Pretty-Boy shifted. `His tastes changed.’
`Or his real tastes started to emerge?’
`That's what I wondered.’
`So what did he want?’
`He wanted the girls… he had this length of rope… he'd made it into a noose.’
Pretty-Boy swallowed. His lawyer had stopped writing, was listening intently. `He wanted the girls to slip it over their heads, then lie down like they were dead.’
`Dressed or naked?’
`Naked.’
`And?’
`And he'd… he'd sit on his chair and get off. Some of the girls wouldn't go along. He wanted the works: bulging eyes, tongue sticking out, neck twisted…’
Pretty-Boy rubbed his hands through his hair.
`Did you ever talk about it?’
`With him? No, never.’
`So what did you talk about?’
`All sorts of things.’
Pretty-Boy looked up at the ceiling, laughed. `He told me once, he believed in God. Said the problem was, he wasn't sure God believed in him. That seemed clever at the time… he always managed to get me thinking. And this was the same guy who tossed himself off over bodies with ropes round their necks.’
`All this personal attention you were giving him,' Rebus said, `you were sizing him up, weren't you?’
Pretty-Boy looked into his lap, nodded.
`For the tape, please.’
`Tommy always wanted to know if a punter was worth squeezing.’
`And…?’
Pretty-Boy shrugged. `We found out about the Nazi stuff, realised we couldn't hurt him any more than he was already being hurt. Turned into a bit of a joke. There we were, thinking of threatening him with exposure as a perv, and at the same time the papers were saying he was a mass murderer.’
He laughed again.
`So you dropped that idea?’
`Yes.’
`But he paid you five grand?’
Rebus fishing.
Pretty-Boy licked his lips. `He'd tried topping himself. He told me that. Tying the rope to the top of his banister and jumping off. Only it didn't work. Banister snapped and he fell half a flight.’
Rebus remembering: the broken stair-rail.
Rebus remembering: Lintz with a scarf around his neck, his voice hoarse. Telling Rebus he had a throat bug.
`He told you this?’
`He phoned the office, said we had to meet. That was unusual. In the past, he'd always used phone boxes and got me on my mobile. Safe old bugger, I'd always thought. Then he calls from home, right to the office.’
`Where did you meet?’
`In a restaurant. He bought me lunch.’
The young woman… `Told me he'd tried killing himself and couldn't do it. He kept saying he'd proved himself a 'moral coward', whatever that means.’
`So what did he want?’
Pretty-Boy stared up at Rebus. `He needed someone to help him.’
`You?’
Pretty-Boy shrugged.
`And the price was right?’
`No haggling necessary. He wanted it done in Warriston Cemetery.’
`Did you ask him why?’
`I knew he liked the place. We met at his house, really early. I drove him down there. He seemed the same as ever, except he kept thanking me for my 'resolve'. I wasn't sure what he meant by that. To me, Resolve is something you take after a hard night.’
Rebus smiled, as was expected. `Go on,' he said.
`Not much more to tell, is there? He put the noose over his head. He told me to pull on the rope. I had a last go at talking him out of it, but the bugger was determined. It's not murder, is it? Assisted suicide: a lot of places, it's legal.’
`How did the dent get on his head?’
`He was heavier than I thought. First time I hauled him up, the rope slipped and he fell, thumped himself on the ground.’
Bobby Hogan cleared his throat. `Brian, did he say anything… right at the end?’
`Famous last words and all that?’
Pretty-Boy shook his head. `All he said was 'thank you'. Poor old sod. One thing: he wrote it all down.’
`What?’
`About me helping him. A sort of insurance, in case anyone ever linked us. Letter says he paid me, begged me to help.’
`Where is this?’
`In a safe. I can get it for you.’
Rebus nodded, stretched his back. `Did you ever talk about Villefranche?’
`A little bit, mostly about the way the papers and TV were hounding him, how difficult it made it when he wanted… company.’
`But not the massacre itself?’
Pretty-Boy shook his head. `Know something else? Even if he had told me, I wouldn't tell you.’
Rebus tapped his pen against the desk. He knew the Lintz story was as closed as it was ever going to be. Bobby Hogan knew it, too. They had the secret at last, the story of how Lintz had died. They knew he'd been helped by the Rat Line, but they'd never know whether he'd been Josef Linzstek or not. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming, but so was the evidence that Lintz had been hounded to death. He'd started putting the escorts into nooses only after the accusations had been made.
Hogan caught Rebus's eye and shrugged, as if to say: what does it matter? Rebus nodded back. Part of him wanted to take a break, but now that Pretty-Boy was rolling it was important to keep up the steam.
`Thanks for that, Mr Summers. We may come back to Mr Lintz if we think of any more questions. But meantime, let's move on to the relationship between Thomas Telford and Jake Tarawicz.’
Pretty-Boy shifted, as if trying to get comfortable. `This could take a while,' he said.
`Take as long as you like,' Rebus told him.
37
They got it all, in time.
Pretty-Boy had to rest, and so did they. Other teams came in, worked on different areas. The tapes were filling up, being listened to elsewhere, notes and transcripts made. Back-up questions were forwarded to the Interview Room. Telford wasn't talking. Rebus went and took a look at him, sat across from him. Telford didn't blink once. He sat ramrod-straight, hands on knees. And all the while, Pretty-Boy's confession was being used to squeeze other gang members – without letting slip who was singing.
The ranks broke, slowly at first and then in a cataract of accusation, self-defence and denial. And they got it all.
