Set in Darkness Read Free

advise on security matters pertaining to the Scottish Parliament. There were eight members of the PPLC, including one Scottish Office official and a shadowy figure who claimed to be from Scotland Yard, though when Rebus had phoned the Met in London, he’d been unable to trace him. Rebus’s bet was that the man – Alec Carmoodie – was MI5. Carmoodie wasn’t here today, and neither was Peter Brent, the sharp-faced and sharper-suited Scottish Office representative. Brent, for his sins, sat on several of the subcommittees, and had begged off today’s tour with the compelling excuse that he’d been through it twice before when accompanying visiting dignitaries.
    Making up the party today were the three final members of the PPLC. DS Ellen Wylie was from C Division HQ in Torphichen Place. It didn’t seem to bother her that she was the only woman on the team. She treated it like any other task, raising good points at the meetings andasking questions to which no one seemed to have any answers. DC Grant Hood was from Rebus’s own station, St Leonard’s. Two of them, because St Leonard’s was the closest station to the Holyrood site, and the parliament would be part of their beat. Though Rebus worked in the same office as Hood, he didn’t know him well. They’d not often shared the same shift. But Rebus did know the last member of the PPLC, DI Bobby Hogan from D Division in Leith. At the first meeting, Hogan had pulled Rebus to one side.
    ‘What the hell are we doing here?’
    ‘I’m serving time,’ Rebus had answered. ‘What about you?’
    Hogan was scoping out the room. ‘Christ, man, look at them. We’re Old Testament by comparison.’
    Smiling now at the memory, Rebus caught Hogan’s eye and winked. Hogan shook his head almost imperceptibly. Rebus knew what he was thinking: waste of time. Almost everything was a waste of time for Bobby Hogan.
    ‘If you’ll follow me,’ Gilfillan was saying, ‘we can take a look indoors.’
    Which, to Rebus’s mind, really was a waste of time. The committee having been set up, things had to be found for them to do. So here they were wandering through the dank interior of Queensberry House, their way lit irregularly by unsafe-looking strip lights and the torch carried by Gilfillan. As they climbed the stairwell – nobody wanted to use the lift – Rebus found himself paired with Joe Dickie, who asked a question he’d asked before.
    ‘Put in your exes yet?’ By which he meant the claim for expenses.
    ‘No,’ Rebus admitted.
    ‘Sooner you do, sooner they’ll cough up.’
    Dickie seemed to spend half his time at their meetings totting up figures on his pad of paper. Rebus had never seen the man write down anything as mundane as aphrase or sentence. Dickie was late thirties, big-framed with a head like an artillery shell stood on end. His black hair was cropped close to the skull and his eyes were as small and rounded as a china doll’s. Rebus had tried the comparison out on Bobby Hogan, who’d commented that any doll resembling Joe Dickie would ‘give a bairn nightmares’.
    ‘I’m a grown-up,’ Hogan had continued, ‘and he still scares me.’
    Climbing the stairs, Rebus smiled again. Yes, he was glad to have Bobby Hogan around.
    ‘When people think of archaeology,’ Gilfillan was saying, ‘they almost always see it in terms of digging
down
, but one of our most exciting finds here was in the attic. A new roof was built over the original one, and there are traces of what looks like a tower. We’d have to climb a ladder to get to it, but if anyone’s interested . . . ?’
    ‘Thank you,’ a voice said. Derek Linford: Rebus knew its nasal quality only too well by now.
    ‘Creep,’ another voice close to Rebus whispered. It was Bobby Hogan, bringing up the rear. A head turned: Ellen Wylie. She’d heard, and now gave what looked like the hint of a smile. Rebus looked to Hogan, who shrugged, letting him know he thought Wylie was all right.
    ‘How will