Muggings tended to be spontaneous. You were attacked on the street, maybe just after using a cash machine. The mugger didn’t hang around your door waiting for you to come home. Marber’s house was relatively isolated: Duddingston Village was a wealthy enclave on the edge of Edinburgh, semi-rural, with the mass of Arthur’s Seat as its neighbor. The houses hid behind walls, quiet and secure. Anyone approaching Marber’s home on foot would have triggered the same halogen security light. They would then have had to hide — in the undergrowth, say, or behind one of the trees. After a couple of minutes, the lamp’s timer would finish its cycle and go off. But any movement would trigger the sensor once again.
The Scene of Crime officers had looked for possible hiding places, finding several. But no traces of anyone, no footprints or fibers.
Another scenario, proposed by DCS Gill Templer:
“Say the assailant was already inside the house. Heard the door being unlocked and ran towards it. Smashed the victim on the head and ran.”
But the house was high-tech: alarms and sensors everywhere. There was no sign of a break-in, no indication that anything was missing. Marber’s best friend, another art dealer called Cynthia Bessant, had toured the house and pronounced that she could see nothing missing or out of place, except that much of the deceased’s art collection had been removed from the walls and, each painting neatly packaged in bubble wrap, was stacked against the wall in the dining room. Bessant had been unable to offer an explanation.
“Perhaps he was about to reframe them, or move them to different rooms. One does get tired of the same paintings in the same spots . . .”
She’d toured every room, paying particular attention to Marber’s bedroom, not having seen inside it before. She called it his “inner sanctum.”
The victim himself had never been married, and was quickly assumed by the investigating officers to have been gay.
“Eddie’s sexuality,” Cynthia Bessant had said, “can have no bearing on this case.”
But that would be something for the inquiry to decide.
Rebus had felt himself sidelined in the investigation, working the telephones mostly. Cold calls to friends and associates. The same questions eliciting almost identical responses. The bubble-wrapped paintings had been checked for fingerprints, from which it became apparent that Marber himself had packaged them up. Still no one — neither his secretary nor his friends — could give an explanation.
Then, towards the end of one briefing, Rebus had picked up a mug of tea — someone else’s tea, milky gray — and hurled it in the general direction of Gill Templer.
The briefing had started much as any other, Rebus washing down three aspirin caplets with his morning latte. The coffee came in a paper cup. It was from a concession on the corner of the Meadows. Usually his first and last decent cup of the day.
“Bit too much to drink last night?” DS Siobhan Clarke had asked. She’d run her eyes over him: same suit, shirt and tie as the day before. Probably wondering if he’d bothered to take any of it off betweentimes. The morning shave erratic, a lazy runover with an electric. Hair that needed washing and cutting.
She’d seen just what Rebus had wanted her to see.
“And a good morning to you too, Siobhan,” he’d muttered to himself, crushing the empty beaker.
Usually he stood towards the back of the room at briefings, but today he was nearer the front. Sat there at a desk, rubbing his forehead, loosening his shoulders, as Gill Templer spelled out the day’s mission.
More door-to-door; more interviews; more phone calls.
His fingers were around the mug by now. He didn’t know whose it was, the glaze cold to the touch — could even have been left from the day before. The room was stifling and already smelled of sweat.
“More bloody phone calls,” he found himself saying, loud enough to be heard at the front. Templer looked up.
“Something to say, John?”
“No, no . . . nothing.”
Her back straightening. “Only if you’ve anything to add — maybe one of your famous deductions — I’m all ears.”
“With respect, ma’am, you’re not all ears — you’re all talk.” Noises around him: gasps and looks. Rebus rising slowly to his feet.
“We’re getting nowhere fast.” His voice was loud. “There’s nobody left to talk to, and nothing worth them saying!”
The blood had risen to Templer’s cheeks. The sheet of paper she was holding — the day’s duties — had become a cylinder, which her fingers threatened to crush.
“Well, I’m sure we can all learn something from you, DI Rebus.” Not “John” anymore. Her voice rising to match his. Her eyes scanned the room: thirteen officers, not quite the full complement. Templer was working under pressure: much of it fiscal. Each investigation had a ticket attached to it, a costing she daren’t overstep. Then there were the illnesses and holidays, the latecomers . . . “Maybe you’d like to come up here,” she was saying, “and give us the benefit of your thoughts on the subject of just exactly how we should be proceeding with this inquiry.” She stretched an arm out, as if to introduce him to an audience. “Ladies and gentlemen . . .”
Which was the moment he chose to throw the mug. It traveled in a lazy arc, spinning as it went, dispensing cold tea. Templer ducked instinctively, though the mug would have sailed over her head in any case. It hit the back wall just above floor level, bouncing off and failing to break. There was silence in the room as people rose to their feet, checking their clothes for spillage.
Rebus sat down then, one finger punching the desk as if trying to find the rewind on life’s remote control.
“DI Rebus?” The uniform was talking to him.
“Yes, sir?”
“Glad you’ve decided to join us.” Smiles all around the table. How much had he missed? He didn’t dare look at his watch.
“Sorry about that, sir.”
“I was asking if you’d be our member of the public.” Nodding to the opposite side of the table to Rebus. “DI Gray will be the officer. And you, DI Rebus, will be coming into the station with what could turn out to be some vital information pertaining to a case.” The teacher paused. “Or you could be a crank.” Laughter from a couple of the men. Francis Gray was beaming at Rebus, nodding encouragement.
“Whenever you’re ready, DI Gray.”
Gray leaned forward on the table. “So, Mrs. Ditchwater, you say you saw something that night?”
The laughter was louder. The teacher waved them quiet. “Let’s try to keep this serious, shall we?”
Gray nodded, turned his eyes to Rebus again. “You definitely saw something?”
“Yes,” Rebus announced, coarsening his voice. “I saw the whole thing, Officer.”
“Though you’ve been registered blind these past eleven years?”
Gales of laughter in the room, the teacher thumping the tabletop, trying to restore order. Gray sitting back, joining the laughter, winking across at Rebus, whose shoulders were rocking.
Francis Gray was fighting hard against resurrection.
“I thought I was going to wet myself,” Tam Barclay said, lowering the tray of glasses onto the table. They were in the larger of Kincardine’s two pubs, lessons finished for the day. Six of them forming a tight circle: Rebus, Francis Gray, Jazz McCullough, plus Tam Barclay, Stu Sutherland and Allan Ward. At thirty-four, Ward was the youngest of the group and the lowest-ranking officer on the course. He had a tough, spoiled look to him. Maybe it came from working in the southwest.
Five pints, one cola: McCullough was driving home afterwards, wanted to see his wife and kids.
“I do my damnedest to avoid mine,” Gray had said.
“No joking,” Barclay said, squeezing into his seat, “near wet myself.” Grinning at Gray. “ ‘Blind these past eleven years.’ ”