“Want me to act as peacemaker?”
He looked at her and shook his head. Jean was Gill’s friend; Gill had introduced them to one another. He didn’t want her feeling awkward about it. “Thanks anyway,” he said. “We’ll sort it out.”
She glanced at her watch. “I better get going.” Slid off the stool and collected her shoulder bag. “This place isn’t so bad,” she decided, studying the bar’s faded decor. “I might grab something to eat. Have you had dinner?”
“Yes,” he lied, feeling that a meal with Gill would be a betrayal of sorts. “I hope you’re not going to drive in that condition,” he called as she made for the door.
“I’ll see how I feel when I get outside.”
“Think how much worse tomorrow will be if you’re charged with drunk driving!”
She waved a hand and was gone. Rebus stayed for one more. Her perfume lingered. He could smell it on the sleeve of his jacket. He wondered if he should have sent Jean perfume instead of flowers, then realized he didn’t know what kind she liked. Scanning the gantry, he guessed that when pushed he could reel off the names of over two dozen malts, straight from memory.
Two dozen malts, and he’d no idea what perfume Jean Burchill used.
As he pushed open the main door to his tenement, he saw a shadow on the stairwell: someone descending. Maybe one of the neighbors, but Rebus didn’t think so. He looked behind him, but there was no one on the street. Not an ambush then. The feet came into view first, then the legs and body.
“What are you doing here?” Rebus hissed.
“Heard you were looking for me,” the Weasel replied. He was at the bottom of the stairs now. “I wanted a bit of a chat anyway.”
“Did you bring anyone with you?”
The Weasel shook his head. “This isn’t the sort of meeting the boss would approve of.”
Rebus looked around again. He didn’t want the Weasel in his flat. A bar would be okay, but any more drink and his brain would start clouding. “Come on then,” he said, passing the Weasel and making for the back door. He unlocked it and dragged it open. The tenement’s shared garden wasn’t much used. There was a drying green, the grass almost a foot long, surrounded by narrow borders where only the hardiest plants survived. When Rebus and his wife had first moved in, Rhona had replaced the weeds with seedlings. Hard to tell now if any of them still thrived. Wrought-iron railings separated the garden from its neighbors, all the gardens enclosed by a rectangle of tall tenement buildings. There were lights on in most of the windows: kitchens and bedrooms, stair landings. The place was well enough lit for this meeting.
“What’s up?” Rebus asked, fishing for a cigarette.
The Weasel had stooped to pick up an empty beer can, which he crushed and dropped into his coat pocket. “Aly’s doing okay.”
Rebus nodded. He had almost forgotten the Weasel’s son. “You took my advice?”
“They’ve not let him off the hook yet, but my solicitor says we’re in with a shout.”
“Have they charged him?”
The Weasel nodded. “But only with possession: the spliff he was smoking when they picked him up.”
Rebus nodded. Claverhouse was playing this one cautiously.
“Thing is,” the Weasel said, crouching by the nearest flower border, picking up empty crisp bags and sweet wrappers, “I think my boss might have got wind of it.”
“Of Aly?”
“Not Aly exactly . . . the dope, I was meaning.”
Rebus lit his cigarette. He was thinking about Cafferty’s network of eyes and ears. It only needed the technician from the police lab to tell a colleague back at base, and that colleague to tell a friend . . . There was no way Claverhouse was going to keep the haul under wraps forever. All the same . . .
“That could be in your favor,” Rebus told the Weasel. “Puts pressure on Claverhouse to do something about it.”
“Like charge Aly, you mean?”
Rebus shrugged. “Or hand it over to Customs, so they all end up taking credit . . .”
“And Aly still goes down?” The Weasel had risen to his feet, pockets filled and rustling.
“If he cooperates, he could get a light sentence.”
“Cafferty’s still going to nail him.”
“So maybe you should get your retaliation in first. Give the Drug Squad what they want.”
The Weasel was thoughtful. “Give them Cafferty?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about it.”
“Oh, I’ve thought about it. But Mr. Cafferty’s been very good to me.”
“He’s not family, though, is he? He’s not blood . . .”
“No,” the Weasel said, stretching the single syllable out.
“Can I ask you something?” Rebus flicked ash from the cigarette.
“What?”
“Do you have any idea where Donny Dow is?”
The Weasel shook his head. “I heard he’d been taken in for questioning.”
“He’s done a runner.”
“That was silly of him.”
“It’s why I wanted to talk to you, because now we have to send out search parties, which means talking to all his friends and associates. I’m assuming you’ll cooperate?”
“Naturally.”
Rebus nodded. “Let’s say Cafferty does know about the drugs . . . what do you think he’ll do?”
“Number one, he’ll want to know who brought them up here.” The Weasel paused.
“And number two?”
The Weasel looked at him. “Who said there was a number two?”
“There usually is, when there’s been a number one.”
“Okay. . . number two, he might decide he wanted them for himself.”
Rebus examined the tip of his cigarette. He could hear sounds of tenement life: music, TV voices, plates colliding on the drying rack. Shapes passing a window . . . ordinary people living ordinary lives, all of them thinking they were different from the rest.
“Did Cafferty have anything to do with the Marber murder?” he asked.
“When did I become your snitch?” the Weasel asked.
“I don’t want you for my snitch. I just thought maybe one question . . .”
The small man stooped down again, as though he’d spotted something in the grass, but there was nothing, and he rose again slowly.
“Other people’s shit,” he muttered. It sounded like a mantra. Maybe he meant his son, or even Cafferty: the Weasel cleaning up after them. Then he locked eyes with Rebus. “How am I supposed to know something like that?”
“I’m not saying Cafferty did this himself. It would be one of his men, someone he’d hired . . . probably through
The Weasel seemed to be considering this. “Is that what those two cops were doing there the other day? Asking questions about Marber?” He watched as Rebus nodded. “The boss wouldn’t say what it was about.”
“I thought he trusted you,” Rebus said.
The Weasel paused again. “I know he knew Marber,” he said at last, his voice dropping to a level where the slightest gust of wind would erase it. “I don’t think he liked him much.”
“I hear he stopped buying paintings from Marber. Is that because he found out Marber had been cheating?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s possible?”
“It’s possible,” the Weasel conceded.
“Tell me . . .” Rebus’s own voice dropped further still. “Would Cafferty organize a hit without your
