29
Rebus told her to wait for him in the car when they reached Arden Street. She peered up, saw the light come on in his living room. Less than five minutes later it went off again, and Rebus emerged from the building.
“Am I allowed to ask?” she said.
“Let’s save the surprise,” he answered with a wink.
As he drove them out of Marchmont, she noticed that he seemed interested in the rearview mirror.
“Someone behind us?” she guessed.
“I don’t think so.”
“But you wouldn’t be surprised if there was?”
“Lot of people seem to know my address,” he commented.
“Gray and McCullough?”
“To name but two.”
“And the others?”
“So far, one’s turned up dead and the other’s gone AWOL.”
She thought it through. “Dickie Diamond and the Weasel?”
“We’ll make a detective of you yet,” he told her.
She was silent for a few moments, until she thought of something. “You know where Cafferty lives?” She waited till he’d nodded. “Then you know more than I do.”
“That’s why I’m the senior officer,” he said with a smile. When she stayed quiet, he decided she deserved more than this. “I like to keep tabs on Mr. Cafferty. It’s by way of a hobby.”
“You know the rumors?”
He turned his head to her. “That I’m in his pocket?”
“That the pair of you are too similar.”
“Oh, we’re similar all right . . . like Cain and Abel were.”
Cafferty’s home was a large detached house at the end of a cul-de-sac behind the Astley Ainslie Hospital, in the Grange area of the city. The street suffered from poor lighting — probably the only time it came into contact with an adjective like “poor.”
“I think this is the one,” Rebus said.
Siobhan looked. There was no sign of Cafferty’s red Jaguar. There was a garage at the side of the house, however, so maybe it had been put to bed for the night. Behind the downstairs curtains, the lights were on. Curtains weren’t that usual in streets as des. res. as this one. The owners either used the original shutters or else left them open so that pedestrians could peer jealously through the windows. It was a solid-looking stone-built residence on at least three floors, matching bay windows to either side of the front door.
“Not bad for an ex-con,” Siobhan stated.
“Be a while before he has us as neighbors,” Rebus agreed.
“Unless he suddenly comes down in the world.”
There were three steps up to the front door, but when they tried the garden gate, it was locked. The gates to the driveway looked locked too. Movement-sensitive lights were suddenly bathing them in halogen. The curtains twitched, and a few seconds later the front door opened.
The man standing there was tall and wiry, with a tight black T-shirt showing off thick shoulder muscles and a flat stomach. His stance was classic club doorman: legs apart, arms folded.
“Can Big Ger come out to play?” Rebus asked. He could hear a dog barking inside. Next moment, it came flying from between the bodyguard’s legs.
Siobhan snapped her fingers and made clicking noises with her tongue. “Hello there, Claret.” At the sound of its name, the spaniel pricked its ears up and waggled its tail all the way to the gate, where Siobhan had dropped to a crouch so it could sniff her fingers. Moments later, it was off again, sniffing its way across the lawn.
The bodyguard had turned into the house to speak to someone, perhaps surprised that Siobhan had known the dog’s name.
“Claret?” Rebus asked.
“I met her at Cafferty’s office,” she explained. Rebus watched Claret pause to pee on the lawn, then turned his attention to the doorway. Cafferty was standing there in a thick blue bathrobe, rubbing his hair dry with a matching towel.
“Brought your swimsuits?” he cried out, nodding to the bodyguard before retreating back inside. The bodyguard pressed a button and the gate clicked open. Claret decided to follow them indoors.
The wide hallway boasted four marble pillars and two Chinese urns, each a similar height to Siobhan.
“Need bloody big flowers to fill those,” Rebus said to the guard, who was leading them towards the back of the house.
“Your name’s Joe, isn’t it?” Siobhan said suddenly. The guard stared at her. “I recognize you from a club I sometimes visit with my mates.”
“I don’t do that anymore,” Joe said. Siobhan had turned to Rebus.
“Joe here was the doorman . . . always a smile for the ladies.”
“Is that right, Joe?” Rebus said. “What’s your other name?”
“Buckley.”
“And how does Joe Buckley like working for the east coast’s most notorious gangster?”
Buckley looked at him. “I like it fine.”
“Plenty of chances to put the frighteners on people, eh? Is that in the job description, or just one of the perks?” Rebus was smiling. “Know what happened to the poor sod you’ve replaced, Joe? He’s going down for murder. Just something for you to bear in mind. Club bouncer might have been the smarter career move.”
Through a door and down some steps they found themselves at another door, which led into a vast conservatory, most of the space taken up by an eight-meter swimming pool. Cafferty stood behind the poolside bar, dropping ice into three glasses.
“An evening ritual,” he explained. “You still drink whiskey, Strawman?”
“Depends what you’ve got.”
“Glenmorangie or Bowmore.”
“I’ll take a Bowmore — without the ice.”
“No ice,” Cafferty acknowledged, emptying Rebus’s glass. “Siobhan, what about you?”
“DS Clarke,” she corrected him, noting that Buckley had left them.
“Still on duty, eh? I’ve got some bitter lemon — might suit that scowl on your face.”
They could hear Claret scratching at the door behind them. “Basket, Claret! Basket!” Cafferty growled. “This is the one part of the house that’s out of bounds,” he told them. Then he lifted a bottle of bitter lemon from the fridge.
“Vodka and tonic,” Siobhan said.
“That’s more like it.” Cafferty grinned as he poured. His hair was thin and spiky where he’d rubbed it with the towel. The robe, capacious as it was, barely stretched around him, so that the tufts of gray hair on his chest were exposed.
“I take it you’ve got zoning permission for this?” Rebus asked, gazing at the surroundings.
“Is that what you’re reduced to? Zoning violations?” Cafferty laughed and handed them their drinks, nodding towards a table. They sat down.
“Cheers,” he said, raising his glass of whiskey.
“Good health,” Rebus said, his face set like stone.
Cafferty swallowed a mouthful and exhaled. “So what brings you out at this time of night?”
“Do you know anyone called Montrose?” Rebus asked, swirling his own drink around the inside of the glass.
