Rather Be the Devil (Inspector Rebus 21)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘You told me you were with the police.’

  ‘I really didn’t.’

  ‘Well, cop or no cop, I want you out.’

  ‘But I can still bring a few LPs round for an autograph?’

  ‘You can fucking whistle, Mr Whoever-you-are.’

  ‘I’m really not very good at whistling.’

  ‘And I’m not very patient when it comes to people who’ve conned their way into my house.’ Collier had taken hold of Rebus’s forearm. Rebus just stared at him until he released it.

  ‘Good boy,’ Rebus said, exiting the studio and making for the stairs. ‘Thanks for the coffee and the tour. Maybe I’ll see you at a concert one of these days.’

  ‘I’ll make sure your name’s on the door – to be admitted under no circumstances.’

  Rebus paused on the staircase. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said, without turning back towards Collier.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Robert Chatham worked as a doorman all over the city – maybe you did happen across him without knowing it.’

  ‘I don’t drink in places that need doormen.’

  Rebus had started climbing the stairs again. ‘Nice talking to you, Bruce,’ he said.

  Rebus had texted Siobhan Clarke from his flat, suggesting a catch-up. Her reply – Bringing doggy bag – had puzzled him until he opened his door and saw her holding up the carrier from Pataka.

  ‘And soft drinks all round,’ Fox added, hoisting another carrier filled with cans.

  ‘It’s like New Year came early – go on through, then.’

  Brillo was waiting in the living room. Clarke and Fox gave him plenty of attention while Rebus filled a plate. Fox was browsing the Maria Turquand file when Rebus returned from the kitchen.

  ‘This has to go to Alvin James,’ Fox reminded him.

  ‘First thing tomorrow,’ Rebus promised.

  ‘Malcolm tells me you kept my name out of it,’ Clarke added. ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘I’m a lot of things, but a grass isn’t one of them.’ Rebus settled in his chair and started scooping up curry with a spoon. Fox eventually joined Clarke on the sofa and she offered him an Irn-Bru.

  ‘Actually, I got the San Pellegrino for me,’ he complained.

  ‘Tough,’ she informed him, having nabbed it for herself.

  ‘So how are things in the big school?’ Rebus asked, eyes on Fox.

  ‘I’ve not had to report any bullying yet,’ Fox replied.

  ‘Team seem decent enough. Talk me through them.’

  ‘The two DS’s are pretty hard-nosed. Sean Glancey’s from Aberdeen originally.’

  ‘He’s the one who keeps sweating?’

  Fox nodded. ‘Cut his teeth on hairy-arsed oilmen fighting their way through Friday and Saturday night. Wallace Sharpe is a Dundonian. Parents worked for Timex and wanted him to go into electronics. He reckons that if he had, he’d have designed a million-selling game by now and be living on a yacht. When he speaks you can hardly hear him, but he’s sharp as they come.’

  ‘What about the DCs?’

  ‘Mark Oldfield’s the one who seems intent on getting me wound up.’

  ‘Maybe because the first thing you did,’ Rebus reminded him, ‘was turn him into the tea boy.’

  Clarke swivelled to face Fox. ‘Did you?’ He shrugged a response, attention still on Rebus.

  ‘Which leaves Anne Briggs. Like Oldfield, she’s west coast through and through. The pair of them talk in a code only they can decipher. Why the wry smile?’

  ‘There’s a folk singer called Anne Briggs.’ Rebus gestured towards the rack of LPs beneath his hi-fi. ‘One or two of her albums in there if I looked hard enough.’

  ‘Probably not the same person,’ Fox commented.

  ‘Probably not,’ Rebus agreed. ‘But it’s been my night for musicians.’

  ‘You went to see Bruce Collier?’ Clarke guessed.

  ‘He happens to live across the street from Anthony Brough’s office,’ Rebus said for Fox’s benefit, watching as Brillo curled up on the sofa in the gap between Fox and Clarke.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he didn’t have much to add, though he did recall being interviewed by Chatham.’ Rebus paused. ‘So Malcolm and I have both been busy – how about you, Siobhan? Feeling a bit left out?’

  ‘This is the thanks I get for bringing you curry?’ She watched him hold up a hand in apology.

  ‘Malcolm says he’s put a good word in for you, though.’

  She tried out a scowl, but Rebus only grinned and tipped another spoonful of rogan josh into his mouth. ‘I’ve been busy too,’ she eventually stated. ‘Went to check on Craw Shand, and he’s not budging from his house.’

  ‘That’s the last place he should be.’

  ‘I did try telling him that. And I was proved right when I saw Darryl Christie’s car cruising past.’ She saw she had both men’s full attention. ‘Darryl wasn’t driving, though; it was a guy called Harry, who supposedly manages the Devil’s Dram.’

  ‘Checking out the lie of the land?’

  ‘Looked like. I pulled him over for a word.’

  ‘No weapons on view? No smell of petrol?’

  Clarke shook her head.

  ‘Why would there be …’ Fox broke off as comprehension dawned. ‘To pour through the letter box.’

  ‘With any luck, Darryl will surmise we’re watching Craw round the clock.’

  ‘We’re not, though, are we?’ Rebus said.

  ‘I’ve flagged the address up to the patrols – they might manage one pass every hour or so, unless something kicks off elsewhere. Pretty much the same coverage Darryl Christie himself is getting.’

  ‘Not much more we can do, then,’ Rebus commented. He caught the look from the sofa. ‘And by “we”, of course I mean “you”.’ Having finished the food, he placed the plate on the floor. Brillo had one eye open, watching. Rebus stifled a belch.

  ‘They say it’s toughest after a meal,’ Fox said. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Depends what you mean.’

  ‘Nicotine craving.’

  Rebus gave him a hard stare. ‘You’d make a good torturer, Malcolm, has anyone ever told you that?’

  ‘Someone I know,’ Clarke added, ‘says acupuncture can help. They just press their ear lobe whenever they feel the need.’

  ‘Well the pair of you are starting to give me the needle, which means it’s almost chucking-out time.’

  Fox and Clarke finished their drinks and got to their feet.

  ‘Know what doesn’t quite compute?’ Clarke asked. ‘Darryl Christie’s reaction. I mean, if Craw turns out to be in the clear, then his attacker is still out there. Shouldn’t he be at least a little bit spooked?’

  ‘What makes you think he isn’t?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘When I phoned him, he was at home listening to music. At least one of his brothers was there with him. It all sounds too normal, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe he’s got guards surrounding the place,’ Fox suggested.

  ‘Oh now you’ve done it,’ Rebus said. ‘You’ve planted a seed, which means Siobhan’s going to have to drive over there and take a look for herself. Am I right?’

  Clarke considered this. ‘It’s practically on my way home,’ she eventually conceded.

  The Christie house was in darkness by the time she reached it. No Range Rover visible in the driveway and no muscle securing the perimeter or parked kerbside, ready to spring into action. A typical suburban street in one of the wealthier enclaves of the city, places where crime remained rare. Clarke stopped her car across the road, the engine idling while she watched and waited. A single-word text arrived from Rebus.

  Anything?

  She typed in her own single-word reply – Nada – and, yawning, headed for home.

  Day Five

  10

  Craw Shand wasn’t a complete idiot, despite what everybody seemed to think.

  He checked the outside world from his upstairs bed
room, even opening the window so he could peer to left and right. Then another check from behind the downstairs curtains, just in case anyone was stationed on his doorstep. Having assured himself that the coast was clear, he shrugged into his coat, stuffed a shopping bag into one pocket and headed out.

  He kept his collar up and his head down, offering little more than grunts to the few neighbours who greeted him. He was off to the Lidl, where his mission was to stock up for the next few days. He had twenty-six pounds in cash, which would be more than enough. Tinned soup and ravioli, bread, a few beers. Salted peanuts as a treat maybe. Not the big packets – he always seemed to finish those at one sitting and felt queasy after. And no wine – these days it furred his brain as well as his tongue. He had to stay sharp. So just the beers to complement the tablets stashed away at home. The tablets had come from a pal. Happy pills, doled out for depression. They got him nicely buzzing, washed down with a couple of beers.

  Buzz, buzz, he said to himself as he entered the store. He’d be in and out in five minutes – knew the layout like the back of his hand. Unless they’d moved stuff around. They did that sometimes. He’d complained once at the checkout.

  ‘We call it a “refresh”,’ he’d been told.

  ‘I call it messing with my head,’ he’d retorted. But then the manager had come over and asked if there was a problem. So that had been that.

  This morning was fine, though, everything in its right place. Five minutes in and out, like a pro. Craw was turning from a shelf when he bumped into the man.

  ‘Didn’t see you there,’ he apologised.

  ‘Problem with getting to my age,’ the man replied genially, ‘you mostly become invisible.’ He was smiling, his hands empty – no basket, no shopping. ‘How you doing, Craw?’

  ‘Do I know you?’ Shand looked around, but security was nowhere.

  ‘You might know the name – it’s Cafferty.’

  Shand’s face couldn’t help registering surprise. ‘Mr Cafferty,’ he stuttered.

  ‘So you do know me then?’ The smile broadened.

  ‘I’ve heard plenty about you.’

  ‘And I’ve been hearing about you, Craw.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Darryl Christie used to be someone I considered a friend. Well, maybe not a friend exactly, but someone I could do business with. That all changed, of course. Darryl started stepping on a lot of people’s toes, mine more energetically than most, if you take my meaning.’ Cafferty waited, but Shand had nothing to say. He gestured towards Shand’s basket. ‘Nearly done?’

  ‘Nearly.’

  ‘Maybe we could go back to yours and talk a bit.’

  ‘Talk?’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Craw. Whoever thumped Darryl maybe thought they were doing me a favour. I have to admit, I almost wish I’d had a ringside seat. If it was you, well, I just want to shake your hand.’

  Shand looked down. Cafferty had extended a hand wrapped in a black leather glove. When he reached out his own, Cafferty clamped it so hard, Shand couldn’t help but wince. The pressure stayed on as Cafferty spoke.

  ‘But if it wasn’t you, Craw, then I need to know the who and the why, because secret benefactors make me almost as nervous as out-and-out scumbags. So we’ll go back to yours, have a cup of tea and a chat.’ Cafferty reached past Shand with his free hand and grabbed a packet of biscuits. ‘My treat,’ he said.

  ‘It was me that hit him,’ Shand blurted out. ‘I’ve been charged and everything.’

  Cafferty released his grip. ‘Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. Could be you’re covering for somebody or you heard something you shouldn’t. I watched you on your way here, Craw. You’re almost as invisible as me. Means people don’t even notice you when you’re practically under their nose.’ He wrinkled his face. ‘Though the whiff coming off you might offer them a clue.’

  ‘There’s no hot water.’

  ‘Not been paying your gas bill, Craw?’ Cafferty dug in his pocket and lifted out a roll of banknotes. ‘I might be able to help you there. Let’s go have that chat, eh? Somewhere a bit more private than here …’

  Forty minutes later, Cafferty closed the door of Craw Shand’s house and walked down the overgrown path. He had called for a taxi, but preferred to wait for it outside in the cold. He had kept his gloves on throughout, mostly to avoid skin contact with any of the greasy furniture. He hadn’t bothered with tea, either, reckoning the mugs would be less than pristine. Shand had broken open the pack of biscuits and he’d eaten one of those, while watching the damaged cogs of Shand’s brain try to find some purchase. Stories had come – version upon version of something probably not even close to the truth. But Cafferty had probed, and Cafferty had been patient, and Shand had played a final hand.

  A bar in the Cowgate … Craw couldn’t be sure which one. The man had turned a corner into an alley to keep the call more private. Gone midnight and students were on the prowl, chanting and singing. Shand was just walking. He’d scored a cigarette and paused to smoke it. And had heard snatches of the phone call. A few details that stuck. About a man given a pasting in his own driveway. Next morning he had headed to Inverleith and found a street that seemed about right, a house that seemed about right. And he’d made up his mind to say he’d done it.

  No, he hadn’t caught sight of whoever was on the phone. Male. Probably a local accent.

  It wasn’t much and Cafferty doubted it was the whole story, but it was something.

  ‘You’re sure it was a local accent?’ he had asked.

  ‘It was noisy and late, I’d had a few beers …’

  Cafferty rubbed at the underside of his jaw as he stood on the pavement. He knew this part of town, had spent some of his early years here. It had been feral then, a place where you learned quickly or perished. These streets had been his teacher, and the education gained here had sustained him. But there were probably plenty more like Craw Shand, victims of circumstance, floating on the surface and buffeted by every passing wave. Cafferty had encountered enough of them in his time.

  He had thought those days were over. Maybe he would have been content to drift into retirement if anyone but Darryl Christie had come along. He had thought of himself as Christie’s mentor, and the lad had played along for a while, all the time planning to barge Cafferty aside. His business had grown quickly and he had grown with it. No please or thank you – just alliances with each and every one of Cafferty’s adversaries in the other cities, until Cafferty’s own territory had withered.

  Could he just sit on his hands and allow them to get away with that? So far they’d let him be, but history suggested this was a state of affairs that wouldn’t last. Cafferty thought of it as a reckoning. And it was coming.

  When the black cab arrived, he climbed into the back, his face almost as dark as the sky overhead.

  ‘Snow later maybe,’ the driver informed him.

  ‘I didn’t know I was getting a weather forecast,’ Cafferty growled. ‘Just fucking drive.’

  There was a white Range Rover parked further along the street, most of it hidden behind a rusting transit van. Its driver was using the hands-free option as he watched the taxi head for Peffermill Road.

  ‘That’s him leaving now,’ he said. ‘Do I stay here or what?’

  ‘He didn’t take Shand with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe follow him then. I wouldn’t mind knowing where he calls home these days …’

  When Siobhan Clarke arrived at Gayfield Square, she was told that her visitor had already gone up.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  She climbed the stairs to CID, but the only people in the room were Christine Esson and Ronnie Ogilvie.

  ‘Two doors along,’ Esson stated.

  Clarke headed along the corridor and into another of the offices, where John Rebus was busy at the photocopier.

  ‘I might have guessed,’ she said.

  Rebus half turned towards her and spotted the beaker of coffee.
‘I hope that’s for me.’

  ‘Not a chance.’ Clarke watched him tidy up the sheets he’d just printed. More were churning from the machine. ‘The file I brought you,’ she commented.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re giving James’s team the originals but keeping copies for yourself?’

  ‘Yup.’

  Clarke rested against the nearest desk. ‘I shouldn’t really be surprised.’

  ‘It was always going to happen, Siobhan, and I reckoned I could do it here for free.’

  ‘Knowing I would know.’

  ‘I’m always going to assume you’re on my side.’

  ‘Plus I was bound to find out one way or another.’ She took a slurp of the coffee.

  ‘Been back to Darryl’s house this morning?’

  ‘I’m not that much of a masochist.’

  ‘So what’s on the cards for today?’

  ‘We’re supposed to show Darryl some photos and voice recordings.’

  ‘To see if he can pick out Craw as his attacker?’

  ‘Waste of time, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What about you – I’m guessing you’ve got something planned?’

  ‘Dropping this lot round to Leith.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘Irons in fires, Siobhan.’

  ‘Make sure you pick up the end that won’t burn you.’

  ‘I’m always careful.’

  ‘Robert Chatham probably thought he was careful, too.’

  Rebus paused, then nodded. ‘You’ll be checking on Craw later, I dare say.’

  ‘If I get time.’

  ‘No trouble last night?’

  ‘Patrol cars managed three passes in his neighbourhood. Believe it or not, they even got out and did a bit of walking.’

  ‘You reckon they really did?’

  ‘They wouldn’t lie to CID, would they?’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ Rebus said, before cursing under his breath. ‘Another paper jam,’ he muttered. ‘What is it with these things?’ He looked to her for guidance.

  ‘All right, let me look at it.’ Clarke placed her coffee on the desk and walked over to the machine, sliding out the paper tray and easing the stuck sheet from between the rollers. When she glanced over her shoulder, Rebus was stealing a slug of coffee.