‘Maybe that’s where I want to be,’ she retorted, regretting the words the moment they were out.
‘Nice to have a bit of plain speaking,’ Grant said.
‘I’m all for it,’ John Rebus said from the doorway. Ellen Wylie straightened up and folded her arms. ‘Speaking of which,’ he went on, ‘sorry, Ellen, I should have called you.’
‘Forget it.’ But it was clear to everyone in the room that she wouldn’t.
When Rebus had listened to Siobhan’s version of the morning’s events — Grant interrupting now and then with a comment or different perspective — they all looked to him for a decision. He ran a finger along the top of the laptop’s screen.
‘Everything you’ve just told me,’ he advised, ‘needs to be taken to DCS Templer.’
To Siobhan’s eyes, Grant didn’t look so much vindicated as revoltingly smug. Ellen Wylie, meantime, looked like she was spoiling for a fight with anyone... about anything. As a murder team, they weren’t exactly ideal.
‘Okay,’ she said, ready to make at least a partial peace, ‘we’ll go talk to the Chief Super.’ And, as Rebus started nodding, she added: ‘Though I’m willing to bet it’s not what you would have done.’
‘Me?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have had the first clue, Siobhan. Know why?’
‘Why?’
‘Because e-mail’s a black art as far as I’m concerned.’
Siobhan smiled, but there was a thread running through her mind: black art... coffins used in witches’ spells... Flip’s death on a hillside called Hellbank.
Witchcraft?
Six of them in the cramped office at Gayfield Square: Gill Templer and Bill Pryde; Rebus and Ellen Wylie; Siobhan and Grant. Templer was the only one sitting. Siobhan had printed off all the e-mails, and Templer was sifting through them silently. Finally she looked up.
‘Is there any way we can identify Quizmaster?’
‘Not that I know of,’ Siobhan admitted.
‘It’s possible,’ Grant added. ‘I mean, I’m not sure how, but I think it’s possible. Look at these viruses, somehow the Americans always seem to be able to trace them back.’
Templer nodded. ‘That’s true.’
‘The Met has a computer crime unit, doesn’t it?’ Grant went on. ‘They could have links to the FBI.’
Templer studied him. ‘Think you’re up to it, Grant?’
He shook his head. ‘I like computers, but this is way out of my league. I mean, I’d be happy to liaise...’
‘Fair enough.’ Templer turned to Siobhan. ‘This German student you were telling us about...’
‘Yes?’
‘I’d like a bit more detail.’
‘Shouldn’t be too difficult.’
Suddenly Templer’s gaze shifted to Wylie. ‘Can you run with that, Ellen?’
Wylie looked surprised. ‘I suppose so.’
‘You’re splitting us up?’ Rebus interrupted.
‘Unless you can think of a good reason not to.’
‘A doll was left at Falls, now the body’s turned up. It’s the same pattern as before.’
‘Not according to your coffin-maker. Different workmanship altogether, I believe he said.’
‘You’re putting it down to coincidence?’
‘I’m not putting it down to anything, and if something else crops up in connection with it, you can start back in again. But we’re on a murder case now, and that changes everything.’
Rebus glanced towards Wylie. She was simmering — the transfer from dusty old autopsies to a background check on a student’s curious demise... it wasn’t exactly thrilling her. But at the same time she wasn’t going to throw her weight behind Rebus — too busy working on her own sense of injustice.
‘Right,’ Templer said into the silence. ‘For the moment, you’ll be going back to the body of the investigation — and yes, I know there’s a joke in there somewhere.’ She tidied the sheets of paper together, made to hand them back to Siobhan. ‘Can you stay behind for a sec?’
‘Sure,’ Siobhan said. The rest of them squeezed out of the room, glad of the fresher, cooler air. Rebus, however, loitered near Templer’s door. He stared across the room to the array of information on the far wall — faxes, photos and the rest. Someone was busy dismantling the collage, now that this was no longer a MisPer inquiry. The pace of the investigation seemed already to have slowed, not from any sense of shock or out of respect for the dead, but because things had changed: there was no need to rush, no one out there whose life they might just possibly save...
Inside the office, Templer was asking Siobhan if she’d like to reconsider the liaison position.
‘Thanks,’ Siobhan replied. ‘But I don’t think so.’
Templer leaned back in her chair. ‘Want to share the reasons with me?’
Siobhan looked around, as though seeking out the phrases that might be hidden on the bare walls. ‘I can’t think of any offhand,’ she shrugged. ‘I just don’t fancy it right now.’
‘I may not fancy asking again.’
‘I know. Maybe I’m just too deep into this case. I want to keep working it.’
‘Okay,’ Templer said, dragging out the second syllable. ‘I think that’s us finished here.’
‘Right.’ Siobhan reached for the doorhandle, trying not to read too much into those words.
‘Oh, could you ask Grant to pop in?’
Siobhan paused with the door an inch or two open, then nodded and left the room. Rebus stuck his head round.
‘Got two seconds, Gill?’
‘Just barely.’
He wandered in anyway. ‘Something I forgot to mention...’
‘Forgot?’ She produced a wry smile.
He had three sheets of fax paper in his hand. ‘These came through from Dublin.’
‘Dublin?’
‘A contact there called Declan Macmanus. I was asking about the Costellos.’
She looked up from the sheets. ‘Any particular reason?’
‘Just a hunch.’
‘We’d already looked into the family.’
He nodded. ‘Of course: a quick phone call, and back comes the news that there are no convictions. But you know as well as I do, that’s often just the beginning of the story.’
And in the case of the Costellos, that story was a long one. Rebus knew he had Templer hooked. When Grant Hood knocked, she told him to come back in five minutes.
‘Better make that ten,’ Rebus added, winking towards the young man. Then he moved three file-boxes from the spare chair and made himself comfortable.
Macmanus had come good. David Costello had been wild in his youth: ‘the result of too much money given and not enough attention’, in Macmanus’s phrase. Wild meant fast cars, speeding tickets, verbal warnings issued where some miscreants would have found themselves behind bars. There were fights in pubs, smashed windows and phone boxes, at least two episodes when he’d relieved himself in a public place — O’Connell Bridge, mid-afternoon. Even Rebus had been impressed by this last. It was said that the eighteen-year-old David had held a record of sorts in the number of pubs he was barred from at the same time: the Stag’s Head, J. Grogan’s, Davie Byrnes, O’Donoghue’s, Doheny and Nesbitt’s, the Shelbourne... eleven in total. The previous year, an ex-girlfriend complained to police that he’d punched her in the face outside a nightclub on the banks of the Liffey. Templer looked up when she reached that part.
‘She’d had a few, couldn’t remember the name of the nightclub,’ Rebus said. ‘Eventually, she let it drop.’
‘You think maybe money changed hands?’
He shrugged. ‘Keep reading.’
Macmanus conceded that David Costello had cleaned up his act, pinpointing the turnaround to an eighteenth birthday party, where a friend had tried to leap between two roofs for a dare, falling short, plummeting into the alley below.