Black Book

‘That’s what I mean. Next, check and see if Mo Cafferty has a driving licence.’

‘What for?’

‘Just do it. And do you remember telling me that when Bone won his Merc, he put up his share of the business to cover the bet? Your words: his share.’

‘I remember. His wife told me.’

Rebus nodded. ‘I want to know who owns the other half.’

‘Is that all, sir?’

Rebus thought. ‘No, not quite. Check Bone’s Merc. See if anyone owned it before him. That way, we’ll know who he won it from.’ He looked at her unblinking. ‘Quick as you can, eh?’

‘Quick as I can, sir. Now, do you want to know what’s in the envelope? It’s for the man who has everything.’

‘Go on then, surprise me.’

So she did.

Rebus was so surprised, he bought her coffee and a dough-ring in the canteen. The X-rays lay on the table between them.

‘I don’t believe this,’ he kept saying. ‘I really don’t believe this. I put out a search for these ages ago.’

‘They were in the records office at Ninewells.’

‘But I asked them!’

‘But did you ask nicely?’

Siobhan had explained that she’d been able to take a few trips to Dundee, chatting up anyone who might be useful, and especially in the chaotic records department, which had been moved and reorganised a few years before, leaving older records an ignored shambles. It had taken time. More than that, she’d had to promise a date to the young man who’d finally come up with the goods.

Rebus held up one of the X-rays again.

‘Broken right arm,’ Siobhan confirmed. ‘Twelve years ago. While he was living and working in Dundee.’

‘Tam Roberston,’ Rebus said simply. That was that then: the dead man, the man with the bullet wound through his heart, the bullet from Rebus’s Colt 45, was Tam Robertson.

‘Difficult to prove in a court of law,’ Siobhan suggested. True enough, you’d need more than hearsay and an X-ray to prove identity to a jury.

‘There are ways,’ said Rebus. ‘We can try dental records again, now we’ve got an idea who the corpse is. Then there’s superimposition. For the moment, it’s enough for me that I’m satisfied.’ He nodded. ‘Well done, Clarke.’ He started to get up.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

She was smiling. ‘Merry Christmas, sir.’

29

He phoned Gibson’s Brewery, only to be told that ‘Mr Aengus’ was attending an ale competition in Newcastle, due back later tonight. So he called the Inland Revenue and spoke for a while to the inspector in charge of his case. If he was going to confront Tommy Greenwood, he’d need all the ammo he could gathe…bad metaphor considering, but true all the same. He left his car at St Leonard’s while he went for a walk, trying to clear his head. Everything was coming together now. Aengus Gibson had been playing cards with Tam Robertson, and had shot him. Then set fire to the hotel to cover up the murder. It should all be tied up, but Rebus’s brain was posing more questions than answers. Was it likely Aengus carried a gun around with him, even in his wild days? Why didn’t Eck, also present, seek revenge for his brother? Wouldn’t Aengus have had to shut him up somehow? Was it likely that only three of them were involved in the poker game? And who had delivered the gun to Deek Torrance? So many questions.

As he came down onto South Clerk Street, he saw that a van was parked outside Bone’s. A new plate-glass window was being installed in the shop itself, and the van door was open at the back. Rebus walked over to the van and looked in the back. It had been a proper butcher’s van at one time, and nobody had bothered changing it. You climbed a step into the back, where there were counters and cupboards and a small fridge-freezer. The van would have had its usual rounds of the housing schemes in the city, housewives and retired folk queuing for meat rather than travelling to a shop. A man in a white apron came out of Bone’s with an ex-pig hoisted on his shoulder.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, carrying the carcass into the van.

‘You use this for deliveries?’ Rebus asked.

The man nodded. ‘Just to restaurants.’

‘I remember when a butcher’s van used to come by our way,’ Rebus reminisced.

‘Aye, it’s not economic these days, though.’

‘Everything changes,’ said Rebus. The man nodded agreement. Rebus was examining the interior again. To get behind the counter, you climbed into the van, pulled a hinged section of the counter up, and pushed open a narrow little door. Narrow: that’s what the back of the van was.

He remembered Michael’s description of the van he’d been shunted about in. A narrow van with a smell. As the man came out of the van, he disturbed something with his foot. It was a piece of straw. Straw in a butcher’s van? None of the animals carried in here had seen straw for a while.

Rebus looked into the shop. A young assistant was watching the glass being installed.

‘Open for business, sir,’ he informed Rebus cheerily.

‘I was looking for Mr Bone.’

‘He’s not in this afternoon.’

Rebus nodded towards the van. ‘Do you still do runs?’

‘What, house-to-house?’ The young man shook his head. ‘Just general deliveries, bulk stuff.’

Yes, Rebus would agree with that.

He walked back up to St Leonard’s, and caught Siobhan again. ’ forgot to sa…’

‘More work?’

‘Not much more. Pat Calder, you’ll need to bring him in for questioning too. He’ll be back home by now and getting frantic wondering where Eddie’s sloped off to. I’m just sorry I won’t be around for the reunion. I suppose I can always catch it in cour…’

It had been quite a day already, and it wasn’t.yet six o’clock. Back in the flat, the students were cooking a lentil curry while Michael sat in the living room reading another book on hypnotherapy. It had all become very settled in the flat, ver…well, the word that came to mind was homely. It was a strange word to use about a bunch of teenage students, a copper and an ex-con, yet it seemed just about right.

Michael had finished the tablets, and looked the better for it. He was supposed to arrange a check-up, but Rebus was dubious: they’d probably only stick him on more tablets. The scars would heal over naturally. All it took was time. He’d certainly regained his appetite: two helpings of curry.

After the meal they all sat around in the living room, the students, drinking wine, Michael refusing it, Rebus supping beer from a can. There was music, the kind that never went away: the Stones and the Doors, Janis Joplin, very early Pink Floyd. It was one of those evenings. Rebus felt absolutely shattered, and blamed it on the caffeine tablets he’d been taking. Here he’d been worrying about Michael, and all the time he’d been swallowing down his own bad medicine. They’d seen him through the weekend, sleeping little and thinking lots. But yo couldn’t go on like that forever. And what with the music and the beer and the relaxed conversation, he’d almost certainly fall asleep here on the sofa …

‘What was that?’

‘Sounds like somebody smashed a bottle or something.’

The students got up to look out of the window. ‘Can’t see anything.’

‘No, look, there’s glass on the road.’ They turned to Rebus. ‘Someone’s broken your windshield.’

Someone had indeed broken his windshield, as he found when he wandered downstairs and into the street. Other neighbours had gathered at doors and windows to check the scene. But most of them were retreating now.