Rebus nodded, reached out a hand. The two men shook.
34
Two in the morning.
Frost on the car windscreens. They couldn't clear them: had to blend in with the other cars on the street. Back-up four units – parked in a builder's yard just round the corner. Bulbs had been removed from street-lights, leaving the area in almost total darkness. Maclean's was like a Christmas tree: security lights, every window blazing, same as every other night.
No heating in the unmarked cars: heat would melt the frost; exhaust fumes a dead giveaway.
`This all seems very familiar,' Siobhan Clarke said. The surveillance on Flint Street seemed a lifetime ago to Rebus. Clarke was in the driving seat, Rebus in the back. Two to each car. That way, they had space to duck should anyone come snooping. Not that they expected anyone to do that: the whole heist was half-baked. Telford desperate and with his mind on other things. Sakiji Shoda was still in town – a quiet word with the hotel manager had revealed a Monday morning check-out. Rebus was betting Tarawicz and his men had already gone.
`You look pretty snug,' Rebus said, referring to her padded skijacket. She brought a hand out of her pocket, showed him what it was holding. It looked like a slim lighter. Rebus lifted it from her palm. It was warm.
`What the hell is it?’
Clarke smiled. `I got it from one of those catalogues. It's a handwarmer.’
`How does it work?’
`Fuel rods. Each one lasts up to twelve hours.’
`So you've got one warm hand?’
She brought her other hand out, showed him an identical rod. `I bought two,' she said.
`You might have said.’
Rebus closed his fingers around the handwarmer, stuck it deep into his pocket.
`That's not fair.’
`Call it a privilege of rank.’
`Lights,' she warned. They dived for cover, surfaced again when the car had sped past: false alarm.
Rebus checked his watch. Jack Morton had been told to expect the truck some time between one-thirty and twofifteen. Rebus and Clarke had been in the car since just after midnight. The snipers on the roof, poor bastards, had been in position since one o'clock. Rebus hoped they had a good supply of fuel rods. He still felt jittery from the afternoon's events. He didn't like that he owed Abernethy such a huge favour; indeed, maybe owed him his life. He knew he could cancel it out by agreeing – along with Hogan – to soft-pedal on the Lintz inquiry. He didn't like the idea, but all the same… And the day's silver lining: Candice had made the break from Tarawicz.
Clarke's police radio was silent. They had maintained silence since before midnight. Claverhouse's words: `The first person to speak will be me, understood? Anyone uses a radio before me, they're in farmyard shit. And I won't utter a sound until the truck's entered the compound. Is that clear?’
Nods all around. `They could be listening in, so this is important. We've got to do this right.’
Averting his eyes from Rebus as he said it. `I'd wish us all luck, but the less luck's involved the better I'll like it. A few hours from now, if we stick to the plan, we should have broken up Tommy Telford's gang.’
He paused. `Just let that sink in. We'll be heroes.’
He swallowed, realising the immensity of the prize.
Rebus couldn't get so excited. The whole enterprise had shown him a simple truth: no vacuum. Where you had society, you had criminals. No belly without an underbelly.
Rebus knew his own criteria came cheaply: his flat, books, music and clapped-out car. And he realised that he had reduced his life to a mere shell in recognition that he had completely failed at the important things: love, relationships, family life. He'd been accused of being in thrall to his career, but that had never been the case. His work sustained him only because it was an easy option. He dealt every day with strangers, with people who didn't mean anything to him in the wider scheme. He could enter their lives, and leave again just as easily. He got to live other people's lives, or at least portions of them, experiencing things at one remove, which wasn't nearly as challenging as the real thing.
Sammy had brought home to him these essential truths: that he was not only a failed father but a failed human being; that police work kept him sane, yet was a substitute for the life he could have had, the kind of life everyone else seemed to lead. And if he became obsessed with his case-work, well, that was no different from being obsessed with train numbers or cigarette cards or rock albums. Obsession came easy – especially to men – because it was a cheap way of achieving control, albeit control over something practically worthless. What did it matter if you could reel off the track listing to every '60s Stones album? It didn't matter a damn. What did it matter if Tommy Telford got put away? Tarawicz would take his place, and if he didn't, there was always Big Ger Cafferty. And if not Cafferty, then someone else. The disease was endemic, no cure in sight.
`What are you thinking about?’
Clarke asked, switching her rod from left hand to right.
`My next cigarette.’
Patience's words: happiest when in denial…
They heard the truck before they saw it: changing gears noisily. Slid down into their seats, then up again as it made to pull into Maclean's. A wheeze of air-brakes as it jolted to a stop at the gates. A guard came out to talk to the driver. He carried a clip-board.
`Jack really suits a uniform,' Rebus said.
`Clothes maketh the man.’
`You reckon your boss has got it right?’
He meant Claverhouse's plan: when the truck was in the compound, they'd use a megaphone and show the marksmen to whoever was in the driver's cab, tell them to come out. The rest of the men could stay locked in the back of the vehicle. They'd have them toss out any arms and then come out one at a time.
It was either that or wait until they were all out of the truck. Merit of this second plan: they'd know what they were dealing with. Merit of the first: most of the gang would be nicely stowed in the truck, and could be dealt with as and when.
Claverhouse had plumped for plan one.
Marked and unmarked cars were to move in as soon as the truck had come to a stop – engine off – in the compound. They would block the exit, then watch from safety while Claverhouse, at a firstfloor window with his megaphone, and the marksmen (roof; ground floor windows) did their stuff. `Negotiation with force' was how Claverhouse had described it.
`Jack's opening the gates,' Rebus said, peering through the side window.
Engine roar, and the truck jerked forward.
`Driver seems a bit nervous,' Clarke commented.
`Or isn't used to HGVs.’
`Okay, they're in.’
Rebus stared at the radio, willing it to burst into life. Clarke had turned the ignition one click away from starting. Jack Morton was watching the truck move into the compound. He turned his head towards the line of cars parked across the way.
`Any second…’
The truck's brake-lights came on, then went off again. Air-brakes sounded.
The radio fizzed a single word: `Nom!' Clarke turned the engine, revved hard. Five other cars did the same. Exhaust smoke billowed suddenly into the night air. The noise was like the start of a stock-car race. Rebus wound his window down, the better to hear Claverhouse's megaphone diplomacy. Clarke's car leaped forward, first to the gates. Both she and Rebus jumped out, keeping their heads down, the car a shield between themselves and the truck.
`Engine's still running,' Rebus hissed.
`What?’
