'The building trade's a tough game,' Wylie agreed.
'It's not that.' He looked at her.
'What then?'
'I might be speaking out of turn.' He considered this. 'But at my age, who cares?' Took a deep, noisy breath. 'It's just that, way I heard it, Dean fell foul of Mr Big.'
Wylie and Hood responded as one voice. 'Mr Big?'
The Oxford Bar was busy when Rebus arrived. He'd already had one drink at The Makings, leaving before the evening influx of students, and two drinks at Swany's on Causewayside. In Swany's he'd bumped into an old colleague, recently retired.
'You look too young,' Rebus had chided him.
'Same age as you, John,' had been the reply.
But Rebus didn't have thirty years in; had joined the force in his mid-twenties. Two or three more years, he could be a gentleman of leisure. Rebus got a round in, then sneaked out into the cold blast of winter. Headlamps piercing the darkness; recent rainfall threatening ice. A fifteen-minute walk home. Across the street, a taxi filling up at the petrol station.
Retirement. The word bouncing around in his skull. Jesus, but what would he do with himself? One man's retirement was another's redundancy. He thought of the Farmer, then waved down the taxi, asked to be taken to the Oxford Bar.
No sign of Doc and Salty, Rebus's usual drinking partners, but plenty of faces he knew. The place was buzzing, bodies crammed in the front room. Football on the TV: a game from down south. A regular called Muir was standing close by the door. He nodded a greeting.
'Your wife has a gallery, doesn't she?' Rebus asked. Muir nodded again. 'Ever sell any stuff by Alicia Rankeillor?'
Muir snorted. 'If only. Rankeillor's stuff, as you call it, fetches tens of thousands. Every city in the western world wants something of hers in its collection - preferably something from the forties or fifties. Even her limited prints fetch a grand or two apiece.' Muir looked up. 'Don't know anyone who wants to sell, do you?'
'I'll let you know.'
The Two Margarets were behind the bar, busy in their confinement. Rebus's IPA arrived, and he ordered a whisky to go with it. Music from the back room. He could just make it out: acoustic guitar, young woman on vocals. But here was his favourite duet: a pint and a dram. He added water to the whisky, removing the edge. A deep swallow, coating his throat. One of the Margarets was back with his change.
'Friend of yours through the back.' Rebus frowned. 'Singing?'
She smiled, shook her head. 'Up by the cigarette machine.'
He looked. Saw a wall of bodies. The ciggie machine was in an alcove, up three steps and next to the toilets. Fruit machine there, too. But all he could see were men's backs, meaning someone had an audience. 'Who is it?'
Margaret shrugged. 'Said she knew you.'
'Siobhan?'
Another shrug. He craned his neck. A new round was being got in. The backs half-turned. Rebus saw faces he knew: regulars. Glazed smiles and cigarette smoke. And behind them, relaxed, leaning against the fruit machine, Lorna Grieve. A tall drink was raised to her lips. It looked like neat whisky or brandy, three measures at least. She smacked her lips; her eyes met his and she smiled, raising her glass. He smiled back, raised his own glass to her. A sudden flash of memory: as a kid, he'd been coming home from school. Passing a street corner by the sweet shop, a crowd of older boys hemming in a girl from his class. He couldn't see what was going on. Her eyes, suddenly catching his between the heads of two of the boys. Not panicked, but not enjoying herself either...
Lorna Grieve touched one of her suitors on the arm, said something to him. His name was Gordon, a Fifer like Rebus. Probably young enough to be her son.
Now she was walking forwards, negotiating the steps. Squeezing through the crowd, touching arms and shoulders and backs; each touch enough to aid her progress.
'Well, well,' she said, 'fancy seeing you here.'
'Yes,' he said, 'just fancy.' He'd finished the whisky. She asked if he wanted another. He shook his head, lifted the pint.
'I don't think I've ever been here,' she said, leaning into the bar. 'I've just been hearing about the old owner, how he wouldn't serve women or people with English accents. I think I might have liked him.'
'He was an acquired taste.'
'The best kind, don't you think?' Her eyes were on him. 'I've been hearing about you, too. I may have to stop calling you Monkey Man.'
'Why's that?'
'Because from what I've been told, not many people make a monkey out of you.'
He smiled. 'Bars are great places for tall stories.'
'There you go, Lorna.' It was Gordon, presenting her with another drink. Armagnac: Rebus had watched Margaret pouring. 'AH right, John? You never told us you knew famous people.'
Lorna Grieve accepted the compliment; Rebus stayed quiet.
'And if I'd known there were honeys like you in Edinburgh,' she told Gordon, 'I wouldn't have moved out to the sticks. And I certainly wouldn't have married a grim old beast like Hugh Cordover.'
'Don't knock High Chord,' Gordon said. 'I saw Obscura supporting Barclay James Harvest at the Usher Hall.'
'Were you still at school?'
Gordon considered the question. 'I think I was fourteen.'
Lorna Grieve looked at Rebus. 'We're dinosaurs,' she informed him.
'We were dinosaurs when Gordon here was just primordial soup,' he agreed.
But she wasn't at all like a dinosaur. Her clothes were colourful and flowing, her hair immaculate, and her make-up striking. Surrounded by men in work suits, she was a butterfly in the company of fluttering grey moths.
'What are you doing here?' he asked.
'Drinking.'
'Did you drive in?'
'The band gave me a lift.' She peered at him. 'I didn't just come here to see you, you know.'
'No?'
'Don't flatter yourself.' She brushed invisible flecks from her scarlet jacket. Beneath was an orange silk blouse, and on her legs faded denims, frayed where they touched her ankles. Black suede moccasins on her feet. No jewellery anywhere.
Not even a wedding ring.
'I like new things, that's all,' she was explaining. 'And currently my life is so dreary', looking at her surroundings, 'that this counts as new.'
'Poor you.'
Her glance was arch and wry at the same time. Gordon shuffled his feet and said he'd see her upstairs. She nodded unconvincingly.
'Have you been drinking all day?' he asked.
'Jealous?'
He shrugged. 'I've been there often enough.' He turned so he was facing her. 'How does the Ox measure up?' Her nose wrinkled. 'It's very you,' she said. 'Is that good or bad?'
'I haven't decided yet.' She studied him. 'There's a darkness in you.'
'Probably all the beer.'
'I'm serious. We all come from darkness, you have to remember that, and we sleep during the night to escape the fact. I'll bet you have trouble sleeping at night, don't you?' He didn't say anything. Her face grew less animated. 'We'll all return to darkness one day, when the sun burns out.' A sudden smile lit her eyes. ' 'Though my soul may set in darkness, It will rise in perfect light.' '
