Free Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin

haven’t always liked the way candidates were selected.’
    Linford was nodding. ‘Maybe some bad blood there?’
    ‘We’ll ask. Could just be a mugging gone wrong.’
    ‘Or a liaison.’
    Rebus glanced at him. Linford was staring at the lights, fingers poised on the handbrake. ‘Maybe the SOCOs will work their magic.’
    ‘Fingerprints and fibres?’ Linford sounded sceptical.
    ‘Lot of mud around. Could be we’ll find footprints.’
    The light turned green. With an empty road ahead, the BMW quickly changed up through its gears.
    ‘The boss has already been on to me,’ Linford told his passenger. Rebus knew that by boss he didn’t mean anything as middle-management as a chief super. ‘The
ACC
,’ Linford explained: Colin Carswell, Assistant Chief Constable (Crime). ‘He wanted to bring in a special team, something as high profile as this.’
    ‘Crime Squad?’
    It was Linford’s turn to shrug. ‘Hand picked. I don’t know who he had in mind.’
    ‘What did you tell him?’
    ‘I said with me in charge, he didn’t have to worry.’ Linford couldn’t help it, had to turn towards Rebus to enjoy his reaction. Rebus was trying to look unmoved by it all. All his years on the force, he’d probably spoken with the ACC no more than two or three times.
    Linford smiled, knew he’d hit some soft, fleshy part beneath Rebus’s shell-like exterior.
    ‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘when I mentioned that DI Rebus would be assisting . . .’
    ‘Assisting?’ Rebus bristled, and only now recollected that Linford had also spoken of being in charge.
    ‘He was a bit more dubious,’ Linford went on, ignoring the outburst. ‘But I told him you’d be fine, said we were working well together. That’s what I mean by assisting – you helping me, me helping you.’
    ‘But with you in charge?’
    Hearing his own phrase thrown back at him seemed toplease Linford: another palpable hit. ‘Your own chief super doesn’t want you on the case, John. Why is that?’
    ‘None of your business.’
    ‘Everyone knows about you, John. I could say that your reputation precedes you.’
    ‘But it’ll be different with you in charge?’ Rebus guessed.
    Linford shrugged and was silent for a moment, then shifted in his seat. ‘While we’re enjoying this time together,’ he said, ‘maybe I should throw in that I’m seeing Siobhan tonight. But don’t worry, I’ll have her home by eleven.’
    Roddy Grieve and his wife had lived together somewhere in Cramond, but Seona Grieve had intimated that she would be with Roddy’s mother. Situated at the end of a short narrow street, the huge detached house had a jagged feel to it. Maybe it was to do with the several crow-step gables, or the stone relief thistle set into the wall above the front door. There were no cars in the drive, and curtains had been drawn closed in every window – a sensible precaution: the reporters and cameraman were back, parked kerbside in a silver Audi 80. TV crews were probably on their way. Rebus had no doubt the Grieves would cope with the attention.
    Grieve: the resonance of the name hit him for the first time. The grieving Grieves.
    Linford rang the doorbell. ‘Nice place,’ he said.
    ‘I was brought up in something similar,’ Rebus told him. Then, after a pause: ‘Well, we lived in a cul-de-sac.’
    ‘And there’, Linford guessed, ‘the comparison ends.’
    The door was opened by a man dressed in a camel-hair coat with dark brown lapels. The coat was unbuttoned. Beneath it could be glimpsed a tailored pinstripe suit and white shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned at the neck. In his left hand, the man carried a plain black tie.
    ‘Mr Grieve?’ Rebus guessed. He’d seen Cammo Grieveon TV many times. In the flesh he seemed taller and more distinguished, even in his present confused-looking state. His cheeks were red, either from cold or a few airline drinks. A couple of strands of silver and black hair were out of place.
    ‘You the police? Come