‘Reading all about Cafferty’s “associates” I didn’t get an impression of many “O” Grades. They’ve all got names like Slink and Codge and the Radiator.’
Rebus grinned. ‘Radiator McCallum, I remember him. He was supposed to be descended from a family of Highland cannibals. He did research and everything, he was so proud of his ancestors.’
‘He disappeared from the scene, though.’
‘Yes, three or four years ago.’
‘Four and a half, according to the records. I wonder what happened to him.’
Rebus shrugged. ‘He tried to doublecross Big Ger, got scared and ran, off.’
‘Or didn’t get the chance to run off.’
‘That too, of course. Or else he just got fed up, or had another job offer. It’s a very mobile profession, being a thug. Wherever the work is… ’
‘Cafferty certainly gets through the personnel. McCallum’s cousins disappeared from view just before McCallum himself did.’
Rebus frowned. ‘I didn’t know he had any cousins.’
‘Known colloquially as the Bru-head Brothers. Something to do with a penchant for Irn-Bru.’
‘Altogether understandable. What were their real names, though?’ She thought for a moment. ‘Tam and Eck Robertson.’
Rebus nodded. ‘Eck Robertson, yes. I didn’t know about the other one, though. Hang on a minut…’
Tam and Eck Robertson. The R. Brothers. Which would mean that Mork wa…
‘Morris bloody Cafferty!’ Rebus slapped the dashboard. Brian shortened the name and use…for the c. Chris…If Brian Holmes was on to something involving Cafferty and his gang, no wonder he was scared. Something to do with the night the Central Hotel caught fire. Did they start the blaze because the hotel hadn’t been paying its protection dues? What about the body, maybe it’d been some debtor or other. And soon afterwards, Radiator McCallum and his cousins left the scene. Bloody hell.
‘If you’re going to have a seizure,’ said Siobhan, ‘I’m trained in cardiac resuscitation.’
Rebus wasn’t listening. He stared at the road ahead, one fist around the coffee cup, the other pounding his knee. He was thinking of Brian’s note. He hadn’t said for sure that Cafferty was there that night, only that the brothers were. And something about a poker game. He was going to try to find the Robertson brothers; that was his final comment. After which, someone came along and hit him on the head. Maybe it was beginning to come together.
‘I’m not sure I can deal with catatonia though.’
‘What?’
‘Was it something that I said?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘The Bru-Head Brothers?’
‘The very same. What else can you tell me about them?’
‘Born in Niddrie, petty thieves from the time they left the pram — ’
‘They probably stole the pram, too. Anything else?’
Siobhan knew that she’d hit some nerve. ‘Plenty. Both had long records. Eck liked flashy clothes, Tam always wore jeans and a T-shirt. The funny thing is, though, Tam kept scrupulously clean. He even took his own soap everywhere with him. I thought that was strange.’
‘If I were the gambling kind,’ said Rebus, ‘I’d bet the soap was lemon-scented.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Instinct. Not mine, someone else’s.’ Rebus frowned. ‘How come I never heard of Tam?’
‘He moved to Dundee when he left school, or rather when he was
‘It’s all about a hotel fire.’
‘You mean those files on the floor behind your desk?’
‘I mean those files on the floor behind my desk.’
‘I couldn’t help taking a peek.’
‘They might tie in with the attack on Brian.’ She turned to him. ‘Keep your eyes on the road. You concentrate on the driving, and I’ll tell you a story. It might even keep us going till Aberdeen.’
And it did.
‘In ye come, Jock. My, my, I wouldn’t have recognised ye.’
‘I was in shorts the last time you saw me, Auntie Ena.’
The old woman laughed. She used a zimmer frame to walk back through the narrow musty hall and into a small back room. The room was crammed with furniture. There would be a front room, too, another lounge kept for the most special occasions. But Rebus was family, and family were greeted in the back room.
She was frail-looking and hunch-backed and wore a shawl over her angular shoulders. Her silver hair had been pulled back severely and pinned tight against her head, and her eyes were sunken dots in a parchment face. Rebus couldn’t remember her at all.
‘You must have been three when we were last in Fife. You could talk the hind legs off a donkey, but with such a thick accent, I could hardly make out a word of it. Always wanting to tell a joke or sing a song.’
‘I’ve changed,’ Rebus said.
‘Eh?’ She had dumped herself into a chair beside the fireplace, and craned her head forward. ‘My hearing’s not so good, Jock.’
‘I said, nobody calls me Jock!’ Rebus called. ‘It’s John.’
‘Oh aye, John. Right you are.’ She pulled a travel-rug over her legs. In the fireplace stood an electric fire, the kind with fake coals, fake flames, and, so far as Rebus could tell, fake heat. There was one pale orange bar on, but he couldn’t feel anything.
‘Danny found you, then?’
‘You mean Andy?’
‘He’s a good laddie. Such a shame he got made redundant. Did he come back with you?’
‘No, he’s still in Edinburgh.’ She was resting her head against the back of the chair. Rebus got the impression she was about to drift off to sleep. The walk to the front door and back had probably exhausted her.
‘His parents are nice folk, always so kind to me.’
‘You wanted to see me about something, Auntie Ena?’
‘Eh?’
He crouched down in front of her, resting his hands on the side of the chair. ‘You wanted to see me.’ Well, she could see hi…and then she couldn’t, as her eyes glazed over and, mouth wide open, she started to snore.
Rebus stood up and gave a loud sigh. The clock over the mantelpiece had stopped, but he knew he had at least two hours to kill. Talking over the Central Hotel case with Siobhan had made him agitated. He wanted to get back to work on it. And here he was, trapped in this miniature museum. He looked around, wrinkling his nose at a chrome commode in one dark corner. There were photos inside a glass-fronted china cabinet. He went over and examined them. He recognised a picture of his grandparents on his father’s side, but there were no photos of his father. The feud, or whatever it had been, had seen to that.
The Scots never forgot. It was a burden and a gift. The living-room led directly onto a small scullery. Rebus looked in the antique fridge and found a piece of brisket, which he sniffed. There was bread in a large tin in the pantry, and butter in a dish on the draining-board. It took him ten minutes to make the sandwiches, and five minutes to find out which of the many caddies contained the tea.
He found a radio beside the sink and tried to find commentary on a football game, but the batteries were weaker than his tea. So he tiptoed back through to where Auntie Ena was still sleeping and sat down in the chair opposite her. He hadn’t come up here expecting an inheritance, exactly, but he had bargained for more than this. A particularly loud snore brought Auntie Ena wriggling towards consciousness.
‘Eh? Is that you, Jimmy?’
‘It’s John, your nephew.’
‘Gracious, John, did I nod off?’
‘Just forty winks.’
