`Sit down, John. Coffee?’
`No, thanks, sir.’
While Tempter and the Chief Super were deciding who should speak, Rebus helped them out.
`Tommy Telford's businesses have been hit.’
Tempter blinked. `Telepathy?’
'Cafferty's offices and taxis got firebombed. So did his house.’
Rebus shrugged. `We knew there'd be payback.’
`Did we?’
What could he say? I did, because Cafferty told me. He didn't think they'd like that. `I just put two and two together.’
The Farmer poured himself a mug of coffee. `So now we've got open war.’
`What got hit?’
`The arcade on Flint Street,' Templer said. `Not too much damage: the place has a sprinkler system.’
She smiled: an amusement arcade with a sprinkler system… not that Telford was careful or anything.
`Plus a couple of nightclubs,' the Farmer added. `And a casino.’
`Which one?’
The Chief Super looked to Tempter, who answered: `The Morvena'.
`Any injuries?’
`The manager and a couple of friends: concussion and bruising.’
`Which they got…?’
`Falling over each other as they ran down the stairs.’
Rebus nodded. `Funny how some people have trouble with stairs.’
He sat back. `So what does all this have to do with me? Don't tell me: having disposed of Telford's Japanese partner, I decided to take up fire-raising?’
`John…’
The Farmer got up, rested his backside against the desk. `The three of us, we know you had nothing to do with that. Tell me, we found an untouched half-bottle of malt under your driver's seat…’
Rebus nodded. `It's mine.’
Another of his little suicide bombs. `So why would you be drinking a supermarket blend?’
`Is that what the screw-top was? The cheap bastards.’
`No alcohol in your blood either. Meantime, as you say, Cafferty's in the frame for this. And Cafferty and you…’
`You want me to talk to him?’
Gill Tempter leaned forward in her chair. `We don't want war.’
`Takes two to make a ceasefire.’
`I'll talk to Telford,' she said.
`He's a sharp little bugger, watch out for him.’
She nodded. `Will you talk to Cafferty?’
Rebus didn't want a war. It would take Telford's mind off the Maclean's heist. He'd need all the troops he could get; the shop might even have to close. No, Rebus didn't want a war.
`I'll talk to him,' he said.
Breakfast-time at Barlinnie.
Rebus jangling after the drive, knowing a whisky would smooth out his nerve-endings. Cafferty waiting for him, same room as before.
`Top of the morning, Strawman.’
Arms folded, looking pleased with himself.
`You've had a busy night.’
`On the contrary, I slept as well as I ever have done in this place. What about you?’
`I was up at four o'clock, checking damage reports. I could have done without driving all the way here. Maybe if you gave me the number of your mobile…?’
Cafferty grinned. `I hear the nightclubs were gutted.’
`I think your boys are making themselves look good.’
Cafferty's grin tightened. `Telford's premises seem to have state of the art fire prevention. Smoke sensors, sprinklers, fire-doors. The damage was minimal.’
`This is just the start,' Cafferty said. `I'll have that little arsewipe.’
`I thought that was supposed to be my job?’
`I've seen precious little from you, Strawman.’
`I've got something in the pipeline. If it comes off, you'll like it.’
Cafferty's eyes narrowed. `Give me details. Make me believe you.’
But Rebus was shaking his head. `Sometimes, you just have to have faith.’
He paused. `Deal?’
`I must have missed something.’
Rebus spelled it out. `Back off. Leave Telford to me.’
`We've been through this. He hits me and I do nothing, I look like something you'd step around on the pavement.’
`We're talking to him, warning him off.’
`And meantime I'm supposed to trust you to get the job done?’
`We shook hands on it.’
Cafferty snorted. `I've shaken hands with a lot of bastards.’
`And now you've met an exception to the rule.’
`You're an exception to a lot of rules, Strawman.’
Cafferty looked thoughtful. `The casino, the clubs, the arcade… they weren't badly hit?’
`My guess is the sprinklers will have done as much damage as anything.’
Cafferty's jaw hardened. `Makes me look even more of a mug.’
Rebus sat in silence, waiting for him to finish whatever chessgame was being played inside his head.
`Okay,' the gangster said at last, `I'll call off the troops. Maybe it's time to do some recruiting anyway.’
He looked up at Rebus. `Time for some fresh blood.’
Which reminded Rebus of another job he'd been putting off.
Danny Simpson lived at home with his mother in a terraced house in Wester Hailes.
This bleak housing-scheme, designed by sadists who'd never had to live anywhere near it, had a heart which had shrivelled but refused to stop pumping. Rebus had a lot of respect for the place. Tommy Smith had grown up here, practising with socks stuffed into the mouth of his sax, so as not to disturb the neighbours through the thin walls of the high-rise. Tommy Smith was one of the best sax players Rebus had ever heard.
In a sense, Wester Hailes existed outside the real world: it wasn't on a route from anywhere to anywhere. Rebus had never had cause to drive through it he only went there if he had business there. The city bypass flew past it, offering many drivers their only encounter with Wester Hailes. They saw: high-rise blocks, terraces, tracts of unused playing field. They didn't see: people. Not so much concrete jungle as concrete vacuum.
Rebus knocked on Danny Simpson's door. He didn't know what he was going to say to the young man. He just wanted to see him again. He wanted to see him without the blood and the pain. Wanted to see him whole and of a piece.
Wanted to see him.
But Danny Simpson wasn't in, and neither was his mother. A neighbour, lacking her top set of dentures, came out and explained the situation.
The situation took Rebus to the Infirmary, where, in a small, gloomy ward not easily found, Danny Simpson lay in bed, head bandaged, sweating like he'd just played a full ninety minutes. He wasn't conscious. His mother sat beside him, stroking his wrist. A nurse explained to Rebus that a hospice would be the best place for Danny, supposing they could find him a bed.
`What happened?’
`We think infection must have set in. When you lose your resistance… the world's a lethal place.’
