He backed out of the room.
DI Murchie twitched her mouth and put her glasses back on. Rebus went back upstairs feeling worse than ever.
He spent the rest of the morning waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Everyone kept their distance, even Smylie. And then the phone rang on Smylie's desk, and it was a call for him.
'Chief Inspector Lauderdale,' Smylie said, handing over the receiver.
'Hello?’
'I hear you've been poached from us.’
'Sort of, sir.’
'Well, tell them I want to poach you back.’
I'm not a fucking salmon, thought Rebus. 'I'm still on the investigation, sir,' he said.
'Yes, I know that. The Chief Super told me all about it.’
He paused. 'We want you to talk to Cafferty.’
'He won't talk to me.’
'We think he might.’
'Does he know about Billy?’
'Yes, he knows.’
'And now he wants someone he can use as a punchbag?’
Lauderdale didn't say anything to this. 'What good will it do talking to him?’
'I'm not sure.’
'Then why bother?’
'Because he's insisting. He wants to talk to CID, and not just any officer will do. He's asked to speak to you.’
There was silence between them. 'John? Anything to say?’
'Yes, sir. This has been a very, strange day.’
He checked his watch. 'And it's not even one o'clock yet.’
8
Big Ger Cafferty was looking good.
He was fit and lean and had purpose to his gait. A white t-shirt was tight across his chest, flat over the stomach, and he wore faded work denims and new-looking tennis shoes. He walked into the Visiting Room like he was the visitor, Rebus the inmate. The warder beside him was no more than a hired flunkey, to be dismissed at any moment. Cafferty gripped Rebus's hand just a bit too hard, but he wasn't going to try tearing it off, not yet.
'Strawman.’
'Hello, Cafferty.’
They sat down at opposite sides of the plastic table, the legs of which had been bolted to the floor. Otherwise, there was little to show that they were in Barlinnie jail, a prison with a tough reputation from way back, but one which had striven to remake itself. The Visiting Room was clean and white, a few public safety posters decorating its walls. There was a flimsy aluminium ashtray, but also a No Smoking sign. The tabletop bore a few burn marks around its rim from cigarettes resting there too long.
'They made you come then, Strawman?’
Cafferty seemed amused by Rebus's appearance. He knew, too, that as long as he kept using his nickname for Rebus, Rebus would be needled.
'I'm sorry about your son.’
Cafferty was no longer amused. 'Is it true they tortured him?’
'Sort of.’
'Sort of?’ Cafferty's voice rose. 'There's no halfway house with torture!'
'You'd know all about that.’
Cafferty's eyes blazed. His breathing was shallow and noisy. He got to his feet.
'I can't complain about this place. You get a lot of freedom these days: I've found you can buy freedom, same as you can buy anything else.’
He stopped beside the warder. 'Isn't that right, Mr Petrie?’
Wisely, Petrie said nothing.
'Wait for me outside,' Cafferty ordered. Rebus watched Petrie leave. Cafferty looked at him and grinned a humourless grin.
'Cosy,' he said, 'just the two of us.’
He started to rub his stomach.
'What do you want, Caferty?’
'Stomach's started giving me gyp. What's my point, Strawman? My point's this.’
He was standing over Rebus, and now leant down, his hands pressing Rebus's shoulders. 'I want the bastard found.’
Rebus found himself staring at Cafferty's bared teeth. 'See, I can't have people fucking with my family, it's bad for my reputation. Nobody gets away with something like that… it'd be bad for business.’
'Nice to see the paternal instinct's so song.’
Cafferty ignored this. 'My men are out there hunting, understood? And they'll be keeping an eye on you. I want a result, Strawman.’
Rebus shrugged off Cafferty's pressure and got to his feet. 'You think we're going to sit on our hands because the victim was your son?’
'You better not… that's what I'm saying. Revenge, Strawman, I'll have it one way or the other. I'll have it on somebody.’
'Not on me,' Rebus said quietly. He held Cafferty's stare, till Cafferty opened his arms wide and shrugged, then went to his chair and sat down. Rebus stayed standing.
'I need to ask you a few questions,' he said.
'Fire away.’
'Did you keep in touch with your son?’
Cafferty shook his head. 'I kept in touch with his mum. She's a good woman, too good for me, always was. I send her money for Billy, at least I did while he was growing up. I still send something from time to time.’
'By what means?’
'Someone I can trust.’
'Did Billy know who his father was?’
'Absolutely not. His mum wasn't exactly proud of me.’
He started rubbing his stomach again.
'You should take something for that,' Rebus said. 'So, could anyone have got to him as a way of getting at you?’
Cafferty nodded. 'I've thought about it, Strawman. I've thought a lot about it.’
Now he shook his head. 'I can't see it. I mean, it was my first thought, but nobody knew, nobody except his mum and me.’
'And the intermediary.’
'He didn't have anything to do with it. I've had people ask him.’
The way Cafferty said this sent a shiver through Rebus.
'Two more things,' he said. 'The word Nemo, mean anything?’
Cafferty shook his head. But Rebus knew that by tonight villains across the east of Scotland would be on the watch for the name. Maybe Cafferty's men would get to the killer first. Rebus had seen the body. He didn't much care who got the killer, so long as someone did. He guessed this was Cafferty's thinking too.
'Second thing,' he said, 'the letters SaS on a tattoo.’
Cafferty shook his head again, but more slowly this time. There was something there, some recognition.
