The barman, almost saluting, went off to give the order.
‘See,’ said Podeen, ‘you’re not the only man who orders everything in doubles, eh, Jimmy?’
The hand was lifted from Stevens’ back again. He grimaced, waiting for the slap, but the arm flopped onto the bar beside him instead. He sighed, audibly.
‘Rough night last night was it, Jimmy?’
‘I wish I could remember.’
He had fallen asleep in one of the bedrooms, very late in the evening. Then a couple had come in, and they had lifted him into the bathroom, depositing him in the bath. There he had slept for two hours, maybe three. He had awakened with a terrific stiffness in his neck, back, and legs. He had drunk some coffee, but not enough, never enough.
And had walked in the chilled morning air, chatting in a newsagent’s shop with some taxi-drivers, sitting in the porter’s cubby-hole of one of the big hotels on Princes Street, supping sweet tea and talking football with the bleary nightporter. But he had known he would end up down here, for this was his morning off, and he was back on the drugs case, his own little baby.
‘Is there much stuff around at the moment, Big?’
‘Oh, now, that depends what you’re looking for, Jimmy. Word’s out that you’re getting to be a bit too nosy in every department. Best if you were sticking to the safe drugs. Keep away from the big stuff.’
‘Is this a timely warning or a threat or what?’ Stevens wasn’t in the mood to be threatened, not when he had a Sunday morning hangover to sort out.
‘It’s a
‘Who’s the friend, Big?’
‘Me, you silly sod. Don’t be so suspicious all the time. Listen, there’s a little cannabis around, but that’s about it. Nobody brings the stuff into Leith any more. They land it on the Fife coast, or up by Dundee. Places the Customs men have all but disappeared from. And that’s the truth.’
‘I know, Big, I know. But there is a delivery going on around here. I’ve seen it. I don’t know what it is. Whether it’s big stuff or not. But I’ve seen a handover. Very recently.’
‘How recent?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Where?’
‘Calton Hill.’
Big Podeen shook his head.
‘Then it’s nothing at all to do with anyone or anything I know, Jimmy.’
Stevens knew the Big Man, knew him well. He gave out good information, but it was only what was given to him by people who wanted Stevens to get to know about something.
So the heroin boys would come across, via Big, with information about cannabis dealing. If Stevens took the story up, chances were the cannabis dealers would be caught. And that left the territory and the demand to the heroin boys. It was clever stuff, ploy and counter-ploy. The stakes were high, too. But Stevens was a clever player himself. He knew that there was a tacit understanding that he was never to aim for the really big players, for that would mean aiming for the city’s businessmen and bureaucrats, the titled landowners, the New Town’s Mercedes owners.
And that would never be allowed. So he was fed tidbits, enough to keep the presses rolling, the tongues wagging about what a terrible place Edinburgh was becoming. Always a little, never the lot. Stevens understood all that. He had been playing the game so long he hardly knew sometimes what side he was on. In the end, it hardly mattered.
‘You don’t know about it?’
‘Nothing, Jimmy. But I’ll nose around. See what’s doing. Listen, though, there’s a new bar opened up by the Mackay showroom. Know the one I mean?’
Stevens nodded.
‘Well,’ went on Podeen, ‘it’s a bar at the front, but it’s a brothel at the back. There’s a wee cracker of a barmaid does her stuff of an afternoon, if you’re interested.’
Stevens smiled. So a new boy was trying to move in, and the old boys, Podeen’s ultimate employers, didn’t like it. And so he, Jim Stevens, was being given enough information to close down the new boy if he liked. There was a nice headline-catcher in it certainly, but it was a one-day wonder.
Why didn’t they just telephone the police anonymously? He thought he knew the answer to that one, though once it had puzzled him: they were playing the game by its old-fashioned rules, which meant no snitching, no grassing to the enemy. He was left to play the part of messenger-boy, but a messenger-boy with power built into the system. Just a little power, but more power than lay in doing things along the straight and narrow.
‘Thanks, Big. I’ll bear that in mind.’
The food arrived then, great piles of curled, shining bacon, two soft, near-transparent eggs, mushrooms, fried bread, beans. Stevens kept his eyes to the bar, suddenly interested in one of the beer-mats, damp still from Saturday night.
‘I’m going across to my table to eat this, okay, Jimmy?’
Stevens could not believe his good luck.
‘Oh, fine, Big Man, fine.’
‘Cheers, then.’
And with that he was left alone, only the ghost of a smell remaining. He noticed that the barman was standing opposite him. His hand, shiny with grease, was held out.
‘Two pounds sixty,’ he said.
Stevens sighed. Put that one down to experience, he thought to himself as he paid, or to the hangover. The party had been worth it, however, for he had met John Rebus. And Rebus was friendly with Gill Templer. It was all becoming just a little confusing. But interesting too. Rebus was certainly interesting, though physically he did not resemble his brother in the slightest. The man had looked honest enough, but how did you tell a bent copper from the outside? It was the inside that was rotten. So, Rebus was seeing Gill Templer. He remembered the night they had spent together, and shuddered. That, surely, had been his nadir.
He lit a cigarette, his second of the day. His head was still clotted, but his stomach felt a little more composed. He might even be getting hungry. Rebus looked a tough nut, but not as tough as he would have been ten years ago. At this moment he was probably in bed with Gill Templer. The bastard. The lucky bastard. His stomach turned a tiny somersault of chilled jealousy. The cigarette felt good. It poured life and strength back into him, or seemed to. Yet he knew that it was scooping him out, too, tearing his guts to shreds of darkened meat. The hell with it. He smoked because without cigarettes he couldn’t think. And he was thinking now.
‘Hey, give me a double here will you?’
The barman came over.
‘Orange juice again?’
Stevens looked at him disbelievingly.
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said — ‘whisky, Grouse if that’s what’s in the Grouse bottle.’
‘We don’t play those sorts of game here.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
He drank the whisky and felt better. Then he began to feel worse again. He went to the toilet, but the smell in there made him feel even worse. He held himself over the sink and brought up a few bubbles of liquid, retching loudly but emptily. He had to get off the booze. He had to get off the ciggies. They were killing him, yet they were the only things keeping him alive.
He walked over to Big Podeen’s table, sweating, feeling older than his years.
‘That was a good breakfast, that was,’ said the hulk of a man, his eyes gleaming like a child’s.
Stevens sat down beside him.
‘What’s the word on bent coppers?’ he asked.
12
