59

Sending Eddie back to the station to get started on the formal request for Diane Pearson’s patient list, Susie arranged to meet Rebecca at the Mitre, a bar that sat just off the junction of North Bridge and the Royal Mile. She didn’t want to be in the station now, just in case Burns’s good mood changed and he decided she was his pet plaything again.

She broke her normal rule of never drinking during the day and ordered a vodka, soda and lime. Just a single, but she needed something. When Rebecca saw the drink she turned back to the bar and came back with another for Susie and a large wine for herself.

“That bad?” Susie asked.

“Worse,” Rebecca replied, taking a long swig. “Spent most of the morning giving that shit line out to the nationals who have finally woken up to the story, then spent the rest of my time trying to find out a bit more about our leak, Mr Robertson. You?”

Susie went over the call from Hal, the link to the legal firm Montgomery worked for, the visit to Diane. The anger in her eyes when she asked about the divorce flashed across her vision. She chased it with another drink.

“Interesting,” Rebecca said, fishing out her notepad. “That chimes with some of the things I’ve been hearing today.”

“Oh,” Susie said. “How so?”

“Seems Harvey Robertson was quite the reporter in his day. As you know, covered the crime beat before Doug. Surely he’s spoken about him?”

Susie nodded, remembering the reaction when Harvey had phoned the night of Greig’s murder. The relief. “Yeah, he’s spoken about him. Seems like they’re close.”

Rebecca grimaced. “Not the best news. Seems Mr Robertson was tight with a lot of the legal firms in the city, had a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours sort of deal with a few of them, including Charlie’s firm. Landed him in trouble a couple of times. Formal complaints about potentially prejudicing trials with the release of sensitive information, that sort of thing.”

Susie swilled a mouthful of her drink against her tongue, enjoying the harsh bite of the vodka. “Is that the link we’ve been looking for?” she asked. “Robertson works at the Tribune, he’s linked to Montgomery, Montgomery’s firm is tied up in the Pearson case?”

“It’s possible, but it’s thin,” Rebecca replied. “It’s all third party. And besides, Harvey was on the crime beat before Greig was editor, so there’s no direct connection there.”

Susie murmured her agreement. It was sketchy, but it was the best they had. Damn, but it was frustrating. It was like feeling a familiar object blindfolded, you knew what was meant to be there but the information was scrambled, making it unfamiliar, alien.

Her phone startled her from her thoughts. She pulled it from her bag, expecting it to be Eddie. Felt a dull dread when she saw Burns’s caller ID flashing on the screen.

“Sir? How can I help?”

Rebecca watched as the colour drained from Susie’s face, her mouth dropping open as the stress rash started to blossom on her chest. She murmured a “Yes, sir”, listened, then followed it with a “No, sir. Of course, sir. I’m on my way, sir.”

She clicked off the call, looked at Rebecca, then downed her drink and moved to the second.

“Susie? Susie, what the hell…? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, what?”

Susie blinked, looked at her. When she spoke her voice was small, casual, as if she was reading out the weather from the newspaper and not shaking the world by its foundations.

“That was Burns,” she said. “They’ve found Gavin Pearson. On the Isle of Skye, at Harvey Robertson’s hotel. Dead. Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”

“Jesus Christ,” Rebecca whispered, numbness settling into her like a shroud. “What about Doug? Is he…? Did he…?”

“Doug?” Susie said, an edge of surprise in her voice. “No sign of him at the scene, he must still be on the road down.”

Rebecca frowned. “So where the hell is he? And why isn’t he taking calls?”

“Good questions,” Susie said.