Read Exit Music (2007) for Free Online Page A

blue-and-white-striped tape, resistant to the idea that anywhere in Edinburgh could be off limits to him. Or so Rebus surmised by the hand gesture the man made when warned by Ray Duff that he was contaminating a crime scene. Duff was shaking his head, more in sorrow than anything else, when Rebus approached.
    “Gates reckoned this is where I’d find you,” Rebus said. Duff rolled his eyes.
    “And now you’re walking all over my locus.”
    Rebus answered with a twitch of the mouth. Duff was crouching beside his forensics kit, a toughened red plastic toolbox bought from B&Q. Its myriad drawers opened concertina-style, but Duff was in the process of closing them.
    “Thought you’d be putting your feet up,” Duff commented.
    “No you didn’t.”
    Duff laughed. “True enough.”
    “Any joy?” Rebus asked.
    Duff snapped shut the box and lifted it with him as he got to his feet. “I wandered as far as the top of the lane, checking all the garages along the way. Thing is, if he’d been attacked up there, we’d have traces of blood on the roadway.” He stamped his foot to reinforce the point.
    “And?”
    “The blood’s elsewhere, John.” He gestured for Rebus to follow and took a left along King’s Stables Road. “See anything?”
    Rebus looked hard at the pavement and noticed the trail of splashes. There were intervals between them. The blood had lost most of its color but was still recognizable. “How come we didn’t spot this last night?”
    Duff shrugged. His car was parked curbside, and he unlocked it long enough to stow his box of tricks.
    “How far have you followed it?” Rebus asked.
    “I was just about to get started when you arrived.”
    “Then let’s go.”
    They began walking, eyes on the sporadic series of drips. “You going to join SCRU?” Duff asked.
    “Think they’d want me?” SCRU was the Serious Crime Review Unit. It consisted of three retired detectives, whose job was to look at unsolveds.
    “Did you hear about that result we got last week?” Duff said. “DNA from a sweated fingerprint. Sort of thing that can be useful on cold cases. DNA boost means we can decipher DNA multiples.”
    “Shame I can’t decipher what you’re saying.”
    Duff chuckled. “World’s changing, John. Faster than most of us can keep up with.”
    “You’re saying I should embrace the scrap heap?”
    Duff just shrugged. They’d covered a hundred yards or so and were standing at the exit to a multistory car park. There were two barriers; drivers could choose either one. Once you’d paid for your ticket, you slid it into a slot and the barrier would rise.
    “Have you ID’d the victim?” Duff asked, looking around as he tried to pick up the trail again.
    “A Russian poet.”
    “Did he drive a car?”
    “He couldn’t change his own lightbulbs, Ray.”
    “Thing about car parks, John . . . there’s always a bit of oil left lying around.”
    Rebus had noticed that there were intercoms fixed alongside either barrier. He pressed a button and waited. After a few moments, a voice crackled from the loudspeaker.
    “What is it?”
    “Wonder if you can help me —”
    “You after directions or something? Look, chief, this is a car park. All we do here is park cars.” It took Rebus only a second to work things out.
    “You can see me,” he said. Yes: a CCTV camera high up in one corner, pointing at the exit. Rebus gave it a wave.
    “Have you got a problem with your car?” the voice was asking.
    “I’m a cop,” Rebus answered. “Want to have a word with you.”
    “What about?”
    “Where are you?”
    “Next floor up,” the voice admitted eventually. “Is this to do with that prang I had?”
    “That depends—did you happen to hit a guy and kill him?”
    “Christ, no.”
    “Might be okay, then. We’ll be there in a minute.” Rebus moved away from the barrier towards where Ray Duff was down on all fours, peering beneath a parked BMW.
    “Not keen on these new Beamers,” Duff said,