real priest. It’s just that he has the kind of face strangers tell their troubles to. That seems to fill Joe’s days to the brim . . .” The barman came up, and Rebus put in their order, including a half of IPA for Hogan and the same for himself.
“A game of two halves, eh?” Hogan announced with a smile.
“Aye, it’s a game all right, Bobby.”
Hogan picked up Rebus’s meaning. “So what’s reopened this particular can of worms?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Dickie Diamond was an arsehole, whole world knew it.”
“Any of his other cronies still around?”
“There’s one of them in here right now.”
Rebus looked around at the disconsolate, blank-eyed faces. “Who?”
Hogan just winked, and waited till the drinks had been paid for. When the barman slouched back with Rebus’s change, Hogan greeted him by name.
“Okay, Malky?”
The young man frowned. “Do I know you?”
Hogan shrugged. “Thing is,
Rebus, too, had placed the young man as a drug user. It was something about the eyes, the facial muscles, something about the way the body held itself. In turn, the barman recognized pigs when he saw them.
“I’m off that stuff,” Malky said.
“Take your methadone religiously?” Hogan asked with a smile. “DI Rebus here is wondering whatever happened to your uncle.”
“Which one?”
“The one we don’t hear about so much these days . . . unless you know different.” Hogan turned to Rebus. “Malky here is Dickie’s sister’s kid.”
“How long you been working here then, Malky?” Rebus asked.
“Nearly a year.” The barman’s attitude had changed from indifference to surliness.
“Did you know the place when it was the Zombie?”
“I was too young, wasn’t I?”
“Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have served you.” Rebus lit a cigarette, offering one to Hogan.
“Has Uncle Dickie turned up?” Malky asked. Rebus shook his head. “It’s just that my mum . . . every now and then she gets all weepy, says Uncle Dickie must be dead and buried somewhere.”
“What does she think happened to him?”
“How should I know?”
“You could try asking her.” Rebus had one of his cards out. It had his pager number as well as the police switchboard. “I’d be interested to know her answer.”
Malky stuck the card in the top pocket of his shirt.
“Dying of thirst over here!” Barclay called from the table. Hogan picked up two of the drinks. Rebus was staring at Malky.
“I mean it,” he said. “You ever hear anything, I’d really like to know what happened to him.”
Malky nodded, then turned away to answer the phone. But Rebus had gripped his arm. “Where do you live, Malky?”
“Sighthill. What’s it to you?” Malky wrestled his arm free, picked up the phone.
Sighthill was perfect. Rebus knew someone in Sighthill . . .
“So what happened to this place?” Ward was asking Hogan when Rebus reached the table.
“They got their market research wrong, thought there’d be enough yuppies in Leith by now to make them a fortune.”
“Maybe if they hang on a few more years,” Barclay said, pausing halfway down his cola.
Hogan nodded. “It’s coming,” he agreed. “Just a shame we didn’t get the parliament.”
Rebus snorted. “You’d’ve been welcome to it.”
“We wanted it.”
“So what was the problem?” Ward asked.
“The MSPs didn’t want to be in Leith. Too out of the way.”
“Maybe they were scared off by the temptations of the flesh,” Ward proposed. “Not that I’m seeing any around here . . .”
The door opened and another solitary drinker entered. He was all twitches and movement, as if someone had just wound up his mechanism. He saw Hogan and gave a nod of acknowledgment, but then started heading for the bar. Hogan, however, waved him over.
“Is this him?” Ward asked, already hardening his face, turning it into a mask.
“This is him,” Hogan said. Then, to the new arrival: “Father Joe . . . I was wondering if your pastoral wanderings would bring you in here.”
Joe Daly smiled at the joke, and nodded as if it were part of some ritual between Hogan and himself. Hogan meantime was making introductions. “Now talk to the good men,” he said in closing, “while I fetch you a small libation. Jameson’s and water, no ice, yes?”
“That would serve the purpose,” Daly said, his breath already sweetened by whiskey. He watched Hogan head for the bar. “A good man in his way,” he commented.
“And was Dickie Diamond a good man too, Father Joe?” Rebus asked.
“Ah, the Diamond Dog . . .” Daly was thoughtful for a moment. “Richard could be the best friend you’d ever had, but he could be a right bastard, too. He had no forgiveness in him.”
“You haven’t seen him recently?”
“Not in five or six years.”
“Did you ever meet another friend of his called Eric Lomax?” Ward asked. “Most people called him Rico.”
“Well, it was a long time ago, as I say . . .” Daly licked his lips expectantly.
“Of course, we’d pay the going rate,” Rebus informed him.
“Ah, well . . .” Daly’s whiskey arrived and he toasted the company in Gaelic. Rebus reckoned it was a double or treble — hard to tell with the added water.
“Father Joe was just about to tell us about Rico,” Rebus explained to Hogan, who was sitting down now.
“Well,” Daly began, “Rico was from the west coast, wasn’t he? Gave a good party, so the story went. Of course, I was never invited.”
“But Dickie was?”
“Oh, assuredly.”
“This was over in Glasgow?” Barclay asked, his face more bloodless than ever.
“I suppose there
“But that’s not what you meant, is it?” Rebus asked.
“Well, no . . . I meant out at the caravans. There was a site in East Lothian, Rico stayed there sometimes.”
“Caravans, plural?” Rebus checked.
“He owned more than one; rented them out to tourists and the like.”
“They were pretty close then, Rico and Dickie?” Ward asked.
“I don’t know that I’d say that. Rico probably only came to Leith three or four times a year.”
“Did you think it strange,” Rebus asked, “that Dickie did a bunk around the same time Rico was murdered?”
“Can’t say I connected the two,” Daly said. He hoisted the glass to his mouth, drained the whiskey.
“I don’t think that’s quite true, Father Joe,” Rebus stated quietly.
The glass was placed back on the table. “Well, maybe you’re right. I suppose I
