Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin

original use.
    ‘Sorry about that,’ Cammo said. ‘Blair was saddened by the news, apparently.’
    Lorna snorted, back to her old self. ‘Tony Blair: I’d trust him as far as I could throw him.’ She looked at her brother. ‘Bet he’s never heard of you either. Roddy would have made twice the MP you’ll ever be. What’s more, at least he had the guts to stand for the
Scottish
parliament, somewhere he felt he could do some good!’
    Her voice had risen, and with it the colour in her brother’s cheeks.
    ‘Lorna,’ he said quietly, ‘you’re distraught.’
    ‘Don’t you dare patronise me!’
    The MP looked at his two guests, his smile attempting to reassure them that there was nothing here to worry about, nothing to take to the outside world.
    ‘Lorna, I really think—’
    ‘All the crap this family’s been through over the years, it’s all down to you!’ Lorna was growing hysterical. ‘Dad tried his damnedest to hate you!’
    ‘That’s enough!’
    ‘And Roddy, poor bastard, actually wanted to
be
you! And everything with Alasdair—’
    Cammo Grieve raised his hand to slap his sister. She reared back from him, shrieking. And then there was someone in the doorway, shaking slightly, leaning heavily on a black walking cane. And someone else in the hall, hand clutching at the neck of her dressing-gown.
    ‘Stop this at once!’ Alicia Grieve shouted, stamping down hard with her cane. Behind her, Seona Grieve looked almost ghostly, as if alabaster had replaced the blood in her veins.

8
    ‘I didn’t even know this place had a restaurant.’ Siobhan looked around her. ‘You can smell the paint.’
    ‘It’s only been open a week,’ Derek Linford said, sitting down opposite her. They were in the Tower restaurant at the top of the Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street. There was a terrace outside, but no one was eating alfresco this December night. Their window table gave a view of the Sheriff’s Court and the Castle. The rooftops shone with frost. ‘I hear it’s pretty good,’ he added. ‘Same owner as the Witchery.’
    ‘Busy enough.’ Siobhan was studying the other diners. ‘I recognise that woman over there. Doesn’t she do restaurant reviews for one of the papers?’
    ‘I never read them.’
    She looked at him. ‘How did you hear about it?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘This place.’
    ‘Oh.’ He was already studying the menu. ‘Some guy from Historic Scotland mentioned it.’
    She smiled at ‘guy’, reminded that Linford was her own age, maybe even a year or two younger. His dress sense was so conservative – dark wool suit, white shirt, blue tie – that he seemed older. It might help explain his popularity with the ‘high hiedyins’ at the Big House. When he’d asked her to dinner, her first instinct had been to refuse. It wasn’t as if they’d exactly hit it off in the Botanics. But at the same time she wondered if she could learn anything from him. Her own mentor, Chief Inspector Gill Templer, didn’t seem to be helping much – toobusy proving to her male colleagues that she was every bit their equal. Which wasn’t the truth. Truth was, she was better than most male CIs Siobhan had worked for. But Gill Templer didn’t seem to know that.
    ‘Would this be the guy who discovered the body in Queensberry House?’
    ‘That’s him,’ Linford said. ‘See anything you fancy?’
    With some men, it would have come out as a chat-up line, trying to hook the expected response from her. But Linford was checking the menu like it was evidence.
    ‘I’m not much of a meat-eater,’ she told him. ‘Any news on Roddy Grieve?’
    The waitress arrived and they ordered. Linford checked that Siobhan wasn’t driving before asking for a bottle of white wine.
    ‘Did you walk?’ he asked.
    She shook her head. ‘Taxied it.’
    ‘I should have asked. I could’ve picked you up.’
    ‘That’s all right. You were telling me about Roddy Grieve.’
    ‘God, that sister of his.’ Linford shook his