here,” she was saying, “and give us the benefit of your thoughts on the subject of just exactly
Which was the moment he chose to throw the mug. It traveled in a lazy arc, spinning as it went, dispensing cold tea. Templer ducked instinctively, though the mug would have sailed over her head in any case. It hit the back wall just above floor level, bouncing off and failing to break. There was silence in the room as people rose to their feet, checking their clothes for spillage.
Rebus sat down then, one finger punching the desk as if trying to find the rewind on life’s remote control.
“DI Rebus?” The uniform was talking to him.
“Yes, sir?”
“Glad you’ve decided to join us.” Smiles all around the table. How much had he missed? He didn’t dare look at his watch.
“Sorry about that, sir.”
“I was asking if you’d be our member of the public.” Nodding to the opposite side of the table to Rebus. “DI Gray will be the officer. And you, DI Rebus, will be coming into the station with what could turn out to be some vital information pertaining to a case.” The teacher paused. “Or you could be a crank.” Laughter from a couple of the men. Francis Gray was beaming at Rebus, nodding encouragement.
“Whenever you’re ready, DI Gray.”
Gray leaned forward on the table. “So, Mrs. Ditchwater, you say you saw something that night?”
The laughter was louder. The teacher waved them quiet. “Let’s try to keep this serious, shall we?”
Gray nodded, turned his eyes to Rebus again. “You definitely saw something?”
“Yes,” Rebus announced, coarsening his voice. “I saw the whole thing, Officer.”
“Though you’ve been registered blind these past eleven years?”
Gales of laughter in the room, the teacher thumping the tabletop, trying to restore order. Gray sitting back, joining the laughter, winking across at Rebus, whose shoulders were rocking.
Francis Gray was fighting hard against resurrection.
“I thought I was going to wet myself,” Tam Barclay said, lowering the tray of glasses onto the table. They were in the larger of Kincardine’s two pubs, lessons finished for the day. Six of them forming a tight circle: Rebus, Francis Gray, Jazz McCullough, plus Tam Barclay, Stu Sutherland and Allan Ward. At thirty-four, Ward was the youngest of the group and the lowest-ranking officer on the course. He had a tough, spoiled look to him. Maybe it came from working in the southwest.
Five pints, one cola: McCullough was driving home afterwards, wanted to see his wife and kids.
“I do my damnedest to
“No joking,” Barclay said, squeezing into his seat, “near wet myself.” Grinning at Gray. “ ‘Blind these past eleven years.’ ”
Gray picked up his pint, raised it. “Here’s tae us, wha’s like us?”
“Nobody,” Rebus commented. “Or they’d be stuck on this damned course.”
“Just got to grin and bear it,” Barclay said. He was late thirties, thickening around the waist. Salt-and-pepper hair brushed back from the forehead. Rebus knew him from a couple of cases: Falkirk and Edinburgh were only thirty minutes apart.
“I wonder if Wee Andrea grins when she bares it,” Stu Sutherland said.
“No sexism, please.” Francis Gray was wagging a finger.
“Besides,” McCullough added, “we don’t want to stoke John’s fantasies.”
Gray raised an eyebrow. “That right, John? Got the hots for your counselor? Better watch, you might make Allan jealous.”
Allan Ward looked up from the cigarette he was lighting, just glowered.
“That your sheep-frightening look, Allan?” Gray said. “Not much to do down in Dumfries, is there, except round up the usual ewes?”
More laughter. It wasn’t that Francis Gray had made himself the center of attention; it seemed to happen naturally. He’d been first into his seat, and the others had congregated around him, Rebus sitting directly opposite. Gray was a big man, and the years told on his face. And because he said everything with a smile, a wink or a glint in his eye, he got away with it. Rebus hadn’t heard anyone making a joke about Gray himself yet, though they’d all been his target. It was as if he were challenging them, testing them. The way they took his comments would tell him everything he needed to know about them. Rebus wondered how the big man would react to a jibe or joke directed against him.
Maybe he’d have to find out.
McCullough’s mobile sounded, and he got up, moving away.
“His wife, odds-on,” Gray stated. He was halfway down his pint of lager. Didn’t smoke, told Rebus he’d given up a decade back. The two of them had been outside during a break, Rebus offering the packet. Ward and Barclay smoked too. Three out of six: it meant Rebus could feel comfortable lighting up.
“She’s keeping tabs on him?” Stu Sutherland was saying.
“Proof of a deep and loving relationship,” Gray commented, tipping the glass to his mouth again. He was one of those drinkers, you never saw them swallow: it was as if they could hold their throat open and just pour the stuff down.
“You two know each other?” Sutherland asked. Gray glanced over his shoulder to where McCullough was standing, his head bowed towards the mobile phone.
“I know the type” was all Gray said by way of answer.
Rebus knew better. He rose to his feet. “Same again?”
Two lagers, three IPAs. On his way to the bar, Rebus pointed towards McCullough, who shook his head. He still had most of his cola, didn’t want another. Rebus heard the words “I’ll be on the road in ten minutes . . .” Yes, he was on the phone to his wife. Rebus had a call he wanted to make too. Jean was probably finishing work right around now. Rush hour, the journey from the museum to her home in Portobello might take half an hour.
The barman knew the order: this was their third round of the evening. The previous two nights, they’d stuck to the college premises. First night, Gray had produced a good bottle of malt, and they’d sat in the common room, getting to know one another. Tuesday, they’d met in the college’s own bar for an after-dinner session, McCullough sticking to soft drinks and then heading out for his car.
But at lunchtime today, Tam Barclay had mentioned a bar in the village, good rep.
“No trouble with the locals” was the way he’d put it. So here they were. The barman looked comfortable, which told Rebus he’d dealt with intakes from the college before. He was efficient, not over-friendly. Midweek, only half a dozen regulars in the place. Three at one table, two at one end of the bar, another standing alone next to Rebus. The man turned to him.
“Up at the cop school, are you?”
Rebus nodded.
“Bit old for recruits.”
Rebus glanced at the man. He was tall, completely bald, his head shining. Gray mustache, eyes which seemed to be retracting into the skull. He was drinking a bottle of beer with what looked like a dark rum in the glass next to it.
“Force is desperate these days,” Rebus explained. “Next thing, they’ll be press-ganging.”
The man smiled. “I think you’re having me on.”
Rebus shrugged. “We’re here on a refresher course,” he admitted.
“Teaching old dogs new tricks, eh?” The man lifted his beer.
“Get you one?” Rebus offered. The man shook his head. So Rebus paid the barman and, deciding against a tray, hoisted three of the pints, making a triangle of them between his hands. Went to the table, came back for the last two, including his own. Thinking: best not leave it too late to phone Jean. He didn’t want her to hear him drunk. Not that he was planning on getting drunk, but you could never tell . . .
“This you celebrating the end of the course?” the man asked.
“Just the beginning,” Rebus told him.
St. Leonard’s police station was midevening quiet. There were prisoners in the holding cells waiting for next
