mugs, stirred them, and handed one to Rebus. ‘Sorry, we don’t stretch to pure Colombian.’
‘Is that another joke?’
Leitch sat down again. ‘I knew Dixie,’ he said. ‘I only met Willie a couple of times.’
‘Willie wasn’t a user?’
‘He probably toked up, maybe dropped some E.’
‘Pretty clean-living then? Were you surprised when you learned what they’d done?’
‘Surprised? I don’t know. How’s your coffee?’
‘Terrible.’
‘Terrible or not, it’s still twenty pence.’ Leitch pointed to a box on the desk. Rebus found a one-pound coin and dropped it in.
‘Keep the change.’
‘Giving a quid qualifies you as a patron.’ Leitch stuck his feet up on the edge of the desk, knees bent. He was wearing moccasins, their stitched seams coming undone. The bottoms of his denims were frayed too. He usually described himself as ‘just another old hippy’.
‘How’s the centre doing?’ Rebus asked.
‘We’re hanging on by the skin of our teeth.’
‘You get district council funding?’
‘Some.’ Leitch frowned. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘What happens when the district council is replaced?’
‘We pray the new authority keeps up our funding.’
Rebus nodded thoughtfully. ‘I was asking if you were surprised about Willie and Dixie.’
Leitch thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose I was, except that it was a dafter stunt than I would have expected from them.’
‘Because Willie was smarter than that?’
‘He must have known they’d never get away with it. Dixie was a different proposition, crazy at times, a real heid-the-ba’, but Willie could keep him under control.’
‘Like Keitel and DeNiro in
‘That’s not a bad comparison. Dixie would do something daft, and Willie would slap him about the head. Dixie wouldn’t have taken it from anyone else. You realise a lot of what I’m telling you is second-hand? Like I said, I only met Willie a couple of times.’ He paused. ‘You were there, weren’t you?’
‘I was there,’ Rebus said quietly. He shifted in his chair. ‘They just … Willie put his arm around Dixie and then leaned back over the rail, and Dixie went with him. There was no resistance. They didn’t jump, they just slipped away.’
‘Christ.’ Leitch took his feet off the desk.
‘Why would they do that?’
Leitch got up and walked around the desk. ‘I think you know the answer to that, or at least you have an inkling. They couldn’t go to jail.’
‘I know,’ Rebus said. Two people die rather than go to jail; another dies rather than be out. Rebus touched his mouth with a finger, feeling the pain, the pressure, almost enjoying it.
Leitch landed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Have you seen a counsellor?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t the police have counselling?’
‘Why would I want counselling?’
Leitch squeezed Rebus’s shoulder and withdrew his hand. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said, going back to his chair. They sat in silence for a while.
‘Ever come across a guy called Paul Duggan?’ Rebus asked at last.
‘Name rings a bell. I can’t put a face to it. Maybe I’ve just heard him mentioned around the centre.’
‘He loaned Willie and Dixie his car. He was their landlord.’
‘Oh, right, yes. A couple of guys who sometimes come in are tenants of his.’
‘Any idea where they live?’
‘Abbey Hill, somewhere round there.’
‘What about the name Dalgety — does it mean anything to you?’ Leitch thought about it and shook his head. Rebus dug into his pocket and brought out the photo of Kirstie Kennedy. ‘I know it’s a long shot,’ he said, ‘but have you seen her around the centre?’
‘This is the Lord Provost’s daughter. A couple of uniforms came asking about her just after she went missing.’
‘The photo’s a bit out of date, she’d look different now.’
‘Then bring me a more recent photo. Don’t tell me an out-of-date picture’s the best her parents can do?’
Rebus thought about that as he left Fraser Leitch’s office. The man had a point. Then again, how many photos did Rebus have of his own daughter? Precious few after age twelve. He was standing in the short dark hallway, half its walls taken up with noticeboards, the other half with marker-pen graffiti. Rebus studied the notices. One card was recent, its edges not yet dog-eared. It was printed, unlike its ballpoint neighbours. Altogether a very superior card.
ROOMS TO LET CHEAP.
There was a phone number and a name. The name was Paul. Rebus removed the card and put it in his pocket next to Kirstie Kennedy’s photo.
He glanced into the two open rooms. In one, a couple of rows of plastic chairs were positioned in front of a TV. The TV was a twelve-inch black and white. One lad was in there, holding the indoor aerial above his head as he stared at the screen from a distance of about thirty inches. Another kid sat on one of the chairs, sleeping. In the other room, three more teenagers, two boys and a girl, were trying to play table tennis with one cracked ball, two rubberless bats, and a paperback book. Their net was a row of upended cigarette packets. They played quietly, without enthusiasm or hope.
On the steps outside, two more clients of the centre tried to bum first money and then cigarettes off him. He handed out a couple of ciggies, and even lit them.
‘Shame about Dixie, eh?’ he said.
‘Fuck off, porker,’ they said, moving back indoors.
Back at his flat, Rebus finally bled the central heating system, catching the water in empty coffee jars. One thing about the flat when he moved back in: plenty of empty coffee jars. He’d meant to ask the students why there were cupboards and boxes full of them.
He refilled the system, wondering what the pressure gauges on the front of the boiler should read. When he turned the system back on, there was a gushing, gurgling sound from the pipes, and the boiler shuddered as the gas jets burst into life.
He went through to the living room and stood with his hand on the radiator. It got warm, but stayed only warm, even with the thermostat all the way up. And there was a drip from the bleedcock. He twisted the key as hard as he could, but the drip remained. He tied a kitchen-cloth to it and let the cloth run down into one of the coffee jars. That would collect the drips, and stop them making a noise.
Yes, John Rebus had been here before.
He sat in his chair, lights out, and looked out of his window on to Arden Street, thinking of Maisie Finch, thinking of her mother and his own mother. There was frost on the roofs and bonnets of the parked cars. A group of students were laughing their way back to their digs. Rebus poured himself a whisky and told the students how lucky they were. Everybody out there was lucky. All the people sleeping rough, and bumming cigarettes, and plotting and scheming how to get ahead. Alister Flower, twisting and gnawing in his sleep; Gill Templer, still and unperturbed in hers; Frank Lauderdale, with an itch beneath his cast; Tresa McAnally, feet up in front of the TV; Kirstie Kennedy … wherever she was. They were all of them lucky.
Edinburgh was a lucky fucking town.
