by Ian Rankin
‘Brian,’ she said quietly.
Rebus frowned. ‘Brian Summers?’ Pretty-Boy …
‘He tell Jake.’
‘He told Tarawicz where you were?’ But why not just take her back to Edinburgh? Rebus thought he knew: she was too dangerous; she’d been too close to the police. Best get her out of the way. Not a killing: that would have implicated all of them. But Tarawicz could control her. Mr Pink Eyes bailing out his friend one more time …
‘He brought you here so he could gloat over Telford.’ Rebus was thoughtful. He looked at Candice. What could he do with her? Where would be safe? She seemed to sense his thoughts, squeezed his hand.
‘You know I have a …’ She made a cradling motion with her hands.
‘A boy,’ Rebus said. She nodded. ‘And Tarawicz knows where he is?’
She shook her head. ‘The lorries … they took him.’
‘Tarawicz’s refugee lorries?’ She nodded again. ‘And you don’t know where he is?’
‘Jake knows. He says his man …’ she made scuttling motions with her hands ‘… will kill my boy if …’
Scuttling motions: the Crab. Something struck Rebus. ‘Why isn’t the Crab up here with Tarawicz?’ She was looking at him. ‘Tarawicz here,’ he said, ‘Crab in Newcastle. Why?’
She shrugged, looked thoughtful. ‘He don’t come.’ She was remembering some snippet of conversation. ‘Danger.’
‘Dangerous?’ Rebus frowned. ‘Who for?’
She shrugged again. Rebus took her hands.
‘You can’t trust him, Karina. You have to leave him.’
She smiled up at him, eyes glinting. ‘I tried.’
They looked at one another, held one another for a while. Afterwards, he walked her back out to her taxi.
28
In the morning he called the hospital, found out how Sammy was doing, then asked to be transferred.
‘How’s Danny Simpson getting on?’
‘I’m sorry, are you family?’
Which told him everything. He identified himself, asked when it had happened.
‘In the night,’ the nurse said.
Body at its lowest ebb: the dying hours. Rebus called the mother, identified himself again.
‘Sorry to hear the news,’ he said. ‘Is the funeral …?’
‘Just family, if you don’t mind. No flowers. We’re asking for donations to be sent to an … to a charity. Danny was well thought of, you know.’
‘I’m sure.’
Rebus took down details of the charity – an AIDS hospice; the mother couldn’t bring herself to say the word. Terminated the call. Got an envelope out and put in ten pounds, plus a note: ‘In memory of Danny Simpson’. He wondered about going for that test … His phone rang and he picked it up.
‘Hello?’
Lots of static and engine noise: car-phone, on the move at speed.
‘This takes persecution to new levels.’ Telford.
‘What do you mean?’ Rebus trying to compose himself.
‘Danny Simpson’s been dead six hours, and already you’re on the phone to his mum.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I was there. Paying my respects.’
‘Same reason I phoned then. Know what, Telford? I think you’re taking persecution complexes to new levels.’
‘Yes, and Cafferty’s not out to shut me down.’
‘He says he didn’t have anything to do with Paisley.’
‘I bet you believed in the Tooth Fairy when you were a kid.’
‘I still do.’
‘You’ll need more than a good fairy if you side with Cafferty.’
‘Is that a threat? Don’t tell me: Tarawicz is in the car with you?’ Silence. Bingo, Rebus thought. ‘You think Tarawicz will respect you because you bad-mouth cops? He’s got no respect for you whatsoever – look how he’s waving Candice in your face.’
Mixing levity with fury: ‘Hey, Rebus, you and Candice in that hotel – what was she like? Jake tells me she’s vindaloo.’ Background laughter: Mr Pink Eyes, who, according to Candice, had never touched her. For ‘laughter’ read ‘bravado’. Telford and Tarawicz, playing games between themselves, playing games with the world.
Rebus found the tone of voice he wanted. ‘I tried to help her. If she’s too stupid to know that, she deserves the likes of you and Tarawicz.’ Telling them he had no further interest in her. ‘Anyway, Tarawicz didn’t have any trouble taking her off your hands.’ Rebus jabbing away, looking for gaps in the armour of the Telford/Tarawicz relationship.
‘What if Cafferty wasn’t behind Paisley?’ he asked into the silence.
‘It was his men.’
‘Gone rogue.’
‘He can’t control them, that’s his look-out. He’s a joke, Rebus. He’s finished.’
Rebus didn’t say anything; listened instead to a muted conversation. Then Telford again: ‘Mr Tarawicz wants a word.’ The phone was handed over.
‘Rebus? I thought we were civilised men?’
‘In what way?’
‘When we met in Newcastle … I thought we came to an understanding?’
The unspoken agreement: leave Telford alone, have nothing more to do with Cafferty, and Candice and her son would be safe. What was Tarawicz getting at?
‘I’ve kept my side.’
A forced chuckle. ‘You know what Paisley represents?
‘What?’
‘The beginning of the end of Morris Gerald Cafferty.’
‘And I bet you’d send flowers to the grave.’
Dead flowers at that.
Rebus went into St Leonard’s, got settled in front of his computer screen, and took a look at the Crab.
The Crab: William Andrew Colton. Plenty of form. Rebus decided he’d like to read the files. Phoned in and requested them, backed up the request in writing. Buzzed from downstairs: a man to see him, no name supplied. Description: the Weasel.
Rebus went downstairs.
The Weasel was outside, smoking a cigarette. He was wearing a green waxed jacket, torn at both pockets. A lumberjack hat with its flaps down protected his ears from the wind.
‘Let’s walk,’ Rebus said. The Weasel got into step with him. They wandered through an estate of new flats: satellite dishes and windows picked from Lego boxes. Behind the flats sat Salisbury Crags.
‘Don’t worry,’ Rebus said, ‘I’m not in the mood for rock-climbing.’
‘I’m in the mood for indoors.’ The Weasel tucked his chin into the upturned collar of his coat.
‘What’s the news on my daughter?’
‘We’re close, I told you.’
‘How close?’
The Weasel measured his response. ‘We’ve got the tapes from the car, the guy who sold them. He says he got them from another party.’
‘And he is …?’
A sly smile: the Weasel knew he had control over Rebus. He’d play it out as long as possible.
‘You’re going to be meeting him fairly shortly.’
‘Even so … say the tapes got taken from the car after it was abandoned?’
The Weasel was shaking his head. ‘That’s not how it was.’
‘Then how was it?’ He wanted to pull his tormentor down on to the ground and start hammering his skull on the pavement.
‘Give us a day or two, we’ll have everything you need.’ The wind gusted some grit towards them. They turned their faces. Rebus saw a heavy-set man loitering sixty yards behind.
‘Don’t worry,’ the Weasel said, ‘he’s with me.’
‘Getting jittery?’
‘After Paisley, Telford’s out for blood.’
‘What do you know about Paisley?’
The Weasel’s eyes became slits. ‘Nothing.’
‘No? Cafferty’s beginning to suspect some of his own men might have gone rogue.’ Rebus watched the Weasel shake his head.
‘I don’t know the first thing about it.’
‘Who’s your boss’s main man?’
‘Ask Mr Cafferty.’ The Weasel was looking around, as if bored by the conversation. He made a signal to the backmarker, who passed it along. Seconds later, a newish Jaguar – arterial-red paint-job – cruised to a stop beside them. Rebus saw: a driver itching for a less sedentary occupation; cream leather interior; the back-marker jogging forwards, opening the door for the Weasel.
‘It’s you,’ Rebus said. The Weasel: Cafferty’s eyes and ears on the street; the man with the look and dress-code of a down-and-out. The Weasel was running the show. All the lieutenants in the various outposts … all the tailor-made suits … the collective which, according to police intelligence, ran Cafferty’s kingdom in their master’s absence … they were a smokescreen. The hunched man pulling off his lumberjack hat, the man with bad teeth and a blunt razor, he was in charge.
Rebus actually laughed. The bodyguard got into the car’s passenger seat, having made sure his boss was comfortable in the back. Rebus tapped on the window. The Weasel lowered it.
‘Tell me,’ Rebus asked, ‘have you got the bottle to wrest it away from him?’
‘Mr Cafferty trusts me. He knows I’ll do right by him.’
‘What about Telford?’
The Weasel stared at him. ‘Telford’s not my concern.’
‘Then who is?’
But the window was rising again, and the Weasel – Cafferty had called him Jeffries – had turned his face away, dismissing Rebus from his mind.
He stood there, watching the car drive off. Was Cafferty making a big mistake, putting the Weasel in charge? Was it just that his best men had scarpered or gone over to the other side?
Or was the Weasel every bit as sly, clever and vicious as his namesake?
Back at the station, Rebus sought out Bill Pryde. Pryde was shrugging his shoulders even before Rebus had reached his desk.
‘Sorry, John, no news.’
‘Nothing at all? What about the stolen tapes?’ Pryde shook his head. ‘That’s funny, I’ve just been talking to someone who claims to know who sold them on, and who he got them from.’
Pryde sat back in his chair. ‘I wondered why you hadn’t been chasing me up. What’ve you done, hired a private eye?’ Blood was rising to his face. ‘I’ve been working my arse off on this, John, you know I have. Now you don’t trust me to do the job?’
‘It’s not like that, Bill.’ Rebus suddenly found himself on the defensive.
‘Who’ve you got working for you, John?’
‘Just people on the street.’
‘Well-connected people by the sound of it.’ He paused. ‘Are we talking villains?’
‘My daughter’s in a coma, Bill.’
‘I’m well aware of that. Now answer my question!’
People around them were staring. Rebus lowered his voice. ‘Just a few of my grasses.’
‘Then give me their names.’
‘Come on, Bill …’
Pryde’s hands gripped the table. ‘These past days, I’ve been thinking you’d lost interest. Thinking maybe you didn’t want an answer.’ He was thoughtful. ‘You wouldn’t go to Telford … Cafferty?’ His eyes widened. ‘Is that it, John?’
Rebus turned his head away.
‘Christ, John … what’s the deal here? He hands over the driver, what do you hand him?’
‘It’s not like that.’
‘I can’t believe you’d trust Cafferty. You put him away, for Christ’s sake!’
‘It’s not a question of trust.’
But Pryde was shaking his head. ‘There’s a line we don’t cross.’
‘Get a grip, Bill. There’s no line.’ Rebus spread his arms. ‘If there is, show me it.’
Pryde tapped his forehead. ‘It’s up here.’
‘Then it’s a fiction.’
‘You really believe that?’
Rebus sought an answer, slumped against the desk, ran his hands over his head. He remembered something Lintz had once said: when we stop believing in God, we don’t suddenly believe in ‘nothing’ … we believe anything.
‘John?’ someone called. ‘Phone call.’
Rebus stared at Pryde. ‘Later,’ he said. He walked across to another desk, took the call.
‘Rebus here.’
‘It’s Bobby.’ Bobby Hogan.
‘What can I do for you, Bobby?’
‘For a start, you can help get that Special Branch arsehole off my back.’
‘Abernethy?’
‘He won’t leave me alone.’
‘Keeps phoning you?’
‘Christ, John, aren’t you listening? He’s here.’
‘When did he get in?’
‘He never went away.’
‘Whoah, hold on.’
‘And he’s driving me round the twist. He says he knows you from way back, so how about having a word?’
‘Are you at Leith?’
‘Where else?’
‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
‘I got so pissed off, I went to my boss – and that’s something I seldom have to resort to.’ Bobby Hogan was drinking coffee like it was something best taken intravenously. The top button of his shirt was undone, tie hanging loose.
‘Only,’ he went on, ‘his boss had a word with my boss’s boss, and I ended up with a warning: co-operate or else.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I wasn’t to tell anyone he was still around.’
‘Thanks, pal. So what’s he actually doing?’
‘What isn’t he doing? He wants to be in on any interviews. He wants copies of tapes and transcripts. He wants to see all the paperwork, wants to know what I’m planning to do next, what I had for breakfast …’
‘I don’t suppose he’s managing to be helpful in any shape or form?’
Hogan’s look gave Rebus his answer.
‘I don’t mind him taking an interest, but this verges on the obstructive. He’s slowing the case to a dead stop.’
‘Maybe that’s his plan.’
Hogan looked up from his cup. ‘I don’t get it.’
‘Neither do I. Look, if he’s being obstructive, let’s put on a show, see how he reacts.’
‘What sort of show?’
‘What time will he be in?’
Hogan checked his watch. ‘Half an hour or so. That’s when my work stops for the day, while I fill him in.’
‘Half an hour’s enough. Mind if I use your phone?’
29
When Abernethy arrived, he didn’t manage not to look surprised. The space put aside for the investigation – Hogan’s space – now contained three bodies, and they were working at the devil’s own pace.
Hogan was on the telephone to a librarian. He was asking for a run-down of books and articles about the ‘Rat Line’. Rebus was sorting through paperwork, putting it in order, cross-referencing, laying aside anything he didn’t think useful. And Siobhan Clarke was there, too. She appeared to be on the phone to some Jewish organisation, and was asking them about lists of war criminals. Rebus nodded towards Abernethy, but kept on working.
‘What’s going on?’ Abernethy asked, taking off his raincoat.
‘Helping out. Bobby’s got so many leads to work on …’ He nodded towards Siobhan. ‘And Crime Squad are interested, too.’
‘Since when?’
Rebus waved a piece of paper. ‘This might be bigger than we think.’
Abernethy looked around. He wanted to speak to Hogan, but Hogan was still on the phone. Rebus was the only one with time to talk.
Which was just the way Rebus had planned it.
He’d only had five minutes in which to brief Siobhan, but she was a born actress, even holding a conversation with the dialling tone. Hogan’s fantasy librarian, meantime, was asking him all the right questions. And Abernethy was looking glazed.
‘What do you mean?’
‘In fact,’ Rebus said, putting down a file, ‘you might be able to help.’
‘How?’
‘You’re Special Branch, and Special Branch has
access to the secret services.’ Rebus paused. ‘Right?’
Abernethy licked his lips and shrugged.
‘See,’ Rebus went on, ‘we’re beginning to wonder something. There could be a dozen reasons why someone would want to kill Joseph Lintz, but the one we’ve been practically ignoring’ (ignoring at Abernethy’s suggestion, according to Hogan) ‘is the one that just might provide the answer. I’m talking about the Rat Line. What if Lintz’s murder had something to do with that?’
‘How could it?’
It was Rebus’s turn to shrug. ‘That’s why we need your help. We need any and all information we can get on the Rat Line.’
‘But it never existed.’
‘Funny, a lot of books seem to say it did.’
‘They’re wrong.’
‘Then there are all these survivors … except they haven’t survived. Suicides, car crashes, a fall from a window. Lintz is just one of a long line of dead men.’
Siobhan Clarke and Bobby Hogan had finished their calls and were listening.
‘You’re climbing the wrong tree,’ Abernethy said.
‘Well, you know, if you’re in a forest, climbing any tree will give you a better view.’
‘There is no Rat Line.’
‘You’re an expert?’
‘I’ve been collating …’
‘Yes, yes, all the investigations. And how far have you got? Is any one of them going to make it to trial?’
‘It’s too early to tell.’
‘And soon it may be too late. These men aren’t getting any younger. I’ve seen the same thing all around Europe: delay the trial until the defendants are so old they snuff it or go doolally. Result’s the same: no trial.’
‘Look, this has nothing to do with …’
‘Why are you here, Abernethy? Why did you come up that time to speak to Lintz?’
‘Look, Rebus, it’s not …’
‘If you can’t tell us, talk to your boss. Get him to do it. Otherwise, the way we’re digging, we’re bound to throw up an old bone sooner or later.’
Abernethy stood back a pace. ‘I think I get it,’ he said. And he began to smile. ‘You’re trying to stiff me.’ He was looking at Hogan. ‘That’s what this is.’
‘Not at all,’ Rebus answered. ‘What I’m saying is: we’ll redouble our efforts. We’ll sniff into every little corner. The Rat Line, the Vatican, turning Nazis into cold war spies for the allies … it could all count as evidence. The other men on your list, the other suspects … we’ll need to talk to all of them, see if they knew Joseph Lintz. Maybe they met him on the trip over.’