Let It Bleed

always see those eyes.

Flower had friends around the station: spies, junior officers, who were a bit like him and would even like to be him. It scared Rebus. But there were no allies with him tonight. He sat on a desk, his feet on a chair. It wasn’t his desk, wasn’t his chair. Walking past his own desk, Rebus saw the new computer console. It didn’t interest him at all.

‘I was promised tea and biscuits,’ he said.

‘We can nip down the canteen after.’

‘After what?’

‘After I’ve shown you something. Come on.’

And he led Rebus down to the cells. There was a man in there, long-haired, unshaven, not happy.

‘So who is he?’

‘His name’s Terry Shotts,’ Flower explained. ‘He’s from Newcastle. We found him leaving a house in Prestonfield Avenue … with half the contents under his arm.’

‘So?’ Rebus closed the viewing-flap in the cell door.

‘So we went to his digs. There was some other stuff there, including some that we could trace immediately from the register. His scam is, he thieves here and sells in Newcastle, and what he thieves there he lays off here.’

‘It’s a tremendous feat of detection, Flower. I want to thank you for sharing it with me.’

Rebus started back upstairs, Flower following. He handed Rebus a folded sheet of paper.

‘This is a list of the stuff the Geordies found in his flat. They traced some of it to a couple of break-ins, but the lists didn’t match. Looks like he’d already sold some of the stuff on. Including a shotgun.’ Rebus began to see the point. ‘Shotts has been up here three weeks. I think he sold it to Shug McAnally.’

‘Have you asked Mr Shotts?’

‘He’s as good as admitted it.’

Rebus stopped. ‘Maybe I should talk to him.’

Flower blocked his path. ‘I don’t think that would do any good.’ Rebus wasn’t in the mood for a fight, so kept on walking. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. I mean, it ties up the loose ends, doesn’t it?’

‘It might tie up one of them, but it just unravels a couple more. Want to know what they are? Number one, why are you interested? Number two, why would you want me to be “pleased”?’

They were back in the CID room.

‘Well,’ Flower said, making for his desk, ‘I just thought you’d want to know.’

‘That’s just so much keech, Flower. What are you up to?’

Flower reached into a drawer and showed Rebus a bottle of whisky. Rebus shook his head, but Flower poured himself a measure into a broken-handled mug.

‘What are you so damned paranoid about, Rebus?’

‘You, for a start.’ Flower took a gulp of whisky, then lit a cigarette.

‘It’s a fair point,’ he conceded, through a wreath of smoke. ‘OK, I’ll tell you straight. Someone asked me to talk to you. You know I wouldn’t do it otherwise.’

‘That’s more like it.’ Rebus sat on the edge of a desk. ‘So who’s the someone?’

‘Just someone important.’

‘The Farmer?’

Flower smiled and exhaled noisily. Someone higher than the Farmer then, a lot higher.

‘And just what,’ Rebus asked, ‘does this anonymous patron want me to know?’

Flower examined the tip of his cigarette. ‘That you’re on your way out, the way you’re going.’

‘Out?’

‘Of the force.’ Flower paused. ‘At the very least.’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t need to know that.’

Which meant, thought Rebus, that it was because of something he might do rather than something already done.

‘So what should I do?’ he asked.

‘Stop being so bloody nosy.’

‘About what?’

‘McAnally, for Christ’s sake.’

‘What does — ’

‘Look, I’m just the message-boy, OK?’

‘If the cap fits …’

Flower’s eyes narrowed still further. ‘Look,’ he said at last, ‘you know if it was up to me, I’d leave you to squat on the pan and send your career down the lavvy like the night before’s kebab. All I’m doing is a favour for someone who wants you to have a final warning. Hear me? A final warning.’ He stood up and flicked his butt into a waste-bin.

‘Pretty convenient,’ Rebus said, ‘the source of the shotgun suddenly turning up … Who is it, Flower? The DCC? Big Jim Flett? What have they got to hide?’ Rebus was standing inches from Flower. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ He jabbed Flower’s chest with his finger.

‘Touch me again, you’re dead.’

‘Tell your friend, if he wants to threaten me, he should do it himself. Nobody’s scared of the message- boy.’

Then he turned and walked away. He was worried though. If they were serious — whoever they were — when he was so far from solving the puzzle, how would they react if he got any closer? He stopped at the door.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘your fag-end just set fire to that bin.’

Flower turned and saw that the contents of the waste-bin were indeed smouldering. He reached for some liquid to douse the fire.

He’d forgotten that it was whisky, not coffee, in his mug.

Rebus’s phone was ringing as he got home. It was Rico Briggs.

‘I had a word with a friend,’ he told Rebus. Rico never liked to say too much on the phone.

‘And?’

‘Be in the bus station at eleven.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Tonight.’

‘Whereabouts in the bus station?’

‘Just be there. You’ll pay him his share and mine.’

The line went dead.

24

At ten to eleven, Rebus was in the St Andrew’s Square bus station. A few early drunks had assembled for the last bus home. There was a pub in the bus station; it sounded busy. A man sprinted out of it, slipped in a patch of oil, and fell like a sniper’s bullet had got him. He got back to his feet in time to see his bus pull away, and started swearing. There was a gash in the knee of his trousers.

Exhaust fumes lay in heavy strata just above ground level. Rebus tried not to breathe too deeply as he walked up and down the ranks. A few teenagers were asleep on the precarious benches. An old man, looking dazed, crossed the concourse dressed in a duffel coat, pyjamas and slippers. The slippers looked brand new, maybe a Christmas present.

‘Where are you?’ Rebus hissed, stamping his feet. He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and walked the ranks again.