reassuringly at him. Rebus handed him a photo - the computer-generated face from the fireplace.
'How much do you know?' Grieve asked Rebus.
'Quite a bit. Callan was buying up lots of land around Calton Hill, presumably with both eyes on a new parliament. But he didn't want the planners knowing it was him, so he used Freddy and you as a front.'
Grieve was nodding. 'Bryce had a contact in the council, someone in the planning department.' Rebus and Siobhan exchanged a look. 'He'd given Bryce a promise on the parliament site.'
'Bloody risky, though: it was all down to how the vote went in the first place.'
'Yes, but that looked solid at first. It was only later the fix went in, the government making damned sure it wouldn't happen.'
'So, Callan had all this land and now nothing was going to happen to make it worth anything?'
'The land was still worth something. But he blamed us for everything.' Grieve laughed. 'As if we'd rigged the election!'
'And?'
'Well... Freddy had been playing silly buggers with the figures, telling Callan we'd had to pay more for the land than was the case. Callan found out, wanted the difference back plus the money he'd paid as a fee for fronting the whole thing.'
'He sent someone round?' Rebus guessed.
'A man called Mackie.' Grieve tapped the photo. 'One of his thugs, a real piece of work.' He rubbed at his temples. 'Christ, you don't know how strange it feels, saying all this at last...'
'Mackie?' Rebus prompted. 'First name Chris?'
'No, not Chris: Alan or Alex... something like that. Why?'
'It's the name Freddy took for himself.' Guilt again? Rebus wondered. 'So how did Mackie end up dead?'
'He was there to scare us into paying, and he could be very scary. Freddy just got lucky. There was a knife he kept in his drawer, a sort of letter opener. Took it with him that night for protection. We were supposed to be meeting Callan, sort it all out. Car park off the Cowgate, late night... the pair of us were scared shitless.'
'But you went anyway?'
'We'd discussed doing a runner... but, yes, we went anyway. Hard to turn down Bryce Callan. Only Bryce wasn't there. It was this guy Mackie. He gave me a couple of whacks on the head - one of my ears still doesn't work properly. Then he turned on Freddy. He had this gun, hit me with the butt. I think Freddy was going to get worse... I'm sure of it. He was the one in charge, Callan knew that. It was self-defence, I'd swear to it. All the same, I don't think he meant to kill Mackie, just...' He shrugged. 'Just stop him, I suppose.'
'Stabbed him through the heart,' Rebus commented.
'Yes,' Grieve agreed. 'We could see straight off he was dead.'
'What did you do?'
'Dumped him back in his car and ran for it. We knew we had to split up, knew Callan would have to kill us now, no two ways about it.'
'And the money?'
'I told Freddy I didn't want anything to do with it. He said we should meet, a year to the day, a bar on Frederick Street.'
'You didn't make the meet?'
Grieve shook his head. 'I was someone else by then, somewhere I was getting to know and like.'
Freddy had travelled, too, Siobhan was thinking: all the places he'd told Dezzi about.
But a year to the day, when Alasdair didn't show, Freddy Hastings had walked into the building society on George Street, just round the corner from Frederick Street, and opened an account in the name of C. Mackie...
'There was a briefcase,' Siobhan asked.
Grieve looked at her. 'God, yes. It belonged to Dean Coghill'
'The letters on it were ADC 'I think Dean's his second name, but he liked it better than the first. Barry Hutton brought us one lot of cash in that briefcase, boasted how he'd taken it from Coghill; 'Because I can, and there's nothing he can do about it.' ' He shook his head.
'Mr Coghill's dead,' Siobhan said.
'Chalk up another victim to Bryce Callan.'
And though Coghill had died of natural causes, Rebus knew exactly what Grieve meant.
Rebus and Siobhan, a powwow in the CID suite.
'What've we got?' she asked.
'Lots of bits,' he acknowledged. 'We've got Barry Hutton heading out to check on Mackie, finding the body. Not far from Queensberry House, so he takes the body there, walls it in. Chances were, it wouldn't be found for centuries.'
'Why?'
'Couldn't have the police asking questions, I suppose.'
'How come no one called Mackie ended up posted a MisPer?'
'Mackie belongs to Bryce Callan, no one to mourn him or post him missing.'
'And Freddy Hastings kills himself when he reads the story in the paper?'
Rebus nodded. 'The whole thing's coming back again, and he can't deal with it.'
'I'm not sure I understand him.'
'Who?'
'Freddy. What made him do what he did, living like that...'
'There's a slightly more pressing concern,' Rebus told her. 'Callan and Hutton are getting away with this.'
Siobhan was leaning against her desk. She folded her arms. 'Well, in the end, what did they do? They didn't kill Mackie, they didn't push Freddy Hastings off North Bridge.'
'But they made it all happen.'
'And now Callan's a tax exile, and Barry Hutton's a reformed character.' She waited for him to say something, but he didn't. 'You don't think so?' Then she remembered what Alasdair Grieve had said in the interview room.
'A contact in the council,' she quoted.
'Someone in the planning department,' Rebus quoted back.
It took them a week to get everything together, the team working flat out. Derek Linford was convalescing at home, drinking his meals through a straw. As someone commented, 'Every time an officer takes a kicking, the brass has to reward them.' The feeling was Linford would be going on a promotion shortlist. Meantime, Alasdair Grieve was acting the tourist. He'd got himself a room at a bed and breakfast on Minto Street. They weren't letting him leave the country, not quite yet. He'd surrendered his passport, and had to report each day to St Leonard's. The Farmer didn't think they'd be charging him with anything, but as the witness to a fatal assault, a case-file would have to be prepared. Rebus's unofficial contract with Grieve: stay put, and your family needn't know you're back.
The team compiled their case. Not just the Roddy Grieve team, but Siobhan and Wylie and Hood, Wylie making Hire she had a desk by a window: her reward, she said, for all the hours in the interview room.
They had help from further afield, too - NCIS, Crime Squad, the Big House. And when they were ready, there was still work to be done. A doctor had to be arranged, the suspect contacted and informed that a solicitor might be a good idea. He would know they'd been asking questions; even in his state, he'd have to know - friends lipping him the wink. Again, Carswell argued against Rebus's involvement; again, he was voted down, but only When Rebus and Siobhan turned up at the detached. walled house on Queensferry Road, there were three cars in the driveway: both doctor and solicitor had already arrived. It was a big house, 1930s vintage, but next to the main artery between the city and Fife. That would knock ?50k from the value, easy; even so, it had to be worth a third of a million. Not bad for a 'toon cooncillor'.
Archie Ure was in bed, but not in his bedroom. To avoid the stairs, a single bed had been erected in the dining room. The dining table now sat out in the hall, six formal chairs upended and resting on its polished
