Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page B

like guns. Big ones to make a big loud noise. I’ll tell you something, I’d hate to have been down here. The report from a nine-millimetre in an enclosed space like this. It could blow out your eardrums.’
    ‘A silencer,’ Siobhan Clarke offered. It wasn’t her day. Abernethy just gave her a look, so Rebus provided the explanation.
    ‘Revolvers don’t take silencers.’
    Abernethy pointed to Rebus, but his eyes were on Clarke’s. ‘Listen to your Inspector, darling, you might learn something.’
    Rebus looked around the room. There were six people there, four of whom would gladly punch another’s lights out.
    He didn’t think Mr Blair-Fish would enter the fray.
    Abernethy meantime had sunk to his knees, rubbing his fingers over the floor, over ancient dirt and husks.
    ‘The SOCOs took off the top inch of earth,’ Rebus said, but Abernethy wasn’t listening. Bags and bags of the stuff had been taken to the sixth floor of Fettes HQ to be sieved and analysed and God knew what else by the forensics lab.
    It occurred to Rebus that all the group could now see of Abernethy was a fat arse and brilliant white Reeboks. Abernethy turned his face towards them and smiled. Then he got up, brushing his palms together.
    ‘Was the deceased a drug user?’
    ‘No signs.’
    ‘Only I was thinking, SaS, could be Smack and Speed.’
    Again, Rebus was impressed, thoroughly despite himself. Dust had settled in the gel of Abernethy’s hair, small enough motes of comfort.
    ‘Could be Scott and Sheena,’ offered Rebus. In other words: could be anything. Abernethy just shrugged. He’d been giving them a display, and now the show was over.
    ‘I think I’ve seen enough,’ he said. Kilpatrick nodded with relief. It must be hard, Rebus reflected, being a top cop in your field, a man with a rep, sent to act as tour guide for a junior officer … and a Sassenach at that.
    Galling, that was the word.
    Abernethy was speaking again. ‘Might as well drop in on the Murder Room while I’m here.’
    ‘Why not?’ said Rebus coldly.
    ‘No reason I can think of,’ replied Abernethy, all sweetness and bite.

5
    St Leonard’s police station, headquarters of the city’s B Division, boasted a semi-permanent Murder Room. The present inquiry looked like it had been going on forever. Abernethy seemed to favour the scene. He browsed among the computer screens, telephones, wall charts and photographs. Kilpatrick touched Rebus’s arm.
    ‘Keep an eye on him, will you? I’ll just go say hello to your Chief Super while I’m here.’
    ‘Right, sir.’
    Chief Inspector Lauderdale watched him leave. ‘So that’s Kilpatrick of the Crime Squad, eh? Funny, he looks almost mortal.’
    It was true that Kilpatrick’s reputation – a hard one to live up to – preceded him. He’d had spectacular successes in Glasgow, and some decidedly public failures too. Huge quantities of drugs had been seized, but a few terrorist suspects had managed to slip away.
    ‘At least he looks human,’ Lauderdale went on, ‘which is more than can be said for our cockney friend.’
    Abernethy couldn’t have heard this – he was out of earshot – but he looked up suddenly towards them and grinned. Lauderdale went to take a phone call, and the Special Branch man sauntered back towards Rebus, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets.
    ‘It’s a good operation this, but there’s not much to go on, is there?’
    ‘Not much.’
    ‘And what you’ve got doesn’t make much sense.’
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘You worked with Scotland Yard on a case, didn’t you?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘With George Flight?’
    ‘Right again.’
    ‘He’s gone for retraining, you know. I mean, at his age. Got interested in computers, I don’t know, maybe he’s got a point. They’re the future of crime, aren’t they? Day’s coming, the big villains won’t have to move from their living rooms.’
    ‘The big villains never have.’
    This earned a smile from Abernethy, or at least a