She prized the lid from her coffee and took a sip.
“Who’s doing it, do you know?” Linford asked. She shook her head. “You’re not surprised, so I’m guessing this isn’t the first time . . .”
“Correct. Now if you wouldn’t mind getting out of my chair.”
Linford stood up. “Sorry,” he said.
“That’s all right.” She sat down and hit the mouse so that the screen saver disappeared.
“Did you switch the monitor off before you left last night?” Linford was standing too close to her for comfort.
“Saves energy,” she told him.
“So someone powered the system back up.”
“Looks like.”
“And knew your password.”
“Everyone knows everyone else’s password,” she said. “Not enough computers to go round; we have to share.”
“And by everyone, you mean . . . ?”
She looked at him. “Let’s just drop it, Derek.” The office was filling up. DCI Bill Pryde was making sure the “bible” — the MMI —was up to date. Phyllida Hawes was halfway down a list of phone calls. The previous afternoon she’d rolled her eyes at Siobhan, indicating that cold-calling wasn’t the most thrilling part of an inquiry. Grant Hood had been called to DCS Templer’s office, probably so they could talk media liaison — Hood’s specialty.
Linford took half a step back. “So what’s your schedule for the day?”
Keeping you at arm’s length, she wanted to say. “Taxicabs” was the actual word that came out. “You?”
Linford rested his hands against the side of her desk. “The deceased’s financial affairs. A bloody minefield they are, too . . .” He was studying her face. “You look tired.”
“Thanks.”
“Out carousing last night?”
“Party animal, that’s me.”
“Really? I don’t tend to go out much these days . . .” He waited for her to say something, but she was concentrating on blowing on her coffee, even though it was little more than lukewarm.
“Yes,” Linford plowed on, “Mr. Marber’s financial wheeler-dealings will take some unpicking. Half a dozen bank accounts . . . investment portfolio . . . VCTs . . .”
“Property?”
“Just the house in Edinburgh, and his villa in Tuscany.”
“All right for some.”
“Mmm, a week in Tuscany would just about do me right now . . .”
“I’d settle for a week at home on the sofa.”
“You set your standards too low, Siobhan.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
He didn’t catch her tone. “One slight anomaly in the bank statements . . .”
It was a tease, but she reacted anyway. “Yes?” she prompted. Phyllida Hawes was putting down the receiver, ticking off another name, starting to scribble some notes to herself.
“Tucked away in one of his accounts,” Linford was saying. “Quarterly payments to a lettings agency.”
“A lettings agency?” She watched Linford nod. “Which one?”
Linford frowned. “Does it matter?”
“It might. So happens I was at MGC Lettings yesterday, talking to the owner: Big Ger Cafferty.”
“Cafferty? Wasn’t he one of Marber’s clients?”
Siobhan nodded. “Which is why I’m curious.”
“Yes, me too. I mean, why would someone with as much money as Marber need to rent a place anyway?”
“And the answer is . . . ?”
“I haven’t quite got there yet. Give me a second . . .” He retreated to his desk — Rebus’s old desk — and started shifting sheets of paper. Siobhan had some digging of her own to do, and DCI Pryde would have the answers.
“What can I do for you, Siobhan?” he asked as she approached him.
“The taxi that took the victim home, sir,” she said. “Which company was it?”
Pryde didn’t even need to look it up: that was what she liked about him. She wondered if he did his homework every night, memorizing facts and figures. The man was a walking MMI.
“Driver’s name is Sammy Wallace. He has a few priors: housebreaking, fencing. Years back, mind. We’ve checked him out. He looks clean.”
“But which company does he work for?”
“MG Private Hire.”
“Owned by Big Ger Cafferty?”
Pryde stared at her, unblinking. He had a clipboard held to his chest, fingers drumming against it. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“All right if I check?”
“Go right ahead. You talked to Cafferty yesterday . . .”
She nodded. “And now Linford’s come up with a lettings agency that was getting regular payments from Mr. Marber.”
Pryde’s mouth opened in an O. “So go do your checking,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
She trawled the office, noticing that Linford was still sifting through paperwork. Grant Hood came up to her, holding a photocopied page from Marber’s guest book.
“What do you reckon that says?” he asked.
She examined the signature. “Could be Marlowe.”
“Only there was no one called Marlowe on the guest list.” He exhaled noisily.
“Templer’s got you trying to sort out who was there that night?” Siobhan guessed.
Hood nodded. “Most of the work’s been done, but there are some names we can’t put faces to, and vice versa. Come and take a look . . .”
He led her to his computer and opened up a file. A floor plan of the gallery appeared on the screen, with little crosses representing the guests. Another click of the mouse, and the perspective changed. The crosses had become figures, moving in spasms around the room.
“It’s the latest software,” he told her.
“Very impressive, Grant. You worked over the weekend on this?”
He nodded, proud of his achievement, like a kid showing off something he’d made.
“And what exactly does it add to the sum of our knowledge?”
He looked up at her, realizing she was mocking him. “Sod off, Siobhan,” he said. She just smiled.
“Is one of these stick men meant to be Cafferty?”
Another click and a list of witness descriptions appeared. “That’s Cafferty,” Hood said. Siobhan read down the column: stocky, silver-haired, black leather jacket more suited to a man half his age.
“That’s him,” she agreed, patting Hood’s shoulder and moving off in search of a phone book. Davie Hynds had just come in, Pryde checking his watch and frowning. Hynds walked sheepishly into the room, catching Siobhan as she stood by George Silvers’s desk, a tattered copy of Yellow Pages in her hands.
“I got stuck in traffic,” he explained. “They’re digging up George IV Bridge.”
“I must remember that one for tomorrow.”
He saw that the directory was open at taxi companies. “Doing a bit of moonlighting?”
“MG Private Hire,” she said. “The driver who took Marber home after the show.”
Hynds nodded, looked over her shoulder as her finger ran down the page.
“MG Cabs,” she said, tapping the name. “Address in Lochend.”
“Owned by Cafferty?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s got that one cab firm out in Gorgie. Exclusive Cars or something . . .” Her finger ran back up the page. “There they are.” Again her finger tapped the name. “What do you think the MG stands for?”
“Maybe the cabs are actually sports cars.”
“Wake up, Davie. Remember his lettings agency? MGC, it’s called. Look at the letters of MG Cabs.”
“MGC again,” Hynds acknowledged.
“I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”
“It doesn’t prove the firm’s owned by Cafferty, of course.”
“Maybe the quickest way is to ask Mr. Cafferty himself.” Siobhan walked back over to her desk and picked up the phone.
“Is that Donna?” she said when the call was answered. “Donna, it’s DS Clarke, we met yesterday. Any chance I could have a word with your boss?” She looked up at Hynds, who was eyeing her coffee greedily. “Oh, is he? Could you maybe ask him to give me a call?” Siobhan gave the secretary her number. “Meantime, I don’t suppose you know if Mr. Cafferty happens to own an outfit called MG Cabs?” Siobhan pushed her coffee towards Hynds, nodding when he looked at her. He smiled gratefully and took a couple of sips. “Thanks anyway,” Siobhan was saying, putting down the receiver.