Exit Music (2007) by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page B

brings one of those little machines with him.”
    “With headphones?” Rebus guessed, watching as Wills nodded. “Just wonderful,” he muttered. “You were working here last year, Mr. Wills?”
    “Been here three years next month.”
    “And your colleague?”
    “Eight, maybe nine months. I tried his shift but couldn’t hack it. I like my afternoons and evenings free.”
    “The better to do some drinking?” Rebus cajoled. Wills’s face hardened, encouraging Rebus to press on. “Ever been in trouble, Mr. Wills?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Police trouble.”
    Wills made show of scratching dandruff from his scalp. “Long time ago,” he eventually said. “The bosses know about it.”
    “Fighting, was it?”
    “Thieving,” Wills corrected him. “But that was twenty years back.”
    “What about your car? You said you’d had a prang?”
    But Wills was peering through the window. “Here’s Gary now.” A pale-colored car had drawn to a halt outside the cabin, its driver locking it after him.
    The door burst open. “Hell’s going on downstairs, Joe?” The guard called Gary wasn’t yet quite in uniform. Rebus guessed the jacket was in his carrier bag, along with a sandwich box. He was a few years younger than Wills, a lot leaner, and half a foot taller. He dumped two newspapers onto the worktop but couldn’t get any farther into the room—with Rebus there, space was at a premium. The man was shrugging out of his coat: crisp white shirt beneath, but no tie—probably a clip-on tucked into a pocket somewhere.
    “I’m Detective Inspector Rebus,” Rebus told him. “Last night, a man was severely beaten.”
    “On Level Zero,” Wills added.
    “Is he dead?” the new arrival asked, wide-eyed. Wills made a cut-throat gesture with accompanying sound effect. “Bloody hell. Does the Reaper know?”
    Wills shook his head and saw that Rebus needed an explanation. “It’s what we call one of the bosses,” he said. “She’s the only one we ever see. Wears a long black coat with a pointy hood.”
    Hence the name. Rebus nodded his understanding. “I’ll need to take a statement,” he told the new arrival. Wills seemed suddenly keen to leave, gathering up his bits and pieces and stuffing them into his own supermarket carrier.
    “Happened on your watch, Gary,” he said with a tut. “The Reaper won’t be happy.”
    “Now there’s a turn-up for the books.” Gary had moved out of the cabin, giving Wills room to make his exit. Rebus came out, too, needing the oxygen.
    “We’ll talk again,” he warned the departing figure. Wills waved without looking back. Rebus turned his attention to Gary. Lanky, he’d have called him, and round-shouldered as if awkwardly aware of his height. A long face with a square jaw and well-defined cheekbones, plus a mop of dark hair. Rebus almost said it out loud: you should be on a stage in a band, not stuck in a dead-end job. But maybe Gary didn’t see it that way. Good-looking, though, which explained the “looker of a missus.” Then again, Rebus couldn’t tell just how high or low Joe Wills’s standards might be . . .
    Twenty minutes got him nothing except a retread: full name, Gary Walsh; maisonette in Shandon; nine months on the job; tried taxi driving before that but didn’t like the night shift; had seen and heard nothing unusual the previous evening.
    “What happens at eleven?” Rebus had asked.
    “We shut up shop—metal shutters come down at the entrance and exit.”
    “Nobody can get in or out?” Walsh had shaken his head. “You check no one’s locked in?” A nod. “Were any cars left on Level Zero?”
    “Not that I remember.”
    “You always park next to the cabin?”
    “That’s right.”
    “But when you drive out, you exit on Level Zero?” A nod from the guard. “And you didn’t see anything?”
    “Didn’t hear anything either.”
    “There would have been blood on the ground.”
    A shrug.
    “You like your music, Mr. Walsh.”
    “Love