ray,” he said, “better go fetch your kit.”