Resurrection Men

“I was their liaison, that’s all.”

Tennant read the sheet quickly. “They don’t seem too enamored.”

“Covering their arses,” Rebus stated. “Now that I remember, they spent the whole time in the boozer.”

Tennant was looking at him. “This is you just remembering?”

Rebus nodded. Tennant kept staring, but Rebus wasn’t offering anything more.

“Who is this Dickie Diamond?” McCullough asked.

“He was a local small-timer,” Rebus said. “I barely knew him.”

“Past tense?”

“He could still be on the scene for all I know.”

“Was he a suspect?” McCullough asked.

Gray turned to the room. “Anyone turned up a Richard Diamond?” There were shrugs, shakes of the head.

Tennant nodded towards the paperwork in front of McCullough. “Nothing in there about him?”

“Not that I’ve found.”

“Well, there must be something in the files somewhere.” Tennant was talking to the room now. “And if it had been correctly indexed in the first place, it would be right next to this report. As it is, we’d better flag the name and keep looking.”

There were murmurs of “Yes, sir.” Francis Gray added the name to the marker board.

“Any chance your mates in Lothian and Borders could fill us in on this character?” Allan Ward asked, looking for a shortcut.

“No harm in asking,” Rebus told him. “Why don’t you get on the phone?”

Ward frowned. “It’s your patch,” he informed Rebus.

“It’s also Stu’s patch,” Rebus reminded him. Ward glanced towards Stu Sutherland. “But one of the skills we need to learn in an inquiry is transregional cooperation.” It was one of Tennant’s own phrases, which was probably why the DCI made noises of agreement.

Ward looked frustrated by this turn of events. “Fine,” he grunted. “Give me the number.”

Rebus looked to Stu Sutherland. “Do the honors, will you, Stu?”

“Be my pleasure.”

There was a knock at the door, causing Tennant to freeze. But when it opened a couple of inches, Andrea Thomson, rather than the feared posse of chief constables, was standing there. Tennant waved for her to enter.

“It’s just that I’m supposed to be seeing DI Rebus this afternoon, but something else has come up.”

Result! Rebus was thinking.

“So I wondered if you could maybe spare him this morning instead . . .”

She was uncharacteristically tight-lipped on the walk down the corridor, and Rebus gave up trying. But when they got to her door, she hesitated.

“You go in,” she told him. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Rebus looked at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. When he reached out to the door handle, she turned and started walking away. Watching her, Rebus opened the door. He sensed movement from the corner of his eye. Seated in Andrea Thomson’s chair was someone he’d been wanting to see. He entered the room, quickly closing the door.

“Clever,” he admitted. “How much does she know?”

“Andrea will keep her mouth shut,” the man said. Then he reached out a hand for Rebus to shake. “How have you been, John?”

Rebus took the hand, returned its grip, then sat down. “Fine, sir,” he said. He was seated opposite his own chief constable, Sir David Strathern.

“Now then,” the chief constable said, getting comfortable again, “what seems to be the problem, John . . . ?”

A little over two weeks had passed since their first meeting. Rebus had been working in St. Leonard’s when a call had come through from the Big House — could Rebus nip across the road to the Blonde restaurant?

“What for?” he’d asked.

“You’ll find out.”

But as Rebus had made to cross the road, gripping his jacket shut against the fierce breeze, a car horn had sounded. The car was parked on the corner of Rankeillor Street, and a hand was waving from its window. He recognized the figure in the driver’s seat, even without the customary uniform: Sir David Strathern. The pair had met in the past at official functions only, and infrequently at that. Rebus wasn’t one for the sportsmen’s dinners, the boxing bouts with cigars. And he’d never found himself on a platform being given some award for gallantry or good conduct. It didn’t matter. Sir David seemed to know him.

It wasn’t an official car: black, gleaming Rover — almost certainly the chief constable’s own. There was a chamois cloth on the passenger-side floor, magazines and a shopping bag on the backseat. As Rebus closed the door, the car pulled away.

“Sorry about the subterfuge,” Strathern said with a smile. The action creased the lines around his eyes. He was in his late fifties, not that much older than Rebus. But he was the boss, the chief, the big stick. And Rebus was still wondering what the hell he was doing here. Strathern was dressed in gray casual trousers and a dark crewneck jumper. Mufti it might be, but he wore it like a uniform. His hair was silver, neatly clipped above his ears, the large bald spot prominent only when he turned his head to check for traffic at the next junction.

“You’re not offering me lunch then?” Rebus guessed.

The smile widened. “Too close to St. Leonard’s. Didn’t want anyone seeing us together.”

“Am I not good enough for you, sir?”

Strathern glanced in Rebus’s direction. “It’s a good act,” he commented, “but then you’ve spent years perfecting it, haven’t you?”

“What act is that, sir?”

“The wisecracks, that hint of insubordination. Your way of coping with a situation until you’ve had a chance to digest it.”

“Is that right, sir?”

“Don’t worry, John. For what I’m about to ask you to do, insubordination is a prerequisite.”

Which left Rebus more baffled than ever.

Strathern had driven them to a pub on the southern outskirts of the city. It was close to the crematorium and got a lot of business from funeral meals, which meant it wasn’t quite so popular with anyone else. Their corner of the bar was quiet. Strathern ordered sandwiches and halves of IPA, then attempted some conversation, as if this was a regular outing for the two of them.

“Are you not drinking?” Strathern asked at one point, noting Rebus’s still-full glass.

“I hardly touch the stuff,” Rebus told him.

Strathern looked at him. “That’s not exactly been your reputation.”

“Maybe you’ve been misinformed, sir.”

“I don’t think so. My sources are usually impeccable.”

There was little Rebus could say to this, though he did wonder who the Chief had been talking to. Assistant Chief Constable Colin Carswell, perhaps, who disliked Rebus intensely, or Carswell’s acolyte, DI Derek Linford. Neither would have painted Rebus in anything but the darkest shades.

“With respect, sir,” Rebus said, sitting back, food and drink untouched, “we can skip the foreplay if you like.”

He then watched his chief constable struggle to contain the anger mounting within him.

“John,” Strathern said at last, “I came to you today to ask a favor.”

“One which requires a certain level of insubordination.”

The chief constable nodded slowly. “I want you to get yourself kicked off a case.”

“The Marber case?” Rebus’s eyes narrowed.

“The case itself has nothing to do with it,” Strathern said, sensing Rebus’s suspicion.

“But you want me off it all the same?”

“Yes.”