Dead Souls

I invite you to examine more closely your duty and the obligations of your earthly service because that is something which all of us are only dimly aware of, and we scarcely...

27

One of Rough’s shoes had come off at some point, about halfway between the spot where his body had fallen and where the rock had been found. One early theory: someone had thumped him hard. He’d stumbled, staggered on, trying to get away from his attacker. His shoe had come off and been discarded. Finally, he’d fallen to the ground, where he’d died from the earlier blows. A barking dog approaching had alerted the attacker to the need to flee.

Another theory: after being hit, Rough had died instantly. His attacker had then dragged him along the path, the shoe coming free. Maybe intending to set things up so it looked like Rough had jumped or fallen from the Crags. But the dog-walker had come along, scaring off the killer.

‘What was he doing up there anyway?’ someone back at the station asked.

‘I think he liked it there,’ Rebus said. He was now officially the St Leonard’s expert on Darren Rough. ‘It was like a sanctuary, somewhere he felt safe. And he could look down on Greenfield from there, see what was happening.’

‘So someone followed him? Sneaked up on him?’

‘Or persuaded him to go there.’

‘Why?’

‘To make it look like suicide. Maybe they read about Jim Margolies in the paper.’

‘It’s a thought...’

There were plenty of thoughts, plenty of theories. One thought was: good riddance to the bastard. A week ago, it would have been Rebus’s view, too.

The murder room was being prepared, computers moved from other parts of the building into the room set aside for such work. The Farmer had put Chief Inspector Gill Templer in charge. Rebus had been her lover for a time, so long ago now it might have been in some past life. Her hair was a dark-streaked feather-cut. Her eyes were emerald green. She moved confidently across the room, checking preparations.

‘Good luck,’ Rebus told her.

‘I want you on the team,’ she said.

Rebus thought he could understand. She was circling the wagons, and it was better to have him in the ring shooting out, than outside shooting in.

‘And I want a report on my desk: everything you can tell me about you and the deceased.’

Rebus nodded, got to work on one of the computers. Everything you can tell me: Rebus liked her wording, it gave him an escape clause — not everything he knew necessarily, but all he felt able to divulge. He looked across to where Siobhan Clarke was compiling a wall-mounted duty roster. She saw him and made a T sign with her hands. He nodded, and five minutes later she was back with two scalding beakers.

‘Here you go.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. She was looking over his shoulder at the screen.

‘Nothing but the truth?’ she asked.

‘What do you think?’

She blew on her cup. ‘Any idea who’d want him dead?’

‘I can’t think of many who didn’t. We’ve got half the population of Greenfield to start with.’ Especially Cal Brady, with his previous convictions; and not forgetting his mother...

‘Chasing him out and killing him aren’t quite in the same league.’

‘No, but something like that can escalate. Maybe Billy Horman was all it took.’

She rested against the corner of the desk. ‘Hit with a rock... doesn’t sound premeditated, does it?’

Hit with a rock... Deirdre, Alan Archibald’s niece, had been killed in a similar way: smashed over the head with a rock and then strangled. Clarke could read his mind.

‘Cary Oakes?’

‘Have we got a time of death yet?’ Rebus asked, reaching for a telephone.

‘Not that I know of. Body was found at eleven thirty.’

‘And we’re guessing the killer heard someone coming and ran for it.’ Rebus had pressed the digits and was waiting. Connected. ‘Hello, could you put me through to James Stevens, please?’

Clarke looked at him. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I want to know what happened after breakfast.’ He listened again, took his hand away. ‘Could you try Cary Oakes’s room for me?’ Shook his head to let Clarke know Stevens wasn’t in his own room. This time the call was answered.

‘Oakes, is that you? It’s Rebus here, put Stevens on.’ He waited a moment. ‘One question: what happened after breakfast?’ Listened again. ‘Was he out of your sight? You’ve been there all morning?’ Listened. ‘No, it’s all right. You’ll find out soon enough.’

Replaced the receiver.

‘They’ve been working all morning.’

‘No chance it was Oakes then.’ She looked at the computer screen. ‘What would be his motive anyway?’

‘Christ knows. But he was at my flat. He took the patrol car. Maybe he saw Rough leave, worked out he was connected to me.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘No.’

‘Then all he has to do is deny it.’

Rebus exhaled noisily. ‘It’s all games with him.’

Gill Templer was staring at them from across the room.

‘I’d better get back to work,’ Clarke said, taking her tea with her. Rebus finished his report, printed it out, handed it personally to Gill Templer.

‘When’s the post-mortem?’

She checked her watch. ‘I was just about to head over there.’

‘Need a driver?’

She studied him. ‘Has your driving improved?’

‘I’ll let you be the judge, ma’am.’

The city mortuary wasn’t in business. Health and Safety; changes needed to be made. Meantime, they were using the Western General Hospital. Because they couldn’t find any relatives or friends, Andy Davies had been called to verify Rebus’s identification. The social worker was waiting when Rebus and Gill Templer arrived. He made the ID, said nothing to Rebus but shot him a cold look before leaving.

‘Bad blood?’ Templer asked.

‘Better than none at all, Gill.’

Professor Gates was already at work by the time they’d got their gowns and masks on. For the official ID, Rough’s corpse had worn a shroud. Now, lying on the stainless-steel bench, it wore nothing at all. Prominent ribs, Rebus noted. He was thinking of the meal he’d made for Rough. Grudgingly made. Beans on toast. Probably the man’s last meal ever. And eventually, Gates would reveal it to the world again. Rebus half-turned his face.

‘Seasick, Inspector?’ Gates asked.

‘I’ll be fine so long as we keep out of the bilges.’

Gates chuckled. ‘But below decks is the most interesting part.’ He was measuring, muttering his findings to his assistant, a young man with a face the colour of a cancer bed.

‘And how are you, Gill?’ he asked at last.

‘Overworked.’

Gates glanced up. ‘Fine lassie like you should be at home, bringing up strong healthy bairns.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

Gates chuckled again. ‘Don’t tell me you lack suitors?’

She chose to ignore the remark.

‘What about you, John?’ Gates persisted. ‘Love life satisfactory? Maybe I should play Cupid, put the two of you together. What do you say to that now, eh?’

Rebus and Templer shared a look.

‘Professions like ours,’ Gates drawled on, ‘aren’t the same as being a lawyer or a novelist, are they? Not much of an ice-breaker at parties.’ He nodded towards his assistant. ‘Bear that in mind, Jerry. No nookie unless you lie about what you do.’ Gates’s final chuckle turned into a choking bark, a bronchial cough which almost doubled him over. He wiped his eyes afterwards.

‘Time to stop smoking,’ Templer warned him.

‘I can’t do that. It would spoil the bet.’

‘What bet?’

‘Dr Curt and myself: who’ll live the longer on twenty a day.’

‘That’s...’ Templer had been about to say ‘sick’, but then she saw that the body had been opened up almost without her noticing, and she realised why Gates kept the conversation going: it was to take everyone’s mind off the task at hand. And for a few moments, it had worked.

‘I’ll tell you one thing straight off,’ the pathologist said. ‘His clothes were damp, and to me that means rain. I’ve checked: we had a short shower early this morning and nothing since.’

‘Could he have got wet lying on the path?’

‘He was lying on his front. The back of his clothing was damp. So he was out in that shower, whether alive or dead I can’t say. But his hair was wet, too. Now, if you’re caught in a sudden downpour, wouldn’t you usually pull your jacket up over your head?’

‘Depends on your state of mind,’ Rebus said.

Gates shrugged. ‘I’m only surmising. But one thing I’m sure of.’ He ran a finger along the body, tracing patches of pale bluish markings. ‘Livor mortis. It was present at the scene. I arrived forty-five minutes after the body was discovered.’

‘But lividity starts...?’

‘Well, it starts from the moment the heart stops pumping, but it becomes visible somewhere between half an hour and an hour after death. This was well-established by the time I arrived.’

‘What about rigor mortis?’

‘Eyelids had stiffened, as had the jaw. I’ll take a potassium sample from the eye, to get a better idea of timing, but right now I’d guess the body had been lying there for three hours, maybe more.’

Rebus took a step forward. If Gates was right — and he invariably was — the dog-walker had not disturbed the killer. The killer had been long gone by the time the spaniel and its owner had arrived, and Darren Rough had died around seven or eight in the morning. At five he’d been asleep on Rebus’s couch; by six he’d gone...

‘Did he die where we found him?’ Rebus asked, wanting to be sure.

‘Judging by the patterns of lividity, I’d say it’s a racing certainty.’ The pathologist paused. ‘Of course, I’ve lost a few pounds on horses in my time.’

‘We need a more specific time of death.’

‘I know you do, Inspector. You always do. I’ll do what tests the budget will stretch to.’

‘And ASAP.’

Gates nodded. He was about ready to begin removing the inner organs. Jerry was fussing with the necessary tools.

Rebus was thinking: three, maybe four hours.

Thinking: Cary Oakes was back in the running.

28

They took him in for questioning, Rebus keeping out of the way, listening to the tapes afterwards. Stevens’ paper had provided their client with a solicitor from one of the city’s top firms, despite Templer’s insistence that all they had were a few questions, easily cleared up. But Oakes was saying nothing. Templer was good, and she had Pryde with her: their routine was well-honed, but Rebus got the feeling Oakes had seen all the moves before. He’d been examined and cross-examined and called to the stand again, he’d been through all that in an American courtroom. He just sat there and said he knew nothing about the patrol car, nothing about where Rebus lived, and nothing about any dead paedophile. His final comment:

‘What’s all the fuss about a kiddie-fucker?’

Pryde, listening to the tape, folded his arms at that and puckered his lips, most of him agreeing with the sentiment. When Pryde asked if Rebus was heading outside for a smoke, Rebus, inwardly gasping for one, shook his head. Later, he went out into the car park alone, pacing as he sucked hungrily on first one Silk Cut and then a second. Ten a day, he was keeping to ten a day. And if he went as high as twelve today, that meant only eight tomorrow. Eight was fine, he could handle that. It gave him a margin for today, a margin he reckoned he’d need.

Only thing was, he was already in arrears for the week; for the whole month, truth be told.

Tom Jackson came out, lit one of his own. They didn’t speak for the first couple of minutes. Jackson scuffed his shoes on the tarmac and broke the silence.

‘I hear you took him in.’

Rebus blew smoke from his nose. ‘That’s right.’

‘Rescue act, let him stay the night.’

‘So?’

‘So not everyone would have been so charitable.’

‘I’m not sure it was charity.’

‘What then?’

What then? It was a good question.

‘Thing is,’ Jackson went on, ‘a few days back, you were all for stringing him up.’

‘Don’t exaggerate.’

‘You set that pack of wild dogs on him.’

‘You mean the papers or his neighbours?’

‘Both.’

‘Careful, Tom. You’re their community officer. That’s your flock you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about you: what happened?’

‘He only slept on my couch, Tom. It’s not like I gave him a gam or anything.’ Rebus flicked his third cigarette on to the ground, stubbed it out. Only half-smoked, so he’d count two and a half; round it down to two.

‘We still haven’t turned up the kid.’

‘How’s his mother doing?’

Jackson knew the question’s subtext, answered accordingly. ‘Nobody seems to think she’s a suspect.’

‘What’s her history?’

‘Billy’s her only kid. Had him at nineteen.’

‘Is the father around?’

‘Did the usual vanishing act before the baby was born. Ran off to Ulster to join the paramilitaries.’

‘He’ll be running for office now then.’

Jackson snorted. ‘She’s had half a dozen blokes since; been living with the latest for the past few weeks.’

‘The three of them in the flat together?’

Jackson nodded. ‘He’s being interviewed. We’re digging into his history.’

‘A fiver says he’s got form.’

‘What? Living in Greenfield?’ Jackson smiled. ‘Keep your money in your pocket.’ He paused. ‘You really don’t think this connects to our deceased friend?’

‘It might do, Tom. But just maybe not in the way we think.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Be seeing you,’ Rebus said, moving away.

Thinking of an old Gravy Train song: ‘Won’t Talk About It’.

He told Patience he wouldn’t be seeing her. There must have been something in his tone of voice.

‘Out on the ran-dan?’ she said.

‘You know me too well.’ He put the receiver down before she could say anything else. He started at The Maltings, headed up Causewayside to Swany’s, then took a taxi to the Ox. His car was back at St Leonard’s: no problem, he could walk into work next morning. Salty Dougary, one of the Young Street regulars, had just been in hospital: a coronary; they’d operated, angioplasty or something like that. He was telling the bar all about it. For some reason Rebus couldn’t fathom, the operation had apparently started at Dougary’s groin.

‘Way to a man’s heart,’ Rebus commented, sinking another whisky. He was diluting them with water, but not overly so. He felt fine, as in not drunk; mellow, kind of. But he knew if he walked out of the bar, he’d start to feel the alcohol. A good excuse to stay put, like that character in Apocalypse Now: ‘Never get out of the boat.’ It was only when you left the boat that you got into trouble. The same thing, in Rebus’s experience, was true of pubs, which was why he was still in the Ox at half past midnight. The back room had been taken over by musicians, a dozen or more of them; guitars mostly, twelve-bar blues. One guy with a beard was playing the harmonica like he was in front of a Madison Garden crowd. Janis Joplin: ‘Buried Alive in the Blues’.

Rebus was talking with George Klasser, a doctor at the Infirmary. Klasser usually left early — sevenish or a little after. When he stayed late, it was a sign things were fraught at home. He’d started the evening advising Salty Dougary to regulate his alcohol intake.

‘The pot calling the kettle black,’ had been Dougary’s riposte. Dougary looking like he’d just been on holiday rather than in surgery: face tanned, ciggies cut down from forty a day to ten. Klasser with dark shadows under his eyes, a slight trembling to the hand when he picked up his glass. Rebus had had an uncle who’d smoked a pack of cigarettes every day of his life and lived to be eighty. His own father had died younger, having given up cigarettes two decades previously.

You never could tell.

There were only four of them in the front bar, five including Harry. Dougary, who’d drunk in every pub in the city, reckoned Harry was Edinburgh’s rudest barman, which was quite a feat, considering the competition.

‘I wish youse lot would bugger off home,’ Harry said, not for the first time that evening.

‘Night’s young yet, Harry,’ Dougary said.

‘How come they let you out of intensive care?’

Dougary winked. ‘Intensive care’s what I come in here for.’ He toasted them with his glass and raised it to his lips. Twenty minutes before, Rebus had told Klasser about Darren Rough. Now Klasser turned to him, eyes heavy-lidded.

‘There was a famous murder case. Turn of the century, I think it was. German couple came here on their honeymoon, only it turned out he wanted her money rather than love. He planned to kill her, make it look like suicide. So they went for a walk up on Arthur’s Seat, and he pushed her off the Crags.’

‘But he didn’t get away with it?’

‘Obviously not, or there’d be no story to tell.’

‘So how was he caught?’

Klasser stared into his glass. ‘I can’t recall.’

Dougary laughed. ‘Don’t let him start telling any jokes, he always forgets the punchline.’

‘I’ll punch you in a minute, Salty.’

‘Get in the queue,’ Harry commented.

Some nights it was like that in the Oxford Bar. When the guitar-players packed up, Rebus put his coat on. There was a stiff breeze outside, and it had been raining again, the streets black and shiny as a beetle’s back. He’d meant to phone Janice, but what would he have said? There was no news of Damon. He walked along Princes Street, deciding he liked the city best like this: all the visitors tucked up in bed. Outside the Balmoral Hotel, a line of Jags and Rovers sat, their chauffeurs waiting for some function to finish. A young couple walked past, sharing a bottle of cheap cider. The male wore a jacket with a badge on it. The badge said Stockholm Film Festival. Rebus had never heard of it. Maybe it was the name of a band: you couldn’t be sure these days.

He walked up the Bridges, stopped at some railings so he could look down on to the Cowgate. There were clubs still open down there, teenagers spilling on to the road. The police had names for the Cowgate when it got like this: Little Saigon; the blood bank; hell on earth. Even the patrol cars went in twos. Whoops and yells: a couple of girls in short dresses. One lad was down on his knees in the road, begging to be noticed.

Pretty Things: ‘Cries from the Midnight Circus’.

In Edinburgh, sometimes it could be midnight in the middle of the day...

He didn’t know where he was going, what he was doing. If he was going home, he was doing so only by degrees. When a taxi came, he flagged it down. On sudden impulse, he named his destination.

‘The Shore.’

29

The idea was...

The idea was to stand in the freezing cold outside the hotel, call up to Oakes’s room on the mobile. Get him downstairs... no crack to the back of the head this time. Face to face. But it was the drink, that was all. Rebus knew he wouldn’t do it; knew Oakes wouldn’t fall for it anyway. Looking across from The Shore, he saw there were lights from the Clipper, and a minder on the door. So Rebus crossed the bridge, introduced himself. The minder was wiping sweat from his face. From within, Rebus could hear raised voices, laughter.

‘Party?’ he asked.

‘Don’t tell me there’ve been complaints,’ the minder growled. His accent was Liverpudlian. From his size, Rebus would bet his family had worked dockside. ‘That’s all I need right now.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Buggers don’t want to leave, do they?’

‘Have you tried asking nicely?’

The man snorted.

‘Nobody here to help you?’

‘When we turned the music off, looked like they weren’t going to stick around. DJ packed up and sodded off home. So did Mr Frost — my boss. Told me all I had to do was switch off the lights and lock up after me.’

‘You’re new to this game.’

The bouncer smiled. ‘Does it show?’

‘I take it you’ve got a mobile about your person. Why not call Mr Frost?’

‘Don’t have his home number.’

Rebus rubbed his chin. ‘Is that as in Archie Frost?’

‘That’s him.’

Rebus was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Want me to talk to them?’ He nodded towards the boat. ‘See if I can get them to pack up?’

The minder stared at him. He was well-educated in the relationship that should exist between his profession and Rebus’s: a favour done now might mean a favour asked later. He turned towards a noise. One of the revellers had come up on deck and was preparing to urinate off the side. He sighed.

‘Why not?’ he said.

And Rebus was in.

One guy had pegged out on the deck, champagne bottle held to his chest. His bow tie was hanging from his neck; his watch was a gold Rolex. The guest using the Albert Basin as his own private loo rocked to and fro on his heels. He was humming the chorus of some pop song. Seeing Rebus, he beamed a smile. Rebus ignored him, headed down the steps into the main body of the boat. It was set up for a party: chairs and tables around a long narrow dancefloor. Bar at one end, makeshift stage at the other. There was a lighting rig, a mirror-ball over the dancefloor. Shutters had been brought down across the bar and fixed with a padlock, which another drunk was trying to pick with a plastic toothpick. A couple of the tables had been knocked over, along with a dozen or so chairs. There were forgotten items of clothing strewn across the floor, along with crisps, peanuts, empty bottles, and bits of sandwich and squashed quiche. The main action was centred on two tables which had been pushed together. Fourteen or fifteen people sat here. Women sat on men’s laps, kissing deeply. A few couples were indulging in muted conversations. One or two individuals were fast asleep. A hard core of five — three men, two women — were telling slurred stories, detailing the party highlights, mostly involving drink, vomit and snogging.

‘Hello again,’ Rebus said to Ama Petrie. ‘This your do, is it?’

She had her head on the shoulder of the young man next to her. Her mascara was smeared, making her look tired. Her short dress was a meshing of black gauzy layers. Her bare feet were in the lap of the man on the other side of her. He was playing with her toes.

‘Oh, Christ,’ this man said, eyes drooping, ‘they’ve sent in the heavy brigade. Look, my good man, we’ve paid for this evening — cash, and upfront. So kindly bugger off and—’

‘Oscar, you arse, he’s a policeman,’ Ama Petrie said. Then, to Rebus: ‘Nice to see you again.’ It was an automatic greeting, something she couldn’t help but say, even though her eyes told a different story. Her eyes told Rebus she wasn’t in the least pleased to see him.

‘Well,’ Oscar said, smiling to the assembly, ‘in that case, it’s a fair cop, guv, but society’s to blame. I never had a chance.’ He slipped into the role effortlessly, drawing smiles and laughter from his audience. Rebus looked at the faces around him: the faces of Edinburgh’s rich young things. They’d have their own flats in the New Town, gifts from indulgent parents. They had their parties and their nights out. Maybe by day they shopped or lunched or attended a couple of lectures at the university. Maybe they drove their sports cars out to the country. Their lives were predestined: a job in the family business, or something ‘arranged’ — a position they could cope with, something requiring inbred charm and minimal effort. Everything would fall into their laps, because that’s the way the world was.

‘Shame he’s not in uniform, eh, Nicky?’

‘What have we done, Officer?’ another of the men asked.

‘Well, you’ve overstayed your welcome,’ Rebus said. ‘But that doesn’t really concern me. Might I ask whose party this is?’ He was looking at Ama.

‘Mine, actually,’ the man with the toothpick said, turning away from the bar. He pushed his thick fair hair back from his forehead. A thin face, soft-featured. ‘I’m Nicol Petrie, Ama’s brother.’ Rebus guessed this was ‘Nicky’: Shame he’s not in uniform, eh, Nicky?

He was in his early twenties, fashionably unshaven so his face shone a spiky gold. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll move this lot off the boat, promise.’ And to his friends: ‘We’ll go back to my place. Plenty of drink there.’

‘I want to go to a casino,’ one woman complained. ‘You said we’d go.’

‘Darling, he only said that so you’d give him a blow job.’

Hoots of laughter, pointed fingers. Ama had her eyes closed but was chuckling, her feet grinding against her companion’s groin.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten Rebus. The conversations were starting up again. He reached into his pocket, handed two photographs to Nicol Petrie.

‘His name’s Damon Mee. He left a nightclub with the blonde woman. We think they were on their way to a party on this boat, hosted by your sister.’

‘Yes,’ Nicol Petrie said, ‘Ama told me.’ He studied the photos, shook his head. ‘Sorry.’ Handed them back.

‘You were at the party in question?’ Petrie nodded. ‘All of you?’

They looked to Ama, who told them which party it had been. A couple hadn’t been present — previous commitments. Rebus handed the photos out anyway. Nobody paid much attention to them; they kept talking to each other as they passed them round.

‘I could just go some smoked salmon.’

‘Alison’s bash next Friday: are you going?’

‘Hair extensions, they change your whole face instantly...’

‘Thought about putting a consortium together, buy a racehorse...’

Ama Petrie didn’t even glance at the pictures, just passed them along.

‘Sorry,’ the last of the group said, handing them back to Rebus before continuing a conversation. Nicol Petrie looked apologetic.

‘I promise we’ll leave soon, assemble some taxis.’

‘Right, sir.’

‘And I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help.’

‘Not to worry.’

‘I ran away from home once...’

‘Nick, you were only twelve,’ Ama Petrie drawled.

‘All the same, I know how much it hurt our mother and father.’

Ama disagreed. ‘They hardly noticed you were gone.’ She looked up at him. ‘It was me who called the police.’

‘What happened?’ Rebus asked.

‘I’d been staying at a friend’s house,’ Nicol Petrie explained. ‘When his parents heard I was supposed to be missing, they drove me home.’ He shrugged. A couple of his friends laughed.

‘Right,’ he said, raising his voice slightly. ‘Back to my place. The night is still young, and so are we!’

There were cheers at this. Rebus got the feeling Nicol had roused the troops like this before.

‘Where’s Alfie?’ Ama asked.

‘Taking a leak,’ she was told.

Rebus made for the stairs. ‘Thanks anyway,’ he said to her brother. Nicol Petrie shot out a hand, which Rebus shook.

Shame he’s not in uniform... What the hell had that meant? Some private joke? Rebus climbed back up into fresh air. The man who’d been relieving himself — Alfie — was sitting on the floor of the boat, legs splayed. He’d forgotten to button his flies.

‘Leaving so soon?’ he asked.

‘Everyone’s going back to Nicky’s,’ Rebus said, like he was one of the gang.

‘Good old Nicky,’ Alfie said.

‘You’re Alfie, aren’t you?’

The young man looked up, trying to place Rebus. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘can’t seem to...’

‘John,’ Rebus said.

‘Of course, John.’ Nodding briskly. ‘Never forget a face. You’re in the finance sector?’

‘Securities.’

‘Never forget a face.’ Alfie started to get up. Rebus helped him. He still had his photos in one hand.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take a look.’ Didn’t say any more than that, just handed them over.

‘Photographer must have been pissed,’ Alfie said.

‘Not very good, are they?’

‘Bloody awful. I’ve got a friend who’s a photographer. Let me give you his number.’ Reaching into his jacket.

‘You’ll know his face, though,’ Rebus said, tapping the holiday snap of Damon.

Alfie squinted at the photo, brought it close to his nose, moved it to pick up the available light.

‘I pride myself,’ he said, ‘on never forgetting a face. But in this chap’s case, I’ll make an exception.’ Smiled crookedly at his own little joke. ‘Now the lady, on the other hand...’

‘Alfie!’ Ama Petrie was standing at the top of the stairs, arms folded against the chill. ‘Come on, we’re getting ready to go.’

‘Super idea, Ama.’ Alfie blinked so slowly, Rebus thought he’d nodded off.

‘About the blonde...’ Rebus persisted.

Ama had come up to them, was tugging on Alfie’s sleeve. Alfie patted Rebus’s arm. ‘See you at Nicky’s, old boy.’

‘Come on, Alfie.’ Ama pecked his cheek, led him to the stairs. A quick backward glance towards Rebus. Looking... angry? Relieved? A mix of the two? When they disappeared from view, Rebus walked off the boat.

‘They’re on their way,’ he told the minder.

‘Cheers.’

‘That’s one you owe me,’ Rebus said, waiting till the minder had nodded. ‘To square things, I want you to tell me what Archie Frost has to do with Billy Preston.’

‘He just works for him, same as I do.’

‘But he runs Gaitano’s for Charmer Mackenzie.’

The minder was nodding. ‘That’s right.’

‘No conflict of interests?’

‘Should there be?’

Rebus narrowed his eyes. ‘Mackenzie owns this boat?’

The minder licked his lips. ‘Part-owns. Mr Preston has the other half.’

Charmer Mackenzie had a half-share in the Clipper. And he owned Gaitano’s. Damon had been at Gaitano’s, and was last seen near the Clipper. Rebus was beginning to wonder...

‘That’s us quits,’ the minder said, as the party-goers did a conga towards the gangway.

He went back to his flat but couldn’t sleep. The blanket Darren Rough had slept under was still folded on the sofa. He couldn’t bring himself to move it. Instead, he sat in his chair, waiting for the ghosts to come. Maybe Darren would be with them, or maybe he’d have other souls to haunt.

But no ghosts came. Rebus dozed, came awake with a start. Decided he’d be better off out of doors. He cut through The Meadows, past the Infirmary. It was due to move out of town, south to Little France. There was talk the old Infirmary site would be turned into upmarket flats, or maybe a hotel. Prime city-centre site, but who’d want a flat where a hospital ward had been?

He paused at the statue of Greyfriars Bobby. When you thought of it, Bobby was just a dog with nowhere better to go, nothing better to be doing. Rebus reached out and patted the statue’s head.

‘Stay,’ he said, heading down George IV Bridge. A couple of taxis slowed beside him, touting for custom, but he waved them on, took the Playfair Steps down to the National Gallery and Royal Academy. He passed a couple of people sleeping rough, watched the Castle beginning to assume shape again against the sky as night segued into morning. He thought of his grandfathers, whose names were buried somewhere in the Castle’s Books of Remembrance. He couldn’t even recall what regiments they’d served in. Both had died in the 1914–18 campaign, long before Rebus’s parents had even met.

Princes Street had the usual haphazard look to it. The pavements seemed plenty wide when there was no one else about. He nipped up the side of Burger King and into the Penny Black, which opened for business at five. There were a couple of drinkers already in. Rebus ordered a whisky, added plenty of water.

‘Man, you’re drowning it,’ one drinker commented.

Rebus just smiled; didn’t tell the man that water was his lifeline. An early edition of the Scotsman sat on the bar. Rebus flicked through it. A report of the previous day’s doings in the Shiellion trial, plus the ‘suspicious death’ of Darren Rough and the disappearance of Billy Horman. There was an anonymous quote from a member of GAP, to the effect that they blamed Rough for the boy’s disappearance.

‘And we’re just glad and relieved that one piece of vermin has departed this earth. May all the others do the same.’

Van Brady in preaching mode. There was talk of a residents’ committee, of new arrivals in Greenfield being vetted by their neighbours. There was going to be discussion of neighbourhood patrols, spot checks, and even some kind of barrier to stop ‘undesirables’ from entering Greenfield and ‘defacing’ it.

Rebus knew Scotland was gearing up for self-rule, but this was taking it to extremes.

‘We’ve got a computer in the community centre,’ the spokesperson said, ‘and now we want to get hooked up to the Internet so we can ask the Guardian Angels for advice. We’re hoping a lottery grant will get us the software. This community deserves no less.’

If there was going to be a private police force in Greenfield, Rebus wondered who’d be best placed to operate it. The name Cal Brady came readily to mind...

He finished his drink and decided to have breakfast down in Leith, where there was a café open at six with huge portions and little fuss. He walked the length of Leith Walk, found the café and settled down. With the paper already read, he’d nothing to do but chew on a half-slice of fried bread and stare out of the window. When a taxi stopped at the lights outside the café, Rebus caught a glimpse of the passenger. He tried for a better look, but the taxi was already on the move, taking Cary Oakes back to his hotel. He got the licence number, jotted it on the back of his hand. A mouthful of scalding tea helped him wash down the bread, then he asked to use the owner’s phone. Called a cab company and asked about the reg.

‘You kidding? Know how many cabs we’ve got?’

‘Do your best, eh?’ He gave them his mobile number, then tried the other companies in the city. They all seemed to think he was asking a lot, but by the time he got to St Leonard’s, he had a result. The cabbie was actually back at base, his shift over. Rebus spoke to him.

‘You took a fare down to Leith, I’m guessing The Shore. About an hour ago.’

‘Yeah, last pick-up I had.’

‘Where exactly did you pick him up?’

‘Out Corstorphine way, just before the Maybury roundabout. What’s he done?’

Corstorphine: where Alan Archibald lived. Rebus thanked the driver and terminated the call. He went to the toilets for a wash and shave, swallowed two paracetamol with some coffee. The murder room was empty, no one yet at work. He examined the photos on the wall. Archibald’s niece had been murdered on a hillside; Darren Rough had been murdered on a hillside. Was it a connection? He thought of Cary Oakes, roaming freely through the city. Picked up one of the phones and called Patience.

‘Morning,’ she said sleepily.

‘This is your alarm call.’

He could hear her stretch her back, sitting up in bed. ‘What time is it?’

He told her. ‘I couldn’t get back for breakfast, thought I’d phone instead.’

‘Where are you?’

‘St Leonard’s.’

‘Did you sleep at Arden Street?’

‘I managed a nap.’

‘I don’t know how you do it.’ She was probably pushing hair out of her eyes. ‘I need eight hours minimum.’

‘They say it’s the sign of a clear conscience.’

‘What does that say about you?’ She knew he wasn’t going to answer that, asked instead if she’d see him for dinner.

‘Sure,’ he told her. ‘Unless you don’t, of course.’

‘Of course,’ she said. Then: ‘How’s the head?’

‘Fine.’

‘You liar. Try one day off the booze, John, just for me. One day, and tell me you don’t feel better in the morning.’

‘I know I’ll feel better in the morning. Problem is, as soon as I have a drink, I forget.’

‘Bye, John.’

‘Bye, Patience.’

Patience: more than living up to her name...

30

Rebus and Gill Templer, in Interview Room B with Cal Brady.

Interview Room B: same room Rebus had taken Darren Rough. Same room he’d first met Harold Ince during the Shiellion inquiry. They were talking to Cal Brady again because Templer had a few things to clear up.

‘You started that fire,’ she said.

‘Did I?’ Brady looked around, wide-eyed. ‘Maybe we better get a solicitor in here then.’

‘Don’t try to be funny, Mr Brady.’

‘Only jokers I see around here are you lot.’

‘Billy Horman is reported missing, next thing you’re out torching Darren Rough’s flat. If I was of a mind, I might think you had something to gain from that.’ She paused, shifting the paperwork in front of her. ‘Or something to hide.’

‘Such as?’ Brady sat back in his chair, arms folded.

‘That’s what I’m wondering.’

Brady snorted, looked to where Rebus was standing. ‘Lost your voice or what?’

Rebus didn’t rise to it. Gill Templer was quite capable of dealing with the likes of Cal Brady.

‘Everyone else went out looking for Billy,’ she continued, ‘but you held back. Why’s that, Mr Brady?’

Brady shifted in his seat. ‘Kept an eye on Billy Boy’s mum.’

Templer made a show of checking her notes. ‘Joanna Horman?’ She waited for Brady to nod agreement. ‘That’s women’s work, isn’t it, Calumn? Holding the mother’s hand, offering sympathy and a rum and Coke. Thought you were more of an Action Man.’

‘Someone had to do it.’

‘But why you, that’s what I’m getting at? Maybe you fancied her. Maybe the two of you know one another...?’ She paused. ‘Or could it be that you already knew there was no point looking for Billy Horman...?’

Brady thumped the desk. ‘Don’t you start on this!’ Quick to ignite. ‘Everybody knows what happened to Billy Boy. He got snatched by Rough or one of his cronies.’

‘Then where is he?’

‘How the hell should I know?’

‘And who killed Darren Rough?’

‘If it had been me, he’d’ve been missing some bits.’

‘What if I tell you he was?’ Templer playing a little game.

Brady looked surprised. ‘Was he? Nobody said...’

Templer looked at her notes. Then: ‘DI Rebus, I believe you have a few more questions for Mr Brady.’

Rebus having cleared things with her first, explaining his interest. He moved towards the desk, rested his knuckles on it.

‘How do you come to know Archie Frost?’

‘Archie?’ Brady looked at Templer. ‘What’s this got to do with anything?’

‘Another inquiry, Mr Brady. Unconnected to the other two, except, perhaps, by you.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘You want that solicitor now?’

He thought about it, shrugged his shoulders. ‘I do some work for him.’

‘For Mr Frost?’

‘That’s right. I work on the door some nights.’

‘You’re a bouncer?’

‘I keep an eye out for trouble.’

Rebus produced the photographs again. They had curled and creased at the edges, and were smeared with fingerprints.

‘Do you remember me asking about these people?’

Brady looked at the photos, nodded. ‘I wasn’t on the door that night.’

‘And which night is that?’ Brady looked up from the photos. Rebus was smiling. ‘I don’t recall giving Mr Frost any particular night.’

‘If I’d been working that night I’d have spotted him. I had a run-in with him once before. No way he would have got past the door with me there.’

Rebus narrowed his eyes. ‘What sort of run-in?’

Brady shrugged. ‘Nothing much. He was just a bit pissed, making too much noise. I told him to calm down and he didn’t, so a couple of us escorted him off the premises.’

Brady liked this last phrase; smiled at it. A nice official ring to it: ‘escorted’, ‘premises’.

‘You ever do any door work at the Clipper?’

Brady shook his head.

‘But you work for its owner.’

‘Mr Mackenzie has a share of the boat, that’s all.’

‘But he provides the bouncers too.’

‘I tried it once, didn’t like it.’

‘Why not?’

‘All these stuck-up tarts and Hooray Henries, thinking they could walk all over you because they had a bit of cash.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Brady looked at him. ‘No, really. I’ve seen them for myself.’ Rebus was still thinking about Brady’s run-in with Damon Mee. He’d thought it was Damon’s first visit to Gaitano’s; no one had told him any different. ‘Thing is, Cal, Damon’s a missing person, and I’m a bit like Gulliver in one of Lilliput’s toilets.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ve not got much to go on.’ Gill Templer groaned at the joke, while Rebus counted off on his fingers. ‘I’ve got Damon going missing, last seen with a blonde being dropped by taxi outside the Clipper. The boat’s part-owned by Charmer Mackenzie, who also owns Guiser’s, which is where Damon and the blonde seemed to meet. See, there’s a connection there. Right now, it’s the only thing I’ve got, which is why I’m going to keep working away at it until I’ve got some answers.’ He paused. ‘Only you don’t have any of the answers, do you?’

Brady stared at him. Rebus turned to Templer.

‘No further questions, m’lud.’

‘All right, Mr Brady,’ she said. ‘You can go now.’

Brady walked to the door, opened it, turned his head back towards Rebus.

‘Gulliver,’ he said. ‘Is he the one in the cartoon with the little people?’

‘That’s him,’ Rebus acknowledged.

Brady nodded thoughtfully. ‘I still don’t get it,’ he said, closing the door after him.

At lunchtime, Rebus sat in his car and slept for half an hour, before heading back to the office with a beaker of tomato soup and a cheese and Branston sandwich.

‘We’ve got something,’ Roy Frazer informed him. ‘Sighting of a white saloon car, exiting Holyrood Park at the Dalkeith Road end. Someone from maintenance at the Commonwealth Pool noticed it. Early morning, no traffic about. This car was doing a fair lick, went through a red light. He’s a cyclist, pays attention to that sort of thing.’

‘And a model citizen too, I’ll bet. Never sneaks through a red on his bike when nobody’s watching.’ Rebus thought for a moment. ‘Any surveillance cameras that might have caught it?’

‘I’ll check.’

‘Clear it with DCI Templer first. She’s in charge.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Frazer bounded off in search of her. He reminded Rebus of a pet spaniel, always ready for attention and praise. White saloon car... Something was niggling Rebus. He put in a call to Bobby Hogan at Leith police station.

‘If I say the words “white saloon car” to you, what would you say to me?’

‘I’d say my brother’s got one, a Ford Orion.’

‘I’m thinking of Jim Margolies.’

‘Something in the notes?’

‘Yes. I’m sure there was a white saloon.’

‘Can I call you back?’

‘Soon as poss.’ He put down the receiver, scribbled circles within circles on his pad, then sent lines radiating out from the centre. He couldn’t decide if it looked more like a spider’s web or a dartboard, came to the answer: neither. The telescopic sight from a warplane maybe? Or a section through a tree-trunk? All possibilities, but really all it was in the end was a meaningless squiggle. And when he ran over it a few times with the pen, it became clotted past interpretation.

His phone rang and he picked up.

‘Is it important?’ Bobby Hogan asked.

‘I don’t know. Might connect to something else.’

‘Want to tell me what?’

‘You go first.’

He seemed to be considering the offer, then began to recite from the case-notes. ‘Light-coloured saloon car, possibly white or cream. Seen parked on Queen’s Drive.’

‘Where on Queen’s Drive?’ Queen’s Drive being the roadway that wound around Holyrood Park.

‘You know The Hawse?’

‘Not by name.’

‘It’s at the foot of the Crags, near where the path starts. This car was parked there, lights on, apparently nobody in it. Someone came forward when they heard about the suicide. But the timing was wrong. They spotted it at around ten thirty that night. It was gone by the time a patrol went past at midnight. Margolies didn’t head up there until later.’

‘According to his widow.’

‘Well, she should know, shouldn’t she? So are you going to tell me what this is all about?’

‘Another sighting of a white saloon, the morning Darren Rough was killed. Seen haring out of Holyrood Park.’

‘What’s that got to do with Jim’s suicide?’

‘Probably nothing,’ Rebus said, thinking of the doodle again. ‘Maybe I’m just seeing things,’ He saw the Farmer standing in the doorway, beckoning. ‘Thanks anyway,’ he said.

‘Any other fantasies you get, they’ve got special phone numbers these days.’

Rebus put down the receiver, started towards the door.

‘My office,’ the Farmer said, moving away before Rebus could reach him. There was a mug of coffee already sitting on the Farmer’s desk. He poured Rebus one, handed it over.

‘What have I done this time?’ Rebus asked.

The Farmer motioned for him to sit. ‘It’s Darren Rough’s social worker. He’s made an official complaint.’

‘About me?’

‘He reckons you “outed” his client, and brought this whole thing on. He’s asking questions about how closely you tie in to Rough’s death.’

Rebus rubbed his eyes, managed a tired smile. ‘He’s welcome to his opinions.’

‘No danger he can back them up with hard proof?’

‘Not a chance in hell, sir.’

‘It’s still not going to look good. You were the last person Rough had any contact with.’

‘Only if you discount the killer. Have forensics turned up anything?’

‘Only that the killer probably got some of Rough’s blood on him.’

‘What if I put forward a proposal?’

The Farmer picked up a pen, studied it. ‘What sort of proposal?’

‘That we bring in Cary Oakes again. I’m positive he nicked my car, which puts him in Arden Street around the time Darren Rough was leaving. What was he doing there in the first place? Staking the place out? In which case, he’d been there a while, maybe saw us going in, took Rough for a friend of mine...’

The Farmer was shaking his head. ‘We can’t bring in Oakes, not without something solid.’

‘How about a mallet?’

It was the Farmer’s turn to smile. ‘Stevens’ paper has lawyers, John. And you’ve said yourself, Oakes is a pro. He’ll sit there keeping schtum till they spring him. At which point, the daily rags have got themselves another story about police harassment.’

‘I thought we were trying to harass him?’

The Farmer dropped the pen on the floor, stooped to pick it up. ‘We’ve been through all this.’

‘I know.’

‘So now we’re going in circles. Bottom line, a complaint from Social Work has to be followed up.’

‘And meantime, I can’t work the investigation.’

‘It would look bloody odd under the circumstances. What other work have you got?’

‘Officially, not a lot.’

‘I heard you had a MisPer.’

‘I was working it in my own time.’

‘So spend a bit more time on it. But — and this is off the record, mind — keep close to Gill and the team. You seem to know more about Rough and Greenfield than most.’

‘In other words, you need me, but can’t afford to be seen with me?’

‘You always had a way with words, John. Off you go now. POETS day, you know, weekend coming up. Go and enjoy yourself.’

31

Janice Mee turned up at Arden Street for want of anything more constructive to do. She had all this time to herself, and over in Fife she felt she was accomplishing nothing. If she sat at home, the patterns on the wallpaper started swirling, and the clock’s tick seemed amplified beyond all enduring. But if she went out, there were questions to be answered by neighbours and passers-by — ‘Is he no’ back yet?’; ‘Where do you think he’d have went?’ — and comments to be fielded — usually to do with having patience or keeping fingers crossed. Besides, she had a feeling whenever she stepped off the train at Waverley that Damon was nearby. It was true people had a sixth sense: you could feel when someone was creeping up behind you. And every time she stepped on to the platform, stopping there while the workers and shoppers made to pass her, hurried lives they had to be getting on with... when she stopped there, it was as if her world stopped turning, and everything became still and peaceful. In those moments, with the city hushed and the blood singing in her heart, she could almost hear him, smell him — everything but reach out and touch his arm. She saw herself pulling him to her, scolding him as she poured kisses on his face, and him all grown-up and trying to resist, but pleased, too, to be wanted like this and loved like this, loved the way no one in the universe would ever love him.

Since he’d gone missing, she’d been sleeping in his room. At first, she’d reasoned to Brian that Damon might sneak back in the night for his things. This way, she’d be there to confront him, to snare him. But then Brian had said he’d move into the room too, and she’d pointed out there was just the single bed, and he’d countered that he’d sleep on the floor. On and on the discussion had gone, until she’d lost it and blurted out that she’d rather be on her own.

The first time she’d spoken the words.

‘Frankly, Brian, I’d much rather be on my own...’

His face had lost all rigidity, had folded in on itself, and she’d felt sick in her stomach. But she’d been right to say the words, wrong to keep them inside the past months and years.

‘It’s Johnny, isn’t it?’ Brian, face averted, had plucked up the courage to ask.

And in a way it was, though not quite the way Brian meant. It was that Johnny had shown her another road she might have taken, and in doing so had opened up the possibility of all the other roads left untravelled, all the places she’d never been. Places like Emotion and High and Elation. Places like Myself and Free and Aware. She knew she’d never say these things to anyone; they sounded too much like stuff from the magazines. But that didn’t stop her feeling they were true. Born and bred in the town, lived most of her days there: did she really want to die there? Did she want it that thirty-odd years of her life could be summarised in five minutes to a friend she hadn’t seen since secondary school?

She wanted more.

She wanted out.

Of course, she knew what people would say: you’re just emotional, dear. It’s bound to be upsetting, something like this. And it was. Oh, Jesus sweet Christ almighty, it was. Yet she felt more powerless and aimless than ever. She’d told her story to all the charities, she’d done her bit talking to the taxi drivers, but what was left? She knew there must be something she hadn’t tried, but couldn’t think what. All she knew was, this was where she had to be.

Now that she had a feel for the city, she enjoyed the walk to Marchmont. The steep climb up Cockburn Street, full of ‘alternative’ shops — some of them had even taken her flyers. Then up the High Street to George IV Bridge, and down past libraries and bookshops to Greyfriars Bobby. Past the university and the milling students, carrying books with them or pushing their bicycles. Then The Meadows, flat and green and with Marchmont rising in the distance. She liked the shops near Johnny’s flat; liked the tenement itself and all the streets around it. The roofs seemed to her like castle turrets. Johnny said the area was full of students. She’d always imagined students living in poorer places.

She opened the main door and climbed to Johnny’s landing. There was mail behind his door. She picked it up, took it through to the living room. It looked like bills and junk; no real letters. No photos in his living room; gaps in the wall-units which she would have filled with ornaments. Books tidied away into piles: before she moved them, they’d been lying everywhere. There was a time Brian wouldn’t have stood for it if she’d moved his stuff around; these days, he probably wouldn’t even notice. Johnny had noticed when she’d tidied up, but she wasn’t sure he’d been pleased, even though he’d said ‘Thanks.’

She took mugs, plate and ashtray through to the kitchen. Took a blanket from the sofa and put it on the bed in the spare room. When everything was to her satisfaction, she wondered what to do next. Clean the windows? With what? Make herself a cup of something? Listen to some music... when had she last sat down and listened to music? When had she last had time? She looked through Johnny’s collection. Pulled out an album — one of the first by the Rolling Stones. It looked the same copy he’d had when they’d been going out together. On the back she found an ink doodle: JLJ — Janice Loves Johnny. She’d put it there one night, wondering if he’d notice. He always liked to study his LP sleeves. And when he had noticed, he hadn’t been too thrilled, had tried taking a rubber to it. You could still see the smudge...

Summers in the café, long evenings with the Coke machine and the jukebox. Then a bag of chips, salt and vinegar. Maybe a film some nights, or just a stroll in the park. The youth club was run by the local church. Johnny hadn’t liked that; hadn’t been churchy. Yet here was a copy of the Bible, sitting alone on the mantelpiece. And other books that looked religious: The Confessions of St Augustine; The Cloud of Unknowing. She liked the sound of that last one. Lots of books, yet he didn’t seem much of a reader, and the books looked brand new, most of them.

His bedroom... she’d sneaked a peek in there. Not the most inviting of rooms: mattress on the floor, clothes in piles in a corner, waiting to be decanted into the chest of drawers. Odd socks: what was it with men and odd socks? The whole flat had an unloved feel to it, despite some redecoration in the living room. His chair, positioned next to the bay window, phone on the floor next to it — the whole flat seemed to revolve around that one space. Kitchen cupboards: bottles of whisky and brandy and vodka and gin. More vodka in the freezer; beer in the fridge, along with cheese, marge, and an unpromising quarter of corned beef. Jars of beetroot and raspberry jam on the worktop, breadbin with two stale rolls and the heel of a loaf.

They said you could tell a lot about a man from his home. She got the feeling Johnny was lonely, but how could that be when he had the doctor, Patience whatser-name?

The doorbell. She wondered who it could be. Went and opened the door, not even bothering with the spy-hole. A man standing there, smiling.

‘Hiya,’ he said. ‘Is John in?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

The smile disappeared; the man checked his watch. ‘I hope he’s not going to stand me up again.’

‘Well, in his job...’

‘Oh, that’s true enough. You’ll know all about it, I suppose.’

She felt herself blushing under his gaze. ‘I’m not his girlfriend or anything.’

‘No? And here I was thinking he’d struck lucky, the old devil.’

‘No, I’m just a friend.’

‘Just good friends, eh?’ He tapped his nose. ‘You can trust me, I won’t tell Patience.’

Her blush spread. ‘We were at school, Johnny and me. Met up again recently.’ She was babbling, and knew it, but somehow couldn’t stop herself.

‘That’s nice: old friends getting together. Plenty to catch up on, eh?’

‘Plenty.’

‘I know the feeling. I was out of touch with John for years too.’

‘Really?’

‘Working in the States.’

‘How interesting. Were you there long...?’ She caught herself. ‘Sorry, I can’t keep you standing out there, can I?’

‘I was beginning to wonder.’

She opened the door wider, took a step back. ‘You better come in. My name’s Janice, by the way.’

‘You’ll laugh when I tell you my name. All I can say is, nobody consulted me.’

‘Why, what’s your name?’ Laughing now as he stepped past her into the hall.

‘Cary,’ he told her. ‘After the actor. Only I’ve never managed to be quite so suave.’

He was winking at her as she closed the door.

The flat was empty when Rebus got home, but he sensed someone had been there: things moved, things tidied. Janice again. He looked for a note, but she hadn’t left one. He took a beer from the fridge, then turned on the hi-fi. The Stones: ‘Goat’s Head Soup’. On the album cover, David Bailey had photographed them with their made-up faces covered by some diaphanous material, making Jagger look more feminine than ever. Rebus turned the volume down and called Alan Archibald’s number. Nobody home but the answering machine. Archibald’s voice sounded clipped and distant.

‘It’s John Rebus here. A simple message: ca’ canny. A taxi driver picked Oakes up near your home. I can’t think of any other reason he’d have been in the neighbourhood. He’s also been in my street. I don’t know what his thinking is, maybe he just wants to rattle us. Anyway, consider yourself forewarned.’

He put down the phone. Forewarned is forearmed, he thought, wondering how Alan Archibald would arm himself.

He turned up the volume, sat by the window and stared out at the opposite tenement. The kids were home from school, playing at their living room table. Some card game, it looked like. Happy Families maybe. Rebus had never been much good at that. When he turned from the window, he saw a shape in the doorway.

‘Christ,’ he said, putting a hand to his chest, ‘don’t do that to me.’

‘Sorry,’ Janice said, smiling. She raised a carton of milk for him to see. ‘You were running out.’

‘Thanks.’ He followed her through to the kitchen, watched her put the milk in the fridge.

‘Did you forget your appointment?’ she asked.

‘Appointment?’ Rebus was thinking: doctor? Dentist?

‘You stood your friend up. He was round here an hour ago. I went with him for a coffee.’ She tutted at Rebus’s fecklessness.

‘You’ve lost me,’ he said.

‘Cary,’ she told him. ‘The two of you were going out for a drink.’

Rebus felt his spine turn cold. ‘He came here?’

‘Looking for you, yes.’

‘And you went out with him?’

She’d been wiping the worktop, but turned towards him, saw the look on his face.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

He looked towards the cupboards, made a show of opening one to check for something. He couldn’t tell her. She’d have a fit. He closed the cupboard door.

‘Have a nice chat, the two of you?’

‘He told me about his job in the States.’

‘Which one? I think he had a couple.’

‘Did he?’ She frowned. ‘Well, the only one he told me about was being a prison guard.’

‘Oh, right.’ Rebus nodded. ‘I suppose you told him about us?’

She gave him a sly glance. There were spots of red on her cheeks. ‘What’s to tell?’

‘I mean, told him about yourself, how we know one another...?’

‘Oh, yes, all that.’

‘And Fife?’

‘He seemed really interested in Cardenden. I told him off, thought he was taking the mickey.’

‘No, Cary’s always interested in people.’

‘That’s exactly what he said.’ She paused. ‘Sure you’re all right?’

‘Fine. It’s just... work-related problems.’ Namely, Cary Oakes, who had now pulled Janice into his game. And Rebus, himself in the middle of the board, had yet to be told the rules.

‘Want some coffee or something?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘We’re going somewhere.’ We? If Cary Oakes had gone to Fife, it was safer for Janice to stay in Edinburgh. But stay where? Rebus’s flat was proving no sanctuary. She was safer with Rebus, and Rebus had somewhere he needed to be.

‘Where?’

‘Back to Fife. I’ve a few more questions for Damon’s friends.’ And terrain to scout, seeking signs of contamination by Oakes.

She stared at him. ‘Have you... are you on to something?’

‘Hard to tell.’

‘Try me.’

He was shaking his head. ‘I don’t want to raise your hopes. It might turn out to be nothing.’ He started to move out of the kitchen. ‘Give me a minute to do some packing.’

‘Packing?’

‘Weekend’s coming, Janice. Thought I might stay over till tomorrow. Is there still a hotel in town?’

She hesitated for a moment. ‘You can stay with us.’

‘A hotel will be fine.’

But she shook her head. ‘You’ll understand, I couldn’t let you have Damon’s room, but there’s always the couch.’

Rebus pretended to be torn. ‘OK then,’ he said at last. Thinking: I want to be there overnight; I want to be close to her. Not for any obvious reasons — reasons he might have put to himself a day or two ago — but because he wanted to know if Cary Oakes would travel to Cardenden, stake out her home. Whatever Oakes was planning, it was moving apace. If he was going to move on Janice, Rebus reckoned it would be at the weekend.

If anything happened, Rebus needed to be there.

‘I’ll just throw some stuff in a bag,’ he said, heading for his bedroom.

32

Rebus took Janice to Sammy’s first of all. He just wanted to check on her. She was doing pull-ups with the help of her parallel bars, hoisting herself to standing, locking her knees, then easing herself back into the wheelchair. The front door was unlocked: she kept it that way when Ned wasn’t home. Rebus had been worried, until she’d explained her reasoning.

‘I had to weigh up the chances, Dad: me needing help, versus someone breaking in. If I’m lying paralysed on my back, I want any Good Samaritans to be able to get in.’

She wore a grey sleeveless T-shirt, its back turned a darker grey by sweat. There was a towel around her shoulders, and her hair was matted to her forehead.

‘God knows if this is helping my legs,’ she said, ‘but I’m getting a shot-putter’s biceps.’

‘And not an anabolic steroid in sight,’ he said, leaning down to kiss her. ‘This is Janice, old school-pal of mine.’

‘Hello, Janice,’ Sammy said. When she looked back at her father, he felt embarrassed, and wasn’t sure why.

‘Her son’s disappeared,’ he explained. ‘I’m trying to help.’

Sammy wiped her face with the towel.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Janice smiled and shrugged.

‘Janice still lives in Cardenden,’ Rebus went on. ‘We’re headed back there, in case you were thinking of phoning me tonight.’

‘Right,’ Sammy said, her face still busy in the towel. Now that he was here, he knew he’d made some kind of mistake, knew Sammy was jumping to all the wrong conclusions, and couldn’t think of a way out without embarrassing Janice.

‘So I’ll see you some time,’ he said.

‘I’m not going anywhere.’ She had finished with the towel; was studying the bars, the extent of her current universe.

‘We’ll have to go through there some day. I can show you my old hunting-ground.’

She nodded. ‘We can take Patience, too. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to be left out.’

‘Have a nice weekend, Sammy,’ he said, making for the door.

She neglected to tell him to do the same.

‘I’ll just phone Patience,’ he said, easing his mobile out of his pocket. They were back in the car, heading for the A90. Patience sometimes went out with friends on a Friday night; it was a regular thing — drinks and a meal, maybe a play or concert. Three other women doctors: two of them divorced, one still apparently happily married. She answered on the fourth ring.

‘It’s me,’ he said.

‘What have I told you about using that thing when you’re driving?’

‘I’m stalled at lights,’ he lied, giving Janice a conspirator’s wink. She looked uncomfortable.

‘Got plans?’

‘I have to go to Fife, couple of interviews I want to get out of the way. I’ll probably stay the night. Are you going out?’

‘In about twenty minutes.’

‘Say hello to the gang from me.’

‘John... when are we going to see one another?’

‘Soon.’

‘This weekend?’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘I’m going over to Sammy’s tomorrow.’

‘Right,’ he said. Sammy would tell Patience about Janice. Patience would know Janice had been in the car when he’d called her. ‘I’m staying the night with some friends: Janice and Brian.’

‘The ones you were at school with?’

‘That’s right. I didn’t realise I’d mentioned them.’

‘You hadn’t. Thing is, as far as I’m aware you haven’t made any friends since school.’

‘Bye, Patience,’ he said, easing into the outside lane and putting his foot down.

Dr Patience Aitken had a taxi ordered. When it arrived, the driver pushed open her gate, headed down the steep and winding set of stone steps which led to her garden flat. He rang the doorbell and waited, scuffing his feet on the flagstones. He liked the New Town’s garden flats, the way they were below street level at the front, but had gardens at the back. And they had these little courtyards at the front, with cellars built into the facing wall. Not that you’d use the cellars for much; too damp. Certainly not for keeping wine in. He’d taken the wife to the Loire the previous summer, learned all about the wines. He had three mixed cases now, stored in the cupboard beneath his stairs. Far from ideal conditions: a modern two-storey semi out at Fairmilehead. Too dry, too warm. What he needed was a flat like this one — he’d bet there’d be cupboards inside just right for laying down wine, cool and dryish with thick stone walls.

He noticed that the doctor had tried for a sort of garden feel in the courtyard: hanging baskets, terracotta pots. Nothing down here would get too much light, that was the thing. First thing he’d done with his front garden when he’d moved in: put flagstones over most of it, leaving just a square of earth in the middle, couple of roses planted in there. Minimum maintenance.

The door opened and the doctor stepped out, pulling a shawl around her shoulders. Perfume wafted out with her: nothing too overbearing.

‘Sorry I’ve kept you,’ she said, pulling the door closed and making for the steps.

‘I’d double-lock it if I were you,’ he suggested.

‘What?’

‘Yales,’ he explained, shaking his head. ‘A kid could be inside in ten seconds flat.’

She thought about it, shrugged her shoulders. ‘What’s life without a bit of a risk?’

‘As long as you’re insured,’ he said, studying her ankles as he climbed the steps after her.

Jim Stevens lay on his bed, one hand covering his eyes, the other holding the telephone receiver to his ear. He was listening to Matt Lewin, who had just told him how good the weather was in Seattle. Stevens had faxed him portions of Cary Oakes’s ‘confession’, and Lewin was giving his views.

‘Well, Jim, bits of it seem to tally all right. The truck driver story is new, and frankly, I don’t think it’s worth chasing.’

‘You think he made it up?’

‘Not my problem, thank God. I tell you, Jim, no disrespect, but I wouldn’t trust anything that bastard told me, and I sure as hell wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it in print.’

Which seemed to be Stevens’ boss’s view, too. The projected eight-parter had been cut to just five.

‘I’m sure as hell glad he’s your problem now and not ours,’ Lewin went on.

‘Thanks.’

‘He giving you any trouble?’

Stevens didn’t see the point in telling Lewin that Oakes was proving more awkward by the day. He’d slipped away from the hotel again that afternoon, stayed out the best part of three hours and wouldn’t say where he’d been.

‘It’s nearly over anyway,’ Stevens said, rubbing his hand over his brow.

‘Good riddance, that’s my advice.’

‘Yes.’ But Stevens couldn’t help but worry. He worried about what Oakes would do with himself afterwards, once he was out on the street. No way was Stevens’ paper going to come up with ten K, not for the scraps Oakes had given them. Stevens still had to break that news to Oakes.

He worried for himself too. He was part of Oakes’s sphere now, and was just hoping Oakes would let him go.

He got the feeling, God help him, that it might not be all that easy...

Cary Oakes watched the taxi leave. Dr P, he presumed. Getting on a bit, but then the state Rebus was in, he doubted he’d be complaining. Basement apartment too: perfect for what he had in mind. He came out from behind the parked car and looked up and down the street. The place was dead. Half of Edinburgh seemed dead to him: you could wander around for ages and not go noticed, never mind raise suspicion.

Jim Stevens had been in a foul mood, watching the Cary Oakes story relegated as the editor decided to run a special on vigilanteism. Stevens blamed the paedophile murder.

‘Bloody Rebus again,’ he’d muttered, and Oakes had asked him to explain.

Stevens’ theory: Rebus had outed Darren Rough, raised the mob against him. And now one of them had taken it too far. Everything Oakes learned about the detective made Rebus seem more interesting, more complicated.

‘What sort of code does he live by, do you think?’ he’d asked.

Stevens had snorted. ‘Could be Morse or Highway for all I know.’

‘Some people make up their own rules,’ Oakes had mused.

‘You mean like the serial killer?’

‘Hmm?’

‘The one who picked you up in his truck.’

‘Oh, him... Well, yes, of course.’

And Stevens had looked at him. And Cary Oakes had stared back.

He crossed the road now. No houses across the street from where he’d be working, just a wrought-iron fence, a bank of grass behind it. No neighbours to spot him as he went about his business.

He expected no interruptions at all.

The batteries were fading anyway, Rebus rationalised, and he didn’t have the recharger with him. So he switched off his mobile.

‘The weekend starts here,’ he said, as they crossed the Forth Road Bridge into Fife.

Later: ‘Roads have changed,’ as they came off the dual carriageway outside Kirkcaldy. But the old Kirkcaldy — Cardenden road seemed much the same, same twists and turns, potholes and bumps.

‘Remember we walked to Kirkcaldy once to go to the pictures?’ Janice said.

Rebus smiled. ‘I’d forgotten that. Why didn’t we just take the bus?’

‘I think we didn’t have enough money.’

He frowned. ‘Was it just us?’

‘Mitch and his girlfriend too. Can’t remember who he was dating at the time.’

‘He went through them, all right.’

‘Maybe they got fed up of him.’

‘Maybe.’ They sat in silence for a minute. ‘What was the film?’

‘Which film?’

‘The one we walked six miles to see.’

‘I don’t recall watching much of it.’

They glanced at one another, burst out laughing.

Brian Mee heard the car, came out to meet them.

‘This is a surprise,’ he said, shaking Rebus’s hand.

‘I need to talk to Damon’s pals,’ Rebus explained.

Janice touched her husband’s arm. ‘He said he wanted to go to the hotel.’

‘Rubbish, you can stay with us. Damon’s room’s...’

‘I thought maybe the sofa,’ Janice interjected.

Brian recovered well. ‘Oh aye, it’s not that old. Comfy too. I should know: I nod off on it most nights myself.’

‘That’s settled then,’ Janice said. She had a man on either arm as she walked up the front path.

They ordered Chinese from the takeaway, opened a couple of bottles of wine. Old stories, rekindled memories. Half-remembered names; the exploits of those who’d grown old in the town; changes to the fabric of the place. Rebus had phoned Damon’s friends, the ones who’d been with him at Gaitano’s, but neither of them was in. He’d left messages, saying he had to see them in the morning.

‘We could go out for a drink,’ he told his hosts. His eyes were on Janice as he spoke. ‘Be the first time we had a drink together in the Goth without being underage.’

‘The Goth’s shut, John,’ Brian said.

‘Since when?’

‘They’re turning it into a centre for the unemployed.’

‘Isn’t that what it always was?’

They smiled at that. The Goth closed: his dad’s watering-hole; the first place John Rebus had ever bought a round.

‘Railway Tavern’s still going,’ Brian added. ‘We’ll be there tomorrow night for the karaoke.’

‘You’ll stay for that, won’t you?’ Janice asked.

‘I’m kind of allergic to karaokes, actually.’ Rebus was once again in the ‘seat by the fire’, the one he’d been made to sit in on his first visit. The TV was playing, sound turned down. It was like a magnet, their eyes sliding towards it throughout the conversation. Janice cleared away the dishes — they’d eaten with the plates on their laps. He helped her take the things through to the kitchen, saw it was too small for three people to eat in. There was a dining table in front of the living room window, but set with ornaments, its leaves folded. Used for special occasions only. With the leaves opened, it would all but fill the room. They ate all their meals on their laps, in front of the TV. He imagined the three of them — mother, father, son — staring at the screen, using it to excuse the lengthening gaps in conversation.

After coffee, Janice said she was going up to bed. Brian said he’d be up in a while. She brought down blankets and a pillow for Rebus, told him where the bathroom was. Told him where the light-switch was in the hall. Told him there was plenty of hot water if he wanted a bath.

‘See you in the morning.’

Brian reached for the remote, switched off the TV, then caught himself.

‘There wasn’t something you wanted to...?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I’m not a big fan.’

‘And what would you say to a wee whisky?’

‘More my cup of tea altogether,’ Rebus acknowledged with a smile.

They sipped the whisky in silence. It wasn’t a malt: maybe Teacher’s or Grant’s. Brian had added a dollop of water to his, but Rebus hadn’t bothered.

‘Where do you think he is?’ Brian asked at last, swirling the drink around the rim of his glass. ‘Just between us, like.’

As if Janice couldn’t take it; as if he were stronger than her.

‘I don’t know, Brian. I wish I did.’

‘They normally go to London, though.’

‘Yes.’

‘And most of them do OK for themselves?’

Rebus nodded, not wanting any of this, wishing of a sudden that he was back in his flat with his own whisky, his music and books. But Brian had a need to talk.

‘I blame us, you know.’

‘I’d guess most parents do.’

‘I think he picked up on the atmosphere, and it drove him away.’ He sat on the edge of the sofa, hands squeezing his glass. He was looking at the floor as he spoke. ‘I got the feeling Janice was just waiting for Damon to go. You know, get a place of his own. That’s what she was waiting for.’

‘And then what?’

Brian glanced up at him. ‘Then she’d have no reason to stay. Every time she goes to Edinburgh, I think that’s it: she won’t be back.’

‘But she always comes back.’

He nodded. ‘But it’s different now. She comes back in case Damon’s here. Nothing to do with me.’ He coughed, cleared his throat, drained the whisky. ‘Want a refill?’ Rebus shook his head. ‘No, suppose not. Time for kip, eh?’ Brian got to his feet, managed a smile. ‘Schooldays, eh, Johnny?’

‘Schooldays, Brian,’ Rebus agreed. He watched something brighten behind Brian Mee’s eyes, then die again.

Rebus brushed his teeth in the kitchen — didn’t want to intrude upstairs, not with Brian readying for bed. He laid the blankets out on the sofa. Sat there with the lights out, then got up and went to the window. Peered through the curtains. Outside, the street-lamps cast a faint orange glow. The street itself was empty. He crept into the hall, opened the front door quietly, leaving it on the latch. Five minutes outside told him Cary Oakes wasn’t in the vicinity. He headed back indoors, needed the toilet. The kitchen sink seemed inappropriate, so he listened at the foot of the stairs then headed up. He knew the bathroom door, went in and did his business. One bedroom door was closed, the other slightly open. The open door had a football scarf pinned to it, and half a dozen used concert tickets from a few years before. Rebus pushed his head around the door: saw the outlines of posters, a wardrobe and chest of drawers. Saw the window with the curtains drawn. Saw the single bed, and Janice sleeping in it, her breathing regular.

Crept downstairs again feeling like a housebreaker.

33

Next morning after breakfast, he had a meeting with Damon’s friends.

They came round to the house, while Janice and Brian were out shopping. Joey Haldane was tall and skinny with closely cropped bleached hair and dark bushy eyebrows. He wore all denim — jeans, shirt, jacket — with black Dr Marten shoes. Rebus noticed that his mouth hung open most of the time, as though he had trouble breathing through his nose.

Pete Mathieson was as tall as Joey but a lot broader, the kind of son a farmer would be proud of (and probably exploit). He wore red jogging pants and a blue sweatshirt, Nike trainers with the soles almost rubbed away. They sat on the sofa. Rebus’s sheets and pillow had disappeared upstairs before breakfast, while he’d been soaking in the bath.

‘Thanks for coming,’ Rebus began. Instead of one of the overstuffed armchairs, he was seated on a straight-backed dining chair, planted in the middle of the room. Below him, the boys sank into the sofa. He’d turned his chair so he could straddle it, leaning his arms on its back.

‘I know we’ve talked before, Joey, but I’ve got a couple of back-up questions. So-called because when I think someone’s not playing straight with me, it tends to get my back up.’

Joey wet his lips with his tongue, Pete twitched a shoulder, angled his head and tried to look bored.

‘See,’ Rebus went on, ‘I was told the three of you had gone just that once to Edinburgh for your night out. But now I think I know differently. I think you’d been there before. I think maybe it was a regular thing, which makes me wonder why you’d lie. What is it you’re trying to hide? Remember, this is a missing person investigation. No way you’re not going to be found out.’

‘We haven’t done nothing.’ This from Joey, his voice a hoarse local accent, the sound of carpentry work.

‘Know what a double negative is, Joey?’

‘Should I?’ Holding Rebus’s stare for the briefest of moments.

‘If you say you haven’t done nothing, it means you’ve done something.’

‘I’ve told you, we haven’t done nothing.’

‘You haven’t lied about that night? You hadn’t been to Edinburgh for a night out before...?’

‘We’d been before,’ Pete Mathieson said.

‘Hello there, Pete,’ Rebus said. ‘Thought you’d lost the power of speech for a minute there.’

‘Pete,’ Joey spat, ‘for fuck’s—’

Mathieson gave his friend a look, but when he spoke it was for Rebus’s benefit.

‘We’d been before.’

‘To Guiser’s?’

‘And other places — pubs, clubs.’

‘How often?’

‘Four, five nights.’

‘Without telling your girlfriends?’

‘They thought we were down Kirkcaldy, same as always.’

‘Why not tell them?’

‘That would have spoiled it,’ Joey said, folding his arms. Rebus thought he knew what he meant. It was only an adventure if it was furtive. Men liked to have their little secrets and tell their little lies. They liked a sense of the illicit. All the same, he got the feeling it went further. It was the way Joey was leaning back in the sofa, crossing one ankle over the other. He was thinking of something, something about the nights out, and the thought was making him feel good...

‘Was it just you that was cheating, Joey, or was it all of you?’

Joey’s face grew darker. He turned to his friend.

‘I never said nothing!’ Pete blurted out.

‘He didn’t need to, Joey,’ Rebus said. ‘It’s written on your face.’

Joey wriggled in his seat, less comfortable by the second. Eventually he sat forward, arms on knees. ‘If Alice finds out she’ll kill me.’

So much for the thrill of the illicit.

‘Your secret’s safe with me, Joey. I just need to know what happened that night.’

Joey glanced towards Pete, as though giving him permission to do the talking.

‘Joey met a girl,’ Pete began. ‘Three weeks before. So every time we went across, he hooked up with her.’

‘You weren’t in Guiser’s?’

Joey shook his head. ‘Went back to her flat for an hour.’

‘The plan was,’ Pete explained, ‘we’d all meet up later at Guiser’s.’

‘You weren’t there either?’

Pete shook his head. ‘We were in a pub beforehand, I got chatting to this lassie. I think Damon was a bit bored.’

‘More likely jealous,’ Joey added.

‘So he headed off to Guiser’s on his own?’ Rebus asked.

‘By the time I got there,’ Pete said, ‘there was no sign of him.’

‘So he wasn’t at the bar for a round of drinks? You made that up so nobody would know you were busy elsewhere?’ He was looking at Joey.

‘That’s about it,’ Pete answered. ‘Didn’t think it made any difference.’

Rebus was thoughtful. ‘What about Damon? Did he ever hook up with anyone?’

‘Never seemed to get lucky.’

‘It wasn’t because he was thinking of Helen?’

Joey shook his head. ‘He was just useless with birds.’

And he’d gone off to Guiser’s on his own... thinking what? Thinking about how of the three, he was the only one who couldn’t pick up a girl for the night. Thinking he was ‘useless’. Yet somehow he’d ended up sharing a taxi with the mystery blonde...

‘Does it matter?’ Pete asked.

‘It might. I’ll have to think about it.’ It mattered because Damon had been there alone. It mattered because now Rebus had no idea what had happened to him between leaving Pete in the pub and standing at the bar in Guiser’s waiting to be served, with a blonde at his shoulder. They might have met en route. Something might have happened. And Rebus couldn’t know. Just when the picture should have been becoming clearer, it had been torn apart.

When Janice and Brian started bringing bags in from the car, Rebus dismissed Pete and Joey. Something else they’d said: Damon wouldn’t have minded finding a girl for the night. What did that say about his relationship with Helen?

‘All right, John?’ Janice said, smiling.

‘Fine,’ he replied.

After lunch, Brian invited him to the pub. It was a regular thing — Saturday afternoon, football commentary on the radio or TV. A few drinks with the lads. But Rebus declined. He had the excuse that Janice had offered to take a walk around the town with him. Rebus didn’t want to be out drinking with Brian, a time when bonds could be made or tightened, secrets could dribble out ‘in confidence’. Now that he’d seen Janice sleeping in a separate room, Rebus felt he knew things he shouldn’t.

Of course, she might be sleeping there because of Damon, because she missed him. But Rebus didn’t think that was it.

So Brian went off to the pub, and Janice and Rebus went walking. Rain was falling, but lightly. She wore a red duffel coat with a hood. She offered Rebus an umbrella, but he declined, explaining that ever since he’d seen someone almost get their eye taken out with one on Princes Street, he’d regarded them as offensive weapons.

‘Where we’re walking won’t be quite so crowded,’ she told him.

And it was true. The streets were empty. Locals went to Kirkcaldy or Edinburgh for their shopping. When Rebus had been young his family hadn’t owned a car. The shops on the main street had catered for all their needs. The needs these days seemed to be videos and takeaway food. The Goth was indeed closed, its windows boarded up, reminding Rebus of Darren Rough’s flat. The flats on Craigside Road had been demolished, new houses replacing them. Some of them were owned by the local housing association, the others were private.

‘Nobody owned their own house when we were growing up,’ Janice stated. Then she laughed. ‘I must sound about seventy-eight.’

‘The good old days,’ Rebus agreed. ‘Places do change, though.’

‘Yes.’

‘And people are allowed to change too.’

She looked at him, but didn’t ask what he meant. Maybe she already knew.

They climbed up to The Craigs, a high ridge of wilderness above Auchterderran, and walked along it until they could see the old school.

‘Not that it’s used as a school any more,’ Janice explained. ‘Kids these days go to Lochgelly. Remember the school badge?’

‘I remember it.’ Auchterderran Secondary School: ASS. Kids from other schools used to bray at them, poking fun.

‘Why do you keep looking round?’ she asked. ‘Think someone’s following us?’

‘No.’

‘Brian’s not like that, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘No, no, nothing—’

‘Sometimes I wish he was.’ She strode ahead of him. He took his time catching up.

They walked back into town past the Auld Hoose pub. Cardenden as it now was had at one time been four distinct parishes known as the ABCD — Auchterderran, Bowhill, Cardenden and Dundonald. When they’d been going out together, Rebus had lived in Bowhill, Janice in Dundonald. He would take this route walking her home, going the longest way round they could think of. Crossing the River Ore at the old humpbacked bridge — now long replaced by a tarmac road. Sometimes, in summer, say, cutting through the park, crossing the river further up at one of the wide-diameter pipes. Those pipes had provided a test for the local kids. Rebus had known boys freeze halfway across, until their parents had to be fetched. He’d known one boy pee in his trousers with fear, but keep on moving his feet inch by inch along the pipe, while the river surged below him. Others took the crossing at a canter, hands in their pockets, needing no help with balancing.

Rebus had been one of the cautious ones.

The same pipe ran the length of the park before disappearing into the undergrowth beyond. You could follow it all the way to the bing — the hill-sized mound of dross and coal-shavings which the local colliery had deposited. Fires started on the bing could smoulder for months, wisps of smoke rising from the surface as from a volcano. In time, trees and grass had grown on the slopes, so that more than ever the bing came to resemble a natural hill. But if you climbed to the top, there was a plateau, an alien landscape, wired off for safety’s sake. It was like a small loch, its surface oily, thick-looking, and black. Nobody knew what it was, but they respected it — kept their distance and threw stones, watching them sink slowly from view as they were sucked beneath the surface.

Boys and girls went into the wild areas behind the park and found secret places, flattened areas of fields which they could call their own. And that had been Janice and Johnny, too, once upon a time...

The Kinks: ‘Young and Innocent Days’.

Now, the place had changed. The bing had gone, the whole area landscaped. The colliery had been demolished. Cardenden had grown up around coal, hurried streets constructed in the twenties and thirties to house the incoming miners. These streets hadn’t even been given names, just numbers. Rebus’s family had moved into 13th Street. Relocation had taken the family to a pre-fab in Cardenden, and from there to a terraced house in a cul-de-sac in Bowhill. But by the time Rebus had been at secondary school, the coal was proving difficult to mine: fractured strata, so that a face might yield low tonnage. The colliery had become uneconomic. The daily siren signalling the change of shifts had been silenced. School-friends of Rebus, boys whose fathers and grandfathers had been miners, were left wondering what to do.

And Rebus too had been asking himself questions. But with Mitch’s help he’d come to a decision. They’d both join the army. It had seemed so simple back then...

‘Is Mickey still around?’ Janice asked.

‘Lives in Kirkcaldy.’

‘He was a pest, your wee brother. Remember him charging into the bedroom? Or opening the bowley-hole all of a sudden so he could catch us?’

Rebus laughed. Bowley-hole: a word he hadn’t heard in years. The serving-hatch between kitchen and living room. He could see Mickey now. He’d be up on the worktop in the kitchen, trying to spy on Rebus and Janice while they were alone in the living room.

Rebus looked around again. He didn’t think Cary Oakes was in town. A place this size, where everyone knew everyone, it was hard to hide. He’d already had a couple of people come up and say hello, like they’d seen him just the other day, rather than a dozen or more years ago. And Janice had been stopped by half a dozen people — neighbours or the plain curious — and asked about Damon. It was hard to escape him: every wall, lamp-post and window seemed to have his picture stuck to it.

‘I was here a few years back,’ he told Janice. ‘Hutchy’s betting shop.’

‘You were after Tommy Greenwood?’

He nodded. ‘And I bumped into Cranny.’ Their old nickname for Heather Cranston.

‘She’s still around. So’s her son.’

Rebus sought the name. ‘Shug?’

‘That’s it,’ Janice said. ‘If you’re lucky, you might see Heather tonight.’

‘Oh?’

‘She often comes to the karaoke.’

Rebus asked Janice if they could turn back. ‘I want to see the cemetery,’ he explained. And backtracking, he might have added, as he’d learned in the army, was a good way to find if you were being followed. So they headed back through Bowhill, and up the cemetery brae. He was thinking of all the stories buried in the graveyard: mining tragedies; a girl found drowned in the Ore; a holiday car crash which had wiped out a family. Then there was Johnny Thomson, Celtic goalkeeper, fatally injured during an Old Firm derby, only in his twenties when he died.

Rebus’s mother had been cremated, but his father had insisted on a ‘proper burial’. His headstone was over by the end wall. Loving husband to... and father of... And at the bottom, the words Not Dead, But at Rest in the Arms of the Lord. But as they approached, Rebus saw that something was wrong.

‘Oh, John,’ Janice gasped.

White paint had been poured down the headstone, covering most of the lettering.

‘Bloody kids,’ Janice said.

Rebus saw tracks of paint on the grass, but no sign of the empty tin.

‘This wasn’t kids,’ he said. Too much of a coincidence.

‘Who then?’

He touched his finger to the headstone: the paint was still viscous. Oakes had been in town. Janice was squeezing his arm.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s only a bit of stone,’ he said quietly. ‘It can be fixed.’

They drank tea in the living room. Rebus had tried Oakes’s hotel — Stevens’ room, the bar, no one was there.

‘We’ve had phone calls,’ Janice told him.

‘Cranks?’ he guessed.

She nodded. ‘Telling us Damon’s dead, or we killed him. Thing is, the callers... their voices sound local.’

‘Probably are local then.’

She offered him a cigarette. ‘It’s pretty sick, isn’t it?’

Rebus, looking around, nodded his agreement.

They were still sitting in the living room when Brian came back from the pub.

‘I’ll just take a shower,’ he said.

Janice explained that he always did this. ‘Clothes in the washing basket, and a good wash. I think it’s the cigarette smoke.’

‘He doesn’t like it?’

‘Hates it,’ she said. ‘Maybe that’s why I started.’ The front door was opened again. It was Janice’s mum. ‘I’ll fetch a cup,’ Janice said, getting to her feet.

Mrs Playfair nodded a greeting towards Rebus and sat down opposite him.

‘You haven’t found him yet?’

‘Not for want of trying, Mrs Playfair.’

‘Ach, I’m sure you’re doing your best, son. He’s our only grandchild, you know.’

Rebus nodded.

‘A good laddie, wouldn’t harm a fly. I can’t believe he’d get into trouble.’

‘What makes you think he’s in trouble?’

‘He wouldn’t do this to us otherwise.’ She was studying him. ‘So what happened to you, son?’

‘How do you mean?’ Wondering if she’d read his thoughts.

‘I don’t know... the way your life’s gone. Are you happy enough?’

‘I never really think about it.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I like looking into people’s lives. That’s what detective work is.’

‘The army didn’t work out?’

‘No,’ he said simply.

‘Sometimes things don’t work out,’ she said, as Janice came back into the room. She watched her daughter pour the tea. ‘A lot of marriages break up round here.’

‘Do you think Damon and Helen would have made a go of it?’

She took a long time thinking about it, accepted the cup from Janice. ‘They’re young, who knows?’

‘What odds would you give them?’

‘You’re talking to Damon’s gran, John,’ Janice said. ‘No girl in the world’s good enough for Damon, eh, Mum?’ She smiled to let him know she was half-joking. Then, to her mother again: ‘Johnny’s had a shock.’ Describing the vandalised grave. Brian came in rubbing his hair. He’d changed his clothes. Janice repeated the story for him.

‘Wee bastards,’ Brian said. ‘It’s happened before. They push the stones over, break them.’

‘I’ll fetch you a mug,’ Janice said, making to get up again.

‘I’m fine,’ Brian said, waving her back. He looked towards Rebus. ‘Probably don’t feel like eating out then? Only we were going to treat you.’

After a moment’s thought, Rebus said, ‘I’d like to get out. But I should be paying.’

‘You can pay next time,’ Brian said.

‘Judging on past history,’ Rebus said, ‘that’ll be roughly thirty years from now.’

Rebus drank nothing but mineral water with his curry. Brian was on the beers, and Janice managed two large glasses of white wine. Mr and Mrs Playfair had been invited, but had declined.

‘We’ll let you young things get on with it,’ Mrs Playfair had said.

From time to time, when Janice wasn’t looking, Brian would glance in her direction. Rebus thought he was worried: worried his wife was going to leave him, and wondering what he was doing wrong. His life was falling apart, and he was on the lookout for clues as to why.

Rebus considered himself something of an expert on break-ups. He knew sometimes a perspective could shift, one partner could start wanting things that seemed outwith their reach as long as they stayed married. It hadn’t been that way with his own marriage. There, it had been down to the fact that he never should have married in the first place. When work had begun to consume him, there hadn’t been much left to sustain Rhona.

‘Penny for them,’ Janice said at one point, tearing apart a nan bread.

‘I’m wondering about getting the headstone clean.’

Brian said he knew a man who could do it: worked for the council, took graffiti off walls.

‘I’ll send you the money,’ Rebus told him. Brian nodded.

After the meal, he drove them back to Cardenden. The karaoke night was held in a back room at the Railway Tavern. The equipment sat on a stage, but the singers stayed on the dancefloor, eyes on the TV monitor with its syrupy videos and the words appearing along the bottom of the screen. Sheets came round, printed with all the songs. You wrote your choice on a slip of paper and handed it to the compère. A skinhead got up and did ‘My Way’. A middle-aged woman had a go at ‘You to Me are Everything’. Janice said she always took ‘Baker Street’. Brian switched between ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Space Oddity’, depending on his mood.

‘So most people sing the same song every week?’ Rebus asked.

‘That guy getting up just now,’ she said, nodding towards the corner of the room, where people were shifting their seats to allow someone out, ‘he always chooses REM.’

‘So he’s probably pretty good at it by now?’

‘Not bad,’ she agreed. The song was ‘Losing My Religion’.

Drinkers were wandering through from the front bar, standing in the doorway to watch. There was a small bar specially for the karaoke: a hatch, manned by a teenager who kept testing the acne on his cheeks. People seemed to have their regular tables. Rebus, Janice and Brian were seated near one of the loudspeakers. Brian’s mum was there, alongside Mr and Mrs Playfair. An elderly man came over to talk to them. Brian leaned towards Rebus.

‘That’s Alec Chisholm’s dad,’ he said.

‘I wouldn’t have known him,’ Rebus admitted.

‘They don’t like talking to him. He’s always on about how long Alec’s been gone.’

It was true that the Playfairs and Mrs Mee sat stony-faced as they listened to Chisholm. Rebus got up to get a round in. He felt numb, remembering the scene which had greeted him in the cemetery, Oakes letting him know he was one step ahead, making it personal. Rebus saw it as another part of the test, knew Oakes was trying to break him. Rebus was more determined than ever not to let that happen.

Janice’s mum was drinking Bacardi Breezes, watermelon flavour. Rebus doubted she’d ever seen a watermelon in her life. He saw Helen Cousins standing in the doorway with a couple of friends, went up to say hello.

‘Any news?’ she asked.

He shook his head, and she just shrugged, like she’d already given up on Damon. So much for the big romance. She was holding a bottle of Hooch, lemon flavour. All these sugary drinks, perfect for Scotland: a sweet tooth and a kick. Through in the saloon, he’d noticed they kept the bottles of mixers — lemonade and Irn Bru — on the bar, to be used freely by the punters. Not many pubs did that any more. Another thing: cheap beer. A lesson in economics: where you had a depressed area, you had to make your beer affordable. He’d spotted Heather Cranston through in the bar, seated on a stool, eyes drooping as some man talked into her ear and rested his hand on the back of her neck.

Helen handed her bottle to one of her friends, said she was off to the loo. Rebus hung around. The two girls were staring at him, wondering who he was.

‘She must be taking it hard,’ he said.

‘What?’ the one chewing gum asked, face creasing into puzzlement.

‘Damon disappearing.’

The girl shrugged.

‘More embarrassed than anything,’ her friend commented. ‘Doesn’t do much for your morale, does it, your boyfriend doing a runner?’

‘I suppose not,’ Rebus said. ‘I’m John, by the way.’

‘Corinne,’ the gum-chewer said. She had long black hair crimped with curling-tongs. Her pal was called Jacky and was tiny with dyed platinum hair.

‘So what do you think of Damon?’ he asked. He meant about Damon disappearing, but they didn’t take it that way.

‘Ach, he’s all right,’ Jacky said.

‘Just all right?’

‘Well, you know,’ Corinne said. ‘Damon’s heart’s in the right place, but he’s a bit thick. A bit slow, like.’

Rebus nodded, as if this were his impression too. But the way Damon’s family had spoken of him, he’d been more of a genius in waiting. Rebus realised suddenly just how superficial his own portrait of Damon was. So far, he’d heard only one side of the story.

‘Helen likes him, though?’ he asked.

‘I suppose so.’

‘They’re engaged.’

‘It happens, doesn’t it?’ Jacky said. ‘I’ve got girlfriends who got engaged just so they could throw a party.’ She looked at her pal for support, then leaned towards Rebus to utter a confidentiality. ‘They used to have some mega arguments.’

‘What about?’

‘Jealousy, I suppose.’ She waited till Corinne had nodded confirmation. ‘She’d see him notice someone, or he’d say she’d been letting some guy chat her up. Just the usual.’ She looked at him. ‘You think he’s gone off with someone?’ Rebus saw behind her eyeliner to a sharp intelligence.

‘It’s possible,’ he said.

But Corinne was shaking her head. ‘He wouldn’t have had the guts.’

Looking along the corridor, Rebus saw that Helen hadn’t made it to the toilets. She was chatting to some guy, her back to the wall, hands behind her. Rebus asked Corinne and Jacky what they were drinking. Two Bacardi-Cokes. He added them to the shopping list.

When he got back to his table, Janice was taking the floor. She sang ‘Baker Street’ with real emotion, eyes closed, knowing the words by heart. Brian watched her, his face giving away little. He probably didn’t realise he spent the whole song tearing a beer-mat into tinier and tinier pieces, piling them on the table before sweeping them on to the floor as the number finished.

Rebus stepped outside, took deep gulps of the crisp night air. He was sticking to whisky, heavily watered. There were shouts in the distance, football chants. UVF spray-painted on the side wall of the pub. A man was urinating there. Afterwards, he reeled towards Rebus, asked if he could borrow a cigarette. Rebus gave him one, lit it.

‘Cheers, Jimmy,’ the drunk said. Then he studied Rebus’s face. ‘I knew your father,’ he said, walking away before Rebus could quiz him further.

Rebus stood there. This wasn’t where he belonged, he knew that now. The past was a place you could visit, but it didn’t do to linger there. He’d drunk too much to drive, but first thing... first thing he would head back. Cary Oakes wasn’t here. He’d visited only long enough to leave a message. Rebus felt sorry for Janice and Brian, the way things had gone for them. But right now they were the least important of his many problems. He’d allowed his perspective to skew, and Oakes had made far too much capital from that.

Back indoors, no one tried to press the microphone on him. By now they all knew who he was, knew about the act of desecration. Stories passed quickly through a town the size of Cardenden. What else was history made up of?

34

It was still dark when he awoke. He dressed, folded the blankets, left a note on the dining table. Then headed out to his car, drove through the quiet streets and quieter countryside, hitting dual carriageway and giving the Saab’s engine a proper work-out as he sped south towards Edinburgh.

He found a space round the corner from Oxford Terrace and walked back to Patience’s flat. It was still too dark to see the door; he ran his fingers over it, found the lock and keyed it open. The hall was in darkness too. He walked on tiptoe, headed for the kitchen, poured water into the kettle. When he turned round, Patience was standing in the doorway.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ she said, tiredness failing to dampen her irritation.

‘Fife.’

‘You didn’t call.’

‘I told you I was going.’

‘I tried your mobile.’

He switched the kettle on. ‘I had it turned off.’ He saw pain suddenly crease her face. Took her by the arms. ‘What is it, Patience?’

She shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. She sniffed them back, took him by the hand into the hallway, where she switched on the light. He saw marks on the floor, a trail of them leading to the front door.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘Paint,’ she said. ‘It was dark, I didn’t see I was treading it in. I’ve tried cleaning it off.’

A white snail’s trail of footprints... Rebus thought of the white tracks leading to his father’s grave. He stared at her, then went to the front door and opened it. Behind him, she reached for the light-switch, illuminating the patio. Rebus saw the paint. Words daubed in foot-long letters on the paving-stones. He angled his head to read them.

YOUR COP LOVER KILLED DARREN.

The whole message underlined.

‘Christ,’ he gasped.

‘Is that all you can say?’ Her voice trembled. ‘I’ve been trying to get you all weekend!’

‘I was... When did it happen?’ He was walking around the message.

‘Friday night. I came home late, went to bed. About three, I woke up with a headache. Went to get some water, put the hall light on...’ She was pulling back her hair with her hands, her face stretching, tightening. ‘I saw the paint, came out here, and...’

‘I’m sorry, Patience.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Oakes again. All the time Rebus had been in Fife, Oakes had been right here, making his next move. He didn’t just know about Janice, he knew about Patience too. And had told Rebus as much, telling him it was lucky he knew a doctor.

He’d telegraphed the move, and Rebus hadn’t read it.

‘You’re lying,’ Patience said. ‘You know damned well. It’s him, isn’t it?’

Rebus tried putting his arms round her, but she shrugged him off.

‘I called St Leonard’s,’ she said. ‘They sent someone round. Two kids in uniform. In the morning, Siobhan turned up.’ She smiled. ‘She took me out for breakfast. I think she knew I hadn’t been to sleep. It made me realise how vulnerable this place is. Garden at the back: anyone could scale the wall, get in through the conservatory. Or break down the front door: who’s going to notice?’ She looked at him. ‘Who am I going to call?’

He made again to put his arms around her. This time she allowed it, but he could feel resistance.

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘If I’d known... if there’d been any way...’ Friday night he’d switched off his mobile. Now he asked himself why. To conserve the battery? It was what he’d told himself back then, but maybe he’d been trying to block Fife off from everything else in his life; so busy thinking about Janice, he’d ignored Oakes’s more obvious move. He kissed Patience’s hair. Skewed perspectives, not thinking straight. Oakes was winning every fucking round. The bond Rebus felt with Janice was undeniable, but was all about failed chances. In the here and now, Patience was his lover. Patience was the one he was holding and kissing.

‘It’ll be all right,’ he told her. ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’

She pulled away from him, wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her gown. ‘Something funny’s happened to your voice. You’ve gone all Fife.’

He smiled. ‘I’ll make us some tea. You go back to bed. If you need me, you know where I’ll be.’

‘And where’s that?’

‘Ben the scullery, hen.’

‘It’s got to be Oakes,’ he said.

He’d called Siobhan to thank her. Patience had told him to ask her to lunch. So now, with the sun overhead, they were seated at the table in the conservatory. The Sunday papers lay unread in a pile in the corner. They ate Scotch broth, cooked ham and salad. A couple of bottles of wine had taken a pasting.

‘Know what she did last night?’ Patience had said — meaning Siobhan; talking to Rebus. ‘Phoned to check I was all right. Said if I wasn’t, I could sleep round at her place.’ A lazy half-drunken smile, and she got up to make the coffee. It was then that Rebus voiced his suspicions to Siobhan.

‘Evidence?’ she replied, before finishing her wine: just the two glasses — she was driving.

‘Gut feeling. He’s been watching my flat. He knows I was the last person to see Rough alive. He took Janice out, and now it’s Patience’s turn.’

‘What has he got against you?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe it could have been any one of us; just so happens I got the short straw.’

‘From what you say, he’s more calculating than that.’

‘Yes.’ Rebus pushed a cherry tomato around the bed of lettuce on his plate. ‘Patience said something a while back. She said it all could be some kind of tactic to keep us from seeing what he’s really up to.’

‘And what might that be?’

Rebus sighed. ‘I wish to God I knew.’ He studied the salad again. ‘Remember when you could only get one kind of lettuce? One kind of tomato?’

‘I’m too young.’

Rebus nodded thoughtfully. ‘Do you think she’ll be OK?’ Meaning Patience.

‘She’ll be fine.’

‘I should have been here.’

‘She said you were in Fife. What were you doing there?’

‘Living in the past,’ he said, finally stabbing the tomato with his fork.

He spent the rest of the day with Patience. They took a walk in the Botanic Gardens, then dropped in on Sammy. Patience hadn’t gone to see her on Saturday — had phoned to say something had come up, not elaborating. She had a lie prepared for their visit, briefed Rebus so he’d back her up. Another walk: this time with Sammy in the wheelchair. Rebus still felt awkward, going out with her in public. She teased him about it.

‘Ashamed to be seen with a cripple?’

‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘What is it then?’

But he had no answer for her. What was it? He didn’t know himself. Maybe it was other people, the way they stared. He wanted to say: she’s going to get better, she won’t be in this thing forever. He wanted to explain how it had happened and how well she’d taken it. He wanted to tell them she was normal.

With Sammy in a wheelchair... it was like she was a toddler again, and he felt himself watching for bumps and dips in the pavement, for awkward kerbs and safe crossing-places. He was insistent they wait for the green man, even when there was no traffic in sight.

‘Dad,’ she would say, ‘what are the odds of me getting hit again?’

‘Don’t forget, the bookies had us odds-on for Culloden.’

And she would laugh.

Her boyfriend Ned was with them, but Sammy insisted on pushing herself, leaning back to do wheelies and show her mastery of the vehicle. Ned laughed with her, walked alongside with hands in pockets. Patience slipped her hand into Rebus’s.

A Sunday outing: that’s what it was.

And afterwards, back at the flat there were cream cakes and mugs of Darjeeling, football highlights on the TV with the sound turned down. Sammy talking to Patience about her latest exercise regime. Ned talking to Rebus. Rebus not listening, his eyes half-turned to the window, wondering if Cary Oakes was out there...

That evening, he told Patience he had to go home. ‘Couple of things I need. I’ll be back later.’ He kissed her. ‘You all right here, or do you want to come with me?’

‘I’ll stay,’ she said.

So Rebus got into his car and drove. Not to Arden Street but down to Leith. He walked into the hotel and asked to speak to Cary Oakes. Reception tried his room: no answer.

‘Maybe he’s in the bar,’ the woman said.

But Cary Oakes was not in the bar — Jim Stevens was.

‘Let me get you a drink,’ he said. Rebus shook his head, noticed Stevens was on large G and Ts.

‘Where’s your boy?’

Stevens just shrugged.

‘I thought you’d want to keep tabs on him,’ Rebus said, trying to control his anger.

‘I do, believe me. But he’s a slippery little bugger.’

‘How much more can you milk out of him?’

Stevens smiled, shaking his head. ‘Something strange and wonderful has happened. You know me, Rebus, I’m what they call a seasoned hack, meaning I’m tough and I’m relentless and I don’t take shit.’

‘And?’

‘And I think he’s been giving me shit.’ Stevens shrugged. ‘It’s not bad stuff, don’t get me wrong. But where’s the corroboration?’

‘Since when has that stopped you?’

Stevens bowed his head, acknowledging the point. ‘For my own satisfaction,’ he added, ‘I’d like to know. And along the way, dear old Cary seems to have managed to weasel almost as many stories out of me as I’ve had from him.’

‘Oh, you’ve always been known for your reticence.’

‘I don’t mind telling stories... bit of repartee at the bar. But Oakes... I don’t know. It’s not the stories themselves that interest him so much as what they say about the people involved.’ He picked up his drink. There were three empty glasses beside it. He’d decanted all the lemon slices into the most recent arrival. ‘That probably makes no sense. I don’t care: I’m off duty.’

‘So are you finished with him?’

Stevens smacked his lips. ‘I’d say we’re getting there. The question is: is he finished with me?’

Rebus took out a cigarette and lit it, offered one to the reporter. ‘He’s been tailing me, people I know.’

‘What for?’

‘Maybe he wants another story for you.’ Rebus moved closer. ‘Listen, off the record, just two old bastards talking...’

Stevens blinked away some of the alcohol. ‘Yes?’

‘Has he said anything about Deirdre Campbell?’ Stevens couldn’t place the name. ‘Alan Archibald’s niece.’

‘Oh, right.’ An exaggerated nod, face dipping towards the gin glass, then a frown of concentration. ‘He did say something about clear-up rates. Said that’s what happened when they pinned you for something: they tried to tidy away a few unsolveds by sweeping them into your case-file.’

Rebus had eased himself on to a stool. ‘He didn’t mention specifics?’

‘You think there’s something I’ve missed?’

Rebus was thoughtful. ‘You’ve said it yourself: you think he’s using you.’

‘By putting clues in his story that I’m not going to get? Give me a bit of credit.’

‘He likes games,’ Rebus hissed. ‘That’s all we are to him.’

‘Not me, pal. I’m his sugar daddy.’

‘Sugar daddies get cheated on.’

‘John...’ Stevens sat up straight, took a reviving lungful of air. ‘This story’s put me back on the map. I got to him first. Me, washed-up old Jim Stevens, gold-watch contestant. Even if he buggered off tonight, I’d have the best part of a book’s-worth.’ He nodded to himself, eyes on the glass he was picking up. Rebus found himself not believing the reporter. ‘See, when I make a toast these days,’ Stevens went on, raising his glass, ‘it’s only ever to Number One. As far as I’m concerned, pal, the rest of you can go straight to hell, no Just Visiting and no Free Parking.’ He drank, drained the glass dry.

He was ordering another as Rebus made for the door.

35

When Rebus left Patience’s next morning, she was out on the patio, discussing with two workmen how best to clean the paint off the flagstones. As he walked into St Leonard’s and made for the CID suite, he could feel that something had happened. There was activity around him and the air felt charged. Siobhan Clarke was first with the news.

‘Joanna Horman’s lover.’ She handed Rebus a report. ‘He’s dirty.’

Rebus glanced down the sheet. The lover’s name was Ray Heggie. He’d done time for housebreaking and assorted acts of drunken violence. He was ten years older than Joanna. He’d been living with her for six weeks.

‘Roy Frazer’s got him in the interview room.’

‘How come?’ Rebus handed back the report.

‘A previous girlfriend of Heggie’s. She read about the kid going missing, phoned to tell us he’d abused her little girl. That was why they broke up.’

‘She didn’t think to tell us before?’

Clarke shrugged. ‘She’s told us now.’

Rebus twitched his nose. ‘How old’s the girl?’

‘Eleven. Someone from Sex Offences is talking to her at home.’ She looked at him. ‘You’re not buying it, are you?’

‘Caveat emptor, Siobhan. I’ll decide after the test drive.’ He winked, moved away. An old girlfriend with a grudge, probably all it was. Saw a chance to make mischief... All the same, if Heggie was an abuser, maybe he’d known Darren Rough. Rebus knocked on the interview room door.

‘Detective Inspector Rebus enters the room,’ Frazer said, for the benefit of the recording tape. He was following procedure: audio- and video-taping. ‘Hi-Ho’ Silvers sat beside him at one side of the table, arms folded, looking unimpressed by everything he’d heard. That was Silvers’s role: say nothing, but make the suspect uncomfortable. Across the table sat a man in his forties, black curly hair with a pronounced bald spot. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. His eyes were dark-ringed. He wore a black T-shirt, and ran his hands over thickly haired arms.

‘Join the party,’ was his comment to Rebus. The room was so small, Rebus stood by the wall, folding his own arms and preparing to listen.

‘The locals organised a search party,’ Frazer went on, ‘you weren’t part of it. How come?’

‘I wasn’t there.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Glasgow. I went out drinking with a mate, stayed the night at his place. Ask him, he’ll tell you.’

‘I’m sure he will. Mates are good that way, aren’t they?’

‘It’s the truth.’

Frazer scribbled a note to himself. ‘You went out drinking, that means there’ll be witnesses.’ He looked up from his notebook. ‘So name me some.’

‘Give me a break. Look, the pubs were all dead, so we got a carry-out and went back to his flat. Sat watching some videos.’

‘Anything good?’

‘Top-shelf stuff.’ Heggie winked. Frazer just glared back.

‘Porn?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Straight?’

‘I’m not a poof.’ Heggie stopped rubbing his arms.

‘I meant, was there any lezzie action?’

‘Might have been.’

‘Bondage? Animals? Kids?’

Heggie saw where this was leading. ‘I’m not into any of that, I’ve told you.’

‘Your ex says different.’

‘That slut’d say anything. Wait till I see her...’

‘Anything happens to her, Mr Heggie, if she so much as catches a cold, I’ll have you back in here. Understood?’

‘I didn’t mean anything. It’s just a saying, isn’t it? But she’s been slagging me off, telling people I’ve got AIDS, you name it. Vindictive, she is. Any chance of a cuppa?’

Frazer made a show of checking his watch. ‘We’ll take a break in five minutes.’ Rebus had to stifle a smile, knowing they’d only break when Frazer was good and ready. ‘You’ve got a record of violence, Mr Heggie. My thinking is: you lost patience with the kid, didn’t mean to hurt him. But a valve blew, and next thing you knew he was dead.’

‘No.’

‘So you had to hide him somewhere.’

‘No. I keep telling you—’

‘Where is he then? How come he goes missing and you turn out to have a record of hurting kids?’

‘All you’ve got is Belinda’s word for it!’ Belinda: the ex. ‘I’m telling you, get a doctor to look at Fliss.’ Fliss: the ex’s daughter. ‘And even if it turns out someone’s been poking her, no way it was me. No fucking way. Ask her.’ He scratched at his hair with one hand.

‘We’re doing that, Mr Heggie.’

‘And if she says I did anything, her mum’s put her up to it.’ He was growing more agitated. ‘I don’t believe this, really I don’t.’ He shook his head. ‘You lot told Joanna. Now what’s she going to think?’

‘Why do you always shack up with single mothers?’

Heggie raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Tell me this is a bad dream.’

Frazer, who’d been resting his arms on the table, now sat back, glanced towards Rebus. It was the signal Rebus had been waiting for. It meant Frazer was finished for the moment.

‘Did you know Darren Rough, Mr Heggie?’ Rebus asked.

‘He’s the one that got topped?’ He waited for Rebus to nod confirmation. ‘Never knew him.’

‘Never spoke to him?’

‘We weren’t in the same block.’

‘You knew where he lived then?’

‘It’s been all over the papers. Perverted little bastard, whoever did it deserves a medal.’

‘Why do you say he was “little”? He was, by the way. Not tall, at any rate. But it wasn’t in the papers.’

‘It’s just... it’s something you say, isn’t it?’

‘It’s certainly something you say. Makes me think you’d seen him.’

‘Maybe I had. It’s not that big a scheme.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Rebus said quietly. ‘Everyone knows everyone else.’

‘Until the council move in bastards they can’t put anywhere else.’

Rebus nodded. ‘So you might have seen Darren Rough around?’

‘What difference does it make?’

‘It’s just that he liked young kids too. Paedophiles seem to be good at recognising one another.’

‘I’m not a paedophile!’ Losing it. His voice was trembling as he got to his feet. ‘I’d kill every last one of them.’

‘Did you start with Darren?’

‘What?’

‘Get rid of him, you’d be a hero.’

A burst of nervous laughter. ‘So now I didn’t just do in Billy, I topped the pervert as well?’

‘Is that what you’re telling us?’ Rebus asked.

‘I haven’t killed anyone!’

‘How did you get on with Billy, by the way? Must’ve been awkward, having him around, you wanting Joanna all to yourself.’

‘He’s a nice kid.’

‘Sit down, Mr Heggie,’ Frazer commanded.

Eventually Heggie sat down, but then leapt up again, his finger pointing at Rebus. ‘He’s trying to set me up!’

Rebus shook his head, gave a wry smile. He pushed off from the wall.

‘I’m just after the truth,’ he said, making to leave the room.

‘Inspector Rebus leaving the interview room,’ he could hear Frazer saying behind him.

Later, Frazer stopped off at Rebus’s desk. ‘You don’t really make him for Darren Rough, do you?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Do you make him for the kid?’

‘Maybe if Sex Offences come up with something. From what I hear, her mum’s sticking to her like glue, answering for her, putting words in her mouth.’

‘Doesn’t mean she’s lying.’

‘No.’ Frazer was thoughtful. ‘Heggie doesn’t give a shit about Billy Horman. All he’s worried about is that Joanna will boot him out.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘People like him, you never get through to them, do you?’

‘No.’

‘And you can’t get them to change.’ He looked at Rebus. ‘That’s what you think too, isn’t it?’

‘Welcome to my world, Roy,’ Rebus said, reaching for the telephone.

He had to keep working; had to stop letting thoughts of Cary Oakes consume him. So Rebus phoned Phyllida Hawes at Gayfield station.

‘Has your MisPer turned up?’ she asked.

‘Not a bloody sign of him.’

‘Well, that can be good news too, can’t it? Means he’s probably still alive.’

‘Or the body’s been well-hidden.’

‘I do like an optimist.’

Another time, Rebus might have kept the banter going. ‘You know Gaitano’s?’ he said instead, getting to the point.

‘Yes.’ Sounding curious, wondering what he was after.

‘As owned by Charmer Mackenzie?’

‘The same.’

‘What have you got on him?’

Silence for a moment. ‘Is he connected to your MisPer?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Rebus told her about the boat.

‘Yes, I knew about that,’ she said. ‘But it’s strictly a money thing. I mean, Mackenzie has a share, but he doesn’t interfere with the business. You’ve met Billy Preston?’ Rebus admitted he had. ‘Charmer leaves him to get on with it.’

‘Not quite. The under manager at Gaitano’s, young guy called Archie Frost, he keeps an eye on the Clipper. Plus provides muscle for the door.’

‘Is that so?’ Rebus could hear her scribbling a note to herself.

‘Does he have any other interests?’ he asked.

‘You might want to take this conversation to NCIS.’

NCIS: the National Criminal Intelligence Service. Rebus leaned forward in his chair. ‘They have something on Mackenzie?’

‘They have a file, yes.’

‘So he’s got dirt under his fingernails: what is it exactly?’

‘Farmyard mud for all I know. Go talk to NCIS.’

‘I will.’ Rebus put the phone down, logged on at one of the computer terminals and entered Mackenzie’s details. At the bottom of the screen there was a reference number and an officer’s name. Rebus called NCIS and asked to speak to the name: Detective Sergeant Paul Carnett.

‘That’s a misprint,’ the switchboard told him. ‘It’s not Paul, it’s Pauline.’ She put him through anyway, where a male voice told Rebus DS Carnett would be in a meeting for another hour, maybe an hour and a half. Rebus checked his watch.

‘Has she anything after that?’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Then I’d like to make a reservation: table for two, the name’s DI Rebus.’

36

The Scottish office of NCIS was based at Osprey House in Paisley, not far off the M8. Last time Rebus had been this way had been to drop his ex-wife off at Glasgow Airport. She’d come up from London to see Sammy, and all the Edinburgh flights had been full. He couldn’t remember what they’d talked about on the drive.

Osprey House was supposed to be the future of high-profile policing in Scotland, housing as it did the Scottish Crime Squad and Customs and Excise as well as NCIS and the Scottish Criminal Intelligence Office. Its remit was intelligence-gathering. Having started with just the two officers, NCIS now had a staff of ten. There had been bad feeling when the office had opened, due to the fact that the Scottish NCIS team reported not to a Scottish chief constable but to the London-based director of the whole UK operation, who in turn reported to the Scottish Secretary. NCIS dealt with counterfeiting, money-laundering, organised drug and vehicle crime, and, if Rebus remembered correctly, paedophile gangs. Rebus had heard the officers at NCIS called ‘anoraks’ and ‘computer nerds’, but not by anyone who’d actually met them.

‘It’s fairly irregular,’ Pauline Carnett said, as Rebus explained why he was there.

They were seated in an open-plan office, around them the incessant humming of computer fans and quiet telephone conversations. The occasional flurry of keyboard strokes. Young men in shirtsleeves and ties; two women, both dressed for business. Pauline’s desk was at the opposite end of the room from the other woman officer. Rebus wondered if there was any significance in this.

Pauline Carnett was in her mid-thirties with short blonde hair brushed out from a centre parting. Tall and broad-shouldered, she had offered a handshake firmer than most Masons Rebus knew. She had a gap between her two front teeth and seemed overly conscious of the fact, which made Rebus want to make her smile.

Like all the others, her desk was L-shaped, with one surface given over to a computer, the other to paperwork. The office shared a printer. It was churning out work, a young man standing beside it, looking bored.

‘So this is the heart of the machine,’ had been Rebus’s comment on entering the room.

Carnett put her cup down on a mouse pad stained with dozens of coffee rings. Rebus set his own cup on the worktop.

‘Irregular,’ she said again, as if he might be persuaded to leave. Instead, he just shrugged. ‘Information is usually requested by telephone or fax.’

‘I’ve always preferred the personal touch,’ Rebus said. He handed her a scrap of paper on which he’d jotted the reference number concerning Charmer Mackenzie. She slid her chair closer to the desk and hammered on the keys, as if meaning to do violence to the keyboard. Then she slid the mouse around the pad, expertly avoiding the coffee cup, and double-clicked.

Charmer Mackenzie’s file came up. Rebus saw straight away that there was a lot of stuff there. He moved his own chair closer to hers.

‘Initially,’ she said, ‘it looks like we got on to him because Crime Squad had him hosting private parties for someone called Thomas Telford.’

‘I know Telford,’ Rebus said. ‘I helped put him away.’

‘Good for you. Telford used Mackenzie’s club for meetings, and also rented a boat part-owned by Mackenzie. The boat was used for parties. Crime Squad kept tabs on it because you never knew who might turn up. Didn’t get much joy, though: operation suspended.’ She hit the return key, bringing up another page. ‘Ah, here we go,’ she said, leaning in towards the screen. ‘Money-lending.’

‘Mackenzie?’

She nodded. Rebus read over her shoulder. NCIS suspected Mackenzie of running a little business on the side, fronting money for criminal schemes — guaranteed payback, one way or another — but also loaning cash sums to people who either couldn’t get the money elsewhere or had reasons not to go walking into a bank or building society.

‘How accurate is this?’ Rebus asked.

‘It wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t one hundred per cent.’

‘All the same...’

‘All the same, there’s obviously not enough to go on, or we’d have had him in court.’ She pointed to an icon at the foot of the screen. ‘Case-notes went to the Procurator Fiscal, who decided there wasn’t enough for a prosecution.’

‘So is the case ongoing?’

She shook her head. ‘We have patience, we can wait. We’ll see what else filters down to us, decide when the time’s right to try again.’ She glanced at him. ‘Robert the Bruce and all that.’

Rebus was still studying the screen. ‘Have you got names?’

‘You mean people who’ve borrowed from him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hang on.’ She hit more keys, studied the information as it came up on the screen. ‘Hard copies,’ she mumbled at last. Then she got up from her seat and told him to follow her. They went to a storeroom filled with filing cabinets.

‘So much for the paperless office,’ Rebus said.

‘I’m with you on that.’ She found the cabinet she was looking for, pulled out the top drawer and started riffling through the file-holders, found the one she was looking for and pulled it out.

Inside the green file were about three dozen sheets of paper. Two of the sheets listed ‘suspected’ users of Charmer Mackenzie’s loan scheme.

‘No statements,’ Rebus said, sifting the sheets.

‘Case probably didn’t get that far.’

‘I thought it was your case.’

She shrugged. ‘We get sent a lot of stuff from Crime Squad, Customs, wherever. It goes into the computer and into a drawer — that’s my job.’

‘You’re a filing clerk?’ Rebus suggested. Her eyes narrowed aggressively. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Trying to make a joke.’ He went back to the file. ‘So how did you come by these names?’

‘Probably one or two people talked.’

‘But didn’t make reliable witnesses?’

She nodded. ‘People who need to go to a loan shark, we’re not talking public-minded citizens here.’

Rebus recognised a couple of names: known house-breakers. Maybe looking to finance some bigger scheme.

‘Others on the list,’ Carnett was saying, ‘could be they got thumped by Mackenzie or his men, and Crime Squad got wind of it.’

‘And nobody would talk?’ Rebus guessed. She nodded again. He’d come across this before; they both had. It was fine to have seven bells knocked out of you, but a black mark to talk to the filth about it. You’d get ‘GRASS’ sprayed on your front door. People would cross the road to avoid you. Rebus started jotting down names and addresses, sure none of it was going to be any use. But he’d come all this way, after all.

‘I can make copies,’ Carnett suggested.

Rebus nodded. ‘I’m a bit of a dinosaur, need to have the gist in my wee book.’ He tapped one entry. No name, just a series of numbers. ‘Is this what we’re supposed to call Prince now?’

She smiled, covered it quickly with her hand. ‘Looks like another reference,’ she said. ‘I’ll check it back at my desk.’

So they went back there, and while Rebus finished his cold coffee, he watched her work.

‘Interesting,’ she said at last, leaning back in her chair. ‘It’s our way of keeping certain names quiet. Computers aren’t always safe from prowlers.’

‘Hackers.’

She looked at him. ‘Not quite a dinosaur,’ she commented. ‘Wait here a minute.’

She was actually gone three minutes, long enough for her screen-saver to activate. When she returned, she had a single sheet of paper with her, which she handed to Rebus.

‘We use numbers as codes when a name is judged too hot: that means someone we don’t want everyone knowing about. Any idea who he is?’

Rebus was looking at the name on the sheet. There was nothing else printed there.

‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘He’s a judge’s son.’

‘That would explain it then,’ Pauline Carnett said, lifting her cup.

The name on the sheet was Nicol Petrie.

When they delved a little deeper, they found a Crime Squad report detailing a mugging attack. Nicol Petrie had been found unconscious in one of the shadowy back lanes off Rose Street — about a hundred yards from Gaitano’s nightclub. Petrie had been taken by ambulance to hospital, a uniformed officer waiting to talk to him. But when he’d regained consciousness, he had had nothing to say.

‘I can’t remember,’ had been his refrain. He couldn’t even say if anything had been stolen from him. But a couple of eye-witnesses gave descriptions of two men leaving the lane. They were laughing, lighting cigarettes. One of them even complained that he’d scraped his knuckles. Police got as far as holding an ID parade for the witnesses, but by then they’d long since sobered up and wanted nothing to do with it, refused to identify anyone.

Two bouncers from Gaitano’s had been in the parade: one of them was named as Calumn Brady.

Rebus went through the witness statements. The descriptions of the attackers were vague. He could just about see one of them — the shorter of the two — as Cal Brady. But it didn’t matter. Nicol Petrie wasn’t about to say anything, and the witnesses had either been warned off, paid off, or had just come to their senses.

Crime Squad put it down to a ‘warning’ from Mackenzie, and let it go at that. Speculation: that’s all it was. But Rebus was willing to go along with it. All the same... something refused to click into place.

‘Nicol’s dad’s a judge, plenty of money. Why didn’t he just borrow from him?’

Pauline Carnett didn’t have an answer for that.

Later, he asked if he could speak to someone from the paedophile unit. He was introduced to a woman officer called DS Whyte. He asked her about Darren Rough. She brought the details up on her screen.

‘What about him?’ she said.

‘Known associates.’

She hammered keys, shook her head. ‘He was a loner. NKA.’

NKA: No Known Associates. Rebus scratched his chin. ‘How about Ray Heggie.’

She hit more keys. ‘No record,’ she said at last. ‘Is he someone I should know about?’

Rebus shrugged.

‘In that case...’ she said, adding the name to her screen. Rebus’s name went there too. ‘Just so I know where I first heard of him.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Have you been following Shiellion?’

‘I hear the jury’s out. Looking good for guilty.’

‘Not if Richie Cordover has anything to do with it.’

‘He’s good, but I’ve come across Lord Justice Petrie before, and if there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s a paedophile. The way Petrie summed up, Ince and Marshall are fucked.’

‘Not before time,’ Rebus added, getting up to go.

37

Back in Edinburgh, he was wanted at Fettes — by the ACC, no less.

The Assistant Chief Constable (Crime) was known to be scrupulous, fair, and to have no record of suffering fools gladly. He had a nice fat file on Rebus which told him the officer was ‘difficult but useful’. Rebus had made a career out of making enemies. The ACC, whose name was Colin Carswell, liked to think of himself as not among them.

There was an identifying plaque on the door, and the room number below it: 278. The room itself was large, with institutional carpet and curtains, and a bowl of flowers on the windowsill. There was little other decoration. Carswell, tall and thin with a good head of salt-and-pepper hair and moustache to match, rose from his chair just long enough to shake Rebus’s hand. Typically, he didn’t sit behind his desk for interviews, but conducted them in two chairs by the window. The chairs were swivel designs and sat on castors, so that unwary officers could find themselves spinning a hundred and eighty degrees or sliding backwards towards Carswell’s desk. After an interview like that, most agreed they’d have settled for the old-fashioned kind.

Which, the ACC might have told them, was the whole point of the exercise.

The dark eyes spoke of lost sleep. Despite his advancing years, the ACC had recently become a father for the fourth time. As his other kids were all grown-up, the conclusion reached by every station in the city was that the new addition was an accident, which would make it practically the only thing in the ACC’s life that he’d not been able to orchestrate or control.

‘How are you, John?’ he asked.

‘Not bad, sir. How’s the wee one?’

‘Fit as a fiddle. Look, John...’ Carswell never wasted time on preliminaries. ‘I’ve been asked to look into this murder case.’

‘Darren Rough?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Social Work, was it, sir?’ Rebus settled his hands on the arm rests.

‘Fellow called Andrew Davies. Made a sort of complaint.’

‘Sort of?’

‘Couched fairly ambiguously.’

‘He’s probably got a point, sir.’

The ACC held his breath for a second. ‘Am I hearing you right?’

‘I chased Rough through the zoo without probable cause, giving our poisoner the chance to strike again. Then when I found out Rough was living upstairs from a playground, I put word out on the street.’

Carswell put his hands together, as if in prayer. Knowing Rebus’s reputation, a confession was the last thing he’d been expecting. ‘You outed him?’

‘Yes, sir. I wanted him off my patch. At the time...’ Rebus paused. ‘I didn’t work through the consequences. Later on, I helped him get away from Greenfield — at least, that was the plan. Only he left my flat and got himself murdered. Right at the end, though... I think I did try to make amends.’

‘I see. You want me to take this to Social Work?’

‘That’s up to you, sir.’

‘Then what do you want?’

Rebus looked at him. It was bright outside: another ploy of the ACC’s — he tended to use the chair trick when it was sunny. All Rebus could see of his superior was a haze of light.

‘For a while, I thought I wanted out, sir. Maybe that was in my mind when I went after Rough: if I went after him hard, I might end up kicked off the force, but still feel all right about it.’

‘But that didn’t happen.’

‘It hasn’t happened yet, sir, no.’

Carswell was thoughtful. ‘How do you feel now?’

Rebus squinted into the light. ‘I’m not sure. Tired, mostly.’ He managed a smile.

‘A long time back, John — I know you all like to think I’ve spent my whole life behind a desk — but a long time back there was this man got himself into a fight down in Leith. Clean-cut type, suit and everything. Wife and kids at home. And he’d walked into a pub by the dockside, looked for the biggest, meanest-looking bugger he could find, and started having a go at him. I was young back then, they sent me to interview him in hospital. Turned out he’d been trying to commit suicide, hadn’t had the guts. So he’d gone looking for someone to do the job for him. Sounds a bit like what you were up to with Darren Rough: assisted career suicide.’

Rebus smiled again, but he was thinking: Suicide again... like with Jim Margolies. Assisted career suicide...

‘I don’t think I’m going to give this to our friends in Social Work,’ the ACC said finally. ‘I think I’m going to sit on it for a while. Maybe there’s room for some sort of apology... that’ll be up to you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘And John,’ rising to his feet, taking Rebus’s hand again, ‘I appreciate you not trying to spin me some yarn.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Rebus was on his feet, too. ‘And maybe, with respect, sir, there’s a way you could show your appreciation...’

Nicol Petrie lived in a West End flat, sprawling over the top two floors of a Georgian pile. There was a shared entrance hall with occasional tables and rugs. The tables had vases and things on them. It was a far cry from the tenement stairwells Rebus was used to.

And there was a lift, its mirrored interior highly polished, the wooden surrounds gleaming. Beside the buttons for each floor were printed labels listing the occupants. There were two Petries: N and A. Rebus guessed that A stood for Amanda.

The lift brought Rebus out on to a landing, glass cupola above. Pot plants surrounded him. And more carpeting. Nicol Petrie opened the door and gave a little nod, leading Rebus inside.

Rebus had been expecting antiquity, but was disappointed. The flat’s walls were painted an almost luminous white and were devoid of paintings or posters. The floors had been stripped and varnished. It was like stepping into an Ikea catalogue. An internal stairway led up to the top floor, but Nicol led Rebus past it and into the living room, fully thirty-five feet long and twelve high, and with double sash windows giving uninterrupted views across Dean Valley and the Water of Leith. The Fife coastline was visible in the distance. Walking into the room, taking it all in, Rebus missed the doll on the floor and ended up giving it a kick, sending it flying towards its owner.

‘Jessica!’ the little girl squealed, moving on hands and knees to pick up her property and nurse it to her bosom. Then she slid back across the floor to where a toys’ tea-party was in progress. Rebus apologised, but Hannah Margolies wasn’t listening.

‘Hello again,’ Hannah’s mother said. She was seated on a white sofa. ‘Sorry about that. Hannah’s toys get everywhere.’ She sounded tired. Rebus noted that she still wore black, albeit a short black dress with black tights. Mourning as fashion statement.

‘Sorry,’ he said to Nicol Petrie, ‘I didn’t know you had company.’

‘You know one another?’ Petrie bowed his head at the stupidity of the question. ‘Through Jim, of course. Sorry.’

It seemed to Rebus that all anyone had done so far was make apologies. Katherine Margolies got to her feet in a sudden elegant movement.

‘Come on, Han-Han. Time to go.’

Hannah didn’t argue or complain, just rose to her feet and joined her mother.

‘Nicky,’ Katherine said, kissing both his cheeks, ‘thanks as ever for listening.’

Nicol Petrie embraced her, then crouched down for a kiss from Hannah. Katherine Margolies lifted Hannah’s coat from the back of the sofa.

‘Goodbye, Inspector.’

‘Bye, Mrs Margolies. Bye, Hannah.’

Hannah gave him a look. ‘You think I should have won, don’t you?’

Katherine stroked her daughter’s hair. ‘Everyone knows you were robbed, sweetheart.’

Hannah was still staring at Rebus. ‘Someone stole my father,’ she said.

Nicol Petrie made a fuss of her as he showed mother and daughter to the door. When he returned to the room, Rebus was standing at one of the windows, looking down into the street immediately below. Petrie began tidying the toys into a cardboard box.

‘Sorry again if I disturbed you, sir,’ Rebus said, not managing much enthusiasm for the lie.

‘That’s all right. Katy often pops in unannounced. Especially since... well, you know.’

‘Do you make a good listener, Mr Petrie?’

‘No more than most, I don’t suppose. Usually it’s because I can’t think of anything helpful to say, so all I do is fill the gaps with questions.’

‘You’d make a good detective then.’

Petrie laughed. ‘I rather doubt that, Inspector.’ He opened one of the doors leading off the living room. It led to a walk-in cupboard. There were shelves inside, and he placed the box of toys on one of them. Everything tidied away. Rebus would bet the box always went back on the same shelf, always the same spot. He’d known people like that, people who managed their lives by compartments. Siobhan Clarke was just the same: if you wanted to annoy her, you only had to move something of hers from one desk-drawer to its neighbour.

Below him, Katherine Margolies and her daughter emerged from the building. Their car had remote locking. It was a Mercedes saloon, new-looking. The number plate was the same one he’d seen lipsticked on the wall in Leith.

It was a white Mercedes.

White...

‘Has it hit her hard?’ he asked, still watching from the window.

‘Devastated, I should think.’

‘And the little one?’

‘I’m not sure Han-Han’s taken it in yet. Like she said, she thinks he’s been stolen from her.’

‘She’s right in a way.’

‘I suppose so.’ Petrie came to the window, watched with Rebus as the car drove off. ‘Nobody could fail to be shocked by something like that.’

‘Why do you think he did it?’

Petrie looked at him. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘His widow hasn’t said anything?’

‘That’s between her and me.’

‘Sorry,’ Rebus said. ‘It’s just curiosity. I mean, someone like Jim Margolies... it makes you ask questions of yourself, doesn’t it?’

‘I think I know what you mean.’ Petrie turned back into the room. ‘If you’ve got it all and you’re still unhappy, what’s the point of everything?’ He slumped into a chair. ‘Maybe it’s a Scottish thing.’

Rebus took a seat on the sofa. ‘What is?’

‘We’re just not supposed to have it all, are we? We’re supposed to fail gloriously. Anything we succeed at, we keep low-profile. It’s our failures we’re allowed to trumpet.’

Rebus smiled. ‘Might be something in that.’

‘It runs right through our history.’

‘And ends at the national football team.’

It was Petrie’s turn to smile. ‘I’ve been very rude: can I offer you something to drink?’

‘What are you having?’

‘I thought maybe a glass of wine. I’d opened a bottle for Katy, thinking she’d come by taxi. Parking around here is hellish.’ He left the room, Rebus following. The kitchen was long and narrow and spotless. The hob looked like it had never been used. Petrie went to the fridge, lifted out a bottle of Sancerre.

‘Lovely flat,’ Rebus said, as Petrie reached into a cupboard for two glasses.

‘Thank you. I like it.’

‘What do you work at, Mr Petrie?’

Petrie glanced at him. ‘I’m a student, second year into my PhD.’

‘Was your first degree at Edinburgh?’

‘No, St Andrews.’ Pouring now.

‘Not many students with flats as grand as this — or am I behind the times?’

‘It’s not mine.’

‘Your father’s?’ Rebus guessed.

‘That’s right.’ Pouring the second glass; looking a little less serene now.

‘He must like you.’

‘He loves his children, Inspector. I’d assume most parents do.’

Rebus thought of himself and Sammy. ‘Not always a two-way thing, though, is it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Rebus shrugged, accepted the glass. ‘Cheers.’ He took a sip. Petrie was at the end of the narrow kitchen: no way out of there except past Rebus. And Rebus wasn’t moving. ‘Funny thing is, if I’d a father who loved me, who’d spent a fortune on a flat for me, any time I got into trouble I’d probably turn to him to bail me out.’

‘Look, what’s—’

‘Say, if I needed money. I wouldn’t go to a loan shark.’ Rebus paused, took another sip. ‘How about you, Mr Petrie?’

‘Christ, is that what this is about? Those two thugs giving me a kicking?’

‘Maybe it wasn’t about money. Maybe they just didn’t like your looks.’ Nicol Petrie: face unblemished, thin dark eyebrows, high cheekbones. A face so perfect you might just want to damage it.

‘I don’t know what they wanted.’

Rebus smiled. ‘Yes you do. That handy amnesia of yours, you let it slip. You shouldn’t have known there were two of them.’

‘The police said as much at the time.’

‘Two men employed by Charmer Mackenzie. We call them “frighteners”, and believe me, I’d have been frightened too. He’s a hard bastard, Cal Brady, isn’t he?’

‘Who?’

‘Cal Brady. You must have come across him.’

Petrie shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘How much was it you owed? I’m assuming you’ve paid it off by now. And why didn’t you tap your dad for a loan in the first place? See, I’m curious, Mr Petrie, and when I start asking questions, I tend not to give up till I’ve found answers.’

Petrie put his glass down on the worktop. He wasn’t looking at Rebus when he spoke. ‘This is strictly between us? No way I’m taking this any further.’

‘Fair enough,’ Rebus said.

Petrie folded his arms around himself, looking skinnier than ever. ‘I did borrow money from Mackenzie. We knew, those of us who frequented the Clipper, knew he’d lend money. And I found myself needing some. My father can be generous when it suits him, Inspector, but I’d managed to fritter away a good deal of his money. I didn’t want him knowing. So I went to Mackenzie instead.’

‘Surely you could have arranged an overdraft?’

‘I dare say I could.’ Petrie looked away. ‘But there was something... the idea of dealing with Mackenzie was so much more appealing.’

‘How so?’

‘The danger, the whiff of the illicit.’ He turned back towards Rebus. ‘You know Edinburgh society loves that sort of thing. Deacon Brodie didn’t need to break into people’s houses, but that didn’t stop him. Strait-laced old town, how else are we going to get our thrills?’

Rebus stared at him. ‘Know something, Nicky? I almost believe you. Almost, but not quite.’ He raised a hand towards Petrie, who flinched. But all Rebus did was place a fingertip against the young man’s temple. It came away with a bead of perspiration clinging to it. The droplet fell, splashed onto the worktop.

‘Better wipe that up,’ Rebus said, turning away. ‘You wouldn’t want anything marking that stainless surface of yours, would you?’

38

There was still no sign of Billy Horman.

His mother Joanna had cried at the press conference, ensuring TV coverage. Ray Heggie, Joanna’s lover, had sat beside her, saying nothing. When the crying started, he’d tried to comfort her, but she’d pushed him away. Rebus knew he’d drift away eventually, as long as he was innocent.

GAP was as active as ever. They were holding a vigil outside the High Court while the jury retired to reach a verdict in the Shiellion case. They’d lit candles and tied placards to the railings. The placards detailed child-killers and paedophiles and their victims. The police were instructed not to move the protesters on. Meantime, there were fresh news reports of paedophiles being released from prison. GAP sent members to the relevant towns. It had become a movement now, Van Brady its unlikely figurehead. She hosted her own news conferences, blown-up photos of Billy Horman and Darren Rough on the wall behind her.

‘The world,’ she’d said at one meeting, ‘should be a green field without limits, where our children can play free from harm, and where parents can leave their children without fear. That is the purpose and intention of the Green Field Project.’

Rebus wondered who was writing her speeches for her. GFP was a departure for GAP, a funding application to set up patrolled play areas with security cameras and the like. To Rebus, it sounded less like the world as green field, more like the world as prison camp. They were applying to the Lottery and the EC for cash. Other housing schemes had made successful bids in the past, and were lending a hand to Greenfield. They wanted something like two million quid. Rebus shuddered to think of Van and Cal Brady in charge of such a fund.

But then it wasn’t his problem, was it?

His immediate problem, as he knew when he picked up the ringing phone, was Cary Oakes.

The voice on the line belonged to Alan Archibald. ‘He’s agreed.’

‘Agreed to what?’

‘To go out to Hillend with me. To walk across the hills.’

‘He’s admitted it?’

‘As good as.’ Archibald’s voice shook with excitement.

‘But has he said anything specific?’

‘Once we get out there, John, I know he’ll tell me, one way or the other.’

‘You’re going to torture him, are you?’

‘I don’t mean it like that. I mean once he’s there, the scene of the crime, I think he’ll crack.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure. What if it’s a trap?’

‘John, we’ve been through this.’

‘I know.’ Rebus paused. ‘And you’re still going.’

The voice quiet now, calm. ‘I’ve got to, whatever happens.’

‘Yes,’ Rebus said. Of course Archibald would go. It was his destiny. ‘Well, count me in.’

‘I’ll ask him—’

‘No, Alan, you’ll tell him. It’s both of us or no go.’

‘What if he—’

‘He won’t. Trust me on this. I think he’ll want me out there too.’

The tape was still running, but Cary Oakes hadn’t spoken for a couple of minutes. Jim Stevens was used to it, used to long pauses as Oakes gathered his thoughts. He let another sixty seconds spool on before asking: ‘Anything else, Cary?’

Oakes looked surprised. ‘Should there be?’

‘That’s it then?’ Still Stevens left the tape running. Oakes only nodded, and reached his hands behind his head, job done. Stevens checked his watch, spoke the time into the machine, then squeezed the Stop button. He slipped the recorder into the breast pocket of his pale mauve shirt. It was pale because it had been through about three hundred washes in the five years since Stevens had bought it. He knew the other reporters thought he’d filled out in the past half-decade. The shirt could have proved them wrong, but would also have proved how seldom he bought new clothes.

‘Satisfied?’ Oakes said, getting to his feet, stretching as if after a long day at the coal-face.

‘Not really. Journalists never are.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because no matter how much we’re told, we know we’re not getting everything.’

Oakes held his hands out. ‘I’ve given you blood, Jim. I feel like you’ve taken a transfusion from me.’ That unnerving grin again; so lacking in humour. Stevens wrote date and time on a sticker, peeled it off and placed it down one edge of the cassette case. He made this tape number eleven. Eleven hours of Cary Oakes. It wasn’t enough for a book, but it might get him the contract, and the rest of the book could be padded: trial reports, interviews, photographs.

Only thing was, he didn’t think he was going to find a publisher. He wasn’t even going to try.

‘What are you thinking, big man?’ Oakes asked. He’d taken to calling Stevens ‘big man’. Stevens wasn’t naive enough to take it as a compliment; at best it was weighted with irony.

‘I’m... not really thinking at all.’ Stevens shrugged. ‘Just that it’s over, that’s all.’

‘So now it’s pay-off time for old Cary.’

‘You’ll get your cheque.’

‘What good’s a cheque? I said cash.’

Stevens shook his head. ‘A cheque, has to be or our accounts department would have a breakdown. You can use it to open a bank account.’

‘And sit around how long waiting for it to clear?’ Oakes had been pacing the room. Now he came to Stevens’ chair and leaned down over him, staring him out. Stevens blinked first, which seemed victory enough for Oakes. He propelled himself back upright and angled his head to the ceiling, letting out a whoop of laughter. Then he leaned down again long enough to pat one of Stevens’ resilient cheeks.

‘It’s OK, Jim, really it is. I never really needed the money anyway. What I needed was for you to think you had me by the balls.’

‘I never ever thought that, Oakes.’

‘No more first names, huh? Did I upset you or something?’

Stevens shook the tape box. ‘How much of this is crap?’

Oakes grinned again. ‘How much do you think, partner?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.’ He saw Oakes glance towards the clock by the bed. ‘Going somewhere?’

‘My work here’s finished. Nothing to keep me.’

‘Where are you going?’ Stevens didn’t know why, but while Oakes had been laughing, he’d switched the recorder back on. Situated as it was in his shirt pocket, he didn’t know how much it would pick up. He could hear its small motor working, feel it grinding against his chest.

‘Why should you care?’

‘I’m a reporter. You’re still a story.’

‘You haven’t seen the best of it, Jimmy baby.’

Stevens ran a dry tongue over his lips.

‘Do I scare you, Jim?’

‘Sometimes,’ Stevens admitted.

‘You’re bigger than me, heavier anyway. You could take me, couldn’t you?’

‘It’s not always down to size.’

‘True, true. Sometimes it’s down to just how rip-roaring crazy and ferocious your opponent is. Is there a touch of madness in me, Jimbo?’

Stevens nodded slowly. ‘And ferocity too,’ he added.

‘You better believe it.’ Oakes was examining himself in the wall-mirror, running a hand over his cropped head. ‘And it’s a hungry madness, Jim. It wants me to eat people up.’ A sly sideways look. ‘Not you, though, don’t worry on that score.’

‘What score should I worry on?’

‘You’ll find out soon enough.’ He studied himself in the mirror again. ‘I have a date with my past, Jim. A date with destiny, as you and your fellow hacks might put it. With someone who never listened to me.’ He was nodding to himself. ‘Just one last thing, Jim.’ Turning towards the journalist. ‘I knew when I came out I’d be telling my story. I’ve had a long time to get it straight.’

‘“Straight” rather than true?’

‘You’re smarter than you look, Jimbo.’ Oakes laughed.

Stevens’ heart beat a little faster. It was what he’d suspected for some days, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear.

‘Some of it must have been accurate,’ he managed to utter.

‘Scots are a nation of storytellers, Jim, isn’t that right?’ He patted Stevens’ cheek again, then headed for the door. ‘It was all shit, Jim. Remember that till the day you die.’

After the door had closed on Oakes, Stevens put his head in his hands and sat there for a few moments, relieved it was all over, whatever the outcome. When his phone rang, he remembered the recorder in his pocket. Removed it and switched it off, rewound and hit Play.

Oakes’s voice had grown small and tinny, but no less devilish. It was all shit, Jim. He turned off the tape and went to answer the phone. Cleared his throat first, sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘Hello?’ he said into the receiver.

‘Jim, is that you? Peter Barclay here.’

Barclay worked for a rival tabloid. ‘What do you want, Peter?’

‘Caught you at a bad time?’ Barclay chuckled. He always spoke with a cigarette in his mouth. It made him sound like a bad ventriloquist.

‘You might say that.’

‘I do say that. Your boy’s been telling tales out of school.’

‘What?’ Stevens stopped rubbing the back of his neck.

‘He’s sent a letter to all your lovely competitors, saying his “autobiography” is complete bollocks. Any comment to make, Jim? On the record, naturally.’

Stevens slammed the receiver back into its cradle, then swiped the apparatus off the bedside table and on to the floor.

‘Number disconnected,’ he said, giving it a kick for good measure.

39

There was mist on the Pentland Hills, leaching colour from the landscape and threatening to cut Hillend and Swanston off from the city just north of them.

‘I don’t like it,’ Rebus said as they parked.

‘Afraid we’ll get lost?’ Cary Oakes smiled. ‘Wouldn’t that be a blow to humanity?’

He was sitting in the passenger seat, Alan Archibald in the back. Rebus hadn’t wanted Oakes in the back; had wanted him where he could see him. Before setting off, he’d insisted on patting Oakes down. Oakes had asked if Rebus would reciprocate.

‘I’m not the killer here,’ Rebus had said.

‘I’ll take that as a no.’ Oakes had turned to Archibald. ‘I thought it would just be the two of us. More intimate that way.’ Nodding towards Rebus. ‘No need for outsiders, Mr Archibald.’

‘You’re going nowhere without me,’ Rebus had said.

And here they were. Archibald seemed nervous. Getting out of the car, he dropped his Ordnance Survey map. Oakes picked it up for him.

‘Maybe we should leave a little trail of breadcrumbs,’ he suggested.

‘Let’s just get on with it,’ Archibald answered, nerves lending his voice an edge of irritation.

Rebus was looking around. No other cars in the vicinity; no hill-walkers; no sounds of dogs being exercised.

‘Creepy, isn’t it?’ Oakes said. He was donning a cheap green kagoul.

Rebus’s jacket had an integral hood. He rolled it out but didn’t put it over his head. He knew it would work like a pair of blinkers, and didn’t want to be deprived of his peripheral vision. Archibald had a flat tweed cap with him, and was wearing hiking boots. Cap and boots looked brand new: they’d been waiting on this day for a while.

‘Drinkie anyone?’ Oakes said, taking out a hip flask. Rebus stared at him. ‘You going to be scowling like that all day?’ Oakes laughed. ‘Got something you want to get off your mind, maybe?’

‘Plenty.’ Rebus’s fists were clenched.

‘Not here, John,’ Archibald pleaded. ‘Not now.’

Eyes on Rebus, Oakes held out the flask to Archibald, who shook his head. Oakes tipped the flask to his own mouth, showing them the liquid trickling in. He swallowed noisily.

‘See,’ he said, ‘it’s not poisoned.’ He made the offer again, and this time Archibald took a sip. ‘I had them fill it at the hotel bar.’ He took the flask back from Archibald. ‘And yourself, Inspector?’

Rebus took the flask, sniffed its contents. Christ, it did smell good, but he handed it back untouched.

‘Balvenie,’ he said. ‘If I’m not mistaken.’

Oakes laughed again; Archibald forced a smile.

‘I thought you didn’t drink,’ Rebus said.

‘I don’t, but this is in the nature of a special occasion, wouldn’t you say?’

Then Archibald started unfolding the map, and it became business, Oakes studying the area intently, aware of Rebus immediately behind him, and finally saying: ‘I’m not sure this is going to be much use.’ He looked around. ‘I think I’m going to have to follow my nose.’ He glanced at Archibald. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Just take me to where she was killed,’ the older man said.

‘Maybe you should lead the way,’ Oakes said. ‘After all, I’ve never been here before.’ And he gave a wink.

They started walking.

Eventually Rebus said: ‘Another game, Oakes?’

Oakes stopped walking, caught his breath. ‘You know how the song goes, Inspector: we can’t go on together, if you’re going to have a suspicious mind. Far as I’m concerned, we’re just out for a breath of country air. Besides, I’m curious to see where the body was found.’

‘You know damned well where the body was found!’ Alan Archibald snapped.

Oakes turned his lips into a pout. Rebus wanted to see blood there, wanted teeth dislodged and a gushing nose. Instead, his fingernails bit more deeply into his palms.

‘Did you kill her?’ he asked.

‘Kill her when?’

Rebus felt his voice rising. ‘Did you kill her?’

Oakes wagged a finger. ‘I might not have been back that long, but don’t think I don’t know how it’s played. There are two of you. Anything I admit, you’ve got corroboration.’

‘This is between ourselves,’ Alan Archibald said. ‘It’s gone beyond anything I’d take to the police.’

Oakes smiled. ‘How long have you been chasing ghosts? If I say I killed her, will you rest easy in your bed?’ Archibald didn’t answer. ‘How about you, Inspector: any ghosts keeping you awake at night?’

As if he knew. Rebus tried not to show anything, but Oakes was nodding, smiling to himself. ‘A career littered with bodies, man,’ Oakes went on, ‘and I’m the one they lock up.’ He paused. ‘Tell me something,’ folding his arms, eyes on Archibald now, ‘how did the killer get her up here? Long way to bring a victim.’

‘She was terrified.’

‘What if she wasn’t? What if she was willing? She’d been out drinking, right? Feeling a bit horny...’

‘Shut up, Oakes.’

‘I thought you wanted me to talk?’ He opened his arms wide. ‘I might just be speculating here, but say he picked her up, drove her up here. Say it’s exactly what she wanted. I mean, this is a complete stranger she’s in the car with, but tonight she’s in the mood for danger. She feels reckless. Who knows, maybe she even wants it to happen.’

Archibald turned on him, waving his fist. ‘Don’t talk about her like that.’

‘I’m just—’

‘You abducted her. Knocked her cold and dragged her up here.’

‘Any signs of a struggle, Al? Huh? Did the post-mortem show she’d been dragged anywhere?’

Archibald looked at him. ‘You know it didn’t.’

More laughter. ‘No, Al, I don’t know jack-shit. I’m just guessing, that’s all. Same as you are.’

Oakes started walking again. The wind was rising, a fine rain blowing into their faces, threatening to drench them. Rebus looked back. Already the car was lost to view.

‘It’s OK,’ Archibald assured him. ‘I’m marking our route as we go.’ He had the map folded, tapped a pen against one of the contour lines.

Rebus took the map from him, wanting to be sure. He’d done map-reading in the army. It looked like Archibald knew what he was doing. Rebus nodded and handed the map back. But the look in Archibald’s eyes, that mix of fear and expectation... Rebus patted his shoulder.

‘Come on, slowcoaches,’ Oakes said, waiting till they caught up.

‘You took it too far,’ Rebus told him.

‘Huh?’

‘Your little joke with the skip, I didn’t mind that so much. But the cemetery, the patio... no way you’re getting away with those.’

‘You’re forgetting your old flame.’ Oakes turned towards him. There wasn’t more than a foot or two between them. ‘I talked to her, remember? How come she’s not on your little hit-list? She told me the two of you might be hooking up again.’ He tutted. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to let her down? Does she know?’

Rebus caught Oakes a glancing blow. Fist barely connected with cheek, Oakes arching back on the balls of his feet. Fast, he was hellish fast. Didn’t change his stance, so confident, so sure of his opponent. Archibald’s arms wrapped themselves around Rebus, but Rebus shrugged them off.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, voice lacking emotion.

‘Want some more?’ Oakes threw open his arms. ‘I’m right here, man.’ There was a graze on his cheek, but he paid it no notice.

Rebus knew he couldn’t afford to lose it; had to stay calm. But Oakes had crawled all the way under his skin. Laughing at him now, putting a theatrical hand to his face.

‘Ouch! That stings.’ Laughing all the time. Then walking away, and now it was Archibald’s turn to pat Rebus’s shoulder.

‘I’m OK,’ Rebus told him, making after Oakes.

A little later, Oakes stopped. Visibility was down to a hundred yards, maybe less. ‘Where’s Swanston Village from here?’ he asked. He seemed to have forgotten all about Rebus. Archibald checked the map, pointed with his finger. He was pointing into swirling smoke, pointing into nothingness.

‘It’s like bloody Brigadoon,’ Rebus said, lighting a cigarette. Oakes took a bar of chocolate from his pocket, offered it around.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m amazed you’re trusting me. Not you, Mr Archibald, you’ve got no choice. But the Inspector here.’ Oakes fixed Rebus with his dark, peering eyes. ‘You’re a hard man to figure.’

‘And you’re full of shite.’

‘Please, John...’ Archibald had a hand on Rebus’s shoulder. Despite his clothing, he looked cold and tired and suddenly so very old. Rebus realised what this meant to him: an answer, one way or another. Either Oakes had killed his niece — in which case there could be proper grieving — or someone else had, in which case he’d wasted these years with his pet theory, and her killer was still out there somewhere...

‘OK, Alan,’ Rebus said. The three of them out here: an old man, a nutter with shorn head and piercing eyes, and John bloody Rebus. Oakes enjoying every moment, Archibald looking as brittle as the chocolate bar.

And Rebus? Trying hard not to add another body to the hill’s death toll.

Oakes offered Archibald his flask, and Archibald took a grateful drink. Rebus declined, and Oakes screwed the top back on.

‘Not having one yourself?’ Rebus asked.

Oakes ignored him, offered him chocolate instead. Rebus again refused.

‘So where exactly are we going?’ Oakes asked.

‘It’s not far now,’ Archibald told him.

Oakes saw Rebus studying him. ‘Got any questions for me yourself, John? Any unsolveds you want to pin on me?’

‘Anything in particular you want me to ask?’

‘Nicely put, sir. I see someone killed Darren Rough.’

‘You were outside my flat that night.’

‘Was I?’

‘You took the car.’ Rebus paused. ‘You saw Rough leave.’

‘Man, I was busy that night, wasn’t I?’ Rebus stared him out. Oakes came close, leaned in towards him as if to speak confidentially. Rebus moved away. ‘I’m not going to bite,’ Oakes said.

‘Say what you were going to say.’

Oakes put on a wounded look. ‘I don’t know if I want to now.’ Then he grinned. ‘But I will anyway. I saw him leave your place, even followed him for a while. I wondered who he was, only found out later when I saw his picture in the paper.’

‘What happened?’

‘You tell me. I lost him.’ Oakes shrugged. ‘He cut across The Meadows. No way to follow in a car.’ He gave another wink.

‘This is all just another part of your little—’

‘Don’t say it!’ Alan Archibald screeched. ‘Don’t say it’s a game! It’s not a game, not to me!’ He was shaking.

Rebus pointed to Oakes, but spoke to Archibald. ‘This is what he wants. You thought by bringing him up here you’d have the upper hand. Don’t you think he knew that, played on it? Look at him, Alan, he’s laughing at you. He’s laughing at all of us!’

‘I’m not laughing.’ And it was true: Oakes was stony-faced, his eyes on Archibald. He walked up to him, touched his arm. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Come on, you’re right — we’ve got work to do.’

He started walking again. Archibald made to apologise to Rebus, but Rebus waved it aside. Oakes was moving off at a brisk pace, as if determined to finish things. That look on his face... Rebus couldn’t read it. There had been something there, a gloss of sympathy. But beneath it he thought he detected something more feral, itself mixed with something like the curiosity of the scientist when faced with some unexpected result.

Visibility was decreasing as they climbed.

‘You’ve been playing a little game with me, haven’t you, Al?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Al, the route you’ve brought us, we’ve already been past the spot where she was killed. I bet you’ve got it all planned so we’ll end up circling it. You want me rattled, don’t you, Al? It’s not going to happen.’

‘How do you know where she was killed?’ Rebus asked.

‘I got all the newspapers. Plus Al kept sending me stuff, didn’t you, Al?’

‘You said you never read any of it,’ Archibald said, trying to catch his breath.

‘So I lied. Thing is, I’m getting a picture in my head... They had sex further up the slope. Then she panicked, ran back down. That’s when he hit her. But where they had sex... he left something behind.’

‘What?’

‘Hidden.’

‘What?’

‘Alan, he’s—’

Archibald turned on Rebus. ‘Shut up!’ he hissed.

‘I’m seeing three hillocks,’ Oakes called back. ‘If there’s a line of hillocks anywhere nearby, I’d be interested to see them.’

‘Hillocks...?’ Archibald broke into a trot, trying to reach Oakes. He had the map in front of his face, seeking the corresponding contours. ‘Maybe just to the west.’

Rebus hadn’t seen him mark anything on the map with his pen, not for a while.

‘How’s our position, Alan?’

But Archibald wasn’t listening, not to Rebus.

‘Maybe three-quarters of the way up the slope,’ Oakes was saying. ‘A line of three... maybe four... but three distinct outcrops, similar heights.’

‘Hang on a second,’ Archibald said. His finger scratched over the map. He folded it smaller, brought it closer to his face, blinked so as to focus better. ‘Yes, just to the west. That way, about a hundred yards.’

He started to climb. Oakes was already on his way, Rebus bringing up the rear. He looked behind him: couldn’t see a damned thing. It was a landscape out of time. Kilted warriors might have emerged from that mist and he wouldn’t have been surprised. He rounded some bracken and kept moving, his joints aching, a slight burning in his chest. Archibald was moving faster, moving with the zeal of the possessed.

Rebus wanted to tell him: you’ve got a map, what’s to say Oakes didn’t buy one too? What’s to say he didn’t study it, looking for certain features? He might even have been here already on a recce — he’d given his minders the slip plenty of times.

‘Hang on!’ he called, quickening his pace.

‘John!’ Archibald called back, his form ghostlike up ahead. ‘You try that way, we’ll take the other two!’ Meaning Rebus was to explore the easternmost outcrop.

‘Will I need to dig?’ he called out. Receiving laughter in reply: Oakes’s laughter. The more unsettling for the fact he could barely be seen.

‘Will we?’ he heard Archibald asking Oakes.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Oakes answered. ‘We’ll just leave the bodies where they fall.’

Rebus was still wondering if he’d misheard when he heard the dull sound of an impact, and a distant groan.

‘Oakes!’ he roared, upping his pace. He could make out the shadowy silhouette: Oakes standing over the fallen Archibald, a rock in his hand, raised to strike again.

‘Oakes!’ he repeated.

‘I hear you!’ Oakes yelled back, bringing the rock down on to Archibald’s head.

By now Rebus was almost upon him. Oakes tossed the rock on to the ground and was licking his lips as Rebus reached him. ‘You’ll never know the satisfaction,’ he said. ‘A flea’s been biting me for years, and now I’ve squashed it.’ He slipped a hand into his waistband and brought out a folding knife.

‘Amazing what the human body can hide,’ Oakes said, grinning now. ‘A rock was good enough for the old man, but I thought maybe you deserved something with a bit more bite.’ He lunged. Rebus jumped back, lost his footing and was skidding back down the slope. Above him, he saw Oakes in pursuit, bounding like a mountain goat.

‘I’m going to enjoy this!’ Oakes called. ‘You’ll never know how much!’

Rebus kept himself rolling until bracken stopped him. He clambered to his feet, picking up a stone and hurling it. His aim was wild. Oakes dodged it easily, only ten yards away now and slowing his descent.

‘Ever skinned a rabbit?’ Oakes said, breathing heavily, sweat glistening on his skull.

‘You’re just where I want you,’ Rebus hissed.

Oakes gave a look of mock surprise. ‘And where’s that?’

‘Committing an offence. Now I get to arrest you, and it’s clean.’

‘You get to arrest me?’ Spluttering laughter. He was so close, his saliva hit Rebus’s face. ‘Man, you’ve got balls.’ Moving the knife. ‘Enjoy them while you can.’

‘All these games,’ Rebus was saying. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you don’t want us to know. Keeping us all busy so we don’t go looking.’

‘No shit?’

‘What is it?’

But Oakes was shaking his head, working the knife. Rebus turned and ran. Oakes was after him, whooping, bounding through bracken. Rebus looking around, seeing nothing but hillside and a killer with a knife. He stumbled, came to a stop and turned to face Oakes.

‘Gotcha,’ Oakes called out.

Rebus, almost out of breath, just nodded.

‘Know what you are, man?’ Oakes asked. ‘You’re my spot of R&R, that’s all.’

Rebus, walking backwards, started tugging his shirt out of his waistband. Oakes looked puzzled, until Rebus pulled the shirt up, revealing a tiny mike taped to his chest. Oakes looked at him, Rebus holding the stare. Then looked around, seeking shapes.

Voices approaching at speed.

‘Thanks for all that shouting,’ Rebus said. ‘Better than a trail of breadcrumbs any day.’

With a roar, Oakes took a final lunge at him. Rebus sidestepped it, and Oakes was past him and running. Downhill to start with, then changing his mind and making an arc, climbing now, further into the hills. The first uniforms appeared out of the mist. Rebus pointed after Oakes.

‘Get him!’ he called. Then he started climbing too, making his way back to where Alan Archibald lay, still conscious but with blood pouring from his wounds. Rebus crouched beside him as more uniforms ran past.

‘Radio down for help!’ Rebus called out to them. One of the uniforms turned back to him.

‘Don’t need to, sir. You’ve already done it.’

Rebus looked at the mike on his chest and realised this was true.

‘Where did the cavalry come from?’ Archibald asked, his voice faint.

‘I got them from the ACC,’ Rebus told him. ‘He promised me a chopper too, but it would have needed X-ray eyes.’

Archibald managed a smile. ‘Do you think...?’

‘I’m sorry, Alan,’ Rebus said. ‘It was all crap, that’s what I think. He just wanted a couple more scalps.’

Archibald touched shaking fingers to his head. ‘He nearly got one,’ he said, closing his eyes to rest.

Alan Archibald went to hospital, and Rebus went in search of Jim Stevens. He’d already checked out of the hotel, and wasn’t at the newspaper office. Eventually, Rebus tracked him down to The Hebrides, a furtive little bar behind Waverley station. Stevens was sitting alone in a corner with only a full ashtray and glass of whisky for company.

Rebus got himself a whisky and water, gulped it down, ordered another and went to join him.

‘Come to gloat?’ Stevens asked.

‘About what?’

‘That wee shite set me up.’ He told Rebus what had happened.

‘Then I’m an angel straight from heaven,’ Rebus said.

Stevens blinked. ‘How do you make that out?’

‘I bring glad tidings. Or more accurately, a news story, and I’d say you’re ahead of the pack.’

Rebus had never seen a man sober up so quickly. Stevens pulled a notebook from his pocket and folded it open. His pen ready, he looked up at Rebus.

‘It’ll have to be a trade,’ Rebus told him.

‘I need this,’ Stevens said.

Rebus nodded, told him the story. ‘And I’d have been next if he got his way.’

‘Jesus Christ.’ Stevens exhaled, took a gulp of whisky. ‘There are probably dozens of questions I should be asking you, but right now I can’t think of any.’ He took out a mobile phone. ‘Mind if I call this in?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Then we talk,’ he said.

While Stevens read from his notes, turning them into sentences and paragraphs, Rebus listened, nodding confirmation when it was demanded of him. Stevens listened while the story was read back to him. He made a few changes, then finished the call.

‘I owe you,’ he said, putting the phone on the table. ‘What’ll it be?’

‘Another whisky,’ Rebus said, ‘and the answers to some questions.’

Half an hour later he had a pair of headphones on and was listening to the tape of Oakes’s last interview.

‘“A date with my past”,’ he recited, slipping the headphones off his ears. ‘“A date with destiny”.’

‘That’s Archibald, isn’t it? Archibald’s been hassling him for years.’

Rebus thought back to Alan Archibald... the way he’d looked as they’d lifted him into the ambulance. He’d looked spent and stunned, as if his dearest possession had been torn from him. Easy to steal away a dream, a hope... Cary Oakes had done that.

And had gotten away.

‘They didn’t catch him then?’ Stevens asked, not for the first time.

‘He ran into the hills, could be anywhere.’

‘It’s a hell of an area to search,’ Stevens conceded. ‘What made you take reinforcements?’

Rebus shrugged.

‘You know, John, once upon a time you wouldn’t have thought you needed them.’

‘I know, Jim. Things change.’

Stevens nodded. ‘I suppose they do.’

Rebus rewound the tape, listened to the last half again. ‘A date with destiny, as you and your fellow hacks might put it. With someone who never listened to me...’ This time, he was frowning when he finished.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure he means Archibald and me. He called us his spot of R&R.’

Stevens had drained his glass. ‘What else could it be?’

Rebus shook his head slowly. ‘There was some reason for him coming back here.’

‘Yes, me and my chequebook.’

‘Something more than that. More than the chance to play games with Alan Archibald...’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know.’ He looked at Stevens. ‘You could find out.’

‘Me?’

‘You know the city inside out. It has to be something from his past, something from before he went to America.’

‘I’m not an archaeologist.’

‘No? Think of all the years you’ve spent digging dirt. And Alan Archibald has a lot of stuff on Oakes, better than anything the bastard gave you.’

Stevens snorted, then smiled. ‘Maybe...’ he said to himself. ‘It would be a way of getting back at him.’

Rebus was nodding. ‘He’s given you a tissue of lies, you bounce back with a whole boxful of truth.’

‘The truth about Cary Oakes,’ Stevens said, measuring it up for a headline. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said at last.

‘And anything you find, you share with me.’ Rebus reached for Stevens’ notepad. ‘I’ll give you my mobile number.’

‘Jim Stevens and John Rebus, working together.’ Stevens grinned.

‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’

40

There were messages for Rebus. Janice had called three times; Damon’s bank manager once. Rebus spoke to the bank manager first.

‘We have a transaction,’ the man said.

‘What, when and where?’ Rebus reached for paper and pen.

‘Edinburgh. A cash machine on George Street. Withdrawal of one hundred pounds.’

‘Today?’

‘Yesterday afternoon at one forty precisely. It’s good news, isn’t it?’

‘I hope so.’

‘I mean, it proves he’s still alive.’

‘It proves someone’s used his card. Not quite the same thing.’

‘I see.’ The manager sounded a little dispirited. ‘I suppose you have to be cautious.’

Rebus had a thought. ‘This cash machine, it wouldn’t be under surveillance, would it?’

‘I can check for you.’

‘If you wouldn’t mind.’ Rebus wound up the call and phoned Janice.

‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’ She paused. ‘It’s just you ran off so early that morning. I wondered if it was something we’d...’

‘Nothing to do with you, Janice.’

‘No?’

‘I just needed to get back here.’

‘Oh.’ Another pause. ‘Well, I was just worried.’

‘About me?’

‘That you were disappearing from my life again.’

‘Would I do that?’

‘I don’t know, John: would you?’

‘Janice, I know things are a bit rocky between you and Brian...’

‘Yes?’

He smiled, eyes closed. ‘That’s it really. I’m not exactly an expert on marriage guidance.’

‘I’m not in the market for one.’

‘Look,’ he said, rubbing his eyes, ‘there’s a bit of news about Damon.’

A longer pause. ‘Were you planning on telling me?’

‘I just did tell you.’

‘Only so you could change the subject.’

Rebus felt like he was in the boxing-ring, cornered on the ropes. ‘It’s just that his bank account’s been used.’

‘He’s taken out?’

‘Someone’s used his card.’

Her voice was rising, filling with hope. ‘But nobody else knows his number. It has to be him.’

‘There are ways of using cards...’

‘John, don’t you dare take this away from me!’

‘I just don’t want you getting hurt.’ He saw Alan Archibald again, saw that look of final inescapable defeat.

‘When was this?’ Janice said; she was barely listening to him now.

‘Yesterday afternoon. I got word about ten minutes ago. It was a bank on George Street.’

‘He’s still in Edinburgh.’ A statement of belief.

‘Janice...’

‘I can feel it, John. He’s there, I know he’s there. What time’s the next train?’

‘I doubt he’s still hanging around George Street. The withdrawal was a hundred pounds. Might have been travelling money.’

‘I’m coming anyway.’

‘I can’t stop you.’

‘That’s right, you can’t.’ She put down the telephone. Seconds later, it rang again. Damon’s bank manager.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there’s a camera.’

‘Trained on the machine?’

‘Yes. I’ve already asked: the tape’s waiting for you. Talk to a Miss Georgeson.’

As Rebus finished the call, George Silvers brought him a cup of coffee. ‘Thought you’d have gone home,’ he said: Hi-Ho’s way of showing he cared.

‘Thanks, George. No sign of him yet?’

Silvers shook his head. Rebus stared at the paperwork on his desk. There were cases to write up, he could barely recall them. Names swimming in front of him. All of them demanding an ending.

‘We’ll catch him,’ Silvers said. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

‘You’ve always been a comfort to me, George,’ Rebus said. He handed back the cup. ‘And one of these days you’ll remember that I don’t take sugar.’

He went to talk to Miss Georgeson. She was plump and fiftyish and reminded Rebus of a school dinner-lady he’d once dated. She had the videotape ready for him.

‘Would you like to view it here?’ she asked.

Rebus shook his head. ‘I’ll take it back to the station, if you’ve no objection.’

‘Well, really I should make you a copy...’

‘I don’t intend losing it, Miss Georgeson. And I will bring it back.’

He left the bank with the tape held tightly in one hand. Checked his watch, then headed down to Waverley. He sat on one of the benches on the concourse, drinking a milky coffee — or caffe latte as the vendor had called it — and keeping an eye open. He had the tape in his raincoat pocket; no way he was leaving it in the car. He flicked through the evening paper. Nothing about Cary Oakes — it would be an exclusive in Stevens’ paper first thing in the morning, and Stevens would have answered his detractors with one mighty two-fingered salute.

A date with destiny...

What the hell did that mean? Was Oakes laying yet another false trail? Rebus would put nothing past him. He’d sold Stevens, Archibald, and himself dummies like he was vintage George Best and they were Sunday league.

Finally he saw her. Late-afternoon trains into Edinburgh weren’t busy; the traffic was all the other way. She was walking against the crowds as she came off the platform. He got into step beside her before she’d noticed him.

‘Needing a taxi?’ he said.

She looked surprised, then bemused. ‘John,’ she said. ‘What brings you here?’

For answer, he took the video out and held it in front of her.

‘A peace offering,’ he said, leading her back to his car.

They sat in the CID suite. It too was quiet. Most people had gone home for the day. Those who were left were trying to finish reports or catch up with themselves. No one was in the mood to dawdle. The video monitor sat in one corner. Rebus pulled two chairs over. He’d fetched them coffee. Janice was looking excited and fearful at the same time. Again, he was reminded of Alan Archibald on the hillside.

‘Look, Janice,’ he warned her, ‘if it’s not him...’

She shrugged. ‘If it’s not him, it’s not him. I won’t blame you.’ She flashed him a momentary smile. He started the tape. Miss Georgeson had explained that the camera was motion-sensitive, and would only begin recording when someone approached the machine. Back at the bank, Rebus had taken a look at the cash machine. The camera was above it, shooting from behind one of the bank’s glass windows. When the first face came on the tape, Rebus and Janice were looking at it from above. The time-counter said 08.10. Rebus used the remote to fast forward.

‘We’re looking for one forty,’ he explained. Janice was sitting on the edge of her chair, the coffee cup held in both hands.

This, Rebus thought, was the way it had started: with security footage, grainy pictures. Towards the middle of the day, more people were using the machine. There was a lot of tape to get through. Lunchtime queues built up, but by one thirty it was a little quieter.

The time-counter said 13.40.

‘Oh, dear Lord, there he is,’ Janice said. She’d placed her cup on the floor, clapped her hands to her face.

Rebus looked. The face was angled down, looking at the machine’s keypad. Then it turned away, as if staring down the street. Fingers were tapped impatiently against the screen of the cash machine. The card was retrieved, a hand went to the slot to extract the notes. Didn’t linger; didn’t wait for a receipt. The next customer was already moving forward.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

A tear was falling from Janice’s cheek. ‘Positive,’ she said, nodding.

Rebus found it hard to tell. All he had were photos of Damon and the footage from Gaitano’s; he’d never met him. The hair looked similar... maybe the nose too, the shape of the chin. But it wasn’t as though they were unusual. The person on view now, they looked much like the customer who’d just left. But Janice was blowing her nose. She was satisfied.

‘It’s him, I’d swear to it.’ She saw uncertainty on his face. ‘I wouldn’t say it was if it wasn’t.’

‘Of course not.’

‘It’s not just the face or hair or clothes... it’s the way he stood, the way he held himself. And those little twitches of impatience.’ She used a corner of the hankie to wipe her eyes. ‘It was him, John. It was him.’

‘OK,’ Rebus said. He rewound the tape, played the minutes leading up to 13.40. He was studying the background to see if he could spot Damon making for the machine. He wanted to know if he’d been alone. But he entered the picture suddenly, and from the side. That look again, towards where he’d just come from. Was there a slight nod of the head... some signal to another person just out of shot...? Rebus rewound and watched again.

‘What are you looking for?’ Janice asked.

‘Anyone who might have been with him.’

But there was nothing. So he let the tape play on, and was rewarded a minute or two later by legs moving across the top of the picture, just behind the person at the machine. Two pairs, one male, one female. Rebus pressed freeze-frame, but couldn’t get the picture to stay absolutely still and focused. So instead, he rewound and played it again, following the feet with his finger.

‘Recognise the trousers, the shoes?’

But Janice shook her head. ‘They’re just a blur.’

And so they were.

‘Could be anybody,’ she added.

And so it could.

She got to her feet. ‘I’m going to George Street.’ He made to say something but she cut him off. ‘I know he won’t be there, but there are shops, pubs — I can show them his picture at least.’

Rebus nodded. She gripped his forearm.

‘He’s still here, John. That’s something.’

As she left, she held the door open to someone just coming in: Siobhan Clarke.

‘Any sign of him?’ Rebus asked.

Siobhan slumped into a chair. ‘Billy Horman?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Cary Oakes.’

She stretched her neck. He heard the snap. ‘Another day down,’ he told her.

She nodded. ‘I’m not working Oakes. I’m on Billy Boy.’

‘No progress?’

She shook her head. ‘We need another dozen officers. Maybe a couple of dozen.’

‘I can see the budget stretching to that.’

‘Maybe if we got rid of a few of the bean-counters.’

‘Careful, Siobhan. That’s anarchist talk.’

She smiled. ‘How are you? I hear Oakes was ready to kill the pair of you.’

‘The tremors have stopped,’ he told her. ‘Buy you a drink?’

‘Not tonight. I’ve a date with a hot bath and a takeaway. What about you?’

‘Straight home, same as yourself.’

‘Well...’ She stood up as though the effort was costing her. ‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Night, Siobhan.’

She waved fingers over her shoulder as she left.

Rebus was almost as good as his word — just the one stop-off to make beforehand. He climbed the stairwell of Cragside Court. Darkness was falling, but there were still children out playing, albeit supervised by a member of GAP. They’d had T-shirts printed up with a logo on the front, getting more organised by the day. The woman in the T-shirt had studied Rebus, knowing she’d seen him somewhere before, but not recognising him as a resident.

He stood looking out over Greenfield. On one side, Holyrood Park; on the other, the Old Town, and the site of the new Parliament. He wondered if the estate would be allowed to survive. He knew that if the council wanted it run down, they would work by stealth. Repairs would not be carried out, or would be botched. Flats would be found to be uninhabitable, tenants rehoused, windows and doors blocked and padlocked. Things would slowly deteriorate, causing residents to rethink their options. More of them would move out. The state of the high-rises would become a ‘cause for concern’. There’d be a media outcry about conditions. The council would move in with offers of help — meaning relocation: cheaper than shoring up the estate. And eventually it would be deserted, a demolition site from which new buildings could rise. Expensive pieds-à-terre for parliamentarians, perhaps. Or offices and select shops. It was a prime site, no doubt about it.

As for Salisbury Crags... he didn’t doubt there’d be people who would build on it too, given the chance. But that chance would be a long time coming. All the centuries of change, and the park was much as it ever had been. It made no judgements on the work around it, but merely sat there, above it all. And the people who tramped over it were minor irritations, dead by the age of seventy if not before. They made no impression on it, not when measured in millennia.

Rebus was outside Darren Rough’s flat now. Darren had come home to give evidence against two evil men. As recompense, he’d been harried, cursed and eventually killed. Rebus didn’t feel proud that he’d been the first player. He hoped Darren might one day forgive him. He almost said as much to the ghostly shape at the end of the walkway, but when it came towards him, he saw it was flesh and blood, very much alive.

It was Cal Brady, his face an angry scowl.

‘What do you want?’

‘Just taking a look.’

‘I thought you were another pervert.’

Rebus nodded towards the mobile phone in Brady’s hand. ‘Did the playground guard tell you?’ He nodded to himself. ‘Nice little operation you’ve got here, Cal. Anything in it for you?’

‘It’s my public duty,’ Brady said, puffing out his chest.

Rebus took a step closer, hands in coat pockets. ‘Cal, the day people like you are deciding what’s right and what’s wrong, we’re all in Queer Street.’

‘You calling me a poof?’ Cal Brady yelled, but Rebus was already past him and heading for the stairs.

41

‘Tell me about Janice,’ Patience said.

They were seated in the living room, a bottle of red wine open on the carpet between them. Patience was lying along the sofa. There was a paperback novel folded open on her chest. She had placed it there some time ago; had been staring into space, listening to the music on the hi-fi. Nick Drake, ‘Pink Moon’. Rebus was in the armchair, legs hanging over its side. He had kicked off his shoes and socks, was catching up with the football news in that day’s paper.

‘What?’

‘Janice, I’d like to know about her.’

‘We were at school together.’ Rebus stopped reading. ‘She’s married with just the one son. She used to work as a teacher. I was at school with her husband, too. His name’s Brian.’

‘You went out with her?’

‘At school, yes.’

‘Sleep together?’

Rebus looked at her. ‘Didn’t quite get that far.’

She nodded to herself. ‘Are you curious about what it would have been like?’

He shrugged.

‘I think I would be,’ she went on. Her glass was empty, and she leaned over to refill it. The book slid on to the floor, but she paid it no heed. Rebus was still on his first helping of the Rioja. The bottle was nearly empty.

‘Anyone would think you were the one with the drink problem,’ he said, making sure he was smiling as he spoke.

She was getting comfortable again. A splash of wine fell on to the back of her hand, and she put her mouth to it.

‘No, I just like a little bit too much now and again. So, have you thought about sleeping with her?’

‘Christ, Patience...’

‘I’m interested, that’s all. Sammy says Janice had a look about her.’

‘What sort of look?’

Patience frowned, as if trying to recall the exact words. ‘Hungry. Hungry and a little desperate, I think. How’s the marriage?’

‘Rocky,’ Rebus admitted.

‘And you going to Fife... did that help?’

‘I didn’t sleep with her.’

Patience wagged a finger. ‘Don’t go defending yourself before an accusation’s made. You’re a detective, you know how it looks.’

He glared at her. ‘Am I a suspect?’

‘No, John, you’re a man. That’s all.’ She took another sip of wine.

‘I wouldn’t hurt you, Patience.’

She smiled, stretched out a hand as if to squeeze his, but he was too far away. ‘I know that, sweetheart. But the thing is, you wouldn’t even be thinking of me at the time, so the idea of hurting me or not hurting me wouldn’t enter into it.’

‘You’re so sure.’

‘John, I get it every single day. Wives coming into the surgery, wanting anti-depressants. Wanting anything that’ll help them get through the bloody awful marriages they’ve found themselves in. They tell me things. It all spills out. Some of them turn to drink or drugs, some slash their wrists. It’s bizarre how seldom they just walk out. And the ones who do walk out are usually the ones married to the violent cases.’ She looked at him. ‘Do you know what they do?’

‘End up going back?’ he guessed.

She focused on him. ‘How do you know?’

‘I get them too, Patience. The domestics, the neighbours who complain of screams and punches. The same wives you get, only further down the road. They won’t press charges. They get put into a hostel. And later, they walk back to the only life they really know.’

She blinked away a tear. ‘Why does it have to be like that, John?’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘What’s in it for us?’

He smiled. ‘A paycheque.’

She had stopped looking at him. Picked her book off the floor, put down her wine glass. ‘The man who painted that message... What was he trying to do?’

‘I’m not sure. Maybe he wanted me to know he’d been here.’

She had found her page, stared at the words without moving her eyes. ‘Where is he now?’

‘Lost on the hills and freezing to death.’

‘You really think so?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Someone like Oakes... that would be too easy.’

‘Will he come after you?’

‘I’m not at the top of his list.’ No, because Alan Archibald was still alive. X-rays had shown a skull fracture; Archibald would be in hospital a little longer. There was a police guard on his bed.

‘Will he come here?’ Patience asked.

The CD had finished; there was silence in the room. ‘I don’t know.’

‘If he tries painting my flagstones again, I’ll give him a bloody good kicking.’

Rebus looked at her, then began laughing.

‘What’s so funny?’ she said.

Rebus was shaking his head. ‘Nothing really. I’m just glad you’re on my side, that’s all.’

She raised the wine glass to her lips again. ‘What makes you so sure of that, Inspector?’

Rebus raised his own glass to her, pleased that until Patience had mentioned her, he hadn’t thought once that evening of Janice Mee. He hit ‘Replay’ on the CD remote. ‘This guy sounds like he needs help,’ Patience said.

‘He did,’ Rebus told her. ‘He OD’d.’ She looked at him and he shrugged. ‘Just another casualty,’ he said.

Later, he headed outside for a cigarette. The message was still there on the patio: YOUR COP LOVER KILLED DARREN. The workmen would start cleaning it off tomorrow. Oakes said he’d followed Darren but lost him. Well, someone had found him. Rebus wasn’t going to take the blame for that. Cigarette lit, he climbed the steps. There was a marked patrol car parked directly outside, a message to Cary Oakes should he think about paying a visit. Rebus had a word with the two officers inside, finished his cigarette and headed back indoors.

42

‘Fancy a run?’ Siobhan Clarke offered.

‘I trust you mean “run” as in “drive”?’

‘Don’t worry, I don’t have you down as the jogging type.’

‘Perceptive as ever. Where are you going?’

It was morning in St Leonard’s. The weather up on the Pentlands had cleared, and Rebus had made sure the helicopter would be out scanning the area for signs of Cary Oakes. Villages and farms in the foothills had been warned to be on the look out.

‘Don’t try to corner him,’ the message had gone. ‘Just let us know if you see him.’

So far, no one had called in.

Rebus felt like dead weight. He’d made breakfast for Patience — orange juice and two sachets of Resolve — and had been complimented on both his diagnosis and his bedside manner. She’d said she’d make the surgery OK.

‘I just hope no one expects me to do my Agony Aunt bit today.’

And now Rebus was in the CID suite with his coffee and a Mars Bar.

‘Breakfast of coronaries,’ he said, noting Siobhan’s distaste.

‘We’ve had a sighting of Billy Boy. It’ll probably turn out to be a waste of time...’

‘And you’d rather waste it with me?’ Rebus smiled. ‘Isn’t that thoughtful?’

‘Never mind,’ she said, turning away.

‘Whoa, hold on. What side of the bed did you fall out of?’

‘I didn’t quite reach bed last night,’ she snapped. Then she melted a little. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Just right for a car-ride then,’ he said. ‘Come on, you’ve got me hooked.’

The story was, her upstairs neighbours’ washing-machine had sprung a leak. They’d been out, and hadn’t noticed. And she’d only found out when she’d gone into her bedroom.

‘Their washing-machine’s above your bedroom?’ Rebus asked.

‘That’s another bone of contention. Anyway, I noticed this stain on the ceiling, and when I touched the bed it was soaked through. So I ended up on the couch in a smelly old sleeping-bag.’

‘Poor you.’ Rebus was thinking of all the times he’d slept in his chair — but that had been voluntary. He looked in the wing mirror as they crawled westwards out of town. ‘Tell me something: why are we going to Grangemouth? Couldn’t the locals handle it?’

‘I’m reluctant to delegate.’

Rebus smiled: she’d stolen one of his lines. ‘What you mean is, you don’t trust anyone to do the job thoroughly.’

‘Something like that,’ she said, glancing at him. ‘I had a good teacher.’

‘Siobhan, it’s been quite some time since I could teach you anything.’

‘Thanks.’

‘But that’s because you’ve stopped listening.’

‘We are not amused.’ She craned her neck. ‘What is with this traffic?’

The vehicles ahead were barely moving.

‘It’s part of the new council initiative. Make things bloody awful for drivers, and they’ll stop coming into town and making everything look untidy.’

‘They want a conservation village.’

Rebus nodded. ‘And just the half a million villagers.’

Eventually they got moving. Grangemouth lay out to the west along the Forth estuary. Rebus hadn’t been to the town in years. As they approached, Rebus’s first impression was that they’d wandered on to the set of Blade Runner. A vast petrochemical complex dominated the skyline, throwing up jagged chimneys and weird configurations of pipes. The complex looked like some encroaching alien life-form, about to throw its many mechanical arms around the town and squeeze the life out of it.

In fact, the contrary was true: the complex and all that went with it had brought employment to Grangemouth. The streets they eventually drove through were dark and narrow, with architecture from much earlier in the century.

‘Two worlds collide,’ Rebus muttered, taking it all in.

‘I feel they’ve spoiled their chances in the conservation village stakes.’

‘I’m sure the townsfolk are grieving.’ He was peering at the street names. ‘Here we go.’ They parked outside a row of cottage-type houses, all of which had added bedrooms and windows to their roof-space.

‘Number eleven,’ Siobhan said. ‘Woman’s name is Wilkie.’

Mrs Wilkie had been waiting for them. She seemed the type of neighbour every street has: interested to the point of nosiness. Her kind could be a distinct asset, but Rebus would bet some of her neighbours didn’t see it that way.

Her living room was a tiny box, overheated and with pride of place given to a large and ornate doll’s-house. When Siobhan, out of politeness, showed interest in it, Mrs Wilkie delivered a ten-minute speech concerning its history. Rebus could swear she didn’t once draw breath, giving neither of her prisoners the chance to jump in and take the conversation elsewhere.

‘Well, isn’t that lovely?’ Siobhan said, glancing towards Rebus. The look on his face had her sucking in her cheeks to stop from laughing. ‘Now, about this boy you saw, Mrs Wilkie...?’

They all sat down, and Mrs Wilkie told her story. She’d seen the laddie’s picture in the paper, and as she was coming back from the shops around two, caught him playing football in the street.

‘Kicking the ball against the wall of Montefiore’s Garage. There’s this low stone wall around the...’ She made motions with her hands. ‘What do you call it?’

‘Forecourt?’ Siobhan suggested.

‘That’s the word.’ She smiled at Siobhan. ‘I’ll bet you’re a dab hand at crosswords, brain like that.’

‘Did you say anything to the boy, Mrs Wilkie?’

‘It’s Miss Wilkie actually. I never married.’

‘Really?’ Rebus managed to put on a surprised look. Siobhan coughed into her hand, then handed some snaps of Billy Horman over to Miss Wilkie.

‘Well, these certainly look like him,’ the old woman said, sorting through the photos. She lifted one out. ‘Except for this, that is.’

Siobhan took the proffered photo, stuck it back in her folder. Rebus knew she’d sneaked in a picture of a different kid to assess how alert her witness actually was. Miss Wilkie had passed.

‘To answer your question,’ Miss Wilkie said, ‘no, I didn’t say anything. I came back here and took another look at the paper. Then I phoned the number it said to call. Spoke to a very nice young man at the police station.’

‘This was yesterday?’

‘That’s right, and I haven’t seen the laddie today.’

‘And you just saw him the once?’

Miss Wilkie nodded. ‘Playing all by himself. He looked so lonely.’ She had handed back the photos, and got up to look out of her window. ‘You notice strangers on a street like this.’

‘I’m sure not much gets past you,’ Rebus said.

‘All these cars nowadays... I’m surprised you found a space.’

Rebus and Siobhan looked at one another, thanked Miss Wilkie for her time, and left.

Outside, they looked to left and right. There was a garage on the corner at the far end of the street. They walked towards it.

‘What did she mean about the cars?’ Siobhan asked.

‘My guess is, there’s always someone parked outside her window. Makes it harder for her to see everything that’s going on.’

‘I’m impressed.’

‘Not that I speak from experience, you understand.’

But back in the cottage, Rebus had felt a sudden depression. He, too, was a watcher. All the nights he sat in his flat, lights off, watching from the window... As he got older, would he turn into a Miss Wilkie: the street’s nosy neighbour?

Montefiore’s Garage consisted of a single line of petrol pumps, a shop, and a double work-bay. A man in blue overalls was in one of the work-bays, his head just visible as he stood in the pit, a blue Volkswagen Polo above him. There was another, older man behind the counter in the shop. Rebus and Siobhan stopped on the pavement.

‘Might as well ask if they saw him,’ Siobhan said.

‘Suppose so,’ Rebus replied, with little enthusiasm.

‘I told you it was a wild shot.’

‘Could be a neighbourhood kid. New family moved in, hasn’t had time to make friends.’

‘It was two o’clock she saw him. He should have been at school.’

‘True,’ Rebus said. ‘She seemed so certain, didn’t she?’

‘Some people do. They want to be helpful, even if it means making up a story.’

Rebus tutted. ‘You didn’t learn cynicism like that from me.’ He looked around at the bumper-to-bumper parking. ‘I wonder...’

‘What?’

‘He was kicking the ball off the forecourt wall.’

‘Yes.’

‘Not much of a game if all these cars were here. Pavement’s not wide enough.’

Siobhan looked at the wall, the pavement. ‘Maybe the cars weren’t here.’

‘According to Miss Wilkie, that would be unusual.’

‘I can’t see what you’re getting at.’

Rebus pointed to the forecourt. ‘What if he was in there? Plenty of space so long as no cars are using the pumps.’

‘They’d chase him off.’ She looked at him. ‘Wouldn’t they?’

‘Let’s go ask them.’

They went to the shop first, identified themselves to the man behind the counter.

‘I’m not the owner,’ he said. ‘I’m his brother.’

‘Were you here yesterday?’

‘Been here the past ten days. Eddie and Flo are on their hols.’

‘Somewhere nice?’ Siobhan asked, making out they were just having a normal conversation.

‘Jamaica.’

‘Do you remember a young boy?’ Rebus asked. Siobhan held up one of the photographs. ‘Playing kickabout in the forecourt?’

The owner’s brother nodded. ‘Gordon’s nephew.’

Rebus tried to keep his voice level. ‘Gordon who?’

The man laughed. ‘Gordon Howe, actually.’ He spelt the name for them, and they laughed along with him.

‘Bet he gets jokes about that,’ Siobhan said, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye. ‘Any idea where we could find Mr Howe?’

‘Jock will know.’

Siobhan nodded. ‘And who’s Jock?’

‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘Jock’s the other mechanic.’

‘Under the Polo?’ Rebus asked. The man nodded.

‘So Mr Howe works for the garage?’

‘Yes, he’s a mechanic. He’s got the day off today. Well, we’re not busy, and with him looking after young Billy...’ He waved the picture of Billy Horman.

‘Billy?’ Siobhan said.

Sixty seconds later they were out on the forecourt again and Siobhan was using Rebus’s mobile. She got through to St Leonard’s and asked if Billy Horman had an uncle called Gordon Howe. Listening to the answer, she shook her head to let Rebus know what she was hearing. They walked towards the work-bay.

‘Could we have a word?’ Rebus called. They had their IDs ready as the mechanic called Jock crawled out from under the Polo and started wiping his hands on an impossibly oil-blackened rag.

‘What have I done?’ He had ginger hair, curling to the nape of his neck, and a long earring dangling from one ear. The backs of his hands were tattooed, and Rebus noticed he was missing the pinkie on his left hand.

‘Where can we find Gordon Howe?’ Siobhan asked.

‘Lives on Adamson Street. What’s the matter?’

‘Will he be there just now, do you think?’

‘How should I know?’

‘He’s got the day off,’ Rebus said, taking a step closer. ‘Maybe he told you how he planned to spend it?’

‘Taking Billy out.’ The mechanic’s eyes flicked from one detective to the other.

‘Billy being...?’

‘His sister’s kid. She’s been poorly, one-parent family and that. Billy either went into care for the duration or Gordy looked after him. Is it Billy? Has he been up to something?’

‘Do you think he’s the type?’

‘Not at all.’ The mechanic smiled. ‘Very quiet kid, actually. Didn’t want to talk about his mum...’

‘Didn’t want to talk about his mum,’ Siobhan repeated, as they walked up the path to the house in Adamson Street. It was a sixties-built semi in an estate on the edge of town. Council-owned for the most part. You could tell the homes that had been purchased by their tenants: replacement windows and better doors. But they all had the same grey harled walls.

‘Uncle Gordon’s orders, no doubt.’

They rang the bell and waited. Rebus thought he detected movement at an upstairs window. Took a step back to look, but couldn’t see anything.

‘Try again,’ he said, opening the letterbox while Siobhan pushed the doorbell. There was a door at the end of the corridor, half-open. He saw shadows beyond it, snapped the letterbox shut.

‘Round the back,’ he said, heading for the side of the house. As they entered the back garden, a man was disappearing over a high bark fence.

‘Mr Howe!’ Rebus shouted.

By way of response, the man called out, ‘Run for it!’ to the boy who was with him. Rebus let Siobhan climb the fence. He headed back round to the front, ran down the road, wondering where the two would appear.

Suddenly they were ahead of him. Howe was limping, clawing at one leg. The boy was off like a shot, Howe spurring him on. But when the boy looked back, saw the distance widening between himself and Howe, his pace slowed.

‘No! Keep running, Billy! Keep running!’

But the boy wasn’t listening to Howe. He came to a dead stop, waited for the man to catch up. Siobhan came into view, a rip in the knee of her trousers. Howe saw he was going nowhere and put up his hands.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘all right.’

He looked despairingly at Billy, who was walking back towards him.

‘Billy, will you never listen?’

As Gordon Howe dropped to his knees, Billy slid his arms around his neck, man and boy embracing.

‘I’ll tell them,’ Billy was wailing. ‘I’ll tell them it’s all right.’

Rebus looked down at them, saw the tattoos on Gordon Howe’s bare arms: No Surrender; UDA; the Red Hand of Ulster. He recalled Tom Jackson’s story: ran off to Ulster to join the paramilitaries...

‘You’ll be Billy’s dad then,’ Rebus guessed. ‘Welcome back to Scotland.’

43

On the way back into Edinburgh, Rebus sat in the back with Howe, while Billy sat in the front with Siobhan.

‘You read about Greenfield in the paper?’ Rebus guessed. Gordon Howe nodded. ‘What’s your real name?’

‘Eddie Mearn.’

‘How long have you been back from Northern Ireland?’ Siobhan asked.

‘Three months.’ He reached out a hand to ruffle his son’s hair. ‘I wanted Billy back.’

‘Did his mother know?’

‘That cow? It was our secret, wasn’t it, Billy?’

‘Aye, Dad,’ Billy said.

Mearn turned to Rebus. ‘I used to visit him on the quiet. If his mum had found out, she’d’ve put a stop to it. But we kept it hush-hush.’

‘Then you read about Darren Rough?’ Rebus added.

Mearn nodded. ‘Looked too good to be true. I knew if I snatched Billy, they’d just assume that wanker had him — at least for a while. Give us a chance to get settled. We were getting on fine, weren’t we, Billy?’

‘Grand,’ his son agreed.

‘Your mum’s been at her wits’ end, Billy,’ Siobhan said.

‘I hate Ray,’ Billy said, tucking his chin into his neck. Ray Heggie: Joanna Horman’s lover. ‘He hits her.’

‘Why do you think I wanted Billy out of there?’ Mearn said. ‘It’s not right for a kid to have to deal with. It’s not right.’ He bent forward to kiss the top of his son’s head. ‘We were all fixed up, though, weren’t we, Billy Boy? We’d’ve managed.’

Billy turned in his seat, tried to hug his father, the seatbelt restricting him. Looking in the rearview, Siobhan fixed her eyes on Rebus’s. Both knew what would happen: Billy would go back to Greenfield; Mearn would probably be charged. Neither officer felt especially great about it.

As they headed into central Edinburgh, Rebus asked Siobhan to make a detour along George Street. There was no sign of Janice...

‘You know something?’ Rebus asked Mearn.

They were in an interview room at St Leonard’s. Mearn had a cup of tea in front of him. A doctor had looked at his leg: just a sprain.

‘What?’

‘You said you knew they’d all blame Billy’s disappearance on Darren Rough, and that would give you some time to get settled.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But I can think of a better way, a plan that would mean they’d give up looking for Billy.’

Mearn looked interested. ‘What’s that then?’

‘If Rough was dead,’ Rebus said quietly. ‘I mean, we’d look for Billy for a while, even if all we expected to find was a body hidden somewhere. But we’d call a halt eventually.’

‘I thought of that.’

Rebus sat down. ‘You did?’

Mearn was nodding. ‘You know, after I read about him being topped. I thought it was the answer to our prayers.’

Rebus was nodding. ‘And that’s why you did it?’

Mearn frowned. ‘Did what?’

‘Killed Darren Rough.’

The two men stared at one another. Then a look of horror spread across Mearn’s face. ‘N-n-no,’ he stammered. ‘No way, no way...’ His hands gripped the edge of the table. ‘Not me, I didn’t do it.’

‘No?’ Rebus looked surprised. ‘But you’ve got the perfect motive.’

‘Christ, I was starting a new life. How could I contemplate that if I’d topped someone?’

‘Lots of people do it, Eddie. I see them in here several times a year. I’d’ve thought it would be easy for someone with paramilitary training.’

Mearn laughed. ‘Where did you get that idea?’

‘It’s what they’re saying on the estate. When Joanna got pregnant with Billy, you ran off to join the terrorists.’

Mearn calmed down, looked around. ‘I think I want a solicitor,’ he said quietly.

‘One’s on its way,’ Rebus explained.

‘What about Billy?’

‘They’ve phoned his mum. She’s on her way too. Probably smartening herself up for the press conference.’

Mearn squeezed his eyes shut. ‘Shit,’ he whispered. Then: ‘Sorry, Billy.’ He was blinking back tears as he looked towards Rebus. ‘What gave us away?’

A nosy old lady and a line of parked cars, Rebus could have told him. But he hadn’t the heart.

There were cameras and microphones outside St Leonard’s; so many that the journalists were spilling on to the road. Cars and vans were sounding their horns, making it hard to hear Joanna Horman speaking of her emotional reunion with her son. No sign of Ray Heggie: Rebus wondered if she’d given him the push. And not much sign of emotion from young Billy Boy. His mother kept hugging him to her, almost smothering him as the cameramen bayed for another shot. She pockmarked his face with lipstick kisses. As she made to answer another question, Rebus noticed Billy trying to wipe his face clean.

There were civilians mixed in with the reporters: passers-by and the curious. A woman in a GAP T-shirt was trying to hand out leaflets: Van Brady. Across the road, a kid sat balanced on his bike, one hand touching a lamp-post for support. Rebus recognised him: Van’s youngest. No leaflets; no T-shirt — Rebus wondered about that. Was the boy less easily swayed than those around him?

‘And I’d like to thank the police for all their hard work,’ Joanna Horman was saying. You’re welcome, Rebus thought to himself, pushing through the scrum and crossing the road. ‘But most of all, I’d like to thank everyone at GAP for their support.’

A loud roar of agreement went up from Van Brady...

‘It’s Jamie, isn’t it?’

The boy on the bike nodded. ‘And you’re the cop who came looking for Darren.’

Darren: first name only. Rebus took out a cigarette, offered one to Jamie, who shook his head. Rebus lit up, exhaled.

‘I suppose you saw Darren around a bit?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘But before then. Before the story got out.’

Jamie nodded, eyes guarded.

‘Did he ever try anything?’

Now Jamie shook his head. ‘He just said hello, that’s all.’

‘Did he hang around the playground?’

‘Not that I saw.’ He was staring at the scene across the road.

‘Looks like Billy’s the centre of attention, eh?’ Rebus got the feeling Jamie was jealous, but trying not to let it show.

‘Yeah.’

‘I bet you’re glad he’s back.’

Jamie looked at him. ‘Cal’s moved in with his mum.’

Rebus took another draw on his cigarette. ‘She’s booted Ray out then?’ Jamie nodded again.

‘And moved your brother in?’ Rebus looked impressed. ‘That’s fast work.’

Jamie just grunted. Rebus saw an opening.

‘You don’t sound too chuffed: are you going to miss him?’

Jamie shrugged. ‘Not bothered.’ But he was. His brother had moved out; his mother was busy with GAP; and now Billy Boy Horman was getting all the attention.

‘You ever see Darren with anyone? I don’t mean kids, I mean visitors.’

‘Not really.’

Rebus angled his face so Jamie had little choice but to look at him. ‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘Someone came looking for him.’

‘When?’

‘When all the stuff about GAP started.’

‘Friend of Darren’s?’

Another shrug. ‘He didn’t say.’

‘Well, what did he say, Jamie?’

‘Said he was looking for the guy from the newspaper. He had the paper with him.’ The paper: the story outing Darren Rough.

‘Were those his exact words: “the guy from the newspaper”?’

Jamie smiled. ‘I think he said “chap”.’

‘Chap?’

Jamie put on a posh voice. ‘“The chap who was in the newspaper.”’

‘Not a local then?’

Now Jamie let out a stuttering laugh.

‘What did he look like?’

‘Old, quite tall. He had a moustache. His hair was grey, but the moustache was black.’

‘You’d make a good detective, Jamie.’

Jamie wrinkled his nose in distaste. His mother had spotted the conversation, was making to cross the road towards them.

‘Jamie!’ she called, trying to weave between traffic.

‘What did you tell him, Jamie?’

‘I pointed to Darren’s flat. Told him I knew Darren wasn’t in.’

‘What did the man do?’

‘Gave me a fiver.’ He looked around, almost furtively. ‘I followed him back to his car.’

Rebus smiled. ‘You really would make a detective.’

Another shrug. ‘It was a big white car. I think it was a Merc.’

Rebus backed off as Van Brady reached them.

‘What’s he been saying, Jamie?’ she asked, staring daggers at Rebus. But Jamie looked at her defiantly.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

She looked at Rebus, who just shrugged. When she turned back to her son, Rebus winked at him. Jamie gave the flicker of a smile. For a few moments, he’d been the centre of someone’s attention.

‘I was just asking about Cal,’ Rebus told Van Brady. ‘I’ve heard he’s moving in with Joanna.’

She turned on him. ‘What’s it to you?’

He nodded towards the leaflet in her hand. ‘Got one of those for me?’

‘If you did your job right,’ she sneered, ‘we wouldn’t need GAP.’

‘What makes you think we need it anyway?’ Rebus asked her, turning to walk away.

Rebus got on the computer, and decided to cover his bets by talking to the area’s Merc dealerships. He already knew one person who drove a white Merc: the widow Margolies. Rebus tapped his pen against his desk, started calling. He got lucky with the first number he tried.

‘Oh, yes, Dr Margolies is a regular customer. He’s been buying nothing but Mercedes for donkey’s years.’

‘Sorry, I’m talking about a Mrs Margolies.’

‘Yes, his daughter-in-law. Dr Margolies bought that car, too.’

Dr Joseph Margolies... ‘He bought one for his son and daughter-in-law?’

‘That’s right. Last year, was it?’

‘And for himself?’

‘He likes to part-ex: keeps the model a year or two, then trades for something brand new. That way you don’t get the same scale of depreciation.’

‘So what’s he driving just now?’

The sales manager turned cautious. ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’

‘Maybe I’ll do that,’ Rebus said. ‘And I’ll be sure to tell him you could have saved me the trouble.’

Rebus listened to the receiver making a sighing sound. Then: ‘Hang on a sec.’ He heard fingers on a keyboard. A pause, then: ‘An E200, purchased six months ago. Happy?’

‘As a kid on Christmas morning.’ Rebus scribbled the details down. ‘And the colour?’

Another sigh. ‘White, Inspector. Dr Margolies always buys white.’

As Rebus put down the phone, Siobhan Clarke came over. She rested against the corner of his desk.

‘Looks like someone got lazy,’ she said.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Eddie Mearn. As far as the inquiry was concerned, he was still in Northern Ireland. Someone made a phone call to Lisburn, and took it as gospel when he was told Mearn was still around.’

‘Who made the call?’

‘Roy Frazer, I’m sorry to say.’

‘It’s the only way he’ll learn.’

‘Sure, like you’ve learned from past mistakes.’

He smiled. ‘That’s why I never make the same one twice.’

She folded her arms. ‘You think Mearn had this planned all along?’

Rebus nodded slowly. ‘I’d say it’s likely. Moved back from Lisburn, maybe it’s true he didn’t tell anyone there he was leaving. Sets up a new identity for himself in Grangemouth — striking distance of Edinburgh. Why lie about who he was? Only reason I can think of is, he was going to snatch Billy. New life for both of them.’

‘Would that have been so bad?’ Siobhan asked.

‘No worse than where Billy is now,’ Rebus admitted. He looked at her. ‘Careful there, Siobhan. You’re in danger of thinking the law’s an ass. That’s only one step away from making up your own rules.’

‘The way you’ve done.’ It was statement rather than question.

‘The way I’ve done,’ Rebus was forced to agree. ‘And look where it’s got me.’

‘Where’s that?’

He tapped his sheet of notes. ‘Seeing white cars everywhere.’

44

A white car had been spotted the night Jim Margolies had flown from Salisbury Crags. Fair enough, Jim himself owned a white car, but according to his wife the car had stayed in the garage. He’d walked all the way to the Crags. How likely was that? Rebus didn’t know.

Another white car had been spotted in Holyrood Park around the time Darren Rough was bludgeoned to death.

And prior to this, someone in a white car had been looking for Darren.

Rebus told the story to Siobhan, and she pulled over a chair so they could work through some theories.

‘You’re thinking they’re all the same car?’ she asked.

‘All I know is, they’re in the park when two apparently unconnected deaths occur.’

She scratched her head. ‘I’m not seeing anything. Any other owners of white Mercs?’

‘You mean, have any serial killers bought or hired one lately?’ She smiled at this. ‘I’m checking,’ Rebus went on. ‘So far, the only name I have is Margolies.’ He was thinking: Jane Barbour drove a cream-coloured car, a Ford Mondeo...

‘But there are more white Mercs than that out there?’

Rebus nodded. ‘But Jamie’s description of the man sounds awfully like Jim’s father.’

‘You saw him at the funeral?’

Rebus nodded. And at a children’s beauty show, he might have added. ‘He’s a retired doctor.’

‘Racked with grief at his son’s suicide, he decides to become a vigilante?’

‘Ridding the world of corruption to protest at the iniquity of life.’

Her smile broadened. ‘You don’t see it, do you?’

‘No, I don’t.’ He tossed his pen on to the desk. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m not seeing anything at all. Which must make it time for a break.’

‘Coffee?’ she suggested.

‘I was thinking of something stronger.’ He saw the look on her face. ‘But coffee will do in the meantime.’

He went out to the car park for a cigarette, but ended up jumping into the Saab and heading down The Pleasance, across the High Street and past Waverley station. He drove west along George Street, then made an illegal turn to head back east along it. Janice was sitting on the kerb, head in her hands. People were looking at her, but no one stopped to ask if they could help. Rebus pulled up alongside and got her into the car.

‘I know he’s here,’ she kept repeating. ‘I know it.’

‘Janice, this isn’t doing either of you any good.’

Her eyes were bloodshot, looking sore from all the crying. ‘What would you know about it? Have you ever lost a child?’

‘I nearly lost Sammy.’

‘But you didn’t!’ She turned away from him. ‘You’ve never been any good, John. Christ, you couldn’t even help Mitch, and he was supposed to be your best friend. They nearly blinded him!’

She had plenty left to say, plenty of poison. He let her talk, resting his hands lightly on the steering-wheel. At one point, she tried to get out, but he pulled her back into the car.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Give me more. I’m listening to you.’

‘No!’ she spat. ‘Know why? Because so help me, I think you’re enjoying it!’ This time when she opened the door, he didn’t try to stop her. She took a left at the corner, heading down into the New Town. Rebus turned the car again, took a right into Castle Street and a left into Young Street. Stopped outside the Oxford Bar and walked in. Doc Klasser was standing in his usual spot. The afternoon drinkers were in: most of them would clear out by five or six, when the place filled with office workers. Harry the barman saw Rebus and lifted a pint glass. Rebus shook his head.

‘A nip, Harry,’ he said. ‘Better make it a large one.’

He sat in the back room. Nobody there but the writer, the one with the big bag of books. He seemed to use the place as an office. A couple of times Rebus had asked him what books he should be reading. He’d bought the suggestions, but hadn’t read them. Today, neither man seemed in need of company. Rebus sat with his drink and his thoughts. He was thinking back over thirty years, back to the last school party. His own version of the story...

Mitch and Johnny had a plan. They’d join the army, see some action. Mitch had sent away for the literature, then had dropped into the Army Careers Office in Kirkcaldy. The following week, he’d taken Johnny with him. The recruiting sergeant told them jokes and stories from his time ‘in the field’. He told them they’d breeze through basic training. He had a moustache and a paunch and told them there’d be ‘shagging and boozing galore’: ‘two good-looking lads like you, it’ll be dripping out of your ears’.

Johnny Rebus hadn’t been sure what that meant exactly, but Mitch had rubbed his hands together and chuckled with the Sarge.

So that was that. All Johnny had to do was tell his dad and Janice.

His dad, it turned out, wasn’t keen. He’d done some time in the Far East in World War II. He had some photographs and a black silk scarf with the Taj Mahal sewn into it. He had a scar on his knee that wasn’t really a bullet wound, even though he said it was.

‘You don’t want that,’ Johnny’s dad said. ‘You want a proper job.’ They kicked it back and forth between them. His dad’s final shot at goal: ‘What will Janice say?’

Janice didn’t say anything; Rebus kept putting off telling her. And then one day she learned from her mum, who’d been talking to Johnny’s dad, learned Johnny was thinking of leaving.

‘It’s not like I’m going for good,’ he argued. ‘I’ll have plenty of home visits.’

She folded her arms, the way her mother did when she had right on her side. ‘And am I supposed to just wait for you?’

‘Please yourself,’ Johnny said, kicking a stone.

‘That’s the plan,’ she said, walking off.

Later, they made it up. He went to her house, went up to her bedroom with her: it was the only place they could talk. Her mum brought up juice and biscuits; gave them ten minutes then came up again to check they didn’t need anything. Johnny said he was sorry.

‘Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?’ Janice asked.

He shrugged. He wasn’t sure. Who did he want to let down: Janice or Mitch?

By the night of the dance, he’d made his mind up. Mitch could go alone. Johnny would stay behind, get a job of some kind and marry Janice. It wouldn’t be a bad life. Plenty before him had done the same thing. He would tell Janice, tell her at the dance. And Mitch too, of course.

But first they had a drink. Mitch had got some bottles and an opener. They sneaked into the churchyard next to the school, drank a couple each, lay there in the grass, the headstones rising all around them. And it felt good, felt comfortable. Johnny swallowed back his confession. It could wait; he couldn’t spoil this moment. It was like their whole lives had been sorted out, and everything was going to be fine. Mitch talked about the countries they’d visit, the things they’d see and do.

‘And they’ll all be gutted, just you wait.’ Meaning everyone who stayed in Bowhill, all their friends who were going off to college or down the pit or into the dockyard. ‘We’ll see the whole fucking world, Johnny. And all they’ll ever see is this place.’ And Mitch stretched his arms out until his fingertips brushed the rough surfaces of two headstones. ‘All they’ll ever have to look forward to is this...’

They were untouchable as they marched into the playground. A teacher and the deputy head were on the door, collecting tickets.

‘I smell beer,’ the deputy head said, catching them off guard. Then he winked. ‘You might have saved one for me.’

Johnny and Mitch were laughing, all grown-up now, as they walked into the assembly hall. There was music playing, people up dancing. Soft drinks and sandwiches on trellis tables in the dining hall. Chairs around the perimeter of the assembly hall; huddles of conversation, eyes darting everywhere. It felt — just for a moment — as if everyone was looking at the new arrivals... looking at them, envying them. Mitch slapped Johnny’s arm, headed towards his girlfriend Myra. Johnny knew he’d tell him at the end of the dance.

He looked for Janice, couldn’t see her. He had to tell her... had to find the words. Then someone told him there was whisky in the toilets, and he decided to stop there first. Two cubicles, side by side. Three boys in each, passing the bottle back and forth over the partition. Keeping silent so they wouldn’t be caught. The stuff tasted like fire. Its fumes came rolling down Johnny’s nostrils. He felt drunk; elated; unstoppable.

Back in the hall, it was ladies’ choice. A girl called Mary McCutcheon asked him up. They danced well together. But the reel made Johnny light-headed. He had to sit down. He hadn’t noticed some recent arrivals — three boys from his year; boys who had over time become Mitch’s implacable enemies. The leader of the three, Alan Protheroe, had gone one-on-one with Mitch. Mitch had pulverised him, eventually. Johnny didn’t see them eyeing up Mitch. Didn’t think that the last dance of schooldays might be a time for settling scores, for ending things as well as beginning them.

Because now Janice was in the hall. Seated next to him. And they were kissing, even when Miss Dysart stood in front of them clearing her throat in warning. When Janice drew away eventually, Johnny stood up, pulling her to her feet.

‘I’ve something to tell you,’ he said. ‘But not here. Come on.’

And had led her outside, round the back of the old building to where the bike-sheds — now largely unused — still stood. Smokers’ Corner, they called it. But it was a place for lovers too, for quick snogs at lunchtime. Johnny sat Janice down on a bench.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me how lovely I look?’

He drank her in. She did look lovely. Light from the school windows made her skin seem to glow. Her eyes were dark invitations, her dress rustled with layers waiting to be unpeeled. He kissed her again. She tried to break away, asked him what it was he wanted to tell her. But now he knew that could wait. He was light-headed and full of dreams and desire. He touched her neck where it was bare at the shoulders. He ran his hand down her back, slipping it beneath the material. Her mum had made the dress; he knew it had taken hours. When he pressed harder, he felt the stitching in the zip give way. Janice gave a gasp and pushed him away.

‘Johnny...’ Craning her neck to try to assess the damage. ‘You silly bugger, see what you’ve done.’

His hands on her legs, sliding the dress up past the knee. ‘Janice.’

She was standing now. He stood, too, pressing in on her for another kiss. She turned her face away. He seemed all limbs, sliding up her legs, slithering around her neck and down her back... She knew he tasted of beer and whisky. Knew she didn’t like it. When she felt his hand trying to prise her legs apart, she pushed him away again, and he stumbled. Regaining balance, he wasn’t so much smiling as leering as he moved in on her again.

And she swung back her hand, made a fist of it, and hit him a solid blow, almost dislocating her wrist in the process. She rubbed her knuckles, mouthing silent words of pain. He was flat out on the ground; knocked cold. She sat down again on the bench and waited for him to get up. Then heard what sounded like a commotion, and felt she’d much rather investigate than stay out here...

It was a fight. Slaughter might have been nearer the mark. The gang of three had somehow got Mitch on his own. They were at the edge of the playing-field, The Craigs silhouetted behind them. The sky was dark blue, bruise-coloured. Maybe Mitch had felt that tonight of all nights, he could take all three. Maybe they’d offered him a rematch, promising one-on-one. But it was three against one, and Mitch was on his hands and knees as the kicks rained in on his face and ribs. Janice was running forward, but a small, wiry figure beat her to it, legs and arms working like a windmill, head smashing into an unprotected nose, teeth bared with determination. She was amazed to identify the figure as Barney Mee, everyone’s joker. What he lacked in elegance and precision, he more than made up for in sheer bloody-mindedness. He was like a machine. It only lasted a minute, maybe less, and at the end he was exhausted, but three figures were slouching off into the encroaching darkness as Barney slumped to the ground and lay on his back, staring up at the moon and the stars.

Mitch had pulled himself into a sitting position, one hand on his chest, the other covering an eye. Both hands were smeared with his own blood. His lip was split, and his nose was dripping red. When he spat, half a tooth was attached to the string of thick saliva. Janice stood above Barney Mee. He didn’t seem so small, lying stretched out like that. He seemed... compact, but heroic. He opened his eyes and saw her, gave her one of his toothy grins.

‘Lie down here,’ he told her. ‘There’s something you should see.’

‘What?’

‘You won’t see it standing up. You’ve got to lie down.’

She didn’t believe him, but she lay down anyway. What did it matter if her dress got mucky: it was already split at the back. Her face was inches from his.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ she asked.

‘Up there,’ he said, pointing.

And she looked. The sky wasn’t black, that was the first strange thing. It was dark, certainly, but streaked with seams of white stars and clouds. And the moon seemed huge and orange rather than yellow.

‘Isn’t it amazing?’ Barney Mee said. ‘Every time I look at it, I can’t help saying that.’

She turned to him. ‘You’re amazing,’ she said.

He smiled at the compliment. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘You mean when I leave?’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Look for a job, I suppose.’

‘You should go to college.’

She looked at him more closely. ‘Why?’

‘You’d make a good teacher.’

She laughed out loud, but only for a second. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘I watch you in class. You’d be good, I know you would. Kids would listen to you.’ He was looking at her now. ‘I know I would,’ he said.

Mitch cleared some blood from the back of his throat. ‘Where’s Johnny?’ he asked.

Janice shrugged. Mitch eased his hand away from his eye. ‘I’m fucking blind,’ he said. ‘And it hurts.’ He bent over and began to cry. ‘It hurts inside my head.’

Janice and Barney got up, helped him to his feet. They got one of the teachers to drive him to hospital. By the time Johnny Rebus came round, the show was over. He didn’t even notice Janice dancing with Barney Mee. He just wanted a lift to the hospital.

‘There’s something I need to tell him.’

Eventually Mitch’s parents came, and gave Johnny a lift to Kirkcaldy.

‘What in God’s name happened?’ Mitch’s mum asked.

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’

She turned to look at him. ‘Weren’t there?’ He shook his head, ashamed. ‘Then how did you get that bruise...?’

His cheekbone, all the way down to his chin: a long purple trail. And he couldn’t tell anyone how he’d come by it.

They had a long wait at the hospital. X-rays were mentioned. Cracked ribs.

‘When I find whoever did this...’ Mitch’s dad said, balling his fists.

And then later, the bad news: a retina had been dislodged, maybe even worse. Mitch would lose the sight in one eye.

And by the time Johnny was allowed in to see him — with warnings not to stay too long, not to wear him out — Mitch had heard the news and was in tears.

‘Christ, Johnny. Blind in one eye, how about that?’

There was a gauze patch over the eye in question.

‘Long John fucking Silver and no mistake.’ One of the patients on the ward coughed at the swear-word. ‘And you can fuck off too!’ Mitch yelled at him.

‘Jesus, Mitch,’ Johnny whispered. Mitch grabbed his wrist, squeezed it hard.

‘It’s you now. For both of us.’

Johnny licked his lips. ‘How do you mean?’

‘They won’t take me, not blind in one eye. I’m sorry, pal. You know I am.’

Johnny was shaking, trying to think his way out. ‘Right,’ he said, nodding. It was all he could say, and he kept repeating it.

‘You’ll come back and see us, though, eh?’ Mitch was saying. ‘Tell me all about it. That’s what I’d like... as if I was there with you.’

‘Right, right.’

‘You’re going to have to live it for me, Johnny.’

‘Sure, right.’

A smile from Mitch. ‘Thanks, pal.’

‘Least I can do,’ said Johnny.

So he’d joined up. Janice hadn’t seemed to mind. Mitch had waved him off at the station. And that was that. He sent Mitch and Janice letters; received none in return. By the time of his first leave, Mitch was nowhere to be found, and Janice was on holiday with her parents. Later, he found out Mitch had run off somewhere, no one seemed to know why or where. Johnny had half an idea: those letters, the visits home — reminders of the life Mitch could now never have...

Then his brother Mickey wrote to him, told him Janice had said to tell him she was going out with Barney Mee. And Johnny hadn’t gone home after that for a while, had found other places to be when he was on leave, writing lies home so his father and brother wouldn’t suspect, coming to think of the army as his home now... the only place he could be understood.

Drifting further in his mind from Cardenden and the friends he’d once had, and the dreams he’d once thought were within his reach...

45

It was dark and Cary Oakes was hungry and the game still wasn’t over.

In prison, he’d been given lots of good advice about evading capture, all of it from men who’d been caught. He knew he needed to change his appearance: easily achieved with a visit to a charity shop. A new outfit of jacket, shirt and trousers for less than £20, topped off with a flat tweed cap. After all, he couldn’t suddenly make his hair grow. When he saw his likeness in the newspaper, he made further adjustments, shaving himself scrupulously in a public convenience. He found a few stray carrier bags and filled them with rubbish. Examining himself in a shop window, he saw an unemployed man, a little bitter but still with enough money to buy the shopping.

He found the places where the down-and-outs spent their days: drop-in centres in the Grassmarket; the bench beside the toilets at the Tron Kirk; the foot of The Mound. These were safe places for him. People shared a can and a cigarette and didn’t ask questions he couldn’t make up answers to.

He was shivery and achy, made soft from his stay in the hotel. The windswept night on the hills had skimmed off some of his strength. It hadn’t played the way he’d wanted it to. Archibald was still alive. Two spirits needed cleansing from his life: both were still to be dealt with.

And Rebus... Rebus had turned out to be something more than the ‘wild operator’ described by Jim Stevens. The way the reporter had talked, Oakes had expected Rebus to turn up naked to do battle. But Rebus had brought a whole goddamned army with him. Oakes had escaped by dint of good fortune and the weather. Or because the gods wanted his mission to succeed.

He knew things now would be difficult. In the centre of the city, he could remain anonymous, but further out there’d be more danger of discovery. The suburbs of Edinburgh remained places where strangers did not go undetected for long. It was as if people sat with their chairs at their windows in a constant state of alert. Yet one such suburb was his ultimate destination, as it had been all along.

He could have taken a bus, but in the end he walked. It took him well over an hour. He passed Alan Archibald’s bungalow: 1930s styling with a bow window and white harled walls. There was no sign of life within. Archibald was in a hospital bed, and — according to one newspaper — under police guard. For the moment, Oakes had scratched him from his plans. Maybe the old bastard would die in hospital anyway. No, he was heading uphill and along another winding road into East Craigs. He’d been here just twice before, knowing people would get suspicious if he suddenly started frequenting the area. Two trips, one at night, one in the daytime. Both times he’d taken taxis from the foot of Leith Walk, making sure he was dropped off a few streets from his destination, not wanting the cabbies to know. In the dead of night, he’d walked right up to the walls of the building and touched trembling fingers to the stonework, trying to feel for a single life-force within.

He knew he was in there.

Couldn’t stop shaking.

Knew he was in there, because he’d called to ask, identifying himself as the son of a friend. Asked if he could keep his call a secret: he wanted his visit to be a surprise.

He wondered if it would be a surprise...

Now, he was level with the car park. He sauntered past, just another tired worker on his way home. From the corner of his eye, he checked for police cars. Not that he thought they’d have guessed, but he wasn’t going to underestimate Rebus again.

And saw instead a car he thought he recognised. Stopped and put his bags down, making to change hands, making out they were heavier than they were. And studied the car. A Vauxhall Astra. Numberplate the same. Oakes bared his teeth and let out a hiss of air. This was too much, the bastards were determined to wreck his plans.

Only one thing for it. He fingered the knife in his pocket, knowing he’d have to do some killing.

He had ditched the carrier bags and was lying beneath the car when he heard footsteps. Turned his head to watch them coming closer. He reckoned he’d been lying on the ground for a good hour and a half. His back was chilled, and the shivers were starting again. When he heard the clunk of the locks disengaging, he slid out from his hiding-place and tugged open the passenger door. Seeing him, the driver made to get out again, but Cary Oakes had the knife in his right hand while his left grabbed at Jim Stevens’s sleeve.

‘Thought you’d be pleased to see me again, Jimbo,’ Oakes said. ‘Now close the door and get this thing moving.’ He took off his jacket, tossed it on to the back seat.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Just drive, man.’ His shirt followed.

‘What are you doing?’ Stevens asked. But Oakes ignored him, loosed his trousers and threw them into the back too.

‘This is all a bit sudden for me, Cary.’

‘A man who likes a joke, huh?’ As they left the car park, Oakes realised he was sitting on something. Pulled out the reporter’s notebook and pen.

‘Been working, Jim?’ He opened the notebook, and was disappointed to see Stevens had used shorthand.

‘Why’d you go see him?’ Oakes asked, beginning to tear each page of the notebook into four.

‘See who? I was visiting an old neighbour of mine, and—’

The knife arced into Stevens’s side. He took his hands off the wheel, and the car veered towards the kerb. Oakes straightened it up.

‘Keep your foot down, Jim! If this car stops, you’re a dead man!’

Stevens examined his palm. It was wet with blood. ‘Hospital,’ he croaked, face twisted with pain.

‘You’ll get a hospital after I’ve had my answers! What made you go to see him?’

Stevens hunched over the wheel, taking control again. Oakes thought he was going to pass out, but it was just the pain.

‘I was checking details.’

‘That all?’ Ripping at the notebook.

‘What else would I be doing?’

‘Well, that’s why I’m asking, Jim-Bob. And if you don’t want knifing again, you’ll convince me.’ Oakes reached for the heater switch, slid it to full.

‘It’s for the book.’

‘The book?’ Oakes narrowed his eyes.

‘I don’t have enough material with just the interviews.’

‘You should have asked me first.’ Oakes was silent for a minute.

‘Where are we going?’ Stevens had one hand on the steering-wheel, one pressed to his side.

‘Turn right at the roundabout, head out of town.’

‘The Glasgow road? I need a hospital.’

Oakes wasn’t listening. ‘What did he say?’

‘What?’

‘What did he say about me?’

‘Probably what you’d expect.’

‘He’s compos mentis then?’

‘Pretty much.’

Oakes wound down the window, scattering the scraps of paper. When he turned round again, Stevens was scrabbling on the floor with his hand.

‘What are you doing?’ Oakes brandished the knife.

‘Paper hankies. I thought I’d a box somewhere.’

Oakes examined his handiwork. ‘Just between you and me, Jim, I don’t think paper tissues are going to do the job.’

‘I feel faint. I’ve got to stop.’

‘Keep going!’

Stevens’ eyelids looked heavy. ‘See if they’re in the back.’

‘What?’

‘The box of hankies.’

So Oakes turned in his seat, pushed his clothes around. ‘Nothing here.’

Stevens was rooting in his pockets. ‘Must be something...’ Eventually he found a large cotton handkerchief, eased it inside his shirt.

‘Take the airport exit,’ Oakes commanded.

‘You leaving us, Cary?’

‘Me?’ Oakes grinned. ‘When I’m just beginning to enjoy myself?’ He sneezed, spraying the windscreen with spittle.

‘Bless you,’ Stevens said. There was silence in the car for a moment, then both men laughed.

‘That’s funny,’ Oakes said, wiping an eye. ‘You blessing me.’

‘Cary, I’m losing a lot of blood.’

‘It’s all right, Jimbo. I’ve seen people bleed to death before. You’ve got hours left in you.’ He sat back in his seat. ‘So you were out there all by yourself, checking background...? Who knew you were going?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Not your editor?’

‘No.’

‘And John Rebus?’

Stevens snorted. ‘Why would I tell him?’

‘Because I made you mad.’ Oakes pushed out his bottom lip. ‘Sorry about that, by the way.’

‘Was it really all lies?’

‘That’s between me and my conscience, man.’

The car hit a bump and Stevens grimaced.

‘Know what they say about pain, Jim? They say it makes you see colour for the very first time. Makes everything really vivid.’

‘The blood certainly looks vivid.’

‘There’s nothing like it,’ Oakes said quietly, ‘not in the whole world.’

They were coming to another roundabout. Off to their left sat Ingliston Showground, unused for the most part of the year. Unused tonight.

‘Airport?’ Stevens asked.

‘No, take a left.’

So Stevens did, and found himself approaching a building site. Another new hotel was being thrown up, to complement the one at the airport exit. Around it lay farmland, the dwellings few and far between. There were no visible lights at all, not even from planes landing and taking off.

‘No hospitals near here,’ Stevens said, dread overcoming him.

‘Pull over.’

Stevens did as he was told.

‘They’ll have a doctor at the airport,’ Oakes told him. ‘I’ll need your car, but you can walk it.’

‘Better still, you could drop me off.’ Jim Stevens licked his dry lips.

‘Or better yet...’ Cary Oakes said. And his hand flew, and the knife went into Stevens’ side again.

And again and again, as the journalist’s words became twisted sounds, finding a new vocabulary of terror, resignation and pain.

Oakes dragged the corpse out and dumped it behind a mound of earth. Searched in the pockets and found Stevens’ cassette recorder. There wasn’t much light, but he was able to prise it open, remove the tape. Left the recorder behind; took the tape. Little money in Stevens’ wallet: credit cards, but he wanted neither to use them nor be caught with them in his possession. He bent down again, wiped the recorder on Stevens’ jacket, getting rid of prints.

The wind was cutting through him. If he tried concealing the body, he might die of hypothermia. He raced back to the car, got into the driver’s seat and headed off. The heater wouldn’t go any higher. The blood was sticking his underpants to the seat. He could feel it against his skin. Couldn’t put his clothes on yet: had to keep them clean. Couldn’t go wandering around Edinburgh with bloodstained clothes.

Another trick from prison. Maybe his fellow inmates hadn’t been so stupid after all.

On the way back into town, he stopped in a deserted supermarket car park, threw the tape into a bin.

Then he was on his way. Knew he had at least one night before the body was found. One night when he’d have some shelter, courtesy of Jim Stevens’ car.

46

Anything out west was a Torphichen call, but news travelled fast. Roy Frazer drove Rebus out to the scene. The whole drive, Rebus only said one thing to the young man.

‘You screwed up about Eddie Mearn. It happens. Best to have it happen young when you can still learn from it. Otherwise you get intimations of infallibility, which translates to your colleagues as “smart-arse”.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Frazer said, frowning as though trying to memorise the advice. Then he reached into his pocket. ‘Message from DS Clarke.’ He handed over the note. Rebus unfolded the piece of paper. At first he didn’t take it in. His brain was overloaded as it was. But eventually the words hit him with the force of electricity.

He read the note half a dozen times. He wasn’t sure if it did mean anything. But he could see definite connections beginning to appear. And connections could always be exploited...

The DI from Torphichen was Shug Davidson. He offered a brief smile as Rebus got out of the car.

‘They say the culprit always returns to the scene of the crime.’

‘That’s not funny, Shug.’

‘Way I hear it, you and the deceased weren’t exactly bosom buddies.’

‘Maybe towards the end,’ Rebus said. ‘Have they moved him yet?’

Davidson shook his head. Work on the construction site had stopped. There were faces at the portakabin windows. Other workers milled around outside, wearing hard hats, drinking tea from their flasks. Their gaffer was complaining that work was a fortnight behind as it was.

‘Then a few more hours isn’t going to make much of a dent, is it?’ Davidson said.

Rebus had ducked beneath the locus tape. The victim had been pronounced dead. They were photographing the body. Forensics had already completed taping it. Uniforms were spreading out from the locus, seeking clues. Davidson had the whole situation under control.

‘Any ideas?’ Davidson asked Rebus.

‘One fairly big one.’

‘Oakes?’ Rebus looked at Davidson, who smiled. ‘I read the papers too, John. Friend of a friend told me Oakes had dumped on Stevens. Next thing, Oakes is on the run after the attack on Alan Archibald.’ He broke off. ‘How is he, by the way?’

‘Doing better than this poor bugger,’ Rebus said, moving closer to the body. Professor Gates was crouched — or as Gates himself liked to say, on his ‘cuddy-hunkers’ — at Stevens’ head. He nodded a greeting towards Rebus, but carried on with his initial appraisal of the scene. One of the forensics team held out a clear plastic bag, into which Jim Stevens’ possessions were being dropped.

‘No car keys?’ Rebus asked. The forensics woman shook her head.

‘No car either,’ Davidson added.

‘Stevens drives a Vauxhall Astra.’

‘I know, John. It’s being hunted.’

‘Must have been brought here in a car. Oakes doesn’t have one.’

‘Probably lost a lot of blood en route,’ Gates said. ‘His shirt and trousers are soaked, but there’s not that much lying beneath him.’

‘You think he was stabbed somewhere else?’

‘That would be my guess.’ Gates turned to the forensics officer. ‘Let Inspector Rebus see the machine.’

She lifted a small metal box from the bag. Rebus looked at it closely, but knew better than to touch.

‘It’s his recorder.’

‘Yes,’ Gates said. ‘And in his right-hand pocket, well away from the wounds and the blood.’

‘But there’s blood on it,’ Rebus said.

Gates nodded. ‘And no tape inside.’

‘The killer took the tape?’

‘Or it was important enough for the deceased to take time to remove it, even though by that time he’d already been stabbed and was probably entering a state of shock.’

Rebus turned to Davidson. ‘Any sign of it?’

‘That’s what they’re looking for.’ Davidson motioned towards the uniforms. ‘John, have you any idea what Stevens was up to?’

‘Last time I spoke to him, he was going to look into Oakes’s past.’

‘Wonder what he found.’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Bringing in Oakes has to be the priority.’

‘After his attack on you, it already was.’

Rebus stared down at the lifeless body of Jim Stevens. Stevens, who had been Rebus’s shadow for so long, and who had come back into his life only recently.

‘I’d only just started liking him,’ Rebus said. ‘That’s the funny thing.’ He looked at Davidson. ‘I get the feeling the game’s not over, Shug. Not by a long chalk.’

One of Davidson’s officers sprinted towards them. ‘Car’s been found,’ he called.

‘Where?’ Rebus was first to ask.

The officer blinked, shook his head. ‘You’re not going to like it...’

Jim Stevens’ Astra sat on a single yellow line on a street called St Leonard’s Bank, just round the corner from St Leonard’s cop shop. St Leonard’s Bank boasted a single row of higgledy-piggledy houses, all of them facing a wrought-iron fence behind which sat Holyrood Park and Salisbury Crags. The car was parked outside a double-fronted three-storey house painted a vivid pink. The key was in the ignition. This was what had first alerted one of the neighbours. They’d gone next door to ask if anyone there had left their keys in their car. Heading out to investigate, they’d found the doors to be unlocked. On opening the driver’s side, they’d noticed how wet and stained the seat seemed to be. Pressing fingers down into the fabric, lifting them away to find them stained viscous red...

‘Is he taking the piss or what?’ Roy Frazer said. A crowd from St Leonard’s had gathered, though more, it seemed, out of curiosity than from a desire to help. Rebus started shooing most of them away. He’d brought three of the forensics team with him; the rest would follow when they’d finished at the construction site. Chief Superintendent Watson came to gawp, and to make sure everything was ‘under control’.

‘It’s Shug Davidson’s call really, sir,’ Rebus informed him. ‘He’s on his way.’

The Farmer nodded. ‘Fair enough, John. But let’s get the car moved ASAP, even if only into our car park. It’s already been on Lowland Radio. Leave it much longer, we can start selling tickets.’

It was true that the crowd around the car was swelling. Rebus recognised a few faces from Greenfield. The estate was only a short walk away.

Roy Frazer was repeating his question.

‘He’s taunting us,’ Rebus answered. He went to see how the forensics team was doing.

‘Found this on the floor under the driver’s seat,’ one of them said. Inside a plastic bag he had a cassette tape, unlabelled. There was a single bloody thumb print clearly visible on its casing.

‘I need this,’ Rebus said.

‘We need to print it.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘The print belongs to the victim.’ He was managing to smile. You clever bugger, Jim, he was thinking. He didn’t get your tape...

At least, that was what he hoped.

‘Something else,’ another of the team said, pointing to show Rebus a spread of tiny spots on the windscreen. ‘These are on the inside. The way the pattern is... it’s like someone coughed or sneezed. If it was the killer...’

‘Is there enough for DNA?’

‘It’s a hell of a long shot, but you never know. Don’t know if this is relevant.’ Now he pointed to a notebook on the floor of the passenger side. It had a tin spiral holding the loose-leaf pages in place. Shreds of paper clung to the spiral, showing where pages had been torn out.

Rebus patted the man’s shoulder. He didn’t like to say It doesn’t matter. I know who killed him... I may even know why... When he turned away, he was carrying the cassette tape in its little poly-bag, for all the world like a solemn kid who’d won a goldfish at the fair.

Because it was quieter there, Rebus used one of the interview rooms. He’d slotted the tape into one of the recorders, being careful to hold it by its edges. No point destroying trace evidence. He had a pair of Sennheiser headphones on, and spread out in front of him the contents of Cary Oakes’s file, as well as cuttings of his recent newspaper interviews. He’d telephoned Stevens’ old employer, and they were faxing over the unused portions of transcript. Every now and then, a uniform would stick his or her head round the door and hand him the latest fax sheets, so that the table became covered.

Siobhan Clarke went so far as to bring him a mug of coffee and a BLT, but otherwise left him to it, which was just what he wanted. His mind was on nothing but the interview he was listening to.

‘Little bugger came to us with his mum... my wife’s sister, she was. Right little runt he was.’ The man’s voice sounded old, wheezy.

‘You didn’t get on with him?’ Jim Stevens’ voice, making the hairs rise on Rebus’s arms. He looked around but Stevens’ ghost was nowhere to be seen; not yet... Occasional background noises: coughs, voices, a television playing. An audience... no, spectators. Spectators at what sounded like a football match. Rebus went through to CID and dug in bins, looked through the papers sitting folded and forgotten on window ledges, until he found one for the previous day. Seven thirty: UEFA Cup action. That seemed to fit the bill. He tore out the TV page, took it back with him to the interview room, turned the tape on again.

‘I hated him, to be frank with you. Bloody disruption, that’s all it was. I mean, we had ourselves sorted out, everything going smoothly, everything just so... and then the two of them come waltzing in. Couldn’t very well kick them out, being family and all, but I made sure they knew I wasn’t happy. Oi, I’m watching that!’

Someone had changed channels. Studio laughter. Rebus checked the paper: a sitcom on the BBC.

Back to the sound of crowd and commentator.

‘We had some high old ding-dongs, him and me.’

‘What about?’

‘Everything: him staying out, him thieving. Money kept disappearing. I laid a few traps, but I never caught him, he was too canny for that.’

‘Did your fights ever become physical?’

‘I should say so. Tough little runt, I’ll give him that. You see me the way I am now, but back then I was fighting fit.’ He coughed loudly; sounded like his lungs were being turned inside out. ‘Give me that water, will you?’ The old man took a drink, then broke wind. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, not bothering to apologise, ‘I made sure he knew who was boss. It was my house, remember.’ As if Stevens were accusing him.

‘You were the boss,’ Stevens reassured him.

‘I was and all. Take my word for it.’

‘And if you thumped him, it was just so he’d understand.’

‘That’s what I’m telling you. And he was no angel, believe you me. Mind you, try telling the women that.’

‘His mother and her sister?’

‘My wife, aye. She never saw any harm in anyone, did Aggie. But I’d have to say, even back then I knew there was badness in him. Deep-rooted badness.’

‘You tried knocking it out of him.’

‘I’d have needed a sledgehammer, son. Did use a hammer on him once, as it happens. Bastard was tough by then, ready to give as good as he got.’ Rebus thinking: The poison passed from one generation to the next. As with abuse, so with violence.

‘Did he run with a gang?’

‘Gang? Nobody would have him, son. What did you say your name was?’

‘Jim.’

‘And you’re with the papers? I spoke to some of your lot when he was put away.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That he should’ve had the electric chair. We could do a lot worse ourselves than bring back hanging.’

‘You think it’s a deterrent?’

‘Once they’re dead, son, they don’t do it again, do they? What more proof do you want?’

There were sounds of someone bringing Stevens a cup of coffee or tea.

‘Aye, they’re good to me in here.’

Nursing home... Cary Oakes’s uncle... What was his name? Rebus found it in the notes: Andrew Castle. Alongside it, the name of his nursing home. Rebus got on the phone, found a number for the home and rang them.

‘You’ve got a resident called Andrew Castle.’

‘Yes?’

‘He had a visitor last night.’

‘He did, yes.’

‘Did you see him leave?’

‘I’m sorry, who is this?’

‘My name’s Detective Inspector Rebus. Only Mr Castle’s visitor has turned up dead, and we’re trying to trace his last movements.’

There was a tapping at the door. Shug Davidson came in. Rebus nodded for him to sit.

‘Gracious,’ the woman at the nursing home was saying. ‘You mean the reporter?’

‘That’s who I mean. What time did he leave?’

‘It must have been...’ She broke off. ‘How did he die?’

‘He was stabbed, madam. Now, what time did he leave?’

Davidson, seated across the table from Rebus, turned some of the fax sheets round so he could read them.

‘Just before bedtime... say, nine o’clock.’

‘Did he have a car with him?’

‘I think so, yes. He parked it outside.’

‘Was anyone seen hanging around?’

She sounded puzzled. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Any suspicious sightings the past day or two?’

‘Gracious me, Inspector, what’s this about?’

Rebus thanked her for her time, said someone would be coming to get her statement. Then he put down the phone, checked the home’s address against an A — Z.

‘Shug,’ he said, ‘I’ve got Stevens at a nursing home near the Maybury roundabout, probably from around seven thirty last night till nine.’

‘Maybury’s on the road out to the airport.’

Rebus nodded. ‘I think Oakes was already there.’

‘Where?’

‘The nursing home.’

‘Who was Stevens seeing there?’

‘Oakes’s uncle. The questions Jim used on the tape... I think he’d already talked to the uncle, already made up his mind about him.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The questions were angled a certain way, letting the uncle show himself as a sadist.’

‘You’re going to tell me this uncle turned Cary Oakes into a psychopath?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘That’s you talking, not me. What I do think is, Oakes has a grudge.’ He thought for a moment. I have a date with my past. A date with destiny... with someone who wouldn’t listen... Oakes’s words to Stevens at the end of their last interview... ‘Alan Archibald lives out that way.’ He opened the A — Z again, pointed to Archibald’s street, then the cul-de-sac which housed the nursing home. They were barely half a dozen streets apart. ‘I thought Oakes went there to scope out Alan Archibald.’

‘Now you think different?’

‘He came back to Edinburgh to settle old scores. There’s none older than his uncle.’ He looked up at Davidson. ‘I think he’ll try to kill him.’

Davidson rubbed a palm over his jaw. ‘And Jim Stevens?’

‘Was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Oakes thought Jim was on to his plan, he’d have to deal with him. Oakes took the tape from Jim’s recorder, only Jim had switched tapes. Then Oakes tore out the pages from Jim’s notebook. He didn’t want us knowing.’

‘But we were bound to find out where Stevens had been.’

‘Eventually, yes.’ Rebus tapped the tape machine. ‘But without this, it would have taken a while.’

Davidson was starting to rise. ‘Long enough to let him carry out his plan?’

‘Which means it’s got to be soon.’ Rebus was on his feet too.

As Davidson reached for the phone, Rebus sprinted from the room.

47

They had undercover officers on the scene. It was difficult to blend in: most of the staff were middle-aged women. Young, wary-looking men with CID haircuts looked out of place. The officers came from the Scottish Crime Squad. Andrew Castle was confined to his room. There were two men in there with him: one participating in a game of cards — twopenny bets — while the other sat in the corner, affording the best view of door and window. The window was curtained. There was another man in a parked car outside.

‘Would he try a sniper shot?’ had been one of the questions at the briefing. Rebus had doubted it: he’d no known access to guns, and besides, it was personal with him. His uncle would have to know the why and the who before any killing could be done.

One of the other officers was pushing a mop up and down the corridor outside. Rebus and Davidson were satisfied.

Another question from the briefing: ‘What if all we do is scare him off?’

Rebus’s response: ‘Then we’ve saved an old man’s life... for now.’

He’d listened once more to the whole tape, and didn’t doubt that Oakes’s uncle had been — and probably still was — rotten to the marrow, despite his senility and frailty. Now he had questions.

If Cary had ended up in a home where he’d been loved, would everything have been changed? Were people programmed from birth to become killers, or did other people — and sets of circumstances — conspire to make killers of them, turning the potential that was in most people into something more tangible?

They weren’t new questions, certainly not to him. He thought of Darren Rough, the abused becoming abuser. Not all abuse victims took that road, but plenty did... And what about Damon Mee? What had made him leave home? His parents’ failing marriage? Fear of getting married himself? Or had he been coerced away, forcibly stopped from returning?

And why had Jim Margolies died?

And would Cary Oakes walk into the trap?

My, my, my, said the spider to the fly...

Oakes had been the spider for far too long.

Rebus dropped into hospital to check on Alan Archibald. There was nothing for him to do at the nursing home. In fact, as one of the Crime Squad officers had succinctly put it, he was ‘a positive hindrance’. Meaning that because Oakes knew Rebus, his presence on the scene could spoil everything.

‘Soon as anything happens, we’ll call.’

Rebus had made the officer write his mobile number on the back of his hand. Then had handed him a business card anyway: ‘Just in case you wash it off by mistake.’

Archibald was at the far end of an open ward, with a screen around his bed. Bobby Hogan from Leith CID was sitting bedside, flicking through a copy of Mass Hibsteria.

‘Your team’s going down, Bobby,’ Rebus told him.

Hogan looked up. ‘It’s not mine.’ He waved the football fanzine at Rebus. ‘Someone left it on the ward.’

The two men shook hands, and Rebus went to fetch another chair. Alan Archibald was snoring gently, head propped up on three pillows.

‘How is he?’ Rebus asked. Archibald’s head was bandaged and there was a gauze compress taped to one ear.

‘Thumping headache.’

‘Well, his head did take a thumping.’

‘They did some tests, say he’ll be fine.’ Hogan smiled. ‘They tried testing his memory, but as Alan said, at his age he’s lucky to remember which day it is, dunt on the heid or no’.’

Rebus smiled too. ‘You know him then?’

‘Worked together years ago. That’s why I asked for this detail.’

‘Were you with him when his niece was murdered?’

Hogan stared at the sleeping figure. ‘It took all the juice out of him, like his batteries were flat after that.’

‘He wanted it to be Cary Oakes.’

Hogan nodded. ‘I think anyone would have done as far as Alan was concerned, but Oakes was the obvious choice.’

‘Still could be.’

Hogan looked at him. ‘Not according to Alan.’

‘I wouldn’t trust anything Oakes said. Everything in his world has to be twisted round.’

‘But he thought he was going to kill Alan... why bother lying to him?’

‘To amuse himself.’ Rebus crossed one leg over the other. ‘That seems to be what he’s been doing ever since he hit town, spinning stories...’ And now Rebus was surplus to requirements; other officers would bring in Cary Oakes.

‘Did you ever get anywhere with Jim’s suicide?’

Rebus looked at Hogan. ‘I was beginning to. I got sidetracked.’

‘So what can you tell me?’

Alan Archibald grunted, and his lips started moving as though savouring something. Slowly his eyes opened. He looked to his left and saw his two visitors.

‘Any sign of him?’ he asked, voice dry and brittle. Hogan poured him some water.

‘Do you want any more tablets, Alan?’

Archibald made to shake his head, then screwed shut his eyes with the sudden pain. ‘No,’ he said instead. As Hogan trickled the water into his mouth, it dribbled either side of the plastic cup and down his chin. Hogan dabbed it with a napkin.

‘He’d make a great nurse.’ Archibald winked at Rebus. His eyes looked unfocused; Rebus wondered what kind of painkillers they had him on. ‘They haven’t caught him?’

‘Not yet,’ Rebus admitted.

‘But he’s been busy, hasn’t he?’

Rebus didn’t know if it was pure instinct or whether something in his voice had alerted Archibald. He nodded, told Archibald about Jim Stevens, about the nursing home and Oakes’s uncle.

‘I remember the uncle,’ Archibald said. ‘I interviewed him a while back. I think he hated Oakes almost more than I did.’

‘You didn’t happen to mention him to Oakes, did you?’

Archibald was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Not for a while. He might have been in one of the letters I sent.’ His eyes widened. ‘How did Oakes know where he was? You think I...?’ Pain coursed across his face. ‘I should have twigged. But I wasn’t thinking like a copper, that’s the bottom line. I had my own motives. I wasn’t really interested in the uncle, only in what he could tell me about Oakes. There was that one question always at the back of my mind... that one question I needed the answer to.’

‘Yes,’ Rebus agreed.

‘Everything I’d learned went out the window.’ Tears were welling in Archibald’s eyes.

‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Hogan said, touching his shoulder.

Archibald was looking past him, towards the seated figure of John Rebus. ‘Whether he killed her or not... I’ll never know for sure, will I?’

Tears dropped on to Archibald’s cheeks and down his chin. Bobby Hogan dabbed at them with the already damp napkin.

‘All these years not knowing... damned fool to think I could...’ He closed his eyes, crying softly. In the other beds, no one stirred. Crying in the night maybe wasn’t so unusual here. Bobby Hogan had taken hold of both the old man’s hands. It looked like Archibald was squeezing with all his might.

Alan Archibald was in hospital because he’d become obsessed with an idea. Rebus, knowing what he knew now, was wondering if Jim Margolies had become obsessed too. With nothing else to do, he headed back to St Leonard’s. It took a couple of hours, several phone calls, and a lot of grudging help before Rebus got what he wanted.

He sat at his desk scoring through points on his notepad. The people he’d spoken to from the Health Board and Social Work had all asked if it couldn’t wait till morning. Rebus had insisted it could not.

‘It’s a murder inquiry,’ had been his only line of attack. When pressed for details, he’d said he couldn’t add anything ‘at the present moment in time’, trying to sound like the sort of detective they’d expect him to be: a bureaucrat, a man following a preordained path of investigation where no overnight rest-stops could be taken.

In the end, he’d had to drive to the various offices himself to pick up the information he’d asked for. On each occasion, he’d been met by the official he’d spoken to on the phone. They’d all stared at him with ill-will and irritation. But they’d all handed over the documents. Which gave Rebus little to do but head back to St Leonard’s and plough through the field of information on Dr Joseph Margolies.

Dr Margolies had been born in Selkirk, and educated in the Borders and at Fettes. His medical degree was completed at the University of Edinburgh, with stints working in Africa for a Christian charity. He’d become a general practitioner, then had taken to lecturing, specialising in paediatrics. And eventually, as Siobhan’s note had said, he’d been employed to ‘look after’ the council-run children’s homes in Lothian, a job which also took him into private homes licensed by the council — such as those owned and operated by churches and charities.

What his job meant in effect was that he checked the children for signs of abuse, and would be brought in to make a physical examination should any accusations of abuse be made. Also, some of the kids were classed as ‘difficult cases’, and a medical prognosis would be part of their ongoing record. Dr Margolies might recommend psychiatric consultation, or a move to some other type of institution. He could prescribe treatments and medication. His powers, in effect, were almost without limit. His word was law.

About halfway through his reading, Rebus began to get a queasy feeling in his gut. He hadn’t eaten for hours, but didn’t think that had anything to do with it. Nevertheless, he forced himself to get some fresh air, visited Brattisani’s for a fish supper with buttered bread and tea. Afterwards, he knew he’d been away from the station for the best part of an hour, but couldn’t recall any of that time: no faces, no voices. Brain busy with other things.

He remembered a recent case, a priest who’d abused children for years. The children had been in the care of nuns, and when any of them complained they were thrashed by the nuns, told they were liars, and made to attend confession — where, listening to them, would be the same priest they’d just accused of abuse.

He knew that oftentimes paedophiles were well able to hide their true natures for months and years as they trained for positions in children’s homes and the like. They would pass all the checks and psychological tests, only later for the mask to slip. Their need was so great, they would go to extraordinary lengths to fulfil it. And sometimes it might have remained latent had they not encountered at some point a fellow traveller, each spurring the other on...

Like Harold Ince and Ramsay Marshall. Rebus could believe that either one, left in isolation, would never have found the strength to begin their eventual programme of systematic abuse. But together, working as a team, the effect had been to intensify their lusts and desires, making the eventual abuse so much more appalling.

Rebus looked back through all the paperwork on Dr Joseph Margolies, until he was sure of what he saw.

That Margolies had been attached to the city’s children’s homes at the time of the Shiellion scandal.

That he had retired soon afterwards — and prematurely — on ‘health grounds’.

That he was considered courageous by those he worked with for the way he’d kept going following his daughter’s suicide.

Rebus didn’t find much about the daughter. She’d killed herself at fifteen, hadn’t left a note. She’d been a quiet child, withdrawn. Adolescence had done her few favours. She’d been worried about upcoming exams. Her brother Jim had been devastated by her death...

She hadn’t leapt from some high spot. She’d slashed her wrists in the bathroom of her home. Her father had kicked open the door and found her there. It was believed she’d done the deed in the dead of night. Her father was always the first to rise in the morning.

Rebus put a call through to Jane Barbour. By dint of white lies and stubbornness, he secured her mobile number. When she picked up, he could hear loud music and cheering in the background.

‘Good party, is it?’

‘Who’s this?’

‘DI Rebus.’

Another wave of cheering behind her. ‘Hang on, I’ll just take this outside.’ The sounds died away. Barbour exhaled noisily. She sounded drunk. ‘We’re at the Police Club.’

‘What’s the celebration?’

‘Take a guess.’

‘Guilty verdicts?’

‘On both the bastards. Not a single juror went against us.’

Rebus sat back in his chair. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Cordover must be seething.’

‘Bugger Cordover. Petrie pronounces tomorrow. He’ll stick them away for ever and a day.’

‘Well, congratulations again. It’s a hell of a result.’

‘Why don’t you come down? We’ve enough booze here—’

‘Thanks all the same. But it’s a coincidence, I’m phoning about Ince and Marshall.’

‘Oh?’

‘Indirectly anyway. Dr Joseph Margolies.’

‘Yes?’

‘You know who he is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was he called to give evidence?’

‘No, he wasn’t. Christ, it’s so mild out here tonight.’

Rebus wondered if she was on anything other than a natural high. ‘Why wasn’t he called?’

‘Because of the facts of the case. It’s true a few of the Shiellion kids made accusations at the time, but they weren’t believed.’

‘There’d be a medical check, though.’

‘Of course, carried out by Dr Margolies. I interviewed him several times. But the boys were known to be gay, insofar as they worked as occasional rent boys around Calton Hill. If they ran from Shiellion, that’s where everyone knew to find them. So you see, evidence of anal sex was not in itself evidence of abuse — I’m quoting the Procurator Fiscal’s line. To my mind, these kids were underage and in care, and anyone who had sex with them was guilty of abuse.’ She paused. ‘End of rant.’

‘Sooner you’re free of this case the better.’

‘So why are you dragging it all up again?’

‘I’m trying to get a fix on Dr Margolies.’

‘Why?’

‘When you talked to him, was he helpful?’

‘As much as he could be. He said himself the kids had been caught lying before, so who was going to believe them next time? And a lot of the abuse claims referred to oral sex and masturbation... not many medical tests for those, Inspector.’

‘No,’ Rebus said thoughtfully. ‘So he didn’t give evidence?’

‘Not in court. Fiscal said it would be a waste of time. Might even have harmed our case by casting doubt in the jury’s mind.’

‘In which case Cordover might have wanted the doctor as a witness.’

‘Yes, but he didn’t, and I wasn’t about to give him a hand.’ She paused. ‘You think Margolies was involved in a cover-up?’

‘What makes you ask?’

‘I wondered about it myself. I mean, chances are there were people working at Shiellion who had a good idea what was happening. But nobody stuck their head above the parapet.’

‘Afraid to cause trouble?’

‘Or warned off by the Church. It’s not been unknown in the past. Of course, there’s an even worse scenario.’

Rebus dreaded to think what it might be. But he asked anyway.

‘Just this,’ she said. ‘People knew it was happening, but they just didn’t care. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading back indoors to get blisteringly drunk.’

Rebus thanked her and rang off. Sat with his head in his hands, staring at his desk.

People knew... they just didn’t care...

48

Just as during their actual trial, Ince and Marshall were being held in Saughton Prison. The difference was, now they’d been found guilty they were no longer on remand. As remand prisoners, they’d been able to wear their own clothes, phone out for food, and go about their business. Now they’d be getting used to prison garb and all the other comforts of the prison regime proper.

They were being held in separate cells, with an empty cell between so there was less chance of them communicating. Rebus didn’t know why anyone bothered: they’d probably end up in the same sex offender programme.

He had a difficult choice to make: Ince or Marshall? Of course, if one failed him, there was nothing to stop him trying the other. But that would mean going through the same process again, asking the same questions, playing the same games. The right choice might save him all that grief.

He chose Ince. His reasoning: Ince was the elder, with the higher IQ. And though early on in the relationship, there was no doubt that he’d been the leader, the pupil had soon become the master. In the courtroom, Marshall had been the one who’d scowled and grunted and played to the gallery; the one who’d looked as though the trial had nothing to do with him.

The one with no visible show of shame, even as his victims told their stories.

The one who’d fallen down the stairs a couple of times on his way back to the cells.

Yes, Marshall had learned a lot from Harold Ince, but he’d added ingredients of his own. He was the more savage, the more amoral, the less penitent. He was the one who thought it was the world’s problem, not his. At the trial, he’d tried quoting Aleister Crowley, to the effect that only he had the right to judge his actions right or wrong.

The court hadn’t thought much of that.

Rebus sat in the visitors’ room and smoked a cigarette. He’d called Patience, got the machine: a message telling callers to try her mobile. He did so, found she was at a friend’s. Another woman doctor, off on prenatal leave.

‘I might stay the night,’ Patience told him. ‘Ursula’s offered.’

‘How is she?’

‘Sick.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘You misunderstand: she’s sick she can’t drink. Never mind, I’m drinking for two.’

Rebus smiled. ‘I’ll go to Arden Street,’ he said. ‘If you’re going home, let me know.’

‘You think I should stay away?’

‘It might be an idea.’ He meant until Cary Oakes was caught. When he rang off, he got through to St Leonard’s, who confirmed that the patrol car was now stationed outside Patience’s friend’s.

‘Safe as houses, John.’

So he sat in the visitors’ room and smoked a cigarette, defying the sign on the wall, flicking ash on to the carpet. The uniform brought Harold Ince in. Rebus thanked him, told him to wait just outside. Not that Rebus expected anything from Ince: no violence, no escape attempt. He looked resigned to his fate. Since Rebus had seen him at the trial, his face had grown longer and thinner, the pallid skin hanging from it. His stomach bulged, but his chest seemed to have caved in, as though the heart had been removed. Rebus knew that at least one of Ince’s victims had committed suicide. There was a smell from the man: sulphur mixed with Germolene.

Rebus offered him a cigarette. Ince, slumping into a chair, shook his head.

‘You gave evidence, didn’t you?’ The voice was thin and reedy.

Rebus nodded, flicked ash. ‘Your lawyer tried carving me up.’

The brief flicker of a smile. ‘I remember now. Didn’t work, did it?’

‘And now you’ve been found guilty.’

‘Come to rub it in?’ Ince’s eyes found Rebus’s for the briefest moment.

‘No, Mr Ince, I’ve come to ask for your help.’

Ince snorted, folded his arms. ‘Yeah, I’m well in the mood to help the police.’

‘I wonder if he’s already made up his mind?’ Rebus asked, as if wondering aloud.

Ince’s forehead creased. ‘Who?’

‘Lord Justice Petrie. He’s a tough old buzzard.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

But soft on his kids, Rebus thought to himself. Or is he...?

‘My money’s on Peterhead for the pair of you,’ he said. ‘You’ll be there a long time. That’s where they take the sex offenders.’ Rebus sat forward. ‘It’s also where a lot of the real hard cases are kept, the ones who rate kiddie-fuckers slightly lower than the amoeba on the evolutionary ladder.’

‘Ahh...’ Ince sat back, nodded. ‘So that’s it: you’ve come to scare me. Let me save you the effort: the guards at the trial told me what I could expect, whichever jail I’m sent to. A couple of them said they’d be coming to see me themselves.’ Another glance at Rebus. ‘Isn’t that thoughtful?’

Behind the show of bravado, Rebus could tell Ince was terrified. Terrified of the unknown. Every bit as scared as the kids must have been, every time they heard him approaching...

‘I don’t want to scare you, Mr Ince. I want you to help me. But I’m not stupid, I know I have to offer something in return.’

‘And what would that be, Inspector?’

Rebus stood up, walked over to where the video camera covered the room.

‘You’ll notice I’m not taping this,’ he said. ‘Good reason for that. This stays off the record, Mr Ince. Anything you tell me, it’s for my own satisfaction only. Nothing to do with building a case. If I ever tried using it, it would be my word against yours: inadmissible.’

‘I know the law, Inspector.’

Rebus turned towards him. ‘Me too. What I’m saying is, this is strictly between us. I could get into trouble just for making you an offer.’

‘What offer?’ Sounding interested now.

‘Peterhead, I know a few of the villains up there. I’m owed favours.’

There was silence while Ince digested this. ‘You’d put in a word on my behalf?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But they might choose not to heed it.’

Rebus shrugged, sat down again, arms resting along the edge of the desk. ‘It’s the best I can do.’

‘And I only have your word that you’d do it anyway.’

Rebus nodded slowly. ‘That’s right, you do.’

Ince was studying the backs of his own hands, his fingers gripping the desk.

‘Well, I must say, that’s a very generous offer.’ A touch of humour in the voice.

‘It could save your life, Harold.’

‘Or it could be totally meaningless.’ He paused. ‘What is it you want to ask me?’

‘I need to know who the third man was.’

‘Wasn’t it Orson Welles?’

Rebus made himself smile. ‘I mean the night Ramsay Marshall brought Darren Rough to Shiellion.’

‘Long time ago. I was on the drink back then.’

‘You made Darren wear a mask.’

‘Did we?’

‘Because of the other man. Maybe it was his idea. Didn’t want Darren recognising him.’ Rebus lit another cigarette. ‘You’d been drinking. Maybe with this man. Chatting about this and that. Eventually telling him your secret.’ Rebus studied Ince. ‘Because you thought you could see something...’

Ince licked his lips. ‘What?’ Said so quietly it was barely above a whisper. Rebus lowered his own voice.

‘You thought he was like you. You could see a potential. The more you talked, the clearer you saw it. You told him Marshall was bringing some kid along. Maybe you suggested he stay.’

‘You’re making this up, aren’t you?’

Rebus nodded. ‘Insofar as I can’t prove any of it, yes, I’m making it up.’

‘This potential you speak of... I’d contend it’s in every one of us.’ Now Ince looked at Rebus, and his eyes seemed harder. He held Rebus’s gaze, returned it. ‘Do you have any children, Inspector?’

‘I’ve a daughter,’ Rebus admitted, knowing the danger of letting Ince into his personal life, letting him inside his head. But Ince was no Cary Oakes. ‘She’s grown up now.’

‘I bet at some point in your relationship you’ve thought about what it would be like to bed her, to have sex with her. Haven’t you?’

Rebus could feel the pressure behind his eyes: anger and revulsion. Strong enough to make him blink away the smoke.

‘I don’t think so.’

Ince grinned. ‘That’s what you tell yourself. But I think you’re lying, even if you don’t know it. It’s human instinct, nothing to be ashamed of. She might have been fifteen, or twelve, or ten.’

Rebus got to his feet. Had to keep moving, otherwise he’d pound Ince’s head into the desk. He wanted to light another cigarette, but was only halfway through the current one.

‘This isn’t about me,’ he said. Even to his ears, it sounded weak.

‘No? Perhaps...’

‘It’s about Darren Rough.’

‘Ah...’ Ince leaned back on his chair. ‘Poor Darren. They had him down on the list of witnesses, but didn’t use him. I’d have liked to see him again.’

‘Not possible. Someone murdered him.’

‘What? Before the trial?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘During it. I’ve been trying to find a motive, only now I think I was looking in all the wrong places.’ He rested a hand on the desk, leaned down over Ince. ‘I had a look at the charge sheets, the evidence. Just you and Marshall; none of the other victims mention a third abuser. Was it just that one night? Someone who tried it just the once...?’ Rebus sat back down in his seat. He’d finished the cigarette at last; lit himself another from its stub, chain-smoking now. ‘I found Darren at the zoo. Found out where he lived. It leaked to the newspapers. This third man... he knew you weren’t going to mention him in court. I don’t know why, but I can guess. But the one thing he was scared of was Darren. Which was fine — as far as he knew, Darren Rough was well out of things. Then suddenly he reads that Darren’s here, and he can guess why: Darren’s helping with Shiellion. There’s half a chance he saw something or heard something, maybe without knowing it. There’s half a chance our third man’s picture might end up in the paper after the trial, and Darren will recognise it.

‘Suddenly there’s danger. So he has to strike.’ Rebus blew a thin column of smoke at Ince. ‘We both know who I’m talking about. But for my own satisfaction, I’d be happier to hear a name.’

“That’s why Darren died?’

Rebus nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘But you’ve no proof?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘And I’m unlikely to find it. With you or without you.’

‘I’d like a mug of coffee,’ Harold Ince said. ‘Milk, two sugars. If you order it, it might come sans saliva.’

Rebus looked at him. ‘Anything to eat?’

‘I’m partial to a chicken korma curry. Nan bread, no rice. Sag aloo as a side dish.’

‘I can phone out for it.’

‘Again, I’d prefer it unadulterated.’ There was confidence in Ince’s voice now. He’d made a decision.

‘And meantime we’ll talk?’ Rebus asked.

‘For your own peace of mind, Inspector... yes, we’ll talk.’

49

Rebus sat in the darkness of his living room, sipping from a glass of whisky and water. The street outside was night-time quiet, interrupted by the occasional dull crunching sound of car tyres passing over the setts. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, maybe a couple of hours. He’d put a CD on, but hadn’t bothered getting up to change it. It had been on the repeat function for three or four plays. ‘Stray Cat Blues’ had never felt so sordid. It affected him more than the literate and well-mannered ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, which had an air of desperation to it. There was no desperation in ‘Stray Cat Blues’, just the certainty of underage sex...

When the phone rang, he was slow to answer. It was Siobhan, relaying a message. Patience’s flat had been broken into.

‘Did they get anyone?’

‘No. A couple of uniforms are still there. They’re waiting for someone who can deal with the alarm...’

Rebus called St Leonard’s, and a patrol car arrived to take him to Oxford Terrace. The driver could smell whisky on Rebus’s breath.

‘Been out partying, sir?’

‘Your basic party animal, that’s me.’ Rebus’s tone ensured no more questions came from the front of the car.

The alarm was still ringing. Rebus went down the steps and pushed open the front door. The two uniforms were in the kitchen, far away from the noise. They’d made themselves tea, and were searching the cupboards for biscuits.

‘Milk, no sugar,’ Rebus told them. Then he went back into the hall and used his key to disable the alarm. One of the uniforms handed him a mug.

‘Thank God for that. It was driving us mental.’

Rebus was at the front door, examining it.

‘Clean job,’ the uniform said. ‘Looks like they had a key.’

‘More likely he picked it.’ Rebus went back into the hall. ‘But he couldn’t pick the alarm box...’ He walked from room to room.

‘Anything missing, sir?’

‘Yes, son: some hot water from the kettle, two tea-bags and a spot of milk.’

‘Maybe the alarm scared him off.’

‘If he picked one lock, why not another?’ Rebus thought he knew the answer: because the very fact the alarm was set had told the intruder something.

Told him no one was home.

And he wanted someone to be home — Rebus or Patience — that was the whole point of the exercise. Cary Oakes hadn’t broken in with the intention of stealing anything. He’d had other plans altogether...

When they left, Rebus reset the alarm and made sure the mortice lock was engaged as well as the Yale.

In the trade, it was known as shutting the stable door.

He got the patrol car to take him home by way of Sammy’s. Not that he went into her flat — he just wanted to see everything was OK. She wouldn’t be on her own; Ned would be sleeping beside her. Not that Ned would give Oakes many problems...

‘Do me a favour, will you?’ Rebus asked the driver. ‘Arrange for a car to come past here once an hour until morning.’

‘Will do, sir. You think he’ll try it again?’

Rebus didn’t even know if Oakes knew Sammy’s address. He didn’t know if Stevens had known it. He used the car’s two-way to talk to the nursing home.

‘Quiet as the grave here,’ he was told.

Then he tried the hospital, got one of the night staff, who assured him there was someone with Mr Archibald and, yes, they were wide awake. From her description, Rebus guessed it was still Bobby Hogan.

Everyone was safe. Everyone was covered.

The patrol car dropped him off, and he climbed the stairs to his flat. Unlocking the door, he thought he heard a sound on the stairwell below him. He peered over the banister, but couldn’t see anything. Mrs Cochrane’s tabby probably, rattling the cat-flap as it went in or out.

He closed the door after him, didn’t bother with the light in the hallway. He knew it well enough in the dark. Switched the light on in the kitchen and boiled the kettle. His head was thick from the whisky. He made tea, took it through to the living room. Too late for music, really. He walked over to the window and stood there, blowing on the tea.

Saw a shape move. On the pavement across the road. The outline of a man. He cupped his hands to the window, put his face between them, trying to block out the light from the streetlamp.

It was Cary Oakes. He was swaying slightly, like he could hear music. And he had a huge smile on his face. Rebus turned from the window, looked for his phone. Couldn’t see it anywhere. He kicked books across the floor. Where the hell was it?

His mobile then: where was that? He’d forgotten to take it with him; probably in a coat pocket. He went to the hall cupboard: no sign of it. Kitchen? No. Bedroom? Not there either.

Cursing, he ran back to the window to check if Oakes had gone. No, he was still there, only now he had his hands raised, as though in surrender. Then Rebus saw he was holding two small dark objects. He knew what they were.

His cordless phone and his mobile.

‘Bastard!’ Rebus roared. Oakes had been in the flat; picked the stairwell Yale and the front door.

‘Bastard,’ Rebus hissed. He ran to the door, yanked it open. He was halfway down the stairs when he heard the main door creaking open. Had it been locked? If so, Oakes had dealt with it quickly.

Suddenly Oakes was there at the foot of the stairwell, backlit by a single bulb on the wall. All the walls were painted a weak-custard yellow, making his face seem jaundiced. His teeth were bared, mouth open to expose his tongue. He dropped the phones on the stone floor, reached into his waistband.

‘Remember this?’

He was holding the knife. Purposefully, eyes on Rebus, he started climbing the steps, his feet making the sound of sandpaper on wood.

Rebus turned and ran.

‘Where you going, Rebus?’ He was laughing, not worried about keeping his voice down. The neighbours were students and old-age pensioners: he probably fancied his luck against the whole lot of them.

Mrs Cochrane had a telephone. Rebus thumped on her door as he passed, knowing it to be a futile gesture. She was stone deaf. The students on his landing: would they have a phone? Would they even be home? He ran in through his own door, shut it after him. The Yale clicked, but he knew it would take more than that to keep Oakes out. He slid the chain across, knew a good kick would probably smash it and the Yale both. Where was the key for the mortice? It was usually in its lock. He looked on the floor, then realised Oakes must have taken it. He’d studied the locks, known the mortice would keep him out... Rebus put his eye to the spy-hole. Oakes’s face appeared from nowhere. Rebus could hear what he was saying.

‘Little pigs, little pigs, let me in.’

Lines from The Shining.

Rebus went into the kitchen, opened the cutlery drawer. He found a twelve-inch-long Sabatier with a riveted black handle. He didn’t think it had ever been used. He ran his thumb over its blade and cut himself.

It would do.

Rebus had come up against knife attackers before. But he’d been able to reason with most of them. The others, he’d been able to deal with... But that was then and this was altogether different. Back out in the hall, he decided to take the fight to Oakes. With the carving-knife in his fist, he slid the chain off, threw open the door. He was expecting an immediate attack, but none came. He craned his neck, couldn’t see Oakes on the landing.

‘Piggy going walkies.’

Oakes’s voice: halfway down to the first landing. Rebus was out of the door, not hurrying, trying to keep calm. Eyes boring into Oakes’s, peripheral vision fixed on Oakes’s knife.

‘Ooh, that is a big one,’ Oakes mocked. He was moving backwards down the stairs, seeming sure of himself. ‘Let’s take it outside, Rebus. Let’s give it some air.’

He turned and jogged out of the tenement. Rebus thought for a moment. His telephones were lying there. He should pick up his mobile and call in, get officers here pronto. Then he thought of Alan Archibald and Patience and Janice... and of his parents’ grave. Of Jim Stevens. Time to end it. He had to keep Oakes in his sight, couldn’t let him slip away again.

He reached down, pocketed the mobile, and headed for the door.

Oakes was standing on the pavement, nodding.

‘That’s right. Just the two of us.’

He started walking. Rebus followed. The pace was brisk, without either man ever breaking into a jog. Oakes kept his head angled back towards his pursuer. He looked pleased that things were turning out this way. Rebus couldn’t see the logic, but he was wary. So far, Oakes had done nothing without good reason. Bouncing around Rebus’s head, the words Finish it! This is the last round...

‘Good for the arteries, an early-morning constitutional. Helps make up for the Scottish diet. I looked in your fridge, man. I had more food in my fucking cell back in Walla Walla. Whisky by the chair in the lounge, though: I have to give you credit for that.’ He laughed. ‘What are you, Sam Spade or something?’

Rebus said nothing. Oakes was a lot younger than him, and fitter too. Last thing Rebus wanted was to tire himself out yapping.

They were crossing Marchmont Road, heading along Sciennes and past the Sick Kids Hospital. Rebus cursed himself for living in such a quiet area. The pubs had all emptied; the chip shops were closed. There were no clubs, not so much as a massage parlour. Then, on the other side of the road: two young men walking home, knees just locking and no more — the end of a good night’s drinking. One of them was demolishing a kebab. They looked at the strange pursuit. Oakes’s knife was in his pocket, but Rebus brandished his.

‘Call the police!’ he called out.

Oakes just laughed, as if his buddy was drunk and joking, waving his rubber dagger around.

One man grinned; the other, the one with kebab sauce on his chin, stared, still chewing.

‘I’m not joking!’ Rebus shouted, not caring who he woke up. ‘Call the cops!’

He couldn’t stop to show them ID, couldn’t risk letting Oakes out of his sight: there were too many potential victims out there. And he couldn’t take his eyes off Oakes for a second.

So they kept moving, leaving the two young men far behind.

‘By the time they get home,’ Oakes said, ‘they’ll have forgotten the whole thing. It’ll be drinks from the fridge and Jerry Springer on TV. That’s how it is these days, Rebus. Nobody gives a shit.’

‘Nobody but me.’

‘Nobody but you. Ever wondered why that is?’

Rebus shook his head. He didn’t mind Oakes talking: while Oakes was talking, he was using up energy.

‘You never think about it? It’s because you’re a fucking dinosaur, man. Everyone knows it — you, your bosses, the people you work with. Probably even your doctor friend. What’s with her: she likes to screw prehistoric things?’ Oakes laughed again. ‘In case you’re wondering, I kept fit in the pen. I can bench-press your ass. I can keep this pace up all day and night. How about you? You look about as fit as something extinct.’

‘Sometimes all you need is attitude.’

They were cutting through narrow passageways now, coming out on Causewayside.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Nearly there, Rebus. Wouldn’t want to tire you out... what’s the Scots word again: puggle?’ He laughed. There were cars on Causewayside. Rebus made sure they saw him holding the knife. Maybe they’d stop at a phone box or flag down a patrol car. But he knew the odds weren’t good — not many patrol cars round here. Probably no foot patrols either. They’d drive home, and then maybe they’d phone to report it.

And maybe someone from St Leonard’s would come to investigate.

It would be too late. Whatever was being played out, he got the feeling it was coming to its conclusion right now. For some reason, it had to do with... no... he knew where they were. The far end of Salisbury Place: they were at the junction with Minto Street.

‘It was here, wasn’t it?’ Oakes asked, stopping because Rebus had stopped too. ‘She was crossing the road or something?’

Sammy... crossing the road when the driver hit her. Twenty yards down Minto Street.

Rebus stared at Oakes. ‘Why?’

Oakes just shrugged. Rebus was trying to focus again on this moment. This was what counted; he could think about Sammy later. He had to stop letting Oakes play with him.

‘He sent her flying, huh?’ Oakes was saying. He had his hands in his pockets, as if they were just stopping to chat. Rebus couldn’t remember which pocket the knife was in. His own weapon hung from his right hand, useless for the moment. Crossing the road and she... she never had a chance.

He realised he hadn’t been here since the day after the collision. He’d been avoiding the place.

And somehow Oakes had known the effect this place would have on him. Rebus blinked a few times, tried clearing his head.

‘You’ve been to check on her, haven’t you?’ Oakes asked.

‘What?’ Rebus narrowed his eyes.

‘You went to your girlfriend’s flat, knew I’d been there. Next thing you did was go to your daughter’s. But you didn’t go in, did you?’

It was like staring into a devil’s eyes. ‘How do you know?’

‘You wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’ve been there, Rebus. Earlier tonight.’

‘You’re lying.’ Rebus’s voice was dry, his throat acrid. Trying to get you off your guard, same trick worked with Archibald...

Oakes just shrugged. They were at the corner. Diagonally across from them, two cars had drawn up side by side at a red light. Taxi on the inside lane; boy racer revving beside him. The taxi driver was watching what looked like a fight about to break out: nothing he hadn’t seen before.

‘You’re lying,’ Rebus repeated. He slipped his free hand into his pocket, brought out the mobile. Used his thumb to press the digits, holding the phone to his face so he could watch it and Oakes at the same time.

‘She didn’t need her legs anyway,’ Oakes was saying. The phone was ringing. ‘There’s no answer, is there?’

Sweat was trickling into Rebus’s eyes. But if he shook his head to clear the drops, Oakes would think he was answering his question.

The phone stopped ringing.

‘Hello?’ Ned Farlowe’s voice.

‘Ned! Is Sammy there? Is she all right?’

‘What? Is that you, John?’

‘Is she all right?’ Knowing the answer; needing to hear it anyway.

‘Of course she’s—’

Oakes flew at him, the knife emerging from his right-hand pocket. Missing Rebus’s chest by centimetres. Rebus stepped back, dropped the phone. He had the longer reach. The taxi driver had his window down.

‘Cut that out, the pair of you!’

‘I’ll cut it out all right,’ Oakes hissed. ‘I’ll dice it and slice it.’ He made another sweep with the knife. Rebus tried to kick it away, almost lost his footing. Oakes laughed at him. ‘You’re no Nureyev, pal.’ A quick thrust took the knife into Rebus’s arm. Rebus felt his nerves go dull: prelude to agony. Finish it.

Rebus took a step forward, feinted with the knife, so that Oakes had to move position. On the edge of the pavement now. Rebus saw the traffic lights behind Oakes were changing. Oakes leaned forward, slashed at his chest. Thin whistling sound as Rebus’s shirt split. Blood warm on his arm, more blood trickling from the fresh wound. Red to red/amber.

To green.

Rebus charged in with his foot up and hit Oakes solid in the chest with his sole. Oakes got in a swipe before he was propelled back into the road, where the boy racer, oblivious to the fight, radio on full-blast and his girl with her arm around him, was showing off his car’s acceleration from a flat start. The car clipped Oakes, sent him flying, breaking his hip and, Rebus hoped, a few more bones to boot. The car screeched to a halt, the young man’s head appeared through the window. He saw knives. He pulled his foot off the clutch and roared off.

Rebus didn’t bother to catch the licence plate. He stood on Oakes’s knife-hand, forcing the fingers open, then lifted the knife and pocketed it. The taxi driver was still at the lights.

‘Phone for police assistance!’ Rebus called to him. He held his injured arm to his chest.

Oakes was rolling on the ground, hand to his thigh and side, teeth bared not in a grin now but in a grimace of pain.

Rebus stood up, took a step back, and kicked him in the groin. As Oakes groaned and retched, Rebus gave him another kick, then crouched down again.

‘I’d like to say that was for Jim Stevens,’ he said. ‘But if I’m being entirely honest with you, really it was for me.’

Rebus spent an hour in the casualty department — four stitches to his arm, eight to his chest. The arm wound was deepest, but both were clean. Oakes was somewhere nearby, being treated for breaks and fractures. Six of Crime Squad’s finest on guard detail.

A patrol car took Rebus back to his flat, where he retrieved his cordless phone — didn’t want any of the students pocketing it — and had a mouthful of whisky. Then another after that.

The rest of the night he spent at St Leonard’s, typing his report one-handed, giving an additional verbal briefing to Chief Superintendent Watson, who’d been summoned from bed and whose hair sported a cow’s-lick which flapped when he moved his head.

There was little certainty that Oakes could be charged with Jim Stevens’ murder. It would depend on forensic evidence: fingerprints, fibres, saliva. Stevens’ cassette had been bagged and handed over to the white-coat brigade.

‘But he’ll go down for the attack on me and Alan Archibald?’ Rebus asked his superior.

Farmer Watson nodded. ‘For the Pentland attack, yes.’

‘What about the attempted murder of three hours ago?’

The Farmer shuffled paperwork. ‘You’ve said yourself, most of the witnesses will have seen you with the knife, not him.’

‘But the taxi driver...’

The Farmer nodded. ‘He’ll be crucial. Let’s hope he gets his story straight.’

Rebus saw what his boss was getting at. ‘Sir, you do believe I acted in self-defence?’

‘Of course, John. Goes without saying.’ But the Farmer wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Rebus tried to think of something to say; decided it wasn’t worth his breath.

‘Crime Squad are pissed off,’ the Farmer added with a smile. ‘They hate an anti-climax.’

‘I might not look it, but inside I’m crying for them.’ Rebus turned to leave the room.

‘No going back to the hospital, John,’ the Farmer warned. ‘Don’t want him falling out of bed and saying he was pushed.’

Rebus snorted, went downstairs and into the car park. It would be growing light soon. He dry-swallowed some more painkillers, lit a cigarette and stared in the direction of Holyrood Park. They were there — Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags — it was just, you couldn’t always see them. It didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Easy to lose your footing in the dark... Easy for someone to come up behind you...

Rebus left the car park and headed into St Leonard’s Bank. Stevens’ car had been taken away for examination at Howdenhall. At the end of the road, there was a gap in the fence, allowing passage into the park itself. Rebus headed down the slope towards Queen’s Drive. Once across it, he started to climb. Away from the street-lighting now, his steps were more tentative. He sensed more than saw the starting-point of Radical Road, above which loomed the irregular rockface of the Crags themselves. Rebus ignored the path, kept climbing until he was on top of the Crags, the city spread out below him in a grid of orange sodium and yellow-white halogen. The beast was definitely beginning to awake: cars heading into the city. Turning round, he saw that the sky was a lighter shade of black than the mass of rock below it. Some people said Arthur’s Seat looked like a crouched lion, ready to pounce. It never did pounce, though. There was a lion on the Scottish flag too — not crouched but rampant...

Had Jim Margolies come up here with the express intention of leaping off? Rebus thought he knew the answer now. And he knew because of the Margolies’ dinner engagement that evening, across the park from where they lived.

That, and the fact of a white saloon car...

50

Dr Joseph Margolies lived with his wife in a detached house in Gullane, with an uninterrupted view of Muirfield golf course. Rebus didn’t play golf. He’d tried a few times as a kid, dragging a half-set of clubs around his local course, losing half a dozen balls in Jamphlars Pond. He knew some of his colleagues had taken up the game thinking it would help their careers, making sure to concede defeat to their superiors.

That didn’t sound like a game to Rebus.

Siobhan Clarke parked the car, and switched off the radio news. It was ten in the morning. Rebus had managed a couple of hours’ shut-eye in his Arden Street flat, and had phoned Patience to let her know Cary Oakes was behind bars.

‘Stay in the car,’ he told Clarke, manoeuvring himself out of the door. Not easy with one arm strapped up and his chest giving him grief every time he stretched.

Mrs Margolies answered the door. Close up, she resembled her son. Same flat chin, same narrow eyes. She even had the same smile.

Rebus introduced himself and asked if he could have a word with her husband.

‘He’s in the greenhouse. Is there a problem, Inspector?’

He smiled at her. ‘No problem, madam. Just a couple of questions, that’s all.’

‘I’ll show you the way,’ she said, standing back to let him in. She’d glanced at his arm, but wasn’t going to comment on it. Some people were like that: didn’t like to ask questions... As he followed her down the corridor, he glanced through open doorways, seeing domestic order everywhere: knitting on a chair; magazines in a paper-rack; dusted ornaments; gleaming windows. The house dated from the 1930s. From the outside, it seemed to be all eaves and gables. Rebus asked her how long they’d lived there.

‘Over forty years,’ Mrs Margolies replied, proud of the fact.

So this was the house Jim Margolies had grown up in. And his sister too. From the notes, Rebus knew she’d committed suicide in the family bathroom. Often, in a situation like that, the families elected to sell up and move somewhere new. But he knew other families would elect to stay, because something of their loved one still remained in the home, and would be lost forever if they abandoned it.

The kitchen was tidy too, not so much as a cup and saucer drying on the draining-board. A message-list had been fixed to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a teapot. But the list remained blank. Mrs Margolies asked him if he’d like some tea. He shook his head.

‘I’m fine, thanks anyway.’ Still smiling, but studying her. Thinking: The wife often knows... Thinking: Some people just don’t ask questions...

Outside the kitchen door was a short hall with two walk-in cupboards — both open to display garden tools — and the back door, which also stood open. They stepped outside and into a walled garden, obviously much worked-on. There was a rockery, and next to it some flowerbeds. These were separated by a trimmed lawn from a long, narrow vegetable bed. Towards the bottom of the garden were trees and bushes, and tucked away in one corner a small greenhouse with a figure moving around inside.

Rebus turned to his guide. ‘Thank you, I’ll be fine.’

And he walked across the lawn. It was like walking across luxury Wilton. He looked back once, saw Mrs Margolies watching him from the doorway. In a neighbouring garden, someone was having a bonfire. Smoke crackled over the wall, white and pungent. Rebus walked through it as he neared the greenhouse. A black labrador pricked up its ears at his approach, then pushed itself up to sitting and gave a half-hearted bark. Its nose and whiskers were grey, and it had about it a pampered look: overfed and, in its declining years, underexercised. The door of the greenhouse slid open and an elderly man peered through half-moon glasses at his visitor. Tall, grey hair, black moustache — just the way Jamie Brady had described him: the man who’d gone to Greenfield looking for Darren Rough.

‘Yes? Can I help you?’

‘Dr Margolies, I’m Detective Inspector John Rebus.’

Margolies held up his hands. ‘You’ll forgive me for not shaking.’ The hands were blackened with soil.

‘Me too,’ Rebus said, gesturing to his arm.

‘Looks nasty. What happened?’ Not sharing his wife’s reticence. But then maybe she’d had half a lifetime of biting back questions. Rebus leaned down to rub the labrador’s head. Its heavy tail thumped the ground in appreciation.

‘Got into a fight,’ Rebus explained.

‘Line of duty, eh? We’ve met before, I think.’

‘Hannah’s competition.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Nodding slowly. ‘You wanted to speak to Ama.’

‘I did then, yes.’

‘Is this something to do with her?’ Margolies was retreating back into the greenhouse. Rebus followed, and saw that the old man was potting seedlings. It was warm in the greenhouse, despite the day being overcast. Margolies asked Rebus to close the door.

‘Keep the heat in,’ he explained.

Rebus slid the door shut. Most of the available space was taken up with work surfaces, trays of seedlings laid along them in rows. A bag of potting compost lay open on the ground. Dr Margolies was scooping a black plastic flowerpot into it.

‘How does it feel to get away with murder?’ Rebus asked.

‘I’m sorry?’ Margolies took a seedling, pushed it into its new pot.

‘You murdered Darren Rough.’

‘Who?’

Rebus took the pot from Margolies’ fingers. ‘It’s going to be a devil trying to prove it. In fact, I don’t think it will happen. I really do think you’ve got away with it.’

Margolies met his eyes, reached to take his pot back.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You were seen in Greenfield. You were asking about Darren Rough. Then off you drove in your white Mercedes. A white saloon car was seen in Holyrood Park around the time Darren was killed. I think he went there for sanctuary, but you found it an ideal site for a murder.’

‘These riddles, Inspector... Do you know who I am?’

‘I know exactly who you are. I know both your children committed suicide. I know you were part of the Shiellion set-up.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ A slight trembling in the voice now. A seedling slipped from parchment fingers.

‘Don’t worry, Harold Ince is going to keep his side of the bargain. He talked to me, but it wouldn’t be admissible, and he won’t tell anyone else. He told me you were at Shiellion that night. Ince had talked with you often, had come to know you. He’d told you what he did to the kids in his care. He knew you wouldn’t say anything, because the two of you were alike. He knew how useful it would be to him if a doctor, the man responsible for examining the children, were part of the whole enterprise.’ Rebus leaned close to Margolies’ ear. ‘He told me all of it, Dr Margolies.’

The after-hours drinking, loosening up the doctor. Then the arrival of Ramsay Marshall with a fresh new kid, Darren Rough. Making the kid wear a blindfold so he wouldn’t recognise Margolies — this at the doctor’s insistence. Sweating and trembling... knowing this night changed everything...

And afterwards: self-loathing perhaps; or maybe just fear of exposure. He hadn’t been able to cope, had feigned ill-health, opting for early retirement.

‘But you could never loose Ince’s grip on you. He’d been blackmailing you, him and Marshall both.’ Rebus’s voice was little more than a whisper, his lips almost touching the old man’s ear. ‘Know what? I’m so fucking glad he’s been sucking you dry all these years.’ Rebus stood back.

‘You don’t know anything.’ Margolies’ face was blood-red. Beneath the checked shirt, he was breathing hard.

‘I can’t prove anything, but that’s not quite the same thing. I know, and that’s what matters. I think your daughter found out. The shame of it killed her. You were always the first one awake in the morning; she knew you’d be the one to find her. And then somehow Jim found out, and he couldn’t live with it either. How come you can live with it, Dr Margolies? How come you can live with the deaths of both your children, and the murder of Darren Rough?’

Margolies lifted a gardening fork, held it to Rebus’s throat. His face was squeezed into a mask of anger and frustration. Beads of perspiration dripped from his forehead. And outside, the billowing smoke seemed to be cutting them off from everything.

Margolies didn’t say anything, just made sounds from behind gritted teeth. Rebus stood there, hand in pocket.

‘What?’ he said. ‘You’re going to kill me too?’ He shook his head. ‘Think about it. Your wife’s seen me. There’s another officer waiting for me out front. How will you talk your way out of it? No, Dr Margolies, you’re not going to kill me. Like I say, I can’t prove anything I’ve just said. It’s between you and me.’ Rebus lifted the hand from his pocket, pushed the fork aside. The black lab was watching through the door, seemed to sense all was not well. It frowned at Rebus, looking disappointed in him.

‘What do you want?’ Margolies spluttered, gripping the work-bench with both hands.

‘I want you to live the rest of your life knowing that I know.’ Rebus shrugged. ‘That’s all.’

‘You want me to kill myself?’

Rebus laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ve got it in you. You’re an old man, you’re going to die soon enough. Once you’re dead, maybe Ince and Marshall will rethink their loyalty to you. You won’t be left with any reputation at all.’

Margolies turned towards him, and now there was clear, focused hatred in his eyes.

‘Of course,’ Rebus said, ‘if any evidence does turn up, you can be assured I’ll be back here at the double. You might be celebrating the millennium, you might be getting your card from the Queen, and then you’ll see me walking through the door.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll never be very far away, Dr Margolies.’

He slid open the greenhouse door, manoeuvred his way past the dog. Walked away.

It didn’t feel like any sort of victory. Unless something turned up, there’d be no justice for Darren Rough, no public trial. But Rebus knew he’d done what he could. Mrs Margolies was in the kitchen, making no pretence of doing anything other than waiting for him to return.

‘Everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Fine, Mrs Margolies.’ He headed down the hall, making for the front door. She was right behind him.

‘Well, I just was wondering...’

Rebus opened the door, turned to her. ‘Why not ask your husband, Mrs Margolies?’

The wife often knows, never brings herself to ask.

‘Just one thing, Mrs Margolies...?’

‘Yes?’

Your husband’s a cold-blooded murderer. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came. He shook his head, started down the garden path.

Clarke drove him to Katherine Margolies’ house, in the Grange area of Edinburgh. It was a three-storey Georgian semi in a street half of whose homes had been turned into bed-and-breakfast establishments. The white Merc was parked in front of the gate. Rebus turned to Clarke.

‘I know,’ she said: ‘stay in the car.’

Katherine Margolies looked less than thrilled to see him.

‘What do you want?’ She seemed ready to keep him on the doorstep.

‘It’s about your husband’s suicide.’

‘What about it?’ Her face was narrow and hard, hands long and thin like butcher’s knives.

‘I think I know why he did it.’

‘And what makes you think I’d want to know?’

‘You already do know, Mrs Margolies.’ Rebus took a deep breath. Well, if she didn’t mind them talking like this on her doorstep... ‘When did he find out his father was a paedophile?’

Her eyes widened. A woman emerged from the neighbouring house, preparing to walk her Jack Russell terrier. ‘You better come in,’ Katherine Margolies said sharply, eyes darting up and down the street. After he walked in, she closed the door and stood with her back to it, arms folded.

‘Well?’ she said.

Rebus looked around. The hall had a grey marble floor veined with black lines. A stone staircase swept upwards. There were paintings on the walls: Rebus got the feeling they weren’t prints. She didn’t seem to have noticed his arm, had no interest in him that way.

‘Hannah not home?’ he asked.

‘She’s at school. Look, I don’t know what it is—’

‘Then I’ll tell you. It’s been gnawing at me, Jim’s death. And I’ll tell you why. I’ve been there myself, standing at the top of a very high place, wondering if I’d have the guts to jump off.’

Her face softened a little.

‘Usually it was the booze doing it,’ he went on. ‘These days, I think I’ve got that under control. But I learned two things. One, you have to be incredibly brave to pull it off. Two, there’s got to be some crunch reason for you not to go on living. See, when it comes to it, going on living is the easier of the two options. I couldn’t see any reason why Jim would take his life, no reason at all. But there had to be one. That’s what got to me. There had to be one.’

‘And now you think you’ve found it?’ Her eyes were liquid in the cool dimness of the hall.

‘Yes.’

‘And you felt it worth sharing with me?’

He shook his head. ‘All I need from you is confirmation that I’m right.’

‘And then you’ll have contentment?’ She waited till he’d nodded. ‘And what right do you have to that, Inspector Rebus? What gives you the right to sleep easy?’

‘I never find sleep very easy, Mrs Margolies.’ It seemed to him then — and maybe it was a trick of the light — that he was seeing her at the end of a long dark tunnel, so that while she stood out clearly, everything between and around them was a blur of indistinct shading. And things were moving and gathering on the periphery: the ghosts. They were all here, providing a ready-made audience. Jack Morton, Jim Stevens, Darren Rough... even Jim Margolies. They felt so alive to him he could scarcely believe Katherine Margolies couldn’t make them out.

‘The night Jim died,’ Rebus went on, ‘you’d been out to dinner with friends in Royal Park Terrace. I wondered about that... Royal Park Terrace to The Grange.’

‘What about it?’ Looking bored now more than anything. Rebus thought it was bravado.

‘Easiest route is to cut through Holyrood Park. Is that the way you drove home?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘In your white Mercedes?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Jim stopped the car, got out...’

‘No.’

‘Someone saw the car.’

‘No.’

‘Because something had been making his life hell, something he’d maybe just discovered about his father...’

‘No.’

Rebus took a step towards her. ‘It was bucketing down that night. He wouldn’t have gone out walking. That’s your version, Mrs Margolies: in the middle of the night he got up, got dressed, and went out walking. He walked all the way to Salisbury Crags in the rain, just so he could throw himself off.’ Rebus was shaking his head. ‘My version makes more sense.’

‘Maybe to you.’

‘I’m not about to go shouting from the chimney-pots, Mrs Margolies. I just need to know that that’s how it happened. He’d been talking to one of the Shiellion victims. He found out his father was involved in the Shiellion abuse and he was afraid it would come out, afraid the shame would rebound on to him.’

She exploded. ‘Christ, you couldn’t be more wrong! It had nothing to do with that. What’s any of this got to do with Shiellion?’

Rebus collected himself. ‘You tell me.’

‘Don’t you see?’ She was crying now. ‘It was Hannah...’

Rebus frowned. ‘Hannah?’

‘Hannah was his sister’s name. Our Hannah was named after her. Jim did it to get back at his father.’

‘Because Dr Margolies had...’ Rebus couldn’t bring himself to say the word. ‘With Hannah?’

She rubbed the back of her hand across her face, smudging mascara. ‘He interfered with his own daughter. God knows whether it was just once. It might have been going on for years. When she killed herself...’

‘She did so knowing who’d be first to find her?’

She nodded. ‘Jim knew what had happened... knew why she’d done it. But of course nobody ever talks about it.’ She looked at him. ‘You just don’t, do you? Not in polite society. Instead he tried shutting it out, accepting that there was no remedy.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’ But he understood something, knew now why Jim had beaten up Darren Rough. Displaced anger: he hadn’t been hitting Rough; he’d been hitting his father.

She slid down the door until she was crouching, arms hugging her knees. Rebus lowered himself on to the bottom step of the staircase, tried to make sense of it: Joseph Margolies had abused his own daughter... what would have made him turn to a boy like Darren Rough? Ince’s insistence, perhaps; or simple lust and curiosity, the thought of more forbidden fruit...

Katherine Margolies’ voice was calm again. ‘I think Jim joined the police as another way of telling his father something, telling him he’d never forget, never forgive.’

‘But if he knew all along about his father, why did he kill himself?’

‘I’ve told you! Because of Hannah.’

‘His sister?’

She gave a wild, humourless laugh. ‘Of course not.’ Paused for breath. ‘Our daughter, Inspector. I mean Hannah, our daughter. Jim had... he’d been worried for some time.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’d noticed he wasn’t sleeping. I’d wake in the night and he’d be lying there in the darkness, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. One night he told me. He felt I ought to know.’

‘What was he worried about?’

‘That he was turning into his father. That there was some genetic component, something he had no control over.’

‘You mean Hannah?’

She nodded. ‘He said he tried not to have the thoughts, but they came anyway. He looked at her and no longer saw his daughter.’ Her eyes were on the pattern in the floor. ‘He saw something else, something to be desired...’

Finally Rebus saw it. Saw all Jim Margolies’ fears, saw the past which had haunted him and the expectation of recurrence. Saw why the man had turned to young-looking prostitutes. Saw the dread of history. Not in polite society. If families like the Margolies and the Petries represented polite society, Rebus wanted nothing to do with it.

‘He’d been quiet all evening,’ Katherine Margolies went on. ‘Once or twice I caught him looking at Hannah, and I could see how scared he was.’ She rubbed the palm of either hand over her eyes, looked up to the ceiling, demanding something more from it than the comfort of cornice and chandelier. The noise that escaped from her throat was like something from a caged animal.

‘On the way home, he stopped the car and ran. I went after him, and he was just standing there. At first, I didn’t realise he was at the very edge of the Crags. He must have heard me. Next thing, he’d vanished. It was like a stunt, something a stage magician would do. Then I realised what it was. He’d jumped. I felt... well, I don’t know what I felt. Numb, betrayed, shocked.’ She shook her head, unsure even now what her feelings were towards the man who had killed himself rather than give in to his most feral craving. ‘I walked back to the car. Hannah was asking where her daddy was. I said he’d gone for a walk. I drove us home. I didn’t go down to help him. I didn’t do anything. Christ knows why.’ Now she ran her hands through her hair.

Rebus got up, pushed open a door. It led into a formal dining room. Decanters on a polished sideboard. He sniffed one, poured a large glass of whisky. Took it through to the hall and handed it to Katherine Margolies. Went back to fetch another for himself. He saw the sequence now: Jane Barbour telling Jim that Rough was coming back to town; Jim dusting off the case, becoming intrigued by the third man. Knowing his father had been working in children’s homes. Wanting to know, quizzing Darren Rough, his world collapsing in on him...

‘You know,’ his widow was saying, ‘Jim wasn’t scared of dying. He said there was a coachman.’

‘Coachman?’

‘He took you to wherever it was you went when you died.’ She looked up at him. ‘Do you know that story?’

Rebus nodded. ‘An old Edinburgh ghost story, that’s all it is.’

‘You don’t believe in ghosts then?’

‘I wouldn’t say that necessarily.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Jim,’ he said. When he looked around, there wasn’t a ghost to be seen.

51

A week later, Rebus received a phone call from Brian Mee.

‘What’s up, Brian?’ Rebus already guessing from the tone of voice.

‘Ah, shite, John, she’s left me.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Brian.’

‘Are you?’ There was a hint of disbelief in the laugh that followed.

‘I really am, I’m sorry.’

‘She told you, though?’

‘In a roundabout sort of way.’ Rebus paused. ‘So do you know where she is?’

‘Cut the crap, John. She’s at your flat.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. She’s biding with you.’

‘First I’ve heard of it.’

‘She doesn’t know anybody else over there.’

‘There are bed and breakfasts, rooms to rent...’

‘You’re not putting her up?’

‘You’ve got my word for it.’

There was a long silence on the line. ‘Christ, man, I’m sorry. I’m off my head with worry here.’

‘Only to be expected, Brian.’

‘Think it’s worth my while coming to look for her?’

Rebus exhaled. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think she used to love me.’

‘But not any more?’

‘She wouldn’t have left otherwise.’

‘True enough.’

‘Even if she finds Damon, I don’t think she’s coming back.’

‘Give her some time, Brian.’

‘Aye, sure.’ Brian Mee sniffed. ‘Know something? I used to like it that folk called me Barney. I know how I got the name, you know.’

‘I thought you said you didn’t?’

‘Oh aye, but I know all the same. Barney Rubble. Because folk thought I was like him. Somebody said it to me once, not just “Barney” but “Barney Rubble”.’

Rebus smiled. ‘But you liked the name anyway?’

‘I didn’t say that. I said I liked that I had a nickname. It was a sort of identity, wasn’t it? And that’s better than nothing.’

Rebus’s smile stretched. He was seeing Barney Mee, the tough little battler, wading in to save Mitch. The years separating the present from that long-ago event seemed to fall away. It was as if the two could live side by side, the past a ghostly presence forever of the here and now. Nothing lost; nothing forgotten; redemption always a possibility.

But if that was true, how could he explain that Dr Margolies would never see a court of law, his crimes known only to the few? And how to explain that the Procurator Fiscal seemed able to prosecute Cary Oakes only for the attempted murder of Alan Archibald? All the forensic evidence connecting him to Jim Stevens could be explained away: fingerprints and fibres in Stevens’ car — Oakes had ridden in it before. Hell, three police officers had watched him being driven away from the airport in it. The Stevens file would be kept open, but no one would be investigating. Everyone knew who’d done it. But short of a confession, there was nothing they could do.

‘Let’s stick to our strongest suit,’ the fiscal depute had said. This meant discarding the attack on Rebus, too, even though the taxi driver had been willing to testify.

‘Too many possible arguments for the defence,’ the fiscal depute had said. Rebus tried not to take it personally. He knew prosecution was a game all to itself, where the best player might lose, the cheat prosper. He knew it was the job of the police to investigate and present the facts. It was the job of lawyers like Richie Cordover to then twist everything around until they could persuade juries and witnesses that Celtic fans sang ‘The Sash’ and Cowdenbeath was an ideal holiday location.

‘Hey, John?’ Brian Mee was saying.

‘Yes, Barney?’

Brian laughed at that. ‘What about coming through some weekend, just you and me, eh? Double-act at the karaoke, and see if we can dust off some chat-up lines.’

‘Sounds tempting, Barney. I’ll give you a bell some time.’ Both men knowing he wouldn’t.

‘Right then, that’s you on a promise.’

‘Cheers, Barney.’

‘Bye, John. It was good to catch up with you...’

Another paedophile had been released from prison, this time in Glasgow. GAP had organised a bus and headed off for Renfrew, where he was rumoured to be holed up. Some of the younger males in the company had gone for a night on the town, which had ended with a full-scale battle raging through the streets.

It was hoped, at least in some quarters, that the resulting negative publicity would sound the organisation’s death knell. But Van Brady was still giving interviews and getting her picture in the papers, still applying to the Lottery for funding. Journalists liked that she talked almost exclusively in sound-bites, even if half of them had to be toned down for publication.

There was a memorial service for Jim Stevens. Rebus went along. He suspected that in his day Stevens had probably fallen out with at least three-quarters of the mourners. But there were eulogies and sombre faces, and Rebus couldn’t help feeling that Jim wouldn’t have wanted it that way. Afterwards, he held a little wake of his own in the Oxford Bar’s back room with three or four of the loudest, rudest, and funniest hacks around. They drank till well after midnight, their laughter almost drowning out the music from the ceilidh band in the corner.

Rebus stumbled down the road to Oxford Terrace, dumped his clothes in the washing basket and had a shower.

‘You still reek,’ Patience told him as he climbed into bed.

‘I’m keeping up traditions,’ Rebus said. ‘Edinburgh’s not called “Auld Reekie” for nothing.’

He thought it curious that Cal Brady should want to speak to him. Cal was out on bail, awaiting trial for various offences against the person on the night of the Renfrew stramash. The morning phone call was so unexpected, Rebus walked out of the station without telling anyone where he was going. They met up on Radical Road. Cal had wanted somewhere not too far from home, but not a cop-shop, somewhere they could talk without anyone hearing.

The wind was flying, stinging Rebus’s ears. There were occasional blasts of sunshine as the fast-moving clouds broke, only to blot out the sun again moments later. Cal Brady had deep bruises beneath both eyes, and a burst lip. His left hand sported a bandage and he seemed to limp ever so slightly as he walked.

‘Bad one, was it?’ Rebus asked.

‘Those weegies...’ Cal shook his head.

‘I thought it was Renfrew?’

‘Renfrew, Glasgow... all the same, man. Mad bastards, each and every one. Their idea of a square go is to rip your face off with their teeth.’ He shivered, pulled his denim jacket tighter around him.

‘You could button it up,’ Rebus told him.

‘Eh?’

‘The jacket... if you’re cold.’

‘Aye, but it looks stupid when you do that. Levi jackets are only cool when they’re open.’ Rebus had no answer to that. ‘I hear you got a bit of a scrape yourself.’

Rebus looked at his arm. No sling now, just a taped compress. Another week or so, the stitches would dissolve. ‘What did you want to see me for, Cal?’

‘These fucking charges.’

‘What about them?’

‘I’ll probably end up going down, record I’ve got.’

‘So?’

‘So, I could do without it.’ He twitched a shoulder. ‘Gonny help me out?’

‘You mean put in a good word?’

‘Aye.’

Rebus stuck his hands in his pockets, as if relaxing. In truth, he’d been on his guard ever since arriving at the meeting-point five minutes before Brady: on the lookout for traps or a possible ambush. Lessons learned from Cary Oakes. ‘Why should I do that?’ he asked.

‘Look, I’m no fucking snitch, right?’

Rebus nodded agreement, as seemed to be expected.

‘But I hear things.’ He paused. ‘Try not to, but sometimes I can’t help it.’

‘Such as?’

‘So you’ll put a word in?’

Rebus stopped walking. He seemed to be admiring the vista. ‘I could tell them you’re one of mine. I could make you sound important.’

‘But I wouldn’t be your grass, right? That’s the crux.’

Rebus nodded. ‘But you’ve got something to trade?’

Cal looked around, as if even here he might be overheard. When he lowered his voice, Rebus had to move close to him to hear what he was saying over the noise of the wind.

‘You know I work for Mr Mackenzie?’

‘You’re his enforcer.’

Brady prickled at that. ‘Sometimes he’s owed money. Happens to a lot of businesses.’

‘Sure.’

‘I make sure his debtors know the risks they’re taking.’

Rebus smiled. ‘A nice way of putting it.’

Brady looked around again. ‘Petrie,’ he said, like this would explain everything.

‘I know,’ Rebus said. ‘Nicky Petrie owed Charmer money, got beaten up in lieu of a final reminder.’

But Brady was shaking his head. ‘It was his sister owed the money.’

‘Ama?’ Brady nodded. ‘So why thump Nicky?’

Brady snorted. ‘She’s a cold, hard bitch. Maybe you haven’t noticed. But she likes her little brother. She loves little Nicky...’

‘So you were sending the message to her?’ Rebus thought about it, remembered something Ama had said to him at the beauty contest: Who do I owe money to? ‘Why didn’t she get the money from her father?’

‘Story is, she wouldn’t ask him for the time of day, and he wouldn’t give it to her if he’d a watch on either arm.’

‘I still don’t know what this has to do with me.’

‘That flat of theirs.’

‘What about it?’

‘She lives there. The blonde you were looking for.’

Rebus stared at Brady. ‘She’s in that flat?’ Brady was nodding. ‘What’s her name?’

‘I think it’s Nicola.’

‘How do you know all this?’

Brady shrugged. ‘They can’t help talking, that little gang.’

Rebus thought of the scene on the boat... the way the drunk had been about to say something until warned off by Ama Petrie...

‘They know about this Nicola?’

‘They all know.’

Which meant they’d all lied to Rebus... including the brother and sister, Nicky and Ama.

‘Is she Nicky’s girlfriend?’

Brady shrugged again.

‘Or Ama’s maybe?’

‘I don’t get involved,’ Brady said, waving his hand as though to cut the discussion dead.

‘How about you, Cal? Still living with Joanna?’

‘Nothing to do with you.’

‘How’s Billy Boy? Don’t you think he’d be better off with his dad?’

‘That’s not what Joanna wants.’

‘Has anyone asked Billy what he wants?’

Brady’s voice rose. ‘He’s just a kid. How’s he supposed to know what’s best for him?’

‘I bet when you were his age you knew what you wanted.’

‘Maybe,’ Brady conceded after a moment’s thought. ‘But I’ll give you odds-on I didn’t get it.’ He laughed. ‘Maybe I’m still not getting it. Know what I think about that?’

‘What?’

‘Just watch.’

And Rebus did watch, as Cal Brady unzipped his fly, took out his penis, and began to urinate off the edge of Radical Road. Standing well back from the performance, it seemed to Rebus that he was pissing on Holyrood and Greenfield and St Leonard’s, pissing in a giant arc over the whole city.

And if Rebus had been able, at that exact moment he might have joined him.

52

Returning to St Leonard’s with Siobhan Clarke after a call-out, Rebus made a detour to the New Town. Clarke knew better than to ask why: he’d tell her in his own good time and not before.

It was late afternoon, and he sat kerbside, indicators flashing, wondering about Nicky Petrie. To pay a visit, or not to pay a visit? Would the girlfriend be there? Would Petrie string together another series of lies and half-truths? Clarke was about to open her mouth to say something when she saw his hands tighten on the steering-wheel.

A woman was coming down the steps from Petrie’s building. Rebus saw for the first time that a taxi was waiting. She stepped into it. He’d caught only a glimpse of her: tall, willowy. A blonde pageboy cut. Black dress and tights beneath a billowing black wool coat. Rebus switched off the indicators, made to follow the cab, started explaining the situation to Clarke.

‘Where do you think she’s going?’

‘Only one way to find out.’

The taxi headed towards Princes Street, crossed it and crawled up The Mound. Through traffic lights at the top and took a right down Victoria Street. Grassmarket was the destination. Nicola paid the driver, got out. She looked around, somewhat uncertainly. Her face was like a mask.

‘Bit heavy on the make-up,’ Clarke commented. Rebus was trying to find a parking space. Finding none, he left the car on a single yellow line. If he got a ticket, it could join the others in the glove compartment.

‘Where did she go?’ he asked, getting out of the car.

‘Down Cowgate, I think,’ Clarke said.

‘Hell does she want down there?’

While Grassmarket itself had been gentrified, the area immediately to the east was still Hostel City: a place the city’s dispossessed could, for the moment, call its own. Things would doubtless be different once the politicians moved in down the road.

They stood on street corners, or sat on the steps of disused churches — baggy-trousered and grim-bearded, with too few teeth, and stooped backs. As Rebus and Clarke rounded the corner, they saw that the woman was walking with exaggerated slowness through a phalanx of admirers, only a smattering of whom bothered asking her for spare change and cigarettes.

‘Likes to show off,’ Clarke said.

‘And not too fussy with it.’

‘Just one thing bothering me, sir...’

But Nicola had turned to acknowledge a wolf-whistle, and as she did so she saw them. She turned again quickly and upped her pace, keeping a tight hold of her zebra-skin shoulder-bag.

‘Not the world’s greatest surveillance,’ Clarke said.

‘She knows us,’ Rebus hissed. They broke into a trot, ran along the pavement below George IV Bridge. She wore flat-heeled shoes, ran well despite the tangle of her long coat. She found a gap in the traffic and darted across the road. Cowgate was horrible: a narrow canyon, with high-sided buildings. When traffic built up, the carbon monoxide had no place to go. The stitches in Rebus’s chest slowed him down.

‘Guthrie Street,’ Clarke said. That was where Nicola was headed. It would bring her up on to Chambers Street, where she could more easily lose her pursuers. But as she turned into the steep wynd, she bumped into someone. The collision sent her spinning. Something fell to the ground, but she kept running. Rebus paused to scoop it up. A short blonde wig.

‘What the hell?’

‘That’s what I was trying to tell you, sir,’ Clarke said. Ahead of them, Nicola was tiring, holding the wall for support as she hauled herself up the incline. Limping, too, an ankle twisted in the collision. Eventually, just as she reached Chambers Street, her hair short and merely fair now rather than blonde, she gave up, stood with her back to the wall, panting noisily. Perspiration was streaking the make-up. Behind the mask, Rebus saw someone he knew only too well.

Not Nicola, Nicky. Nicky Petrie.

Petrie’s words: Straitlaced old town, how else are we going to get our thrills...?

Rebus’s heart was on fire as he stopped in front of him. He could hardly get the words out.

‘It’s story time, Mr Petrie.’ He slapped the wig down on Nicky Petrie’s head. Petrie, with a show of disgust, removed the wig, held it to his face. It was hard to make out now what was sweat and what was tears.

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ he kept saying.

‘Where’s Damon Mee?’

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’

‘I don’t think He’s in a position to help you, Nicky.’

Rebus looked at the clothes. They could belong to Ama Petrie: brother and sister were of similar build, Nicky slightly taller and broader. The black dress looked tight on him.

‘This is what you like to do, Nicky? Dress up as a woman?’

‘No harm in it,’ Clarke added quickly. ‘We’re all different.’

Nicky looked at her, blinking to refocus his eyes.

‘You could do with a makeover, sweetheart,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘You’re probably right.’

‘Who does your make-up, Nicky?’ Rebus asked. ‘Ama?’

He straightened up. ‘All my own work.’

‘And then you head for this side of town? Walk up and down and soak up the admiration?’

‘I don’t expect you to—’

‘Nobody’s asking what you expect, Mr Petrie.’ He turned to Clarke. ‘Go fetch the car.’ Handed her the keys. ‘We’ll need to take Mr Petrie here to the station.’

Petrie’s eyes widened with fear. ‘Why?’

‘To answer a few questions about Damon Mee. And to explain why you’ve been lying to us all along.’

Petrie made to say something, then bit his lip.

‘Suit yourself,’ Rebus told him. Then, to Clarke: ‘Go get the car.’

Rebus questioned Nicky Petrie for half an hour. He made sure that anyone who wanted to gawp had the chance to come into the interview room. Petrie sat there with his head in his hands, not looking up, while a parade of CID and uniforms commented on his shoes, tights and dress.

‘I can get you some trousers and a shirt,’ Rebus offered.

‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ Petrie said when they were alone. ‘Humiliate me all you like, this lady’s not for talking.’ He managed a small defiant smile.

‘I’m sure your dad will come riding to the rescue anyway,’ Rebus commented, pleased to see some of the colour leave the young man’s lips.

‘I don’t need my father.’

‘That’s as may be, but we’ll need to contact him. Best for us to do it rather than the papers.’

‘Papers?’

Rebus barked a laugh. ‘Think they’ll let something like this pass them by? No, sir, you’re going to be cover-boy for a day, Nicky. Congratulations. Bit of pan-stick and a wig, they might even pay you for the privilege.’

‘They don’t need to know,’ Petrie said quietly.

Rebus shrugged. ‘Cop-shops are like sieves, Nicky. All these people who’ve seen you here... I can’t promise they won’t talk.’

‘Bastard.’

‘If you like, Nicky.’ Rebus leaned forward. ‘All I want to know is where I can find Damon Mee.’

‘Then I can’t help you,’ Nicky Petrie said, with all the defiance he could muster.

Plan Two: Ama Petrie.

She flew into the station like a whirlwind. Cal Brady was right: she had a soft spot for her little brother.

‘Where is he? What have you done with him?’

Rebus looked at her with a façade of utter calm. ‘Shouldn’t those be my questions?’

She didn’t seem to understand.

‘Damon Mee,’ Rebus explained. ‘Nicky met him at Gaitano’s, took him to the boat where you were having one of your parties. That’s the last time he was seen alive, Ms Petrie.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with Nicky.’

They were seated in the same interview room, Nicky Petrie having been taken down to the cells. It was also the same interview room where Harold Ince had first been questioned. Ince had been sentenced to twelve years, Marshall to eight, the bulk of both sentences to be served at Peterhead. Had Rebus known anyone there, he might have put in a word for Ince. But he didn’t know a single damned soul...

‘What’s got nothing to do with Nicky?’ he asked.

‘It’s my fault, not his.’

Rebus understood: she thought Nicky had talked, had somehow incriminated himself. She was underestimating him. The chink in her armour which Cal Brady had detected: she loved her brother too much.

Rebus sat back, knew how to play this. He asked her if she wanted anything to drink. She shook her head violently.

‘I want to make a statement,’ she blurted out.

‘You’ll probably want a solicitor, Ms Petrie.’

‘Bugger that.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Is Nicky here? In this station?’

‘Safely in the cells.’

‘Safely?’ Her voice trembled. ‘Poor Nicky...’ She was dry-eyed but her face was tense.

‘Did Damon Mee know Nicky wasn’t really a woman?’

‘How could he not?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Your brother’s pretty convincing.’

She allowed herself a brief smile. ‘He always said he should have been the girl and I the boy.’

Rebus knew Nicky had run away from home aged twelve. He’d been running ever since...

‘So what happened on the boat?’

‘We’d all been drinking.’ She looked at him. ‘You know what parties are like.’

She was trying to win him round to her side. Too late for that, but he nodded anyway.

‘Then Nicky brought this piece of rough below decks.’

‘Piece of rough?’

‘As in rough and ready. I’m not being a snob, Inspector.’

‘Of course not. I take it all of you knew Nicky’s... preferences?’

‘The gang of us, yes. A few couples were up dancing. Nicky and this Damon joined them.’ Her eyes went unfocused; she was picturing the scene. ‘Nicky had his head on Damon’s shoulder, and just for a moment our eyes met... and he looked so happy.’ She screwed shut her eyes.

‘Then what happened?’

She opened her eyes again, staring at the desk. ‘Alfie and Cherie were one of the other couples. Alfie was as drunk as I’ve ever seen him. For a joke, he leaned over and snatched Nicky’s wig. Nicky chased him round the room. And Damon just stood there, like he was thunderstruck. He looked... it really seemed hilarious at the time. His face was a picture. Then he ran for the stairs. Nicky saw what was happening and went after him...’

‘They had a fight?’

She looked at him. ‘Is that what he told you?’ She smiled. ‘Dear Nicky... You’ve seen him, Inspector. He couldn’t hurt a fly. No, by the time I came up on deck, this Damon person had Nicky down on the ground. He was strangling the life out of him, at the same time thumping his head against the deck. Lifting it... thudding it back down. I grabbed an empty wine bottle, swung it at the side of his head. It didn’t knock him cold or anything. The bottle didn’t even break, not like in the films. But he let go of Nicky, staggered to his feet.’

‘And?’

‘And seemed to lose his balance. He fell over the side and into the water. It’s funny... the deck’s not that high above the water line... he hardly made a sound as he fell.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I had to make sure Nicky was all right. I took him back down below. His throat hurt, but I got a brandy down him.’

‘I meant, what did you do about Damon?’

‘Oh, him...’ She thought it over. ‘Well, by the time I went back up, there was no sign of him. I assumed he’d swum ashore.’

Rebus stared at her. ‘Are you quite sure that’s what you assumed?’

‘To be honest... I’m not sure I thought anything at all. He was gone, and he couldn’t hurt Nicky, that was all that mattered. That’s all that ever matters to me. So you see, whatever Nicky’s told you, he only did in order to protect me. I’m the one you should put in the cell. Nicky should go home.’

‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘You will let him go, won’t you?’

He stood up, leaned across the desk towards her. ‘I know Damon’s family. I’ve seen the way they’ve been suffering. Your precious brother doesn’t know the half of it.’

She glowered at him. ‘And why should he?’

He thought of a thousand answers, knew she’d rebut every one of them. Instead, he told her he’d need a written statement. He’d send someone in to take it. He made for the door.

‘And then you’ll let Nicky out, won’t you, Inspector?’

His one little victory: he left without saying a word.