Let It Bleed

‘Just tell me where she is.’

Duggan started to shake his head, and Rebus hauled him by the coat-sleeve to the water’s edge. The street was empty save for a line of cars whose owners were all in the howffs.

‘Fancy a dip, Paul? It can be invigorating at this time of year, if the sewage and the rats don’t get you.’

‘This coat cost a fortune!’ Duggan squealed.

‘You won’t need it in jail, son. You’ll be tucked up in bed with some big bad bastard keeping you warm.’

‘All right, all right!’

Rebus released his grip. Duggan looked up and down the street.

‘Run if you like, Paul. I’ll find you.’

‘Jesus, calm down, will you? OK, I’ve seen her. She hung around for a while with Willie and Dixie.’

‘How long?’

‘A week, maybe a bit longer.’

‘Is she still around?’

‘I haven’t seen her. I only saw her a couple of times.’

‘At the house in Saughton?’

‘No, no, at a couple of drop-in centres.’

‘But you don’t know where she is, or what she’s doing?’ Duggan shook his head. ‘Right, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to find her for me.’

‘What?’

‘Somebody like you, lots of contacts … should be easy.’

‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’

Rebus pointed to the water. ‘There’s your alternative.’ He held out the photo. ‘Take this, it might help.’

‘It won’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘That’s not what she looks like. We had a laugh when we saw that picture in all the papers. I mean, I can believe she might have looked like that before she started using.’

‘Drugs?’

‘And plenty of them by the look of her.’

Rebus frowned. ‘You think she’s been on them long?’

‘Long enough. Maybe a year or so.’

‘A year?’

Duggan shrugged. ‘Only a guess; I’m not into that scene.’

‘I’ll bet you don’t mind them as tenants though, eh?’ Duggan straightened his shoulders. ‘How about looking at it this way — I’m doing the council’s work for it, putting roofs over the heads of people who’d be on the street otherwise.’

‘Mr Social Conscience. They’ll be giving you the keys to the city next. Get out of my sight, and take the photo, it’s got my phone number on the back. If I don’t hear from you in a day or two, we’ll have another chat. Maybe at your place this time, with your mum and dad listening. How would you like that?’

Duggan didn’t answer. He rearranged his coat, which had fallen down over one shoulder, then pocketed the photograph. Rebus watched him shuffle away, back towards the traffic.

So, now he knew for certain why the Lord Provost hadn’t had a more recent photo of his daughter. He wondered why Duggan had been so curious about whatever Kirstie had left in Willie Coyle’s bedroom. But Rebus was beginning to get an idea about that, too.

23

He drove to the Ox, where Doc and Salty stood in their allotted places. Room was made for Rebus, and Doc ordered him a pint.

‘Oh what blessed company,’ Rebus said, lifting the glass. He turned to Salty Dougary. ‘I was out at Gyle Park West the other day.’

‘In your professional capacity?’

‘Sort of. What can you tell me about the place?’

‘It’s an industrial estate. I work there. What else is there to know?’

‘The businesses there, would they have dealings with Scottish Enterprise?’

Salty nodded. ‘LEEL,’ he said. ‘Our boss at Deltona is mad keen on “worker participation”, which means once a week we have to sit in the canteen for twenty minutes listening to him rattle on about client satisfaction, inward investment, productivity and the like. He’s always on about LEEL.’

‘So Deltona has had money from LEEL?’

‘John, everyone on that estate has had help of some kind: relocation incentives, start-up incentives, retraining incentives, you name it.’ He raised his glass. ‘God bless Scottish Enterprise.’

‘Why the interest?’ Dr Klasser asked. This was not their usual level of conversation.

‘It could be peripheral to a case I’m working on.’ Except that there was no case and he wasn’t supposed to be working.

‘Well, keep your paws off Deltona,’ Salty Dougary warned.

Rebus smiled. ‘Ever heard of Mensung?’ he asked.

‘Don’t they measure your intelligence?’

There was a snort from down the bar. ‘They’d only need a six-inch ruler to measure yours, Salty.’

Salty laughed, so the speaker would know he wasn’t amused. Rebus was still looking at him. ‘To be honest,’ Salty told him, ‘it does ring a bell, way at the back of the old brainpan. I think it was a company.’

‘On the estate?’

Dougary shrugged. The barman was taking a phone call. His eyes met Rebus’s.

‘For you, John.’ He brought the telephone over. Rebus had another question for Salty.

‘What about LABarum, ever heard of that?’

‘What is this, “Mastermind”?’

Rebus took the receiver from the barman. ‘Hello?’

‘Is that you, John?’

Rebus recognised the voice — but it couldn’t be, not calling him by his first name.

‘Is that you, Flower?’

‘Yes.’

DI Alister Flower — the Little Weed — calling Rebus ‘John’. Something was wrong.

‘What’s up?’

‘Just wondered if you could drop into the station for a chat.’

‘A chat? Will you have the tea and biscuits ready?’

Flower laughed like he hadn’t heard a better one all day. Rebus was more than curious.

‘When?’ he asked.

‘Whenever you like.’

Rebus said he’d be there in half an hour.

The station was mid-evening quiet. To keep busy, most of the CID contingent had gone off to the scene of a car smash. The smash had taken place outside one of the neighbourhood’s better Indian restaurants. So there was no one around the main office; no one but Alister Flower.

‘John, how’s the holiday?’

‘I’m having a bit of trouble getting a tan.’

Rebus studied Alister Flower. There were a hundred reasons to dislike or even thoroughly loathe the man. The fact that he was a complete prick came pretty close to the top. Flower’s eyes were always in movement, seeking out an angle or the main chance. The eyes were puffy, like the skin around them was constantly swollen. It could be genetic or to do with boozing, and it turned his eyes into slits. Rebus didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t