‘You think Paul would grass on me?’ She leaned into Duggan’s shoulder and stroked his face. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’
‘Not even if I offered him a deal on his slum landlord scam?’
Kirstie shook her head. ‘Paul wouldn’t hurt me. His mum likes me too much.’
‘Well, maybe I don’t need Paul. Maybe all I need is that LABarum document. It links you to Willie.’ He paused. ‘Did you write “Dalgety” on the last page?’ She nodded. ‘Why?’
‘It’s something I heard my dad say on the phone … when I was listening in. Dalgety sounded important, someone he was worried about.’
‘Dalgety’s a person then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Kirstie,
Her face creased in a sneer. ‘It’s my dad, don’t you see? If you look closely enough at it, if you read all the small print and between the lines, all you’ll find there is my dad’s face, smiling smugly back at you.’
‘Why is he smug?’
‘Because it’s going to make him a hero. And it’s all crooked. I heard him on the phone, they were talking about how to cover it all up. The whole fucking thing is just a lot of … a lot of … it’s all just so much
‘I can’t have language like that,’ the waitress warned. ‘There are children in here.’
‘Well, fuck them!’ Kirstie screeched, jumping to her feet. ‘Because they’re all fucked anyway, just like everybody else!’
‘I’ll have to ask you to leave.’
Rebus and Duggan were on their feet too.
‘Come on, Kirstie.’
‘That girl’s on drugs or something, I know it!’
Rebus threw money down on the table. Kirstie Kennedy’s legs had buckled, and Duggan was holding her upright.
‘Let’s get her into the car,’ Rebus said, knowing he should take her straight to St Leonard’s, angry with himself because he knew that’s the last thing he was going to do.
Instead, Duggan gave him directions back to where she was staying. It was a flat in Leith, in the maze of narrow roads behind Great Junction Street.
‘One of yours, is it?’ Rebus asked Duggan. But Duggan was busy stroking Kirstie’s forehead, even though she was asleep.
They walked her up the stairs, one on either side, arms around her back, her arms over their shoulders. Rebus could feel the swell of a small breast, and the thin rib-cage beneath.
‘You did say you wanted to see her,’ Duggan was saying, exculpating himself.
‘And I’ll want to see her again.’ He knew there was more she could tell him, more he needed to hear from her.
He was trying to figure out who or what was responsible for the deaths of Willie and Dixie. This weightless creature he carried? The lads themselves? The police for giving chase? The Lord Provost for agreeing to it all? Maybe even the stepmother for driving Kirstie away? Except that it hadn’t just been the stepmother, it had been some realisation about the Lord Provost himself …
Maybe it was the system, that same system Sammy so passionately attacked. A system that had failed Willie and Dixie as surely as it nurtured people like Sir lain Hunter and Robbie Mathieson. In nature, there had to be balance; as some rose, others fell or were pushed or made the leap for themselves.
Or maybe … just maybe it had been Rebus himself, for crawling from the wreckage still with the need to confront them … standing there in front of them, forcing them to choose. My obsession, he thought. My private morality. Maybe the Farmer was right …
‘Will you stay with her?’ he asked Duggan when they reached the top of the stairs.
Duggan nodded. Rebus knew she’d be all right. She had someone who’d look after her.
‘What about you?’ Duggan asked. ‘What are you going to do?’
But Rebus had released his hold on the body and was heading back downstairs.
He went into a dive he knew near the foot of Leith Walk. It had a burgundy linoleum floor and matching coloured walls, and was like staring into somebody’s throat.
‘Whisky,’ Rebus said. ‘A double.’
And when the whisky came, he drank it down in two gulps.
‘Know something?’ he said to the closest drinker. ‘A couple of days ago, I was eating wild smoked salmon and shooting clay-pigeons.’
‘Better that than the other way round, son,’ the elderly drinker said, adjusting the cap on his head.
That night, Mrs Cochrane came upstairs to tell him there was a small dark patch on her living-room ceiling. Rebus had forgotten to empty the coffee-jar. Water had soaked the bare floorboard beneath.
‘Wait till it’s dried out,’ he said by way of apology, ‘and I’ll touch up the paintwork.’
He’d been asleep in his chair, but now felt wide awake. It was half past eleven, too late to do anything. Then the telephone rang, and he picked it up.
‘I’m not interested,’ he said.
‘You’ll be interested in this.’
Rebus recognised the voice of DC Robert Burns. ‘Don’t tell me West End needs my help?’
‘We’re not that desperate. I just thought I’d do you a favour. Looks like we’ve got a murder.’
Rebus’s grip tightened on the receiver. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘Identification near the body suggests the name’s Thomas Gillespie.’
‘I haven’t told you the best part yet. He was found in a lane connecting Dundee Street to Dalry Road.’
Rebus tried to fix the geography. ‘Next to the cemetery?’
‘Yes. The lane’s called Coffin Walk.’
Coffin Walk climbed quite steeply from Dalry Road. It had the busy Western Approach Road on one side, Dalry Cemetery on the other. It was a narrow alley, well lit but long.
‘If someone stopped you halfway,’ Burns told Rebus, leading him down the lane, ‘there’d be no escape.’
‘But you’d see an attacker, wouldn’t you? There’s no place to hide.’
Burns nodded at the cemetery wall. ‘You could stand behind there, listen for someone coming, then jump over when they got close. It’s the perfect site for an ambush.’
‘You think that’s what this was?’
Burns shrugged. They were close to the body now. Police officers with torches were in the cemetery, looking for footprints and the murder weapon. The lane had been sealed off at both ends, and though there was a knot of policemen near the body, the only person actually next to it was the pathologist, Professor Gates. Gates was telling the photographer what to do, and DI Davidson was talking to the undertaker. Even in mufti — padded jacket and jeans rather than the black suit — an undertaker was recognisable.
‘So what happened?’ Rebus asked Burns.
‘Somebody came out of the Diggers, walked up Angle Park Terrace, looked down here, and saw the body. They thought it was a tramp sleeping rough. Well, there’s a night shelter on Gorgie Road, so the guy came down here to say so.’
‘Like a good citizen.’
‘He saw the blood, knew fine well what had happened, and called us.’
Rebus pointed to a wallet, which lay a couple of feet from the body. ‘That was lying there?’
‘Yep, driver’s licence, blood donor card …’
‘But no cash or credit cards?’
‘Cleaned out.’
‘And nobody saw the attack?’
‘My guess is, he hoofed it back over the wall.’
