heading for Glasgow. He'd spent half an hour at the hospital, followed by an hour and a half with Rhona and Jackie Platt, their guest for dinner at the Sheraton. He'd worn a fresh suit and shirt. He hadn't smoked. He'd drunk a bottle of Highland Spring.
They were planning yet more tests on Sammy. The neurologist had taken them into his office and talked them through the procedures. There would probably be another operation at the end of it. Rebus could barely remember what the man had said. Rhona had asked for the occasional explanation, but these seemed no more lucid than what had gone before.
Dinner had been a subdued affair. Jackie Platt, it turned out, sold second-hand cars.
`See, John, where I really score is the obituaries. Check the local paper, hare round there and see if they've left a car behind. Quick cash offer.’
'Sammy doesn't drive, sorry,' Rebus had said, causing Rhona to drop her cutlery on to her plate.
At the end of the meal, she'd seen him out to his car, gripped one of his arms hard.
`Get the bastard, John. I want to look him in the face. Just get the bastard who did this to us.’
Her eyes were blazing.
He nodded. Stones: `Just Wanna See His Face'. Rebus wanted it, too.
The M8, which could be a nightmare at rush-hour, was a quiet drive in the evenings. Rebus knew he was making good time, and that he would soon see the outline of the Easterhouse estate against the sky. When his phone sounded, he didn't hear it at first: blame Wishbone Ash. As Argus finished, he picked up.
`Rebus.’
`John, it's Bill.’
`What've you got?’
`Forensics were good as gold. There are prints all over the car, interior and exterior. Several sets.’
He paused, and Rebus thought the connection had gone. `One good palm and finger set on the front of the bonnet…’
`Sammy's?’
`For definite.’
`So we've got our car.’
`The owner's given us a set so we can eliminate him. When we've done that…’
`We're still not home and dry, Bill. The car sat unlocked outside that cemetery, we don't know someone didn't clean it out.’
`Owner says the radio/cassette fascia was there when he left it. Also half a dozen tapes, a packet of Paracetamol, receipts for petrol and a road map. So someone cleaned it out, whether it's the bastard we want or just some scavenger.’
`At least we know it's the car.’
`I'll check again with Howdenhall tomorrow, collect any other prints and start trying to match them. Plus I'll ask around Piershill, see if anyone saw someone dumping it.’
`Meantime get some sleep, eh?’
`Try and stop me. What about you?’
`Me?’
Two cups of espresso after dinner. And with the knowledge of what lay ahead. `I'll get my head down soon enough, Bill. Talk to you tomorrow.’
On the outskirts of Glasgow, headed for Barlinnie Prison.
He'd phoned ahead, made sure they were expecting him. It was way outside any visiting hours, but Rebus had made up a story about a murder inquiry. `Follow-up questions,' was what he'd said.
`At this time of night?’
`Lothian and Borders Police, pal. Motto: Justice Never Sleeps.’
Morris Gerald Cafferty probably didn't sleep much either. Rebus imagined him lying awake at night, hands under his head, staring into the darkness.
Scheming.
Running things through his mind: how to keep his empire from falling, how best to combat threats like Tommy Telford. Rebus knew that Cafferty employed a lawyer – a middle-aged pinstripe from the New Town – to carry messages back to his gang in Edinburgh. He thought of Charles Groal, Telford's lawyer. Groal was young and sharp, like his paymaster.
`Strawman.’
He was waiting in the Interview Room, arms folded, chair set well away from the table. And of course his opening gambit was his nickname for Rebus.
`A lovely surprise, two visits in a week. Don't tell me you've another message from the Pole?’
Rebus sat down opposite Cafferty. 'Tarawicz isn't Polish.’
He glanced towards the guard who stood by the door, lowered his voice. `Another of Telford's boys got a doing.’
`How clumsy.’
`He was all but scalped. Are you looking for war?’
Cafferty drew his chair in to the table, leaned across towards Rebus. `I've never backed down from a fight.’
`My daughter got hurt. Funny that, so soon after we'd had our little chat.’
`Hurt how?’
`Hit and run.’
Cafferty was thoughtful. `I don't pick on civilians.’
Yes, Rebus thought, but she wasn't a civilian, because he had lured her on to the battlefield.
`Convince me,' Rebus said.
`Why should I bother?’
`The conversation we had… What you asked me to do.’
`Telford?’
A whisper. Cafferty sat back for a moment to consider. When he leaned forward again, his eyes bored into Rebus's. `There's something you've forgotten. I lost a son, remember. Think I could do that to another father? I'd do a lot of things, Rebus, but not that, never that.’
Rebus held the stare. `All right,' he said.
`You want me to find who did it?’
Rebus nodded slowly.
`That's your price?’
Rhona's words: I want to look him in the face.
Rebus shook his head. `I want them delivered to me. I want you to do that, whatever it takes.’
Cafferty placed his hands on his knees, seemed to take his time positioning them just so. `You know it's probably Telford?’
`Yes. If it's not you.’
`You'll be going after him then?’
`Any way I can.’
Cafferty smiled. `But your ways aren't my ways.’
`You might get to him first. I want him alive.’
`And meantime, you're my man?’
Rebus stared at him. `I'm your man,' he said.
15
Rebus got a phone call early the next morning from Leith CID, telling him Joseph Lintz was dead. The bad news was, it looked like murder: the body found hanging from a tree in Warriston Cemetery.
By the time Rebus appeared at the scene, they were cordoning it off, the doctor having concluded that most
