‘Getting to grips with it all right, sir?’ Rebus asked. But the Farmer was not to be deflected.
‘What the hell are you playing at? I ordered you to take a holiday!’
‘And I’m enjoying every minute, sir.’
‘Making a nuisance of yourself at a foreign consulate, that’s your idea of fun?’
‘I couldn’t afford to go abroad.’
‘The way you’re going, maybe you can’t afford not to.’
‘It was just a bit of unfinished business, sir.’
‘What sort of unfinished business?’
‘It’s not really a police matter, sir.’
The Farmer glowered at him. ‘I hope to God that’s the truth, Inspector.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die, sir.’
‘You’re one step from an official reprimand, two steps from suspension.’
And three steps from heaven, Rebus thought. He told the Farmer he understood.
In the main office, he checked for messages. There were half a dozen, stuck on to the screen of his new PanoTech computer. Around him he could hear the soft clack-clack of muffled keyboards. He stared at his own console as if it was an unfriendly visitor. His reflection stared back at him.
Three of the messages were from Rory McAllister at the Scottish Office. Rebus picked up the telephone.
‘McAllister speaking.’
‘Mr McAllister, it’s John Rebus.’
‘Inspector, thanks for getting back to me.’ McAllister sounded relieved, but also edgy, not like himself.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Can we meet?’
‘Sure, but give me some idea — ’
‘Calton Cemetery at one o’clock.’ The phone went dead.
During the day, Calton Cemetery was more or less deserted. In summer, you’d get visitors looking for David Hume’s grave. The more knowledgeable or curious might seek out the resting places of the publisher Constable and David Allan the painter. There was a statue of Abraham Lincoln, too, if it hadn’t been sledgehammered by vandals.
At one o’clock on a crisp winter’s day, nobody was interested in headstones. Such, at least, was Rebus’s first impression as he walked through the cemetery gate. But then he saw that a gentleman was perusing the monuments, using a black rolled umbrella as a walking-cane. What hair he had mixed black with silver, and was slicked back from the forehead. His face and ears were red, maybe just from the cold, and he wore a black woollen overcoat, belted at the waist.
He saw Rebus, and gestured for him to join him. Rebus climbed the stone steps towards him.
‘Haven’t been here in years,’ the man said. His voice had been Scots once, before the inflexions and elisions had been milked out of it. ‘I take it you’re Rebus?’
Rebus studied the man. ‘That’s right.’
‘McAllister’s not coming. I’m a colleague of his.’
Close up, the man’s face was pockmarked and he had one slightly lazy eye. With his free hand, he played with the cashmere scarf tucked inside the collar of his coat.
‘What’s your name?’ Rebus asked. The man seemed both surprised and amused by the question’s bluntness.
‘My name’s Hunter.’ Something about the way he said this, and his whole bearing, told Rebus he wasn’t so much McAllister’s colleague as his superior.
‘Well, Mr Hunter, what can I do for you?’
‘I’m interested in your line of inquiry, Inspector.’
‘And what line is that, sir?’
‘You were asking certain questions of McAllister.’ A bus roared past, and Hunter raised his voice. ‘The line of those questions intrigues me.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because the Scottish Office likes to take an interest.’
‘In what exactly?’
The bus gone, Hunter lowered his voice again. ‘I’ll be succinct. I’d prefer it, Inspector, if you would discontinue your present line of inquiry. I don’t believe it germane.’
‘You’d
‘There may be a conflict of interests.’ Hunter lifted the walnut handle of his umbrella until it rested under his chin. ‘Of course, I’m a civil servant and you are a policeman: it’s not for me to interfere with your business.’
‘Good of you, I’m sure.’
‘But we are both, are we not, servants of the State?’ Hunter swung the umbrella at some leaves on the ground. ‘All I can say to you at this point, Inspector, is that your inquiries may well interfere with longstanding investigations
‘I didn’t know investigation was part of the Scottish Office’s remit, Mr Hunter. Unless you’re talking about an internal inquiry?’
‘You are a clever man, Inspector, and I appeal to your intellect.’
‘To be honest, sir, you don’t appeal to me at all.’
Hunter’s face darkened slightly. ‘Let’s not cross swords on this.’ He swung at more leaves.
‘Cooperation?’
Hunter considered this. ‘Not yet. I’m afraid. The affair is confidential. But later, definitely.
Rebus, knowing himself no gentleman, took the hand, just to put Hunter’s mind at rest. The older man didn’t look relieved, just quietly pleased that negotiations had been bloodless and — in his eyes — successful. He turned to leave.
‘I’ll call you when I’ve something I can say,’ he told Rebus.
‘Mr Hunter? Why did you get McAllister to phone me? Why not just call yourself?’
Hunter smiled with half his mouth. ‘What’s life without a little intrigue, Inspector?’ He negotiated the steps carefully, with a slight limp. Too proud to carry a cane, he used a brolly instead. Rebus waited half a minute, then walked quickly to the gate and peered along the street to the right. Hunter was walking along Waterloo Place as if he owned it. Rebus kept well behind him as he followed.
It was a short walk, only as far as the Reichstag: St Andrew’s House. Which, Rebus recalled, was where the most senior Scottish Office bureaucrats did their business. He recalled, too, that it was built on the site of the old Calton Gaol. Rebus walked past the sooty building and crossed the road. He stood outside the old Royal High School, putative HQ for any Scottish Assembly that might come along. It was mothballed, and a lone protestor had taken up residence outside, his banners arguing for devolution and a Scottish Parliament.
Rebus stared at St Andrew’s House for a couple of minutes, then walked back along Waterloo Place to where he’d illegally parked his car. It had received a ticket, but he could square that later. Over the years, he’d collected more tickets than Haldayne, a wheen more. Do as I say, he thought, not as I do. There had been other ‘fringe benefits’ along the way, too: cafes and restaurants where he ate for free, bars where his money was no good, a baker who’d slip him a dozen rolls. He wouldn’t call himself corrupt, but there were some out there who’d say he’d been bribed, or greased for a future bribe. There were those who’d say he’d been bought.
Do as I say, not as I do. And with that he tore up the parking ticket.
Back at his flat, Rebus got out all the information he had on the Scottish Office. He didn’t find the name Hunter anywhere. The documents were shy about naming names where civil servants were involved, though happy to trumpet the names of the incumbent Secretary of State, Minister of State, and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries, all of whom were either MPs or held seats in the House of Lords. As McAllister had explained, these were the temporary boys, the figureheads. When it came to the
