“Your first time in here?” Siobhan asked.
“What do you think?” He was heading for the bar, but Siobhan tugged his arm and gestured towards a free booth.
“It’s table service,” she said as they sat down. A waitress was already standing in front of them. Siobhan ordered a gin and tonic, Rebus a Laphroaig. When his malt arrived, he lifted the glass and peered at it, as if disapproving of the size of measure. Siobhan stirred her own drink, mashing the slice of lime against the ice cubes.
“Want to keep the tab open?” the waitress asked.
“Yes, please,” Siobhan said. Then, when the waitress had gone: “Are we any nearer finding out why Herdman shot those kids?”
Rebus shrugged. “I think maybe we’ll only know when we get there.”
“And everything up to that point…?”
“Is potentially useful,” Rebus said, knowing this wasn’t how she’d have chosen to finish the sentence. He lifted his glass to his mouth, but it was already empty. No sign of the waitress. Behind the bar, one of the staff was mixing a cocktail.
“Friday night, out at that railway line,” Siobhan was saying, “Silvers told me something.” She paused. “He said the Herdman case was being handed over to DMC.”
“Makes sense,” Rebus muttered. But with Claverhouse and Ormiston running the show, there’d be no place for him or Siobhan. “Didn’t there used to be a band called DMC, or am I thinking of Elton John’s record company?”
Siobhan was nodding. “Run DMC. I think they were a rap band.”
“Rap with a capital C, most likely.”
“No match for the Rolling Stones certainly.”
“Don’t knock the Stones, DC Clarke. None of the stuff you listen to would exist without them.”
“A point on which you’ve probably had many an argument.” She went back to stirring her drink. Rebus still couldn’t see their waitress.
“I’m getting a refill,” he said, sliding out of the booth. He wished Siobhan hadn’t mentioned Friday night. All weekend, Andy Callis hadn’t been far from his thoughts. He kept thinking of how different sequences of events-tiny chinks of altered time and space-could have saved him. Probably could have saved Lee Herdman, too… and stopped Robert Niles from killing his wife.
And stopped Rebus from scalding his hands.
Everything came down to the most minute contingencies, and to tinker with any single one of them was to change the future out of all recognition. He knew there was some argument in science, something to do with butterflies flapping their wings in the jungle… Maybe if he flapped his own arms, he would end up getting served. The barman was pouring a bright pink concoction into a martini glass, turning away from Rebus to serve it. The bar was double-sided, dividing the room in half. Rebus peered across into the gloom. Not too many customers in the other half. A mirror image of booths and squishy chairs, same decor and clientele. Rebus knew that he stood out by about thirty years. One young man had ranged himself across an entire banquette, arms stretched out behind him, legs crossed, looking cocksure and relaxed, wanting to be seen…
Seen by everyone but Rebus. The barman was ready to take Rebus’s order, but Rebus shook his head, walked to the end of the bar and through the short corridor that led to the bar’s other half. Across the floor until he was standing in front of Peacock Johnson.
“Mr. Rebus…” Johnson’s arms fell to his sides. He glanced to the right and left, as if expecting Rebus to have reinforcements. “The dapper detective, and no mistake. Looking for yours truly?”
“Not especially.” Rebus slid into the space across from Johnson. The young man’s choice of Hawaiian shirt didn’t look quite so garish in this light. A new waitress had appeared, and Rebus ordered a double. “On my friend’s tab,” he added, nodding across the table.
Johnson just shrugged magnanimously, and ordered another glass of merlot for himself. “So this is by way of a pure and actual coincidence?” he asked.
“Where’s your mongrel?” Rebus said, looking around.
“The wee evil fellow doesn’t quite have the cachet for an establishment of this caliber.”
“You tie him up outside?”
Johnson grinned. “I let him off the leash now and again.”
“An owner could get fined for that sort of thing.”
“He only bites when the Peacock gives the order.” Johnson finished the dregs of his wine, just as the new drinks arrived. The waitress put down a bowl of rice crackers between the two glasses. “Cheers, then,” Johnson said, hoisting the merlot.
Rebus ignored this. “I was just thinking of you actually,” he said.
“The purest of thoughts, I don’t doubt.”
“Funnily enough, no.” Rebus leaned across the table, keeping his voice low. “In fact, if you were a mind-reader, they’d have scared the shit out of you.” He had Johnson’s attention now. “Know who died last Friday? Andy Callis. You remember him, don’t you?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“He was the armed-response cop who stopped your friend Rab Fisher.”
“Rab’s not so much a friend as a casual acquaintance.”
“Acquainted enough for you to sell him that gun.”
“A replica, if you don’t mind me reminding you.” Johnson was diving into the bowl of snacks, holding his paw to his mouth and feeding them in morsel by morsel, so that bits flew out as he spoke. “No case to answer, and I resent any implication to the contrary.”
“Except that Fisher was going around scaring people, and it nearly got him killed.”
“No case to answer,” Johnson repeated.
“And he turned my friend into a nervous wreck, and now that friend’s dead. You sold someone a gun, and someone else ended up dying.”
“A replica, perfectly legitimate at this point in time and space.” Johnson was trying not to listen, making to grab another fistful of crackers. Rebus swiped at the hand, scattering the bowl and its contents. He grabbed the young man’s wrist. Squeezed it hard.
“You’re about as legitimate as every other bad bastard I’ve ever come across.”
Johnson was trying to free his hand. “And you’re pure as the driven, is that what you’re saying? Everybody knows the lengths
“And what lengths are those?”
“Anything that’ll get
“Says who?” Rebus had released his grip.
“Says everyone!” There were flecks of saliva on Johnson’s chin, bits of snack food mixed in with them. “Christ, you’d have to be deaf in this town not to hear.”
It was true: Rebus had been putting out feelers. He’d wanted Peacock Johnson. He’d wanted something-
And somehow, Johnson had got to hear of it.
“How long have you known?” Rebus asked now.
“What?”
“How long?”
But Johnson just picked up his glass, eyes beady, waiting for Rebus to try to knock it from his grasp. Rebus lifted his own glass, drained it in one burning mouthful.
“Something you ought to know,” he said, nodding slowly. “I can hold a grudge for a lifetime: just you watch me.”
“Even though I’ve done nothing?”
“Oh, you’ll have done
