Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin Page B

mumbled. He probably reckoned he wouldn’t have the job much longer. Bad PR for the security firm, a body finding its way on to the premises. Itwas a low-pay job, being a security guard, and the hours tended to suit loners and the desperate. Rebus had told the man that they’d be checking up on him – you found a lot of ex-cons in his line of work. The man had admitted to spending some time at what he called the Windsor Hotel Group, meaning in jail. But he swore no one had asked him for copies of his keys. He wasn’t protecting anybody.
    ‘On you go then,’ Rebus said. The guard left. Rebus let out a long whistle of breath and stretched his vertebrae. ‘Anything?’
    ‘A few suspicious names,’ Linford announced. He turned the ledger so Rebus could see. The names were their own, along with Ellen Wylie, Grant Hood, Bobby Hogan and Joe Dickie: the group who’d toured Queensberry House. ‘Or how about the Scottish Secretary and the Catalan President?’
    Rebus blew his nose. There was a one-bar electric fire in the room, but the heat was having no difficulty escaping through the cracks in the door and window. ‘What did you reckon to our nightwatchman?’
    Linford closed the register. ‘I think if my two-year-old nephew asked for the gate keys, he’d hand them over rather than risk a bite to the ankles.’
    Rebus went to the window. It was crusted with dirt. Outside, everyone was busy knocking things down and putting things up. An investigation was like that, too: sometimes you were demolishing an alibi or story, sometimes building up the case, each new piece of information another brick in the often unlovely edifice.
    ‘But is that what happened?’ he asked.
    ‘I don’t know. Let’s see what the background check digs up.’
    ‘I think we’re wasting our time. I don’t think he knows anything.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘I don’t even think he was here. Remember how vaguehe was about the weather that night? He couldn’t even be sure which route he took when he patrolled.’
    ‘He’s not the brightest of specimens, John. We still have to do the check.’
    ‘Because it’s procedure?’
    Linford nodded. Outside, something was making a noise:
rugga rugga rugga rugga rugga
.
    ‘Has that thing been going all the time?’ Rebus asked.
    ‘What thing?’
    ‘That noise, the cement mixer or whatever it is.’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    There was a knock at the door. The site manager came in, holding his yellow hard hat by its rim. He wore a yellow oilskin jacket over brown cord trousers. His walking boots were covered in glaur.
    ‘Just a few follow-up questions,’ Linford informed him, gesturing for the man to sit.
    ‘I’ve inventoried the tools,’ the site manager said, unfolding a sheet of paper. ‘Of course, things
do
go walkabout on any job.’
    Rebus looked at Linford. ‘You take this one. I need some fresh air.’
    He stepped out into the cold and breathed deeply, then searched his pockets for cigarettes. He’d been going off his head in there. Christ, and a drink would go down too well. There was a mobile van parked outside the gates, selling burgers and tea to the construction workers.
    ‘Double malt,’ Rebus said to the woman.
    ‘And do you take water with that?’
    He smiled. ‘Just a tea, thanks. Milk, no sugar.’
    ‘Right, love.’ She kept rubbing her hands together between tasks.
    ‘Must get pretty cold, working here.’
    ‘Perishing,’ she admitted. ‘I could do with a tot now and again myself.’
    ‘What sort of hours are you open?’
    ‘Andy opens at eight, does breakfasts and things. Iusually take over at two, so he can hit the cash and carry.’
    Rebus checked his watch. ‘It’s just gone eleven.’
    ‘Sure you don’t want anything else? I’ve just cooked a couple of burgers.’
    ‘Go on then. Just the one.’ He patted his midriff.
    ‘You need feeding up, you do,’ she told him, winking as she spoke.
    Rebus took the tea from her, then the burger. There were sauce bottles on a