Standing in another's man grave

64

Nothing happened.

Rebus went into work each day and watched as more and more boxes were decanted. Men in overalls came with trolleys to take them away, and someone from the Crown Office Cold Case Unit arrived to thank them for their work and offer assurances that none of the cases on Lothian and Borders’ books would be forgotten. This man seemed already to know Daniel Cowan, and the two of them disappeared for a long lunch. Afterwards, Cowan’s cheeks were rosy and he had a wide smile for everyone in the room.

‘You got the job, didn’t you?’ Elaine Robison asked, while Rebus and Peter Bliss feigned a lack of interest.

‘Nothing’s official yet.’

‘You did, though,’ she went on, and Cowan’s smile grew broader.

SCRU was being wound up at the end of the week, but by Wednesday the shelves were empty. An IT technician went through their computers, saving files on to a single portable hard drive before deleting everything.

‘Means we can recycle the units,’ he explained.

Watching, Rebus was reminded of the scene in 2001, the voice of HAL slowing down inexorably.

‘To think of all the blood, sweat and tears,’ Bliss commented.

Rebus had taken him out for a drink one evening, laying out his theories about Gregor and Kenny Magrath. Bliss had been reluctant to concede any of the possibilities proposed, and had eventually walked out of the bar, since when his attitude had been one of professional courtesy only. Rebus had left a note on his colleague’s desk — Just have a think back — does anything jar? — which Bliss had crumpled into a ball and dropped into the waste-paper bin.

‘You two,’ Robison had chided them. ‘Why can’t you play nice?’

‘He started it,’ Rebus had answered, hoping to elicit a smile from Bliss.

A forlorn hope, as it turned out.

He spoke to Siobhan Clarke by phone, keeping up to date with the Inverness inquiry, Gavin Arnold having been warned — presumably by Dempsey — not to pass titbits to him. Clarke wasn’t much help. Now that the Inverness team had all the information on Annette McKie from the Edinburgh end, James Page and his officers were being frozen out. Dempsey had even come south, re-interviewing Gail McKie, Frank Hammell and Thomas Redfern. A further request had seen the bus station’s CCTV footage forwarded to Northern Constabulary HQ.

‘None of which is going to help them,’ Rebus had told Clarke. ‘They’re just scratching around for want of anything else to do.’

Nothing prejudicial had been found in either Magrath’s van or the Land Rover. After exhaustive tests, nothing alien on or in Annette McKie’s body could be linked to Kenny Magrath — the pubic hair had belonged to Frank Hammell. The funeral had eventually been allowed to go ahead, as had services for the other four victims. Watching the footage on TV — Darryl leading the mourners, his mother clinging to his arm, Hammell nowhere to be seen — Rebus realised he knew the cemetery: it was the same one where Jimmy Wallace was buried. He remembered that day, the pall-bearers called forward by number, the wailing widow, and Tommy Beamish sidling up to him.

Too many like Jimmy — gold watch, and soon after they’re on a slab. . Is that why you keep working. .?

Well, of course it bloody was. What the hell was he going to do next week — take up fishing, or buy a dog? Or more likely sit staring at a gantry of drinks like some of the old-timers he knew, treating a stint at the pub almost as if it were a job in itself.

He’d met Malcolm Fox on the stairs one day, and Fox had stopped to tell him that the Complaints had ceased to have ‘an active interest’ in him.

‘Oh?’

‘For the moment, that is. So good luck with your application.’

‘Aye, right.’

‘I mean it,’ Fox had said, eyes drilling into Rebus’s. ‘I want you back on the force. You’ll screw up sooner rather than later and that’s when we’ll get to know one another better. I just pray you don’t take the likes of Siobhan Clarke down with you. .’

On the Thursday, Elaine Robison had tried to fix a time and place for farewell drinks the following night, but Peter Bliss had grown cool on the idea.

‘I’ve got plans,’ he’d said.

‘The weekend, then?’

Bliss had shaken his head. ‘Let’s just call it a day, eh? It’s not like we’ve anything to celebrate.’

‘Peter. .’

But Bliss had made up his mind. He couldn’t even find it in himself to meet Rebus’s eyes. Not until the Friday afternoon, when they were emptying the contents of their desk drawers into carrier bags, readying to walk out of the office for the last time. Daniel Cowan had already said his goodbyes — he’d gone to a meeting of the new unit, a spring in his step. Robison was in the loo. Bliss had picked his moment and confronted Rebus.

‘Gregor Magrath was one of the good guys,’ he stated. ‘In my books, he still is and always will be. What you’re trying to do is take a dump all over his legacy. I won’t have any part of that, and I’ll never forgive you for it.’

‘Have you talked to him?’ Rebus asked.

‘He’s in agonies about this. Taken in for questioning on your say-so.’ Colour was rising to Bliss’s cheeks, his voice beginning to shake with emotion.

‘He’s been covering his brother’s arse for years.’

‘You’re like a stuck record, Rebus.’

‘Maybe so, but the song’s still a smash. Magrath played you, Peter — is that what sticks in your craw?’

‘The man deserves some dignity.’

‘And what do the victims deserve, eh?’

Bliss made a guttural sound and snatched the carrier bag from his desk, shoving his way past Rebus and stalking down the corridor. Robison came back to find Rebus waiting for her.

‘Guess this is it,’ she said. Then she noted Bliss’s absence.

‘He was in a hurry,’ Rebus apologised. She tried giving him a hard look, but her heart wasn’t in it. They embraced and she pecked his cheek.

‘Here’s to fresh pastures,’ she said, squeezing his arm. Rebus closed the door after them.

That evening, after one too many drinks, he made the usual call. The phone rang at the other end, and kept ringing until the automated voice told him to leave a message.

‘We have to talk, Gregor. You know we do. This has to end.’ Then he repeated his phone number before hanging up. The first half-dozen times, Magrath had actually answered, ending the call only when Rebus identified himself. Since then, however, he had let the machine pick up for him.

Rebus studied his reflection in the living room window. ‘Friday night in the big city, eh?’ he told it, as rain dribbled down the panes. The copies of the missing persons files were still sitting on his dining table, and he pulled out a chair and seated himself in front of them. One day soon he would feel able to bin them, but not just yet. So far nothing had been found that could place Kenny Magrath near the other women on the days they’d been abducted. His paperwork had proved incomplete, but then whose wasn’t? He didn’t keep a diary or hang on to calendars and notebooks, and neither did his wife. Rebus reached across to the bottle of beer and took a slug from it. His hand rested against a letter that had been sitting there a couple of days, the one inviting him to interview by Lothian and Borders Police Applications Board. There was a date for his medical, plus a sheet to be signed and returned, once its boxes had been ticked. Rebus read through it for the umpteenth time as he rubbed the guitar pick between his fingers.

‘Maybe if I’d bought the actual bloody guitar,’ he muttered to himself, before rising to his feet in search of a pen.

Cafferty’s house was a detached Victorian mansion on a leafy street off Colinton Road. It sat in half an acre of grounds with its own coach house. There were plenty of public rooms, but Cafferty usually retreated to his study with its view of the back garden. There was a big old chair there that he’d owned since he was in his twenties. He sat in it to read books, and to think. Tonight he was thinking about Darryl Christie. Christie had invited him to Annette’s funeral. Cafferty had duly turned up at the chapel, noting that the young man had brought some muscle with him — half a dozen faces Cafferty didn’t know. Young but toughened — maybe army vets who’d bailed from Iraq or Afghanistan. They stood apart from the main phalanx of mourners and followed at a distance when the procession headed for the graveside, Darryl and his two younger brothers acting as pall-bearers with three other men.

No Frank Hammell. No Derek Christie.

The cop from up north was there. Cafferty didn’t know her name, but he’d seen her on TV. He’d thought he might see Rebus, but that was another no-show. One of the thickset young men had made his way through the mourners towards Cafferty, leaning in to mutter in his ear that ‘Mr Christie would like a word before you go.’ Cafferty had hung back, watching people as they readied to go to the reception. Darryl had helped his mother into the limo, pecking her on the cheek and closing the door. Then he’d straightened his jacket and tie and headed for Cafferty. Cafferty held out a hand but Christie ignored it.

‘You holding up?’ Cafferty had felt it polite to ask.

‘That’s not the question you really want an answer to.’

‘All right then — where’s Frank Hammell?’

‘He’s out of the game. Signed all his businesses over to me.’ Christie’s eyes had come to rest on Cafferty’s. ‘Is that okay with you?’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

‘Because you still want to feel like a player. But we both know that’s not going to happen now. I’ve seen the way you operate, and that means I’m armed for any fight you want to start.’

‘I’m past all that.’

‘Those are the right words, but your brain needs to start believing them. I’ve studied hard, Cafferty, and I know which bits of this city Hammell controlled. As things stand, I’m not looking for a war — what’s yours is still yours. Only thing that’ll change that is if you decide this is a good time to try a bit of poaching or border-crossing. Do we understand one another?’

And only then had Christie reached out his hand towards Cafferty. The kid was eighteen! Eighteen! At eighteen, Cafferty had been no more than a foot soldier. And now he was being told what was what by a skinny waif with a Napoleon complex and a handful of paid minders to stop him coming to harm.

But he had shaken the hand nonetheless.

Now, as he sat in his study, he knew Darryl Christie had made the right move at the right time. The changeover had been smooth. Hammell was keeping his head down, but as yet no one was saying he wouldn’t be seen alive.

What’s yours is still yours. . as things stand. .

The cheek of the little bastard!

A clever sod, though; not to be underestimated or misjudged. Cafferty was embarrassed at the way he himself had played the whole thing — trying to be avuncular, an arm around a shoulder — when Darryl already had his plans in place, as cool and calculating as you liked.

It was to be admired, at least in the short term.

But when all was said and done, the lad was still in his teens. There were hard lessons he had not yet learned. Mistakes would be made, along with enemies. No one was untouchable.

No one.

Which was why Cafferty rose from his chair and checked that both front and back doors were bolted. .