Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin

Author:Ian Rankin [Rankin, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Detective Stories, Crime, General Fiction, English, Scottish author, Mystery
ISBN: 0752865633
Publisher: Orion Press
Published: 2004-01-20T23:00:00+00:00

16

Rebus and Ellen Wylie were back at Whitemire.

An interpreter had been brought in from Glasgow’s Kurdish community. She was a small, bustling woman who spoke with a broad west-coast accent and wore a lot of gold and layers of bright clothing. To Rebus’s eyes, she looked as if she should be reading palms in a fairground caravan. Instead, she was sitting at a table in the cafeteria with Mrs Yurgii, the two detectives, and Alan Traynor. Rebus had told Traynor that they’d be fine on their own, but he’d insisted on being present, sitting a little apart from the group, arms folded. There were staff in the cafeteria—cleaners and cooks. Pots occasionally clanked on to metal surfaces, causing Mrs Yurgii to jump every time. Her children were being looked after in their room. She carried a handkerchief with her, rolled around the fingers of her right hand.

It was Ellen Wylie who had found the interpreter; and it was Wylie who asked the questions.

‘Did she never hear from her husband? Never try contacting him?’

The translated question would follow, and then the answer, translated back into English again.

‘How could she? She didn’t know where he was.’

‘Inmates are allowed to make phone calls out,’ Traynor clarified.

‘There’s a pay-phone … they’re welcome to use it.’

‘If they have the money,’ the interpreter snapped.

‘He never tried contacting her?’ Wylie persisted.

‘It’s always possible he heard things from those on the outside,’ the interpreter answered, without posing the question to the widow.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m assuming people do actually leave this place?’ Again she glared at Traynor.

‘Most are sent home,’ he retorted.

‘To be disappeared,’ she spat back.

‘Actually,’ Rebus interrupted, ‘it’s true that some people are bailed out of here, aren’t they, Mr Traynor?’

‘That’s right. If someone stands as a referee …’

‘And that’s how Stef Yurgii might have heard news of his family from people he met who’d been in here.’

Traynor looked sceptical.

‘Do you have a list?’ Rebus asked.

‘A list?’

‘Of people who’ve been bailed.’

‘Of course we do.’

‘And the addresses they’re staying at?’ Traynor nodded. ‘So it would be easy to say how many of them are in Edinburgh, maybe even in Knoxland itself?’

‘I don’t think you understand the system, Inspector. How many people in Knoxland do you think would give shelter to an asylum-seeker? I admit I don’t know the place, but from what I’ve seen in the newspapers … ’

‘You’ve got a point,’ Rebus agreed. ‘But all the same, maybe you could pull those records for me?’

‘They’re confidential.’

‘I don’t need to see all of them. Just the ones living in Edinburgh.’

‘And just the Kurds?’ Traynor added.

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘Well, that’s feasible, I suppose.’ Traynor still sounded less than enthusiastic.

‘Maybe you could do it now, while we’re talking to Mrs Yurgii?’

‘I’ll do it later.’

‘Or one of your staff … ?’

‘Later, Inspector.’ Traynor had firmed up his voice. Mrs Yurgii was talking. The interpreter nodded when she’d finished. ‘Stef could not go home. They would kill him. He was a human rights journalist.’ She frowned. ‘I think that’s correct.’ She checked with the widow, nodded again.

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