‘I’ve told you how I got the bruises.’
‘Well, I’m choosing not to believe you.’
Mangold started laughing, still facing the ceiling. ‘Facts, you said. I’m not hearing anything you can even begin to prove.’
‘The thing I’m wondering is...’
‘What?’
‘Look at me and I’ll tell you.’
Slowly, the chair returned to the ground. Mangold fixed his slitted eyes on Siobhan.
‘What I can’t decide,’ she told him, ‘is whether you did it out of anger — you’d been beaten up and shouted at by Bullen, and you wanted to mete that out on someone else...’ She paused. ‘Or whether it was more in the nature of a gift to Ishbel — not wrapped in ribbons this time, but a gift all the same... something to make her life that bit easier.’
Mangold turned to Les Young. ‘Help me out here: do you have any idea what she’s on about?’
‘I know exactly what she’s on about,’ Young told him.
‘See,’ Siobhan added, shifting slightly in her chair, ‘when DI Rebus and I came to see you that last time... found you in the cellar...’
‘Yes?’
‘DI Rebus started playing around with a chiseclass="underline" you remember that?’
‘Not really.’
‘It was in Joe Evans’s toolbox.’
‘Hold the front page.’
Siobhan smiled at the sarcasm; knew she could afford to. ‘There was a hammer there too, Ray.’
‘A hammer in a toolbox: what will they think of next?’
‘Last night, I went to your cellar and removed that hammer. I told the forensics team it was a rush job. They worked through the night. It’s a bit soon for the DNA results, but they found traces of blood on that hammer, Ray. Same group as Donny Cruikshank.’ She shrugged. ‘So much for the facts.’ She waited for Mangold’s reply, but his mouth was clamped shut. ‘Now,’ she went on, ‘here’s the thing... If that hammer was used in the killing of Donny Cruikshank, then I’m thinking there are three possibilities.’ She held up one finger at a time. ‘Evans, Ishbel, or yourself. It had to be one of you. And I think, realistically, we can leave Evans out of it.’ She lowered one of the fingers. ‘So it’s down to you or Ishbel, Ray. Which is it to be?’
Les Young’s pen was poised once more above the pad.
‘I need to see her,’ Ray Mangold said, voice suddenly dry and brittle-sounding. ‘Just the two of us... five minutes is all I need.’
‘Can’t do it, Ray,’ Young said firmly.
‘I’m giving you nothing till you let me see her.’
But Les Young was shaking his head. Mangold’s gaze shifted to Siobhan.
‘DI Young’s in charge,’ she told him. ‘He calls the shots.’
Mangold leaned forward, elbows on the table, head in hands. When he spoke, his words were muffled by his palms.
‘We didn’t catch that, Ray,’ Young said.
‘No? Well, catch this!’ And Mangold lunged across the table, swinging a fist. Young jerked back. Siobhan was on her feet, grabbed the arm and twisted. Young dropped his pen and was around the table, putting a headlock on Mangold.
‘Bastards!’ Mangold spat. ‘You’re all bastards, the whole bloody lot of you!’
And then, a minute or so later, and with back-up arriving, restraints at the ready: ‘Okay, okay... I did it. Happy now, you shower of shite? I stuck a hammer in his head. So what? Doing the world a huge bloody favour, that’s what it was.’
‘We need to hear it from you again,’ Siobhan hissed in his ear.
‘What?’
‘When we let go of you, you’ll need to say it all again.’ She released her grip as the officers moved in.
‘Otherwise,’ she explained, ‘people might think I’d twisted your arm.’
They took a coffee break eventually, Siobhan standing with eyes closed as she leaned against the drinks machine. Les Young had opted for the soup, despite her warnings. He now sniffed the contents of his cup and winced.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
Siobhan opened her eyes. ‘I think you chose badly.’
‘I meant Mangold.’
Siobhan shrugged. ‘He wants to go down for it.’
‘Yes, but did he do it?’
‘Either him or Ishbel.’
‘He loves her, doesn’t he?’
‘I get that impression.’
‘So he could be covering for her?’
She shrugged again. ‘Wonder if he’ll end up on the same wing as Stuart Bullen. That would be a kind of justice, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose so.’ Young sounded sceptical.
‘Cheer up, Les,’ Siobhan told him. ‘We got a result.’
He made a show of studying the drinks machine’s front panel. ‘Something you don’t know, Siobhan...’
‘What?’
‘This is my first time leading a murder team. I want to get it right.’
‘Doesn’t always happen in the real world, Les.’ She patted his shoulder. ‘But at least now you can say you’ve dipped a toe in the water.’
He smiled. ‘While you headed for the deep.’
‘Yes...’ she said, voice trailing off, ‘and nearly didn’t come up again.’
32
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was sited just outside the city, in an area called Little France.
At night, Rebus thought it resembled Whitemire, the car park lit but the world around it in darkness. There was a starkness to the design, and the compound seemed self-contained. The air as he stepped from his Saab felt different from the city centre: fewer poisons, but colder, too. It didn’t take him long to find Alan Traynor’s room. Rebus himself had been a patient here not so long ago, but in an open ward. He wondered if someone was paying for Traynor’s privacy: his American employers maybe.
Or the UK’s own Immigration Service.
Felix Storey sat dozing by the bedside. He’d been reading a women’s magazine. From its frayed edges, Rebus guessed it had come from a pile in another part of the hospital. Storey had removed his suit jacket and placed it over the back of his chair. He still wore his tie, but with the top button of his shirt undone. For him it was a casual look. He was snoring quietly as Rebus entered. Traynor, on the other hand, was awake but looked dopey. His wrists were bandaged, and a tube led into one arm. His eyes barely focused on Rebus as he entered. Rebus gave a little wave anyway, and kicked one of the chair legs. Storey’s head jerked up with a snort.
‘Wakey-wakey,’ Rebus said.
‘What time is it?’ Storey ran a hand down his face.
‘Quarter past nine. You make a lousy guard.’
‘I just want to be here when he wakes up.’
‘Looks to me like he’s been awake a while.’ Rebus nodded towards Traynor. ‘Is he on painkillers?’
‘A hefty dose, so the doctor said. They want a shrink to look at him tomorrow.’
‘Get anything out of him today?’
Storey shook his head. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you let me down.’
‘How’s that?’ Rebus asked.
‘You promised you’d go with me to Whitemire.’
‘I break promises all the time,’ Rebus said with a shrug. ‘Besides, I had some thinking to do.’
‘About what?’
Rebus studied him. ‘Easier if I show you.’
‘I don’t...’ Storey looked towards Traynor.
‘He’s not fit to answer any questions, Felix. Anything he gives you would be thrown out of court...’
‘Yes, but I shouldn’t just...’
‘I think you should.’
‘Someone has to keep watch.’
‘In case he tries topping himself again? Look at him, Felix, he’s in another place.’
Storey looked, and seemed to concede the point.