'You didn't speak to her?'
'No.'
'Not even in the toilets?'
'I saw her in there,' Corinne said. 'She was doing her eyes.'
'Did she say anything?'
'She seemed sort of… stuck-up.'
'Snobby,' Jacky agreed.
Rebus tried to think of another question and couldn't. They ignored him for a while as they exchanged news. It was like they hadn't seen each other in a year. At one point, Helen got up to use the toilet. Rebus expected the other two to accompany her, but only Corinne did so. He sat with Jacky for a moment, then, for want of anything else to say, asked her what she thought of Damon. He meant about Damon disappearing, but she didn't take it that way.
'Ach, he's all right.'
'Just all right?'
'Well, you know, Damon's heart's in the right place, but he's a bit thick. A bit slow, I mean.'
'Really?' The impression Rebus had received from Damon's family had been of a genius in waiting. He suddenly realized just how superficial his own portrait of Damon was. Siobhan's words should have been warning – so far he'd heard only one side of Damon. 'Helen likes him though?'
'I suppose so.'
'They're engaged.'
'It happens, doesn't it? I've got friends who got engaged just so they could throw a party.' She looked around the bar, then leant towards him. 'They used to have some mega arguments.'
'What about?'
'Jealousy, I suppose. She'd see him notice someone, or he'd say she'd been letting some guy chat her up. Just the usual.' She turned the photo around so it faced her. 'She looks like a dream, doesn't she? I remember she was dressed to kill. Made the rest of us spit.'
'But you'd never seen her before?'
Jacky shook her head. No, no one seemed to have seen her before, nobody knew who she was. Unlikely then that she was local.
'Were there any buses in that night?'
'That doesn't happen at Gaitanos,' she told him. It's not 'in' enough any more. There's a new place in Dunfermline. That gets the busloads.' Jacky tapped the photo. 'You think she's gone off with Damon?'
Rebus looked at her and saw behind the eyeliner to -a sharp intelligence. 'It's possible,' he said quietly.
'I don't think so,' she said. 'She wouldn't be interested, and he wouldn't have had the guts.'
On his way home, Rebus dropped into St Leonard 's. The amount he was paying in bridge tolls, he was thinking about a season ticket. There was a fax on his desk. He'd been promised it in the afternoon, but there'd been a delay. It identified the owner of the Rolls-Royce as a Mr Richard Mandelson, with an address in Juniper Green. Mr Mandelson had no criminal record outstanding, whether for motoring offences or anything else. Rebus tried to imagine some poor parking warden trying to give the Roller a ticket with the fat man behind the wheel. There were a few more facts about Mr Mandelson, including last known occupation. Casino manager.
SEVEN
Matty and Stevie Scoular saw one another socially now. Stevie would sometimes phone and invite Matty to some party or dinner, or just for a drink. At the same time as Matty was flattered, he did wonder what Stevie's angle was, had even come out and asked him.
'I mean,' he'd said, 'I'm just a toe-rag from the school playground, and you… well, you're SuperStevie, you're the king.'
'Aye, if you believe the papers.' Stevie had finished his drink – Perrier, he had a game the next day. 'I don't know, Matty, maybe it's that I miss all that.'
'All what?'
'Schooldays. It was a laugh back then, wasn't it?'
Matty had frowned, not really remembering. 'But the life you've got now, Stevie, man. People would kill for it.'
And Stevie had nodded, looking suddenly sad.
Another time, a couple of kids had asked Stevie for his autograph, then had turned and asked Matty for his, thinking that whoever he was, he had to be somebody. Stevie had laughed at that, said something about it being a lesson in humility. Again, Matty didn't get it. There were times when Stevie seemed to be on a different planet. Maybe it was understandable, the pressure he was under. Stevie seemed to remember a lot more about school than Matty did: teachers' names, the lot. They talked about Gullane, too, what a boring place to grow up. Sometimes they didn't talk much at all. Just took out a couple of dolls: Stevie would always bring one along for Matty. She wouldn't be quite as gorgeous as Stevie's, but that was all right. Matty could understand that. He was soaking it all up, enjoying it while it lasted. He had half an idea that Stevie and him would be best friends for life, and another that Stevie would dump him soon and find some other distraction. He thought Stevie needed him right now much more than
Tonight they took in a couple of bars, a bit of a drive in Stevie's Beamer: he preferred BMWs to Porsches, more space for passengers. They ended up at a club, but didn't stay long. Stevie had a game the next day. He was always very conscientious that way: Perrier and early nights. Stevie dropped Matty off outside his flat, sounding the horn as he roared away. Matty hadn't spotted the other car, but he heard a door opening, looked across the road and recognized Malibu straight off. Malibu was Mr Mandelson's driver. He'd eased himself out of the Roller and was holding open the back door while looking over to Matty.
So Matty crossed the street. As he did so, he walked into Malibu 's shadow, cast by the sodium street lamp. At that moment, though he didn't know what was about to happen, he realized he was lost.
'Get in, Matty.'
The voice, of course, was Mandelson's. Matty got into the car and Malibu closed the door after him, then kept guard outside. They weren't going anywhere.
'Ever been in a Roller before, Matty?'
'I don't think so.'
'You'd remember if you had. I could have had one years back, but only by buying secondhand. I wanted to wait until I had the cash for a nice new one. That leather smell – you don't get it with any other car.' Mandelson lit a cigar. The windows were closed and the car started filling with sour smoke. 'Know how I came to afford a brand new Roller, Matty?'
'Hard work?' Matty's mouth was dry. Cars, he thought: Rebus's, Stevie's, and now this one. Plus, of course, the one he'd borrowed that night, the one that had brought him to this.
'Don't be stupid. My dad worked thirty years in a shop, six days a week and he still couldn't have made the down-payment. Faith, Matty, that's the key. You have to believe in yourself, and sometimes you have to trust other people – strangers some of them, or people you don't like, people it's hard to trust. That's the gamble life's making with you, and if you place your bet, sometimes you get lucky. Except it's not luck – not entirely. See, there are odds, like in every game, and that's where judgment comes in. I like to think I'm a good judge of character.'
Only now did Mandelson turn to look at him. There seemed to Matty to be nothing behind the eyes, nothing at all.
'Yes, sir,' he said, for want of anything better.
'That was Stevie dropped you off, eh?' Matty nodded. 'Now, your man Stevie, he's got something else, something we haven't discussed yet. He's got a gift. He's had to work, of course, but the thing was there to begin with. Don't ask me where it came from or why it should have been given to him in particular -that's one for the
