Black Book

5

Andrew McPhail sat beside his bedroom window. Across the road, the children were being lined up two by two outside the school doors. The boys had to hold hands with the girls, the whole thing supervised by two female staff members, looking hardly old enough to be parents, never mind teachers. McPhail sipped cold tea from his mug and watched. He paid very close attention to the children. Any one of the girls might have been Melanie. Except, of course, that Melanie would be older. Not much older, but older. He wasn’t kidding himself. He knew the odds were Melanie wouldn’t be at this school, probably wasn’t even in Edinburgh any more. But he watched all the same, and imagined her down there, her hand touching the cool wet hand of one of the boys. Small delicate fingers, the beginning of fine lines on the palm. One girl was really quite similar: short straight hair curling in towards her ears and the nape of her neck. The height was familiar, too, but the face, what he could see of the face, was nothing like Melanie. Really, nothing like her. And besides, what did it matter to McPhail?

They were marching into the building now, leaving him behind with his cold tea and his memories. He could hear Mrs MacKenzie downstairs, washing dishes and probably chipping and breaking as much crockery as she got clean. Not her fault, her eyesight was failing. Everything about the old woman was failing. The house was bound to be worth a pile of money-money in the bank. And what did he have? Only memories of the way things had been in Canada and before Canada.

A plate crashed onto the kitchen floor. It couldn’t go on like this, really it couldn’t. There’d be nothing left. He didn’t like to think about the budgie in the living-roo…

McPhail drained the strong tea. The caffeine made him slightly giddy, sweat breaking out on his forehead. The playground was empty, the school doors closed. He couldn’t see anything through the building’s few visible windows. There might be a late-arriving straggler, but he didn’t have time to waste. He had work to do. It was good to keep busy. Keeping busy kept you sane.

‘Big Ger,’ Rebus was saying, ‘real name Morris Gerald Cafferty.’ Dutifully, and despite her good memory, DC Siobhan Clarke wrote these words on her notepad. Rebus didn’t mind her taking notes. It was good exercise. When she lowered her head to write, Rebus had a view of the crown of her head, light-brown hair falling forward. She was good looking in a homely sort of way. Indeed, she reminded him a bit of Nell Stapleton.

‘He’s the prime mover, and if we’re offered him we’ll take him. But Operation Moneybags will actually be focusing on David Charles Dougary, known as Davey.’ Again, the words went onto the paper. ‘Dougary rents office space from a dodgy mini-cab service in Gorgie Road.’

‘Not far from the Heartbreak Cafe?’

The question surprised him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not too far.’

‘And the restaurant owner hinted at a protection pay-off?’ Rebus shook his head. ‘Don’t get carried away, Clarke.’

‘And these men are involved in protection money too, aren’t they?’

‘There’s not much Big Ger Cafferty isn’t involved in: money laundering, prostitution. He’s a big bad bastard, but that isn’t the point. The point is, this operation will concentrate on loan-sharking, period.’

‘All I’m saying is maybe Sergeant Holmes was attacked by mistake instead of the Cafe’s owner.’

‘It’s a possibility,’ said Rebus. And if it’s true, he thought, I’m wasting a lot of time and effort on an old case. But as Nell said, Brian was frightened of something in his black book. And all because he’d started trying to track down the mysterious R. Brothers.

‘But to get back to business, we’ll be setting up a surveillance across the road from the taxi firm.’

‘Round the clock?’

‘We’ll start with working hours. Dougary has a fairly fixed routine by all accounts.’

‘What’s he supposed to be doing in that office?’

‘The way he tells it, everything from basic entrepreneurship to arranging food parcels for the Third World. Don’t get me wrong, Dougary’s clever. He’s lasted longer than most of Big Ger’s “associates”. He’s also a maniac, it’s worth bearing that in mind. We once arrested him after a pub brawl. He’d torn the ear off another man with his teeth. When we got there, Dougary was chomping away. The ear was never recovered.’

Rebus always expected some reaction from his favourite stories, but all Siobhan Clarke did was smile and say, ‘I love this city.’ Then: ‘Are there files on Mr Cafferty?’

‘Oh aye, there are files. By all means, plough through them. They’ll give you some idea what you’re up against.’

She nodded. ‘I’ll do that. And when do we start the.surveillance, sir?’

‘First thing Monday morning. Everything will be set up on Sunday. I just hope they give us a decent camera.’ He noticed Clarke was looking relieved. Then the penny dropped. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t miss the Hibs game.’

She smiled. ‘They’re away to Aberdeen.’

‘And you’re still going?’

‘Absolutely.’ She tried never to miss a game.

Rebus was shaking his head. He didn’t know that many Hibs fans. ‘I wouldn’t travel that far for the Second Coming.’

‘Yes you would.’

Now Rebus smiled. ‘Who’s been talking? Right, what’s on the agenda for today?’

‘I’ve talked to the butcher. He was no help at all. I think I’d have more chance of getting a complete sentence out of the carcases in his deep freeze. But he does drive a Merc. That’s an expensive car. Butchers aren’t well known for high salaries, are they?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘The prices they charge, I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘Anyway, I’m planning to drop in on him at home this morning, just to clear up a couple of points.’

‘But he’ll be at work.’

‘Unfortunately yes.’

Rebus caught on. ‘His wife will be home?’

‘That’s what I’m hoping. The offer of a cup of tea, a little chat in the living room. Wasn’t it terrible about Rory? That sort of thing.’

‘So you can size up his home life, and maybe get a talkative wife thrown in for good measure.’ Rebus was nodding slowly. It was so devious he should have thought of it himself.

‘Get tae it, lass,’ he said, and she did, leaving him to reach down onto the floor and lift one of the Central Hotel files onto his desk.

He started reading, but soon froze at a certain page. It listed the Hotel’s customers on the night it burnt down. One name fairly flew off the page.

‘Would you credit that?’ Rebus got up from the desk and put his jacket on. Another ghost. And another excuse to get out of the office.

The ghost was Matthew Vanderhyde.