“Months,” she agreed.

“Can’t have been easy in London…always the chance someone would recognize you.”

“I walked past Ben once…”

“As Santal?”

“He never knew.” She sat back. “That’s why I let Santal get close to Siobhan. Her parents had told me she was CID.”

“You wanted to see if your cover would hold?”

Rebus watched her nod, thinking now that he understood something. Stacey would have been devastated by her brother’s death, but to Santal it would have mattered very little. Problem was, all that grief was still caged-something he knew a bit about.

“ London wasn’t really my main base though,” Stacey was saying. “A lot of the groups have moved out-too easy for us to monitor them there. Manchester, Bradford, Leeds…that’s where I spent most of my time.”

“You think you made a difference?”

She gave this some thought. “We hope we do, don’t we?”

He nodded his agreement, sipped at his own pint, then put it down. “I’m still looking into Ben’s death.”

“I know.”

“The commander told you?” He watched her nod. “He’s been putting obstacles in my way.”

“He probably sees it as his job, Inspector. It’s nothing personal.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trying to protect a man called Richard Pennen.”

“Pennen Industries?”

It was Rebus’s turn to nod. “Pennen was picking up your brother’s hotel tab.”

“Strange,” she said. “There wasn’t much love lost.”

“Oh?”

She stared at him. “Ben had visited plenty of war zones. He knew the horrors inflicted by the arms trade.”

“The line I keep being fed is that Pennen sells technology rather than guns.”

She snorted. “Only a matter of time. Ben wanted to make things as awkward as possible. You should look back at Hansard-speeches he made in the House, asking all sorts of difficult questions.”

“Yet Pennen paid for his room.”

“And Ben would have loved that. He’d take a room from a dictator, then spend the whole trip slamming them.” She paused and swirled her drink, then turned her eyes back toward him. “You thought it was bribery, didn’t you? Pennen buying Ben off?” His silence answered her question. “My brother was a good man, Inspector.” At last, tears were welling in her eyes. “And I couldn’t even go to his bloody funeral.”

“He’d have understood,” Rebus offered. “My own…” Had to stop and clear his throat. “My own brother died last week. We cremated him on Friday.”

“I’m sorry.”

He lifted the glass to his mouth. “He was in his fifties. Doctors say it was a stroke.”

“You were close?”

“Phone calls mostly.” He paused again. “I put him in jail once for dealing drugs.” Looked at her to gauge her reaction.

“Is that what’s bothering you?” she asked.

“What?”

“That you never told him…” She struggled to get the words out, face twisting as the tears started falling. “Never told him you were sorry.” She got up from the table, fled to the restroom-one hundred percent Stacey Webster now. He thought maybe he should follow her, or at least send the barmaid in after her. But he just sat there instead, swilling the glass until fresh foam appeared on the surface of the beer, thinking about families. Ellen Wylie and her sister, the Jensens and their daughter Vicky, Stacey Webster and her brother…

“Mickey,” he said in a whisper. Naming the dead so they’d know they weren’t forgotten.

Ben Webster.

Cyril Colliar.

Edward Isley.

Trevor Guest.

“Michael Rebus,” he said out loud, making a little toast with his glass. Then he got up and bought refills-IPA, vodka and tonic. Stood by the bar as he waited for his change. Two regulars were discussing Team Britain’s chances at the 2012 Olympics.

“How come London always gets everything?” one of them complained.

“Funny they didn’t want the G8,” his companion added.

“Knew what was bloody coming.”

Rebus had to think for a moment. Wednesday today…it all wrapped up on Friday. Just one more full day and then the city could start getting back to normal. Steelforth and Pennen and all the other intruders would head south.

There wasn’t much love lost…

She’d meant between her brother and Richard Pennen, the MP trying to stymie Pennen’s expansion plans. Rebus had had Ben Webster all wrong, seeing him as a lackey. And Steelforth not letting Rebus near the hotel room. Not because he didn’t want any fuss, didn’t want the various bigwigs bothered with questions and theories. But to protect Richard Pennen.

Wasn’t much love lost.

Making Richard Pennen a suspect, or at the very least giving him a motive. Any one of the guards at the castle could have heaved the MP over the ramparts. There would have been bodyguards mixing with the guests…secret service, too-at least one detail apiece to protect the foreign secretary and defense secretary. Steelforth was SO12, next best thing to the spooks at MI5 and MI6. But if you wanted to get rid of someone, why choose that method? It was too public, too showy. Rebus knew from experience: the successful murders were where there was no murder. Smothered during sleep, drugged and then left in a moving vehicle, or simply made to disappear.

“Christ, John,” he scolded himself. “It’ll be little green men next.” Blame the circumstances: easy to imagine any manner of conspiracy happening around you in G8 week. He set the drinks down at the table, a little concerned now that Stacey had yet to emerge from the restroom. It struck him that his back had been turned while he’d waited at the bar. Gave it five more minutes, then asked the barmaid to check. She came out of the ladies’ shaking her head.

“Three quid wasted,” she told him, gesturing toward Stacey’s drink. “And too young for you anyway, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Back at Gayfield Square, she’d taken her suitcase but left him a note.

Good luck, but remember-Ben was my brother, not yours. Make sure you do your own grieving, too.

Hours yet until the sleeper car left. He could head to Waverley, but decided against it; wasn’t sure there was much more left to be said. Maybe she even had a point. By investigating Ben’s death, he was keeping Mickey’s memory close. Suddenly, there was a question he wished he’d asked her:

What do you think happened to your brother?

Well, he had her business card somewhere, the one she’d given him outside the morgue. He’d call her tomorrow maybe, see if she’d been able to sleep on the train to London. He’d told her he was still investigating the death, and all she’d said was “I know.” No questions; no theories of her own. Warned off by Steelforth? A good soldier always obeyed orders. But she must have been thinking about it, weighing the options.

A fall.

A leap.

A push.

“Tomorrow,” he told himself, heading back to the CID room, a long night of clandestine photocopying ahead.

Thursday, July 7, 2005