Black Book

‘A rock band?’

‘Keech. They used to chuck all their keech out of the windows and onto the street. There was so much of it lying around, the locals called it the flowers of Edinburgh. I read that in a book.’

Rebus thought of Alister Plower and smiled. ‘Makes you glad you’re living in a decent society.’

‘So it does,’ said Cafferty, with no trace of irony. ‘Eck and Tam Robertson, eh? The Bru-Heid Brothers. I won’t lie to you, they used to work for me. Tam for just a few weeks, Eck for longer.’

‘I won’t ask what they did.’

Cafferty shrugged. ‘They were general employees.’

‘Covers a multitude of sins.’

‘Look, I didn’t ask you to come out here. But now that you are, I’m answering your questions, all right?’

‘I appreciate it, really. You say you didn’t know they were at the Central that night?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know what happened to them afterwards?’

‘They stopped working for me. Not at the same time, Tam left first, I think. Tam then Eck. Tam was a dunderheid, Strawman, a real loser. I can’t abide losers. I only hired him because Eck asked me to. Eck was a good worker.’ He seemed lost in thought for a minute. ‘You’re looking for them?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Sorry, I can’t help.’ Rebus wondered if Cafferty’s cheeks were half as red as his felt. He had a piercing stitch in his side, and didn’t know how he was going to make the run back. ‘You think they had something to do With the body?’

Rebus merely nodded.

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘I’m not sure. But if they did have something to do with it, I’m willing to bet you weren’t a hundred miles behind.’

‘Me?’ Cafferty laughed again, but the laugh was strained. ‘As I recall, I was on holiday in Malta with some friends.’

‘You always seem to be with friends when anything happens.’

‘I’m a gregarious man, I can’t help it if I’m popular. Know something else I read about Scotland? The Pope called it “the arse of Europe”.’ Cafferty slowed to a stop. They’d come to near the top of Duddingston Loch, the city just visible down below them. ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? The arse of Europe, it doesn’t look like one to me.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Rebus, bent over with hands on knees. ‘If this is the ars…’ he looked up, ‘I’d know where to stick the enema.’

Cafferty’s laughter roared out all around. He was breathing deeply, trying to slow things down. When he spoke, it was in an undertone, though there was no one around to hear them. ‘But we’re a cruel people, Strawman. All of us, you and me. And we’re ghouls.’ His face was very close to Rebus’s, both of them bent over. Rebus kept his eyes on the grass below him. ‘When they killed the grave-robber Burke, they made souvenirs from his skin. I’ve got one in the house, I’ll show it to you.’ The voice might have been inside Rebus’s own head. ‘We like to watch, and that’s the truth. I bet even you’ve got a taste for pain, Strawman. You’re hurting all over, but you ran with me, you didn’t give up. Why? Because you like the pain. It’s what makes you a Calvinist.’

‘It’s what makes you a public menace.’

‘Me? A simple businessman who has managed to survive this disease called recession.’

‘No, you’re more than that,’ said Rebus, straightening up. ‘You’re the disease.’

Cafferty looked like he might throw a punch, but instead he pounded Rebus on the back. ‘Come on, time to go.’

Rebus was about to plead another minute’s rest, but saw Cafferty walking to the Jag. ‘What?’ Cafferty said. ‘You think I’d run it both ways? Come on now, your herbal tea is waiting.’

And herbal tea it was, served up poolside after Rebus had showered and changed back into his clothes. He had the feeling someone had been through his wallet and diary in his absence, but knew they wouldn’t have found much there. For one thing, he’d tucked his ID and credit cards into the front of his running shorts; for another, he’d about as much cash as would buy an evening paper and a packet of mints.

‘Sorry I couldn’t be more help,’ said Cafferty after Rebus had sat himself down.

‘You could if you tried,’ Rebus replied. He was trying to stop his legs from shaking. They hadn’t had this much exercise since the last time he’d flitted.

Cafferty just shrugged. He was now wearing baggy and wildly coloured swimming trunks, and had just had a dip. As he dried himself off, he showed enough anal cleavage to qualify as a construction worker.

The devil dog meantime sat by the pool licking its chops. Of the bone it had been chewing, there was not the slightest trace. Rebus suddenly placed the dog.

‘Do you own a 4x4?’ Cafferty nodded. ‘I saw it parked across from Bone’s the Butcher on South Clerk Street. This mutt was in the back.’ Cafferty shrugged. ‘It’s my wife’s car.’

‘And she often takes the dog into town?’

‘She gets Kaiser’s bones there. Besides, he’s cheaper than a car alarm.’ Cafferty smiled fondly at the dog. ‘And I’ve never known anyone bypass him.’

‘Maybe sausages would do it.’ But this was lost on Cafferty. Rebus decided he was getting nowhere. It was time to try one final tactic. He finished the brew. It tasted like spearmint chewing gum. ‘A colleague of mine was trying to track down the Robertson brothers. Someone put him in hospital.’

‘Really?’ Cafferty looked genuinely surprised. ‘What happened?’

‘He was attacked behind a restaurant called the Heartbreak Cafe.’

‘Dear me. Did he find them, Tam and Eck?’

‘If he’d found them, I wouldn’t have had to come here.’

‘I thought maybe it was just an excuse for a blether about the good old days.’

‘What good old days?’

‘True enough, you look about as bad as ever. Not me, though. My wild days are behind me.’ He sipped his tea to prove the point. ‘I’m a changed man.’

Rebus nearly laughed. ‘You tell that line so often in court, you’re beginning to believe it.’

‘No, it’s true.’

‘Then you wouldn’t be trying to put the frighteners on me?’

Cafferty shook his head. He was crouching beside the dog, rubbing its head briskly. ‘Oh no, Strawman, the day’s long past when I’d take a set of six-inch carpentry nails and fix you to the floorboards in some derelict house. Or tickle your tonsils with jump-leads connected to a generator.’ He was warming to his subject, looking almost as ready to pounce as his dog.

Rebus stayed nonchalant. Indeed, he had one to add to the list. ‘Or hang me over the Forth Rail Bridge?’ There was silence, except for the hum of the jacuzzi and the snuffling of the dog. Then the door swung open and a woman’s head smiled heedlessly towards them.

‘Morris, dinner in ten minutes.’

‘Thanks, Mo.’

The door closed again, and Cafferty got up. So did the dog. ‘Well, Strawman, it’s been lovely chatting away like this, but I better take a shower before I eat. Mo’s always complaining I smell like chlorine. I keep telling her, we wouldn’t have to put chlorine in the pool if the visitors didn’t piss in it, but she blames Kaiser!’

‘She’s you…e…?’

‘My wife. As of four years and three months.’

Rebus was nodding. He knew Cafferty was married, of course. He’d just forgotten the name of the lucky bride.

‘She’s the one who’s changed me if anyone has,’ Cafferty was saying. ‘She makes me read all these books.’

Rebus knew the Nazis had read books too. ‘Just one thing, Cafferty.’

‘Mr Cafferty. Go on, indulge me.’

Rebus swallowed hard. ‘Mr Cafferty. What’s your wife’s maiden name?’

‘Morag,’ said Cafferty, puzzled by the question. ‘Morag Johnson.’ Then he padded away towards the shower,