by Ian Rankin
“You don’t think it’s over the top? Who came up with the name anyway?”
Rebus shrugged. “It was around way before I got to Summerhall.”
“So the seventies, or maybe even the sixties?”
Another shrug. “What is it you think you’ll get from any of this—apart from a few of the Solicitor General’s brownie points?”
“The notes on the case are being dusted off. Such evidence as still exists will be reexamined. Interviews with the main players…”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I’ve been given a job and I’m doing it,” Fox stated.
“George Blantyre’s had a stroke—good luck getting him to answer your questions. And Frazer Spence died ten years back.”
Fox nodded, letting Rebus know none of this was news. “But you’re still here,” he intoned. “As are Stefan Gilmour and Eamonn Paterson. Plus others connected to the case…”
“Billy Saunders?”
“Drives a private-hire taxi.” Fox paused. “Have you ever happened to bump into him?”
“Not in quarter of a century.”
“That sort of thing can be checked,” Fox cautioned.
“So go check.” Rebus rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “But don’t expect to find much, other than cobwebs and dust.”
“Can I assume you’ll now pass word along to your ex-colleagues, let them know I’ll be contacting them?”
“They’ll tell you you’re wasting your time, as well as a good chunk of taxpayers’ money.”
Fox ignored this. “I think I have the address for George Blantyre. Stefan Gilmour will be easy to track down—he’s never out of the papers.” He paused. “Does Eamonn Paterson still live on Ferry Road?”
“As far as I know.”
“I doubt he’s moved house since last night.” Fox’s eyes were fixed on Rebus’s. “I was reconnoitering,” he explained. “Saw you dropping him off. Good to see you’re still close.” Fox paused. “When the Saunders case flared up, you hadn’t been part of the team at Summerhall very long?”
“About six months, maybe seven.”
“Newest disciple to the ranks of the Saints?”
“Yes.”
“Makes me think maybe you weren’t involved—Gilmour and the others wouldn’t have known how far they could trust you.”
“Is that right?” Rebus leaned back, the pew creaking in complaint.
“You’re just barely back on the force. Something like this could jeopardize that…”
“What you’re saying is, if I help you, I can be written out of the story?”
“You know I can’t make those sorts of promises.” But Fox’s tone of voice hinted otherwise.
“And all I’d have to do is grass up some of my oldest friends?”
“I’m not asking for that.”
“You’re a piece of work, Fox. And let me tell you something I do know.” Rebus was edging out from the pew, getting to his feet. “You’re a baw-hair away from having served your time in the Complaints. Means you’ll be back in the fray soon, surrounded by people like me—fun and games ahead, Inspector. I hope you’re not averse to a bit of ruck and maul…”
“Is that a threat?”
Rebus didn’t bother answering. He was sliding his arms into his coat. The pint was where he’d left it, not even half finished.
“Formal interviews will commence in a day or two,” Fox stated. “And trust me, those will be rigorous and recorded.” He turned to watch as Rebus headed towards the doorway then through it, descending the few steps to the bar, the main door and the world outside.
There was silence at the table for a few moments, then Fox puffed out his cheeks and exhaled.
“Went well, I thought,” Siobhan Clarke offered.
“Insofar as we didn’t end up grappling on the floor, yes, I suppose it did.”
Clarke had risen to her feet. Fox asked if she wanted a lift, but she shook her head. “Almost quicker to walk,” she told him. “Plus it’ll help clear all the fumes from my nose.”
“The fire?” Fox inquired.
“The testosterone,” she corrected him.
“Thanks for your help, anyway.”
“I didn’t really do anything.”
“You got Rebus here.”
“He actually didn’t need any persuading.”
Fox considered this for a moment. “Maybe he was warned by Eamonn Paterson…”
Clarke held out her hand and Fox shook it.
“Good luck,” she told him.
“You really mean that?”
“Up to a point.”
Left alone in the back room of the bar, Fox noticed that his glass wasn’t quite centered on its mat. Slowly and carefully, he began the task of repositioning it.
Rebus had paused long enough at the North Castle Street junction to get a cigarette going and call Eamonn Paterson’s home number.
“It’s John,” he said, when Paterson picked up.
“Last night was good, wasn’t it? Thanks again for the lift.”
“I’ve just been speaking to Malcolm Fox.”
“Who’s he?”
“Works Complaints, which makes him Macari’s attack dog.”
“That was quick.”
“He’s got us all in his sights. Reckons we banjaxed the Saunders case to keep a good snitch on the street.”
“As if we’d do such a thing.”
“But it wasn’t that, was it?”
“How do you mean, John?”
“I mean, there was something else—something that had all of you twitchy. Doors that were pushed shut when I walked past…conversations that would stop dead when I stepped into the bar.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Whether I am or not, you’re going to have to deal with Fox—and he might look like the sort of big soft bear you’d win at the fair, but he’s got claws he’s spent his whole life sharpening.”
“And why would we even have to speak to him?”
“Because Elinor Macari will have made sure he has all the powers necessary. Right now, he’s requisitioning files and evidence from thirty years back. He’ll be well prepped when he comes calling.”
“You said it yourself, John—thirty years…Maybe none of us can remember that far back.”
“I doubt that’s going to be much of a defense, Eamonn. Not if there’s anything in those files for him to find.” Rebus paused. “So let me ask you right now: is there?”
“You were there, John. You know how we worked.”
“I know some of it.” Rebus watched as Siobhan Clarke emerged from Young Street. She saw him and waved. “Anytime you want to fill in the blanks for me, I’d gladly listen—might mean I can help.”
“John…”
“Think it over,” Rebus snapped, ending the call. Then, to Clarke: “Hello, you.”
“I was going to walk to Gayfield Square. You headed that way?”
“Why not?” The two crossed the road, mindful of traffic, and started along Hill Street.
“So what did you think?” she asked at last.
“You know me, Siobhan. I never give much thought to anything.”
“Yet you seemed to have nailed Fox—this job’s just deferring the evil hour when he’s consigned to CID.” She paused. “You don’t mind me acting as go-between?” She watched him shrug. “Actually,” she corrected herself, “I think the word Fox used was ‘referee.’”
“We were just a bunch of guys, Siobhan, typical of CID back then.”
“Except that you had a name for your gang.”
“I never had as much time for it as the others. When we went out on a job, we had this tape in the car—The Skids singing ‘The Saints Are Coming.’ It was mandatory to play it.”
“And if you forgot?”
“Someone would get annoyed—Gilmour usually.”
“He’s a developer these days, isn’t he?”
“Hotels mostly. Went into business wi
th a big-name footballer.”
“He’s worth millions?”
“So the story goes.”
“I’ve seen him on No campaign posters…You still know him?”
Rebus stopped walking and turned to face her. “I saw him last night.”
“Oh?”
“At Dod Blantyre’s house.”
“The meeting your friend Porkbelly was telling you about?”
Rebus nodded, eyes boring into hers. “You can take that to Fox if you like. Bound to get his antennae twitching—a panicky reunion of the Saints.”
“Is that what it was?”
Rebus scratched at his jaw. “I’m not sure,” he confided. “The pretext was we wanted to catch up with Blantyre.”
“Because he’s had a stroke?”
“But he knew about Macari. And they wanted me to see what I could find out.”
Clarke nodded her understanding. “Which is why you agreed to meet Fox? And that phone call you just made…”
“Was me reporting back to Paterson,” Rebus confirmed. He had started to walk again, Clarke eventually catching up.
“You’re trying to play both sides?” she guessed. “Meaning you really don’t know what happened with Billy Saunders.”
“I’m not sure it’s as straightforward as Fox thinks.”
“So tell him that.”
“And drop the others in it?” Rebus shook his head. “Not until I’m certain.”
“You’re going to do some digging of your own? You know how that will look to Fox, don’t you?”
“I don’t give a damn how it looks to your friend Fox.”
Clarke grabbed his arm. “You know whose friend I really am.”
Rebus had stopped walking again. He looked down at his forearm, her hand clamped around it. “Of course I do,” he said, almost gently. “You’re Malcolm Fox’s friend.”
She looked furious for the two or three seconds before he burst into a grin.
“You’re an absolute prick sometimes,” she said, releasing her grip so she could curl her hand into a fist with which to punch him on the shoulder. Rebus winced and rubbed at the spot.
“You been training with weights?” he asked.
“More than you have,” she snapped back.
“Same gym as your lawyer friend? Any more cheap dinners planned?”
“You’re really not funny.”
“Then why are you smiling?” Rebus asked as they set off again.
“Fox is taking charge of the files on the case,” Clarke eventually commented.
“Yes, he is,” Rebus agreed.
“So if you want to go digging…”
“All it’ll cost is my dignity,” Rebus told her.
“But back in the bar…”
“If I’d kowtowed straightaway, he’d have suspected something.” He glanced in her direction. “Some people might mistake that look for grudging admiration.”
“They might,” Clarke acknowledged. But she kept on looking.
The comms center had gone through their logs for the night of the crash and found nothing from the western side of the city, other than the motorist who had called to report the crash itself. Rebus asked for those details anyway and jotted them down. He remembered the driver had been on her way home from her supermarket job in Livingston. He phoned her mobile and caught her at work. She asked how Jessica Traynor was doing.
“Recovering,” Rebus told her. “Meantime, I’ve a couple of follow-up questions, if that’s okay. When you stopped your car, you didn’t see any other signs of life?”
“No.”
“Nothing to indicate that she might not have been on her own at the time of the smash?”
“Was there someone else there?”
“We’re just trying to establish a picture, Mrs. Muir.”
“She was in the driver’s seat.”
“And her door was open?”
“I think so.”
“What about the boot?”
“I’ve really no idea. I suppose the impact could have…”
“You don’t remember whether it was open or closed?”
“No.” She paused, then apologized and asked if it was important.
“Not really,” Rebus assured her. “And you didn’t see any other vehicle? No lights further down the road?”
“No.”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but did you pass any cars traveling in the other direction in the minutes before you reached the scene?”
“I was thinking about my supper. And I had the radio on, singing along most likely.”
“So you don’t remember?”
“I don’t.”
Rebus thanked her and hung up. He reckoned she would have remembered if some boy racer had come roaring out of nowhere. He got up from his desk and walked across to Christine Esson’s. “What have you got for me?” he asked.
She pointed towards the printer. “You being old school, I decided you’d want it on paper.”
“Are we out of papyrus then?” He scooped up the thirty or so printed sheets.
“There was more,” she told him. “But it was all mergers and acquisitions—and a lot of duplication.”
“This’ll do to start,” Rebus said, returning to his desk and angling his chair so he could stretch his legs out. Then he began to read the Internet’s version of Owen Traynor’s life and times. Age fifty-two, married for seventeen years to Josephine Gray, acrimonious (and costly) divorce. Traynor had been declared bankrupt in his midtwenties but come good again within ten years. He was Croydon-born, and had told one interviewer that he’d attended the “university of hard knocks.” More than one profile spoke of his rapid change of mood whenever a subject he didn’t like was raised. An interviewer even confided that Traynor had threatened to hang him by the feet from the window—while making it sound like a joke. Not so much of a joke when that irate investor had started kicking up a fuss—attacked on his doorstep, ending up in intensive care. Charges never pressed. There had been other instances of flare-ups, Traynor’s temper getting the better of him. Barred from at least one racecourse and one five-star hotel in London.
Quite the character, Mr. Owen Traynor.
Rebus tapped the number for the Infirmary into his phone and asked how Jessica Traynor was faring.
“She’s been released,” he was told.
“So soon?”
“There’ll be a series of physio sessions and the like…”
“But she can manage stairs?” Rebus was thinking of the three steep flights to her Great King Street flat.
“Her father’s booked her into a hotel for a few days.”
In the room next to his, Rebus presumed. He thanked the nurse, ended the call and skimmed through the sheets of notes again. He realized the case was disappearing, as though it had been hoisted onto a trailer and was on its way for scrap. He looked around the office. Page was at some meeting, taking Clarke with him. Ronnie Ogilvie was prepping to give evidence at a trial. Christine Esson was studying statements. Was this what he had craved during his retirement? He had forgotten the lulls, the hours spent on paperwork, the hanging around. He thought of Charlie Watts—hadn’t he said something about life as a Rolling Stone? Fifty years in the band, ten spent drumming and the other forty waiting for something to happen. Segue to Peggy Lee: “Is That All There Is?”
“Bollocks to that,” Rebus muttered, getting to his feet. Probably just about enough time had passed. He patted his pockets, checking for cigarettes, matches, phone.
“Leaving so soon?” Esson teased him.
“Just for a few minutes.”
“Acting as boss has taken its toll, eh?”
“I don’t mind acting,” Rebus told her, heading for the door. “In fact, I’m just heading to another audition…”
The small car park was a courtyard of sorts, the gray concrete cop shop hemming it in. Rebus was almost always the only smoker to use it. He called Police HQ and asked to be put through to Professional Standards—“or
whatever they’ve decided to call it this week.” The extension rang half a dozen times before being answered.
“Sergeant Kaye,” the voice said by way of identification. Tony Kaye: Rebus had had dealings with him.
“Is your boyfriend there? Tell him John Rebus wants a word.”
“He’s in conference.”
“He’s not Alan fucking Sugar,” Rebus complained.
“A meeting, then—sorry, I didn’t realize grammar was your strong point.”
“Vocabulary, you arsehole, not grammar.”
“Mind and get a refund from that charm school, eh?”
“Soon as I’ve spoken to your generalissimo. Is this meeting of his with the fragrant Ms. Macari, by any chance?”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m a detective, son. A proper detective.”
“You forget I’ve seen your files. Plenty six-letter words, but ‘proper’ got scratched from the dictionary the day you left the academy.”
“I think I’m a little bit in love with you, Sergeant Kaye. Let me give you my vital statistics.” He reeled off his mobile number. “Tell Fox I think I can help him. Have him call me once Macari unzips his gimp mask.” He ended the call before Kaye could respond. Staring at the screen of his phone, he broke into a smile. He did like Kaye, didn’t know what the hell the guy was doing in the Complaints. When a text arrived, he peered at it.
Blow me, it said, followed by three kisses. Dispatched, presumably, from Kaye’s own mobile. Rebus added the number to his contacts and paced the space between the rows of cars, finishing his cigarette in peace.
6
It turned out the Solicitor General had given Fox his own little office within the Sheriff Court on Chambers Street, not half a minute’s walk from her own fiefdom.
“Cozy,” Rebus said, examining his surroundings. The building was relatively new, but he was struggling to remember what had been there before. He had passed stressed lawyers outside, gabbling into phones, plus, nearby, their devil-may-care clients, sharing cigarettes and war stories and comparing tattoos.
Fox was seated behind a desk that was too big for his immediate needs, in a room that was a riot of wood paneling. He sat with a pen gripped between both hands. To Rebus, it seemed like a pose the man had spent too long preparing. Fox looked stiff and unconvincing, and maybe he sensed this himself—placing the pen on the desk in front of him as Rebus took the seat opposite.