by Ian Rankin
'Is this a message from Bryce Callan?'
Cafferty looked at him. 'I know you're going after Barry Hutton. Think you'll get a result?'
'It's been known to happen.'
Cafferty chuckled. 'Something I know to my cost.' He started walking again. The only things visible in the flower beds were roses, their branches clipped back. looking brittle and stunted but with the promise of renewal hibernating within. That's us, Rebus thought, thorns and all. 'Morag died a year back,' Cafferty was saying. Morag: his wife.
'Yes, I heard.'
'They said I could go to the funeral.' Cafferty kicked at a stone, sent it flying into a flower bed. 'I didn't go. The guys in the Bar-L, they thought that made me hard.' A wry smile. 'What do you think?'
'You were scared.'
'Maybe I was at that.' He looked at Rebus again. 'Bryce Callan isn't as forgiving as I am, Strawman. You managed to put me away, and you're still walking around. But now Bryce knows you're after Barry, he's got to have you put out of the game.'
'Then he goes away, too.'
'He's not that stupid. Remember: where there's no body, there's no crime.'
'I'll just disappear?'
Cafferty was nodding. 'Whether you get your precious result or not.' He stopped walking. 'Is that what you want?'
Rebus stopped, looked around as if enjoying the view for the last time. 'What's it to you?'
"Maybe I like having you around.'
'Why?'
'Who else cares about me?' Cafferty chuckled again. In the distance, Rebus could see Cafferty's car - the grey Jag the Weasel standing beside it, not quite daring to rest inst its paintwork. Shuffling his feet in an effort to defrost them.
'Speaking of no body, no crime... where's Rab Hill?'
Cafferty looked at him. 'Yes, I heard you'd been asking.'
"It's Rab that has cancer, not you. He went for tests, came back with the news and told his good friend.' Rebus paused. 'You switched X-rays somehow.'
'NHS,' Cafferty said. 'Don't pay those doctors half what they're worth.'
'I'm going to prove it, you know that.'
'You're a cop with a vendetta. Not much a poor citizen like me can do about that.'
'Maybe I could ease up a little,' Rebus said.
'In return for...?'
'Testify against Bryce Callan. You were there in '79, you know what was going on.'
Cafferty shook his head. 'That's not the way to play it.'
Rebus stared at him. 'Then what is?'
Cafferty ignored the question. 'It's a cold place this, isn't it?' he said instead. 'When they bury me, I want it to be somewhere warm.'
'You'll be going somewhere warm,' Rebus told him. 'Might even be a bit too warm.'
'And you're on the side of the angels, eh?' They were heading for the car now. Rebus stopped; his Saab was parked the other side of the chapel. Cafferty didn't check; he half waved and kept on walking. 'Next funeral I go to will probably be yours, Strawman. Anything you want put on your headstone?'
'How about "Died peacefully in his sleep, aged ninety"?'
Cafferty laughed with the confidence of the immortal.
Rebus turned, retraced his steps. He was out in the open, and his shoulders jerked when he heard a sharp report, but it was only the Weasel slamming shut the door of the Jag. Rebus walked round to the front of the chapel, opened the door and stepped inside. There was an anteroom, a big book of remembrance open on a marble-topped table. A red silk marker kept it open at the day's date on the previous year: eight names, meaning eight cremations that day, eight grieving families who might or might not turn up to pay their respects. No... that wasn't right. Not the date of cremation... these were dates of death. He kept the place but started at the back of the book, letting the as-yet-empty sheets slide through his fingers. There'd be names in there eventually. If Cafferty was right, his wouldn't be among them: he'd just disappear. He didn't know how he felt about that. Didn't feel anything really. Today's date: no names entered as yet. But cars had been pulling away as he'd been arriving, a teenager peering out at him from the back seat of a limousine, black tie knotted awkwardly at the throat.
Yesterday: no names; too soon. Day before that: none. Then it was back to the weekend. Friday: nine names -the cremations had probably taken place yesterday. Rebus looked down the list, neat entries made in black ink by someone with a gift for calligraphy. Fountain pen: thick downstrokes, tapering flicks. Dates of birth, maiden names...
Bingo.
Robert Wallace Hill. Known as Rab.
He'd died the previous Friday. The funeral had probably taken place yesterday, the ashes scattered over the garden of remembrance: the reason Cafferty had come here, paying his respects to the man who'd been his ticket out of jail. Rab, his body riddled with cancer. Rebus saw it all now. Rab, with his release date coming, the cancer a cruel blow. Taking the news back to the Bar-L, confiding in Cafferty, who'd feigned illness, gone for tests himself, arranging the switch of records, some bribe or threat to a doctor. Rab pumped full of painkillers, his release date almost coinciding with Cafferty's. Doubtless paid well: money for a decent send-off, an envelope thick with banknotes finding its way to any family left behind.
Rebus somehow doubted Cafferty would return to the chapel a year down the line. He'd have more important things on his mind. He'd be back in business. And Rab? Well, hadn't Cafferty said it himself: a time for looking forward, not back. Christmas was on its way .1999 would bring the Scottish Parliament back to Edinburgh. In the spring, they'd flatten the old brewery, start constructing the glass boxes which would eventually house the MSPs.
Glass walls: the theme was openness, accountability. Okay, till then they'd be meeting in a church hall on The Mound, but even so... Even so. So what?
'And then you die,' he muttered to himself, turning to leave the chapel.
He got on his mobile to the mortuary, asked Dougie who'd done the autopsy on Rab Hill. The answer: Curt and Stevenson. He thanked Dougie, punched in Curt's number. He was thinking of Rab's body: ashes now. Where there's no body, there's no crime. But there'd be the autopsy report, and when it showed up the cancer, Rebus would have evidence enough to have Cafferty re-examined.
'It was an overdose,' Curt explained. 'He'd been a user in prison, got a bit too greedy when he came out.'
'But when you opened him up, what else did you find?' Rebus was holding the phone so tightly, his wrist was hurting.
'Family were against it, John.' Rebus blinked. 'A young man... suspicious death.'
'Some religious thing... church I'd never heard of. Their lawyer put it in writing.'
I'll bet he did, Rebus thought. 'There was no autopsy?'
'We did as much as we could. Chemical tests were clear enough Rebus cut the call, screwed shut his eyes. A few flakes of snow fell on his lashes. He was slow to blink them away. No body, no evidence. He shivered suddenly, remembering Cafferty's words: Yes, I heard you'd been asking. Asking about Rab Hill. Cafferty had known... known that Rebus knew. So easy to administer an overdose to a sick man. So easy for someone like Cafferty, someone with so much to lose.
The few days running up to Hogmanay were a nightmare. Lorna had sold her story to a tabloid - Model's Night-Time Romp With Murder Case Cop. Rebus's name hadn't been mentioned... not yet.
It was a move which might ostracise her from husband and family alike, but Rebus could see why she'd done it. There was a middle-page spread, showing her to her best in diaphanous clothing, face and hair done to the nines. Maybe it was the relaunch she thought she needed. Maybe it was a case of using what she had.
A moment's notoriety.
Rebus could see his career crumbling before him. To keep herself in the news, she'd have to name names, and Carswell would pounce. So Rebus went to see Alasdair, and made him a proposition. Alasdair phoned his sister at High Manor, talked her round. They were on the phone forty minutes, at the end of which Rebus handed Alasdair's passport back and wished him good luck. He'd even driven
him out to the airport. Grieve's parting words to him: 'Home in time for New Year.' A handshake and a brief wave of farewell. Rebus had felt obliged to warn that they might need him back to give testimony. Grieve had nodded, knowing he could always refuse. Either that or keep moving...
Rebus wasn't working on Hogmanay. A trade-off because he'd been on call over Christmas. The town had been quiet, which hadn't stopped the cells filling up. Sammy had sent him a present: the CD edition of the Beatles' White Album. She was staying down south. visiting her mum. Siobhan had left her present to him in his desk drawer: a history of Hibernian FC. He flicked through it during the dead hours, hours when he'd no need to be at the station. When he wasn't reading about the Hibs, he was poring over case-notes, trying to restructure them into something more acceptable to the Procurator Fiscal. He'd had a series of meetings with various advocates depute. So far, they were of the opinion that the only person they could try with any hope of securing a conviction was Alasdair Grieve: accessory to... fleeing the scene of...
Another good reason for putting Grieve on the plane.
And now it was Hogmanay, and everyone was talking about how bad the television had been. Princes Street would fill tonight, maybe two hundred thousand revellers. The Pretenders were playing, almost reason enough to go along, but he knew he'd stay home. He wasn't risking the Ox: too close to the mayhem, and getting there would be difficult. Barriers had been erected, ringing the city centre. So he'd headed to Swany's instead.
When he was a kid, all the mothers would be out bleaching their front steps, busy house cleaning: you had to see the New Year in with a clean house. There'd be sandwiches and stovies for the drinkers. Chimes at midnight: someone tall and dark waiting outside, carrying bottle and lump of coal, plus something to eat. Welcoming the New Year with a knock at the door. Songs and 'doing a turn'. One of his uncles had played harmonica, an aunt might sing with a tear in her eye, a catch in her throat. Tables groaning with black bun and shortie, Madeira cake, crisps and peanuts. Juice in the kitchen for the kids, maybe homemade ginger beer. Steak pie sitting in the oven, waiting to be cooked for lunch. Strangers would see a light on, knock and be welcomed in. Anyone was welcome into your home, on that night if no other.
And if no one came... then you sat and waited. You didn't go out until you'd been 'first-footed': it was bad luck. One aunt had sat alone for a couple of days: everyone thought she was at her daughter's. Elsewhere: songs in the street, handshakes, drunken reminiscence and prayers for a better year to come.
The old days. And now Rebus was old himself, heading home from Swany's at eleven. He'd see the New Year in alone, and would go out tomorrow even though he'd had no first foot. Maybe he'd walk under a ladder, too, and step on every crack in the pavement.
Just to show that he could.
His car was parked one street over from Arden Street -no spaces available near his flat. He unlocked the boot and extracted his carry-out: a bottle of Macallan, six bottles of Belhaven Best, paprika crisps, dry roasted peanuts. There was a pizza in the freezer, and some sliced tongue in the fridge. Enough to see him through. He'd been saving the White Album; could think of worse ways to see in the New Year.
One of them was standing by his tenement door: Cafferty.
'Would you look at us?' Cafferty said, opening his arms. 'Both on our ownios, this of all nights!'
'Speak for yourself.'
"Oh, right,' Cafferty said, nodding, 'you're hosting the social event of the year - I'd forgotten. A bevvy of beauties are on their way as I speak, scented and mini-skirted.' He paused. 'Merry Christmas, by the way.' He tried handing something to Rebus, who wasn't of a mind to take it. Something small and shiny...
'Twenty fags?'
Cafferty shrugged. 'An impulse buy.'
Rebus had three packets waiting for him upstairs. 'Keep them.' he said. 'Maybe I'll get lucky and you'll get cancer.'
Cafferty tutted. His face seemed huge, moon-like in the sodium light. 'I thought we'd take a drive.'
Rebus stared at him. 'A drive?'
'Where d'you fancy: Queensferry, Portobello...?'
'What's so urgent?' Rebus put his carrier bags down; they clinked musically as they came to rest.
'Bryce Callan.'
'What about him?'
'You don't have a case, do you?' Rebus didn't respond. 'Won't get one either. And I haven't noticed any worry lines on Barry Hutton's brow.'
'So?'
'So maybe I can help.'
Rebus shuffled his feet. 'And why would you do that?'
'I might have my reasons.'
'Reasons you didn't have ten days ago when I asked?'
'Maybe you didn't ask nicely enough.'
'Then I've got some bad news: my manners haven't improved with age.'
Cafferty smiled. 'Just a drive, Strawman. You can do your drinking, and fill me in on the case.'
Rebus narrowed his eyes. 'Land developer,' he mused. 'It would be branching out, wouldn't it?'
'Easier to do if you can take over an existing business,' Cafferty admitted.
'Barry Hutton's business? I put him away, you step in. I can't see Bryce being too happy.'
'My problem.' Cafferty winked. 'Let's go for that drive. Stick a note on the door, let the glamour models know the party's shifted back an hour.'
'They won't be happy. You know what models are like.', 'Overpaid and underfed, you mean? Would that be the opposite of yourself, DI Rebus?'
'Ha ha.'
'Careful now,' Cafferty warned. 'This time of the season, a split side can take ages to heal.'
Somehow, they'd been moving while they talked, and Rebus was surprised to find that he'd picked up his carrier bags, too. Now they stood by the Jag. Cafferty yanked open the driver's door, slid in behind the steering wheel in a single, practised movement. Rebus stood there a moment longer. Hogmanay, last day of the year: a day for paying debts, balancing the books... a day for finishing things.
He made to get in.
'Sling the booze in the back,' Cafferty suggested. 'I've a hip flask in the glove compartment, twenty-five-year-old Armagnac. Wait till you taste this stuff. I'm telling you, it would turn a heathen into John the fucking Baptist.'
But Rebus had extracted the Macallan from one of his bags. 'I'll stick to my own,' he said.
'Not a bad drop either.' Cafferty was making a great effort not to be offended. 'Make sure you waft some of it my way, so I can at least inhale.' He turned the ignition. The Jaguar purred like the cat it resembled. And suddenly they were moving, looking to the outside world like nothing more suspicious than two friends out for a jaunt. South to the Grange, and further south to Blackford Hill, then east towards the coast. And Rebus talked, as much for his own benefit as Cafferty's. About the pact two business friends had made with a devil called Bryce Callan, a pact which would lead to a killing. About how the killer waited in vain for his friend to return, living rough - a disguise against detection, or a route to penitence? Past lessons learned by Barry Hutton, now a successful businessman, seeing an opportunity for fresh riches and increased fame: replaying that game from twenty years before, determined that his man on the council would become his player in parliament...
At the end of the story Cafferty seemed thoughtful, then said, 'So it's tainted before it begins?'
'Maybe,' Rebus replied, putting the bottle back to his mouth. Portobello: that's where they looked to be headed, maybe park by the harbour and sit with windows open. But Cafferty headed on to Seafield Road and started driving towards Leith.
'There's some land up this way I'm thinking of buying.' he explained. 'Got some plans drawn up, builder called Peter Kirkwall did the costings.'
'For what?'
'Leisure complex - restaurant, maybe a cinema or health club. Some luxury flats parked on top.'
'Kirkwall works with Barry Hutton.'
'I know.'
'Hutton's sure to find out.'
Cafferty shrugged. 'Something I just have to live with.' He gave a smi
le Rebus couldn't read. 'I heard about this plot of land next to where they're building the parliament. It sold for three-quarters of a million four years ago. Know what its price is now? Four million. How's that for a yield?'
Rebus pushed the cork back into the bottle. This stretch of road was all car dealers, wasteland behind, and then the sea. They headed up a narrow, unlit lane, its surface uneven. A large metal fence at the far end. Cafferty stopped the Jag, got out and took a key to the padlock, pulled the heavy metal chain free and pushed the gates open with his foot.
'What's there to see?' Rebus asked, uneasy now, as Cafferty got back into the driving seat. He could run, but it was a long way to civilisation, and he was dead beat. Besides, he was done running.
'It's all warehouses just now. If you coughed too loud, they'd collapse. Easy enough to bulldoze, and there's a quarter-mile of seafront to play with.'
They drove through the gates.
'A quiet place for a chat,' Cafferty said.
But they weren't here to chat; Rebus knew that now. He turned his head, saw that another car was following them into the compound. It was a red Ferrari. Rebus turned back to Cafferty.
'What's going on?'
'Business,' Cafferty said coldly, 'that's all.' He stopped the Jag, pulled on the handbrake. 'Out,' he ordered. Rebus didn't move. Cafferty got out of the car, left his door open. The other car had pulled up alongside. Both sets of headlamps stayed on dipped, illuminating the cracked concrete surface of the compound. Rebus focused on one of the weeds, its jagged shadow crawling up the wall of one of the warehouses. Rebus's door was pulled open. Hands grabbed at him. He heard a soft click as his seat belt was unlocked, and then he was being dragged out, thrown on to the cold ground. He took his time looking up. Three figures, silhouetted against the headlamps, breath billowing from their dark faces. Cafferty and two others. Rebus started getting to his feet. The single malt had fallen from the car, smashed on the concrete. He wished he'd taken one more hit of it while he had the chance.
A boot to the chest had enough force to send him on to his backside. He put his hands out behind him, steadying himself, so that he was unprotected when the next blow came. To the face this time, connecting with his chin, cracking his head back. He felt the snap as bones in his neck uttered a complaint.