by Ian Rankin
Rebus saw an opening. “I started coming to that same conclusion . . . Maybe too late, though: I’ll be retiring soon.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning all that’s waiting for me out there is a lousy pension. This job’s taken away my wife, my kid . . . most of the friends I ever had . . .”
“That’s pretty tough.”
Rebus nodded. “And what’s it given me?”
“Apart from the drinking problem and lack of discipline?”
Rebus smiled. “Apart from those, yes.”
“I can’t answer that, John.”
Rebus let the silence rest between them, then asked the question he’d been preparing for.
“You ever crossed the line, Jazz? I don’t mean the little things, the shortcuts we take . . . I mean, something big, something you had to learn to live with?”
Jazz stared at him. “Why? Have you?”
Rebus wagged a finger. “I asked first.”
Jazz grew thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said. “Just the once.”
Rebus nodded. “Ever wished you could go back and change it?”
“John . . .” Jazz paused. “Are we talking about me or you here?”
“I thought we were talking about both of us.”
Jazz took half a step closer. “You know something about Dickie Diamond, don’t you? Maybe even about Rico’s murder . . . ?”
“Maybe,” Rebus conceded. “So what’s your big secret, Jazz? Is it something we can work out between us?” Rebus’s voice was almost a whisper, inviting confession.
“I hardly know you,” Jazz stated.
“I think we know one another well enough.”
“I . . .” Jazz swallowed. “You’re not ready yet,” he said with something akin to a sigh.
“I’m not ready? What about you, Jazz?”
“John . . . I don’t know what it is you . . .”
“I’ve been getting an idea, something to make my pension that touch more secure. Thing is, I’d need help, people I could trust.”
“We’re talking something illegal?”
Rebus nodded. “You’d need to cross that line again.”
“How risky?”
“Not very.” Rebus considered. “Maybe medium . . .”
Jazz was about to say something, but the door flew open and George Silvers sauntered in.
“Afternoon, gents,” he said.
Neither Rebus nor Jazz returned the greeting, being too busy staring one another out.
Then Jazz leaned towards Rebus. “Talk to Francis,” he whispered. And then he was gone.
Silvers had gone into one of the cubicles, but re-emerged almost immediately. “No bloody bog roll,” he complained. Then he stopped. “What you grinning at?”
“Progress, George,” Rebus said.
“Then you’re doing a sight better than our lot,” Silvers muttered, disappearing into the second cubicle and slamming shut the door.
16
Derek Linford wasn’t best pleased. Rebus and his cronies had been installed in Interview Room 1, which was larger than IR2, where Linford now sat. Also, in IR2, the windows didn’t open. The place was stifling, an airless box. The desk was narrow and screwed to the floor. This was where you brought the suspects with a record of violence. There was a dual cassette recorder bolted to the wall, and a video camera high up above the door. There was a panic button, disguised to look like an ordinary light switch.
Linford was seated alongside George Silvers. Opposite them sat Donny Dow. Dow was short and skinny, but his squared-off shoulders told you there was muscle on him. He had straight blond hair — a dye job — and three days’ growth of dark stubble. He wore gold studs and loops in both ears, another stud in his nose. A small golden sphere glinted from where his tongue had been pierced. He had his mouth open, licking the edges of his teeth.
“What you working at these days, Donny?” Linford asked. “Still a doorman?”
“I’m answering nothing till you tell me what this is all about. Shouldn’t I have a solicitor or something?”
“What do you want us to charge you with, son?” Silvers asked.
“I don’t do drugs.”
“Good boy.”
Dow scowled and gave Silvers the middle finger.
“It’s your ex we’re interested in,” Linford revealed.
Dow didn’t blink. “Which one?”
“Alexander’s mum.”
“Laura’s a hooker,” Dow stated.
“And you left her for a prop forward?” Silvers asked with a smile. But Dow stared at him blankly: not a rugby man then.
“What’s she done anyway?” Dow asked Linford.
“A man she was seeing, we’re interested in him.”
“Seeing?”
Linford nodded. “Rich guy, set her up in a nice little flat. Well, not so little, actually . . .”
Dow bared his teeth and thumped the desk with both fists. “That wee slut! And she’s the one got custody!”
“Did you fight her for it?”
“Fight . . . ?”
Fighting meant only one thing to someone like Dow. “I mean,” Linford rephrased, “did you want custody of Alexander?”
“He’s my son.”
Linford nodded again, knowing the answer to his question was no.
“Who’s this fucker anyway? This rich guy?”
“He’s an art dealer, lives out in Duddingston Village.”
“And she’s in his flat, her and Alex? Shagging this bastard there! With Alex . . .” Dow’s face had gone puce with rage. In the momentary silence, Linford could hear voices — maybe a laugh — from IR1. Those sods were probably laughing at the idea of him demoted to IR2.
“So what’s this got to do with me?” Dow was asking. “You just trying to get me wound up or what?”
“You’ve got quite a record of violence, Mr. Dow,” Silvers said. Dow’s file was on the desk, and Silvers patted its brown cardboard cover.
“What? A couple of assaults? I’ve been hit more times than I can count. See when I was bouncing, wasn’t a week went by when I didn’t have some knobhead having a go at me. You won’t find any of that in there.” He pointed towards the file. “You lot only see what it suits you to see.”
“You might have a point there, Donny,” Silvers said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.
“What we see, Donny,” Linford said quietly, “is a man with a record of violence who has just gone into a rage over his ex’s relationship with another bloke.”
“Fuck her! See if I care!” Dow slid his chair back and stuffed his hands into his pockets, both legs going like pistons.
Linford made a show of flipping through the file. “Mr. Dow,” he began, “did you happen to read about a murder in the city?”
“Only if it made the sports pages.”
“An art dealer, struck repeatedly on the head outside his home in Duddingston Village.”
Dow’s legs stopped pumping. “Hold on a fucking minute,” he said, raising both hands, palms out.
“What did you say you did for a living?” George Silvers asked.
“What? Wait a second . . .”
“Laura’s gentleman friend is dead, Mr. Dow,” Linford was saying.
“You worked as a bouncer for Big Ger Cafferty, didn’t you?” Silvers asked. Dow couldn’t keep up with this; he needed time to think; couldn’t think, and knew if he said anything — anything — it might . . .
A tapping at the door and Siobhan Clarke’s head appeared.
“Any chance I could sit in?” she asked. Then, seeing the thunderous looks on both her colleagues’ faces, she started to retreat. But Dow had sprung to his feet and was on his way to the door. Silvers went for him, but Dow gave him a straight-fingered chop to the throat. Silvers started wheezing, hands going to his collar. Linford was effectively trapped between Silvers, the desk and the wall. Dow lifted a foot and hefted Silvers backwards into Linford, whose fingers sought the panic button. Siobhan had bee
n trying to close the door, with herself on the outside, but Dow couldn’t have that. He yanked the door open, grabbed her by her hair and threw her into the room. An alarm was going off in the corridor, but he ran. There were men in the room next door: they watched him as he sped past. One more corner, a set of doors, and he would be gone.
Back in IR2, Silvers was hunched in his seat, still trying to catch a breath. Linford was squeezing past him. Siobhan was lifting herself from the floor. A whole clump of hair seemed to be missing from the top of her head.
“Shit, shit, shit!” she squealed. Linford ignored her and ran into the corridor. His left leg was aching from where Silvers had connected with it. But it was his pride that felt the most bruised. “Where is he?” he yelled.
Tam Barclay and Allan Ward looked at one another, then both pointed towards the exit.
“He went that-a-way, Sheriff,” Ward said with a grin. Problem was, no one had actually seen him leave the station. There was video surveillance of the main entrance, and Linford asked the comms room to run the tape. Meantime, he went from office to office, checking under desks and inside the station’s few walk-in closets. When he got back to the comms room, they were running the tape. Donny Dow sprinting in full-color time lapse, right out the front door.
“We need patrols to search the area!” Linford said. “Cars and foot. Get his description out!” The uniformed officers looked at each other.
“What are you waiting for?” Linford snarled.
“I think they’re probably waiting for me to give them the okay, Derek,” a voice said from behind him.
DCS Gill Templer.
“Ouch!” Siobhan said. She was seated back at her desk, while Phyllida Hawes checked the damage to her head.
“You’ve lost a little bit of skin,” Hawes said. “I think the hair will grow back.”
“Probably feels worse than it looks,” Allan Ward offered. The incident in IR2 seemed to have broken down barriers: Gray, McCullough and Rebus were present too, while Gill Templer “debriefed” Linford and Silvers in her office.
“Name’s Allan, by the way,” Ward said, for Phyllida Hawes’s benefit. When she told him her name, he remarked that it was unusual. He was listening to her explanation when Siobhan got up and moved away. She didn’t think either of them had noticed.
Rebus was standing by the far wall, arms folded, studying the display relating to the Marber case.
“He’s a fast worker,” Siobhan said. Rebus turned his head, watched the interplay between Ward and Hawes.
“You should warn her,” he said. “I’m not sure Allan’s housebroken.”
“Maybe that’s the way she likes it.” Siobhan dabbed at the patch of naked skin. It was at the crown of her head, and it stung like buggery.
“You could get a sick leave on the strength of that,” Rebus informed her. “I’ve known cops go on disability for less. Factor in the shock and stress . . .”
“You don’t get rid of me that easily,” she said. “Shouldn’t you all be out chasing Donny Dow?”
“This isn’t our patch, remember?” Rebus scanned the room. Hawes listening to Ward’s patter; Jazz McCullough in conversation with Bill Pryde and Davie Hynds; Francis Gray sitting on one of the desks, swinging one leg as he leafed through an evidence file. He saw Rebus watching him and gave a wink, sliding off the desk and coming forwards.
“This is the sort of case they should have given us, eh, John?”
Rebus nodded but said nothing. Gray seemed to take the hint, and after a few words of commiseration to Siobhan he moved away again, changing desks, picking up another file.
“I need to speak to Gill,” Siobhan said quietly, her eyes on Templer’s closed door.
“Going on the sick after all?”
Siobhan shook her head. “I think I recognized Donny Dow. He was the Weasel’s driver the day I went to interview Cafferty.”
Rebus stared at her. “You sure?”
“Ninety percent. I only saw him for a matter of seconds.”
“Then maybe we should talk to the Weasel.”
She nodded. “After I’ve okayed it with the boss.”
“If that’s the way you want to play it.”
“You said it yourself: this isn’t your patch.”
Rebus looked thoughtful. “What about if you kept it to yourself for the moment?”
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
“What if I talk to the Weasel on the quiet?” Rebus went on.
“Then I’d be withholding information.”
“No, you’d just be withholding an inkling . . . Maybe it’ll take you a day to convince yourself that it was Dow you saw driving the Weasel’s car.”
“John . . .” Without saying as much, she was asking him for something. She wanted him to share, to confide . . . to trust in her.
“I have my reasons,” he said, voice just above a whisper. “Something the Weasel might help me with.”
It took her a full thirty seconds to make up her mind. “All right,” she said. He touched her arm.
“Thanks,” he said. “I owe you. What about something to eat tonight? My treat?”
“Have you called Jean yet?”
His eyes darkened. “I’ve been trying. She’s either out or not answering.”
“She’s the one you should be asking to dinner.”
“I should have phoned her that night . . .”
“You should have followed her that night, apologizing all the way.”
“I’ll keep trying,” he said.
“And send her some flowers.” She had to smile at the look on his face. “Last time you sent anybody flowers, it was probably a wreath, am I right?”
“Probably,” he admitted. “More wreaths than bouquets, that’s for certain.”
“Well, don’t confuse the two this time round. Plenty of florists in the phone book.”
He nodded. “Straight after I talk to the Weasel,” he said, heading for the corridor. There were some calls that had to be made on a mobile rather than one of the office phones. Rebus now had a list of two.
But the Weasel wasn’t in his office, and the best anyone could do was offer a tepid promise to pass on a message.
“Thanks,” Rebus said. “By the way, is Donny there at the moment?”
“Donny who?” the voice said before cutting the connection. Rebus cursed, went to the comms room for a Yellow Pages, then headed out into the car park to phone a florist. He ordered a mixed bunch.
“What sort of flowers does the lady like?” he was asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, what about colors?”
“Look, just a selection, okay? Twenty quid’s worth or thereabouts.” He reeled off his credit-card number and the deal was done. Sliding his phone back into his pocket, switching it for cigarettes and lighter, he realized he had no idea what twenty notes would buy. Half a dozen withered carnations, or some ridiculously huge spray? Whatever it was, it would be delivered to Jean’s home this evening at 6:30. He wondered what would happen if she was staying late at work: would the florist leave them on the doorstep, prey to any passing thief? Or take them back to the shop and try again the next day?
He took a long drag on the cigarette, filling his lungs. Things always seemed to be more complicated than you expected. But then when he thought about it, he was adding the complications himself, looking at what could go wrong with the arrangement rather than hoping for the best. He knew he’d been a pessimist from an early age, realizing that it was a good way to prepare for life. As a pessimist, if things went wrong, you were ready, while if things went right, it came as a pleasant surprise.
“Too late to change now,” he muttered.
“Talking to yourself?” It was Allan Ward, busily loosing a fresh packet from its cellophane bonds.
“What’s up? Has your patter failed to impress DC Hawes?”
Ward started to nod. “She’s so unimpressed,” he said, lighting up, “she’s agreed to have dinner with me
tonight. Any tips?”
“Tips?”
“Shortcuts into her knickers.”
Rebus flicked ash from his cigarette. “She’s a good officer, Allan. More than that, I like her. I’d take it personally if she got hurt.”
“Just a bit of harmless fun,” Ward said defensively. Then his face changed to a smirk. “Just because you’re not getting any . . .”
Rebus swung round, grabbing both of Ward’s jacket lapels in one hand, pushing him back against the wall of the station. The cigarette dropped from Ward’s mouth as he tried to push Rebus away. A patrol car was pulling in through the gateway, the uniforms staring out at the spectacle. Then hands were on both men, separating them. It was Derek Linford.
“Ladies, ladies,” he was telling them. “No fisticuffs.”
Ward was rearranging his jacket. “What’re you doing here? Checking under the cars for a missing prisoner?” Flecks of saliva flew from his mouth.
“No,” Linford said, but he shifted his gaze to the car park, just in case . . . “I was actually wondering if any smokers were down here.”
“You don’t smoke,” Rebus reminded him. He was breathing hard.
“I thought maybe I should give it a go. Christ knows, this is as good a time as any.”
Ward laughed, seeming to forget all about Rebus. “Welcome to the club,” he said, offering his packet to Linford. “Templer gave you a hard time, did she?”
“It’s the fucking embarrassment as much as anything,” Linford admitted with a sheepish grin, while Ward lit the cigarette for him.
“Forget about it. Everybody’s saying Dow’s into kickboxing. You don’t want to mess with that.”
Ward seemed to be cheering Linford up. Rebus was wondering about Linford. He’d come across them brawling, yet hadn’t asked why, being busy with his own concerns. Rebus decided to leave them to it.
“Hey, John, no hard feelings, eh?” Ward suddenly announced. Rebus didn’t say anything. He knew that once he’d gone, Linford — now reminded — would probably ask about the fight, and his new best buddy would explain about the night out and Jean.
And suddenly Linford would have ammunition. Rebus wondered how long it would take him to use it. He was even starting to worry about the fact that Linford had been chosen to replace him on the Marber case. Why Linford, of all people? As Rebus walked back into the station, he could feel how the tension was making his every movement more sluggish. He tried rolling his shoulders, stretching his neck. He remembered an old piece of graffiti: Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not after you . . . Was he becoming paranoid, seeing enemies and traps everywhere? Blame Strathern, for picking him in the first place. I don’t even trust the man I’m working for, Rebus thought, so how can I trust anyone else? Passing one of the officers from the Marber inquiry, he thought how nice it would be to be seated at a desk in the murder room, making routine telephone calls, knowing how little any of it mattered. Instead, he seemed to be digging himself an ever-deeper hole. He’d promised Jazz an “idea,” a plan to make some money. Now all he had to do was deliver . . .