Standing in another's man grave

‘Guilty as charged.’

‘You sound tired, too. Is everything all right?’

‘As well as can be expected.’

‘And the inquiry?’

‘See my previous answer.’

There was silence on the line for a moment. ‘Do you mind me calling?’

He closed his eyes. ‘No,’ he told her.

‘And when you get news, you’ll tell me?’

‘Didn’t I promise?’ I think your daughter’s alive. .

‘Promises aren’t always kept, John. Should I come north again? I’d like to see you.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ Your daughter’s alive, but why did she leave?

‘You sound. .’

‘Tired?’

‘No, not just tired — strange. Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘I have to go, Nina.’ Why would she not get in touch when she knows you’re out there, desperate and searching?

‘John, I-’

He ended the call just as Clarke returned to the table.

‘Let me guess,’ she said, watching him switch off the phone and place it on the table. Then, sitting down: ‘You really don’t want to tell her about Susie Mercer?’

‘No.’

‘I can see how it might make things worse. On the other hand. .’

Rebus ignored her and picked up the fresh pint.

‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘Here’s tae us.’

As he drank, he couldn’t help but think of the rest of the toast.

Wha’s like us?

Gey few-

And they’re a’ deid. .

39

Malcolm Fox’s drink of choice was Appletiser. He never touched alcohol, not these days. He always recycled the empty bottles, along with paper, cans, plastic and cardboard. Now the council was asking him to recycle kitchen waste too, and he was running out of room in his bungalow for all the boxes and bags. He already had a compost bin in his back garden, though it was only ever added to in the summer — lawn trimmings and the few weeds he could be bothered to dig up. Fox wasn’t convinced any of it made a difference, yet he found himself unable not to comply. Though the bungalow had no party walls, he always kept the volume low on the TV, and seldom listened to music. He liked reading — almost as much as he liked work.

It would have been against regulations to bring home the files on John Rebus, even if he could have carried them. But he prided himself on his memory and had jotted down pages of salient details, along with several decades’ worth of supposition, rumour and claim. He felt he knew the man almost as well as anyone he’d ever met. Right now, Rebus would be in some boozer somewhere, probably running up a tab that would never require paying. Rebus wouldn’t see that as either bribe or inducement, but rather as standard operating procedure. Time was, plenty of his fellow detectives would have felt the same, but those days were past, the combatants long retired from the field. Fox wished Rebus would just take his carcass overseas to some beachside taverna where he could pickle himself at his leisure while spending some of that accrued pension. Instead of which, he had reapplied for a CID posting.

The sheer bloody nerve of the man.

What was more, he still had at least one champion on the force — the Chief Constable had sided with him, and had told Fox that if the Complaints were going to raise an objection, they’d best build a bloody good case.

Look at the man’s record, Malcolm. Who else managed to put Big Ger Cafferty away?

Yes, that counted as a big tick for Rebus, but Fox himself was suspicious. Cafferty hadn’t served much of a stretch. How convenient to have someone on the force who seemed to be his nemesis. Seemed being the operative word. Who was to say the two hadn’t been in cahoots? Cafferty had returned to the city apparently stronger than ever, his empire undiminished. How was that possible, and why had no one managed to put him back inside since? Come to that, wasn’t it convenient that Rebus had been on hand at Cafferty’s hospital bed, ready to give CPR when he flatlined? Would you bring your worst enemy back from the dead? The staff had had to drag Rebus away, such had been the intensity of his focus.

Enemies? Fox didn’t think so.

The Chief Constable had challenged him to build a case, and Fox in turn had asked for permission to look at Rebus’s phone accounts — landline and mobile. The Chief had been reluctant, but Fox had worn him down. The relevant paperwork was on its way. He was hopeful there might be a little bomb tucked away there.

Though he didn’t like to admit it, there was something else about Rebus that gnawed at him. It was the lifestyle. The smell of smoke on the man’s suits — always supposing he owned more than one suit. The pale, pasty face and the three or four extra stone he seemed to carry. And the drink.

The drink above all.

Fox had ceased to take alcohol because he was an alcoholic, while Rebus continued to sup for the exact same reason. Somehow, though, Rebus still functioned, while Fox seldom had. Alcohol fogged his mind and made him short-tempered. It gave him the sweats and the shakes and nights of the worst possible dreams. Rebus was probably the kind who slept better after a dozen or so malts, damn the man.

Then there was the fact that Fox had seen Rebus in action. Their time together in CID had been short, but it had been enough, the preening ego obvious from the start — always late, or off somewhere, the paperwork piling up on his desk while he coughed his way to another cigarette break. If in doubt, Fox had been told, try the pub across the street, you can usually find him there, deep in thought with a whisky in front of him.

Did I nick your sweets in the playground and now you need to get your own back. .?

It wasn’t that at all. The force had spent generations tolerating and turning a blind eye to cops like Rebus. Those men were gone now, memories of them fading, their foibles no longer humoured by officers of Fox’s generation. Rebus was the last. He had to be convinced that his time was past. Then there was Siobhan Clarke, a good detective who had flourished once freed from Rebus’s influence. Now that he was back, her loyalty to him could well prove her undoing. So Fox sat on his sofa with the TV news channel muted, sifting through his pages of notes on the man. Ex-army, divorced, one daughter. A brother who’d served time for drug-dealing. No current relationships, other than with the bottle and anyone who happened to sell tobacco. A flat in Marchmont, bought back when he was first married, that no cop would be able to afford these days. A string of one-time colleagues who had fallen by the wayside, including a couple killed in the line of duty. Whichever way you looked at it, Rebus was bad news. Siobhan Clarke had to know that. She wasn’t stupid. The Chief Constable should know it too. Did Rebus have something on the boss — was that the explanation? Something buried in all the paperwork? And maybe there was some hold he had over DI Clarke, too — missed by Fox despite his diligence.

He knew what he had to do. Start reading again. Start from the very beginning. .

Information was always worth paying for, that was the way Cafferty looked at it. The cop’s name was Ormiston and he didn’t come cheap, but he had delivered tonight. Cafferty tapped Darryl Christie’s number into his phone and waited. The young man answered.

‘You on your own?’ Cafferty asked.

‘Just driving home.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’