Resurrection Men (2002) (17 page)

“Nice place,” Siobhan said.

“And what did Mr. Marber want in return?” Linford asked.

Stafford shook her head slowly. “If there was a catch, he didn’t stay around long enough for me to find out what it was.”

“No home visits?” Linford asked.

Stafford bristled. “I don’t do anything like that.” She paused. “I’m still not sure why he did it.”

“Maybe he just fell for you, Laura,” Siobhan said, further softening her voice, prepared to play “nice” to Linford’s “nasty.” “I think there was a bit of the romantic in him . . .”

“Yeah, maybe.” Stafford’s eyes were glinting with emotion, and Siobhan knew she’d said the right thing. “Maybe that’s what it was.”

“Did you ever go to his house?” Siobhan asked. Stafford shook her head. “You knew what he did for a living?”

“He sold paintings, right?”

Siobhan nodded. “Some of the paintings he owned, they were taken down from the walls — any idea why he’d do that?”

“Maybe to send to his place in Tuscany.”

“You know about it?”

“He told me about it. It’s true then . . . ?”

Stafford had obviously heard a lot of stories and boasts in her time. “He has a place in Italy, yes,” Siobhan confirmed. “Laura, one of his paintings seems to be missing. He didn’t give it to you, did he?” She held up the photo of the painting. Stafford looked at it, but wasn’t really concentrating.

“He talked about Italy,” she said wistfully, “how he’d take me there one day . . . I thought it was just . . .” She lowered her eyes.

“Eddie opened up to you then, Laura?” Siobhan asked quietly. “He talked about himself?”

“Nothing too personal . . . a bit about his background, stuff like that.”

“Problems he was having?” Stafford shook her head. “Nothing troubling him recently?”

“No, he seemed happy enough. Had some money coming to him, I think.”

“What makes you say that?” Linford asked brusquely.

“I think maybe he said something about it. When we were talking about this place, how he could afford it.”

“And he said he had money coming?”

“Yes.”

“Could he have meant the exhibition, Laura?” Siobhan asked.

“I suppose so . . .”

“You don’t really think so?”

“I don’t know.” She looked out through the conservatory. “It’s getting cold out there. Alexander needs to come in . . .”

“Just a couple more questions, Laura. I need to ask about the Paradiso.”

Stafford looked at her. “What about it?”

“Who owns it?”

“Ricky Marshall.”

“You don’t believe that,” Siobhan teased her. “He might run the desk, but that’s all, isn’t it?”

“I’ve always dealt with Ricky.”

“Always?”

Stafford nodded. Siobhan let the silence lie between them for a minute.

“Have you ever come across a man called Cafferty? Big Ger Cafferty?”

Stafford shook her head. Again, Siobhan let the silence lie. Stafford shifted on the sofa, as if about to say something.

“And all the time,” Linford broke in, “that Marber was paying for this place, he never asked you for any extras?”

Stafford’s face became a mask, and Siobhan knew that they’d lost her.

“No,” she was saying, in reply to the question.

“You’ll appreciate that we find that hard to believe,” Linford said.

“I don’t,” Siobhan interrupted, her eyes on Stafford while Linford fixed her with a frown. “I believe it,” Siobhan said. Then she got up and handed her card to Laura Stafford. “Anytime you want to talk . . .”

Stafford studied the card, nodded slowly.

“Well, thanks again for your time,” Linford said grudgingly.

They’d reached the door when they heard Stafford calling from the living room. “I liked him, you know. That’s more than I can say for most of them . . .”

Outside, they walked towards Linford’s car in silence. After they’d got in and fastened their seat belts, he turned the ignition, fixing his gaze on the road ahead.

“Well, thanks for your support back there,” he said.

“And thanks so very much for yours. Teamwork’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.”

“I don’t remember saying
I
didn’t believe
you.
”

“Let’s just leave it, eh?”

He fumed for a good two minutes before speaking. “The boyfriend . . . or whatever he is.”

“Donny Dow?”

Linford nodded. “The mother of his kid is shacked up in a posh flat. He decides to thump the sugar daddy, but ends up thumping him too hard.”

“How did he know about Marber?”

“Maybe she told him.”

“Mrs. Dow doesn’t even know.”

“We’ve only the prossie’s word for that.”

Siobhan screwed shut her eyes. “Don’t call her that.”

“Isn’t that what she is?” When she didn’t answer, his look said he’d won that particular argument. “We need to talk to him anyway.”

Siobhan opened her eyes again. “His mum said he used to get into trouble. He’ll be on the files.”

Linford nodded. “And so will his ex. Maybe there’s more to her than just soliciting, eh?” He risked a glance at Siobhan. “You think Cafferty knew about the arrangement?”

“I don’t even know for sure that he owns the Paradiso.”

“But it’s likely?”

With a nod, Siobhan conceded that it was. She was thinking:
if
Cafferty had known about Marber’s crush on Laura . . . well, then what? What could it mean? Was it even possible that
he
had put Laura up to it? Why would he do that? She could think of reasons. Maybe Marber had a painting or paintings Cafferty wanted . . . something Marber was unwilling to sell. She still didn’t see how blackmail or anything like it would have helped. Marber was single. It was the married ones you blackmailed, the ones who needed to be whiter than white. Marber worked with artists, the wealthy, the cosmopolitan. Siobhan didn’t think they’d be shocked to learn that their art dealer friend had been sleeping with prostitutes. If anything, it might have made him
more
popular.

Had some money coming to him, I think
 . . . Laura’s words came back to her. How much money, and from what source? Enough money to get him killed? Enough to interest someone like Big Ger Cafferty?

“What do they do when they retire?” Linford was asking, signaling to pull into St. Leonard’s.

“Who?”

“Working girls. I mean, she looks okay just now, but that won’t last. The work’ll start to dry up . . . amongst other things.” He failed to stifle a grin.

“Jesus, Derek, you disgust me,” Siobhan said.

“So who is it you’re seeing on Friday night?” he asked.

14

L
eith police station was an elderly and distinguished building on the outside, but referred to by most of its occupants as “the geriatric.” Pulling on his jacket as he led them back down its steps into the waiting afternoon, DI Bobby Hogan explained why.

“It’s like somebody in a nursing home. They might look well enough dressed — presentable and all that — but inside, their body’s started breaking down. The plumbing might leak, the heart’s a bit dicky, and the brain’s given up the ghost.” He winked at Allan Ward.

Three of them had made the trip from St. Leonard’s: Rebus was the obvious choice, of course, but Tam Barclay had made a song and dance about needing some fresh air, and Allan Ward had volunteered, even though Rebus suspected that what the young man wanted to see were signs of prostitution.

The day was bright but windy. Hogan’s jacket flapped like a sail as he finally secured his arms into its sleeves. He was glad of the excuse to be out of the station. They’d only needed to mention the Zombie Bar and he’d sprung up from his desk, looking around him for his jacket.

“If we’re in luck, Father Joe might be there,” he’d said, referring to his snitch, Joe Daly.

“It’s not called the Zombie Bar anymore,” he explained now, leading them along Tolbooth Wynd. “That place lost its license.”

“Too many brawls?” Allan Ward guessed.

“Too many drunken poets and writers,” Hogan corrected. “The more they tart Leith up, the more people seem to come looking for the sleazy side.”

“And where’s that to be found these days?” Ward asked. Hogan offered a smile, eyes turning to Rebus.

“We’ve got a live one here, John.”

Rebus nodded. Tam Barclay wasn’t looking too lively: as the day had progressed, so had his hangover. “Mixing the beer and whiskey,” he said, rubbing at his temples. He wasn’t looking forward to their trip to the pub . . .

“What’s the Zombie called now?” Rebus asked Hogan.

“Bar Z,” came the answer. “And here it is . . .”

Bar Z had windows which were all frosted glass except for a large letter
Z
in the center of each. The interior was chrome and gray, the tables made from some light, trendy wood which captured and retained every beer ring and cigarette burn. The music was probably called something like “trance” or “ambient,” and a chalkboard menu offered Huevos Rancheros — listed as “a Tex-Mex all-day breakfast treat” — and Snack Attacks such as blini and baba ghanoush.

However, something had gone badly wrong with the Bar Z. The only people drinking the afternoon away were the same mixture of desperate businessmen and down-at-the-heels drunks who had probably called the Zombie Bar home. The place carried an aroma of soured dreams. Hogan pointed to one of the many empty tables and asked the trio what they wanted.

“Our round, Bobby,” Rebus insisted. “You’re the one helping us out.” Ward decided on a bottle of Holsten, while Barclay only wanted cola — “as much as you can fit in a glass.” Hogan, who said he was undecided, went up to the bar with Rebus.

“Is your man here?” Rebus asked in an undertone. Hogan shook his head.

“Doesn’t mean he won’t come in. Father Joe’s the restless type: if he goes in a place and there’s no one he knows, he moves on; never stays anywhere for more than two drinks.”

“Does he have a job?”

“He has a
vocation.
” Hogan saw the look on Rebus’s face. “Don’t worry, he’s not a real priest. It’s just that he has the kind of face strangers tell their troubles to. That seems to fill Joe’s days to the brim . . .” The barman came up, and Rebus put in their order, including a half of IPA for Hogan and the same for himself.

“A game of two halves, eh?” Hogan announced with a smile.

“Aye, it’s a game all right, Bobby.”

Hogan picked up Rebus’s meaning. “So what’s reopened this particular can of worms?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Dickie Diamond was an arsehole, whole world knew it.”

“Any of his other cronies still around?”

“There’s one of them in here right now.”

Rebus looked around at the disconsolate, blank-eyed faces. “Who?”

Hogan just winked, and waited till the drinks had been paid for. When the barman slouched back with Rebus’s change, Hogan greeted him by name.

“Okay, Malky?”

The young man frowned. “Do I know you?”

Hogan shrugged. “Thing is,
I
know
you.
” He paused. “Still on the smack?”

Rebus, too, had placed the young man as a drug user. It was something about the eyes, the facial muscles, something about the way the body held itself. In turn, the barman recognized pigs when he saw them.

“I’m off that stuff,” Malky said.

“Take your methadone religiously?” Hogan asked with a smile. “DI Rebus here is wondering whatever happened to your uncle.”

“Which one?”

“The one we don’t hear about so much these days . . . unless you know different.” Hogan turned to Rebus. “Malky here is Dickie’s sister’s kid.”

“How long you been working here then, Malky?” Rebus asked.

“Nearly a year.” The barman’s attitude had changed from indifference to surliness.

“Did you know the place when it was the Zombie?”

“I was too young, wasn’t I?”

“Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have served you.” Rebus lit a cigarette, offering one to Hogan.

“Has Uncle Dickie turned up?” Malky asked. Rebus shook his head. “It’s just that my mum . . . every now and then she gets all weepy, says Uncle Dickie must be dead and buried somewhere.”

“What does she think happened to him?”

“How should I know?”

“You could try asking her.” Rebus had one of his cards out. It had his pager number as well as the police switchboard. “I’d be interested to know her answer.”

Malky stuck the card in the top pocket of his shirt.

“Dying of thirst over here!” Barclay called from the table. Hogan picked up two of the drinks. Rebus was staring at Malky.

“I mean it,” he said. “You ever hear anything, I’d really like to know what happened to him.”

Malky nodded, then turned away to answer the phone. But Rebus had gripped his arm. “Where do you live, Malky?”

“Sighthill. What’s it to you?” Malky wrestled his arm free, picked up the phone.

Sighthill was perfect. Rebus knew someone in Sighthill . . .

“So what happened to this place?” Ward was asking Hogan when Rebus reached the table.

“They got their market research wrong, thought there’d be enough yuppies in Leith by now to make them a fortune.”

“Maybe if they hang on a few more years,” Barclay said, pausing halfway down his cola.

Hogan nodded. “It’s coming,” he agreed. “Just a shame we didn’t get the parliament.”

Rebus snorted. “You’d’ve been welcome to it.”

“We wanted it.”

“So what was the problem?” Ward asked.

“The MSPs didn’t want to be in Leith. Too out of the way.”

“Maybe they were scared off by the temptations of the flesh,” Ward proposed. “Not that I’m seeing any around here . . .”

The door opened and another solitary drinker entered. He was all twitches and movement, as if someone had just wound up his mechanism. He saw Hogan and gave a nod of acknowledgment, but then started heading for the bar. Hogan, however, waved him over.

“Is this him?” Ward asked, already hardening his face, turning it into a mask.

“This is him,” Hogan said. Then, to the new arrival: “Father Joe . . . I was wondering if your pastoral wanderings would bring you in here.”

Joe Daly smiled at the joke, and nodded as if it were part of some ritual between Hogan and himself. Hogan meantime was making introductions. “Now talk to the good men,” he said in closing, “while I fetch you a small libation. Jameson’s and water, no ice, yes?”

“That would serve the purpose,” Daly said, his breath already sweetened by whiskey. He watched Hogan head for the bar. “A good man in his way,” he commented.

“And was Dickie Diamond a good man too, Father Joe?” Rebus asked.

“Ah, the Diamond Dog . . .” Daly was thoughtful for a moment. “Richard could be the best friend you’d ever had, but he could be a right bastard, too. He had no forgiveness in him.”

“You haven’t seen him recently?”

“Not in five or six years.”

“Did you ever meet another friend of his called Eric Lomax?” Ward asked. “Most people called him Rico.”

“Well, it was a long time ago, as I say . . .” Daly licked his lips expectantly.

“Of course, we’d pay the going rate,” Rebus informed him.

“Ah, well . . .” Daly’s whiskey arrived and he toasted the company in Gaelic. Rebus reckoned it was a double or treble — hard to tell with the added water.

“Father Joe was just about to tell us about Rico,” Rebus explained to Hogan, who was sitting down now.

“Well,” Daly began, “Rico was from the west coast, wasn’t he? Gave a good party, so the story went. Of course, I was never invited.”

“But Dickie was?”

“Oh, assuredly.”

“This was over in Glasgow?” Barclay asked, his face more bloodless than ever.

“I suppose there
would
have been parties there,” Daly admitted.

“But that’s not what you meant, is it?” Rebus asked.

“Well, no . . . I meant out at the caravans. There was a site in East Lothian, Rico stayed there sometimes.”

“Caravans, plural?” Rebus checked.

“He owned more than one; rented them out to tourists and the like.”

And the like
 . . . They already knew Rico’s reputation, bad men from Glasgow sheltering beside east coast beaches . . . Rebus noticed that Malky the barman was busying himself wiping down the already pristine tables in their vicinity.

“They were pretty close then, Rico and Dickie?” Ward asked.

“I don’t know that I’d say that. Rico probably only came to Leith three or four times a year.”

“Did you think it strange,” Rebus asked, “that Dickie did a bunk around the same time Rico was murdered?”

“Can’t say I connected the two,” Daly said. He hoisted the glass to his mouth, drained the whiskey.

“I don’t think that’s quite true, Father Joe,” Rebus stated quietly.

The glass was placed back on the table. “Well, maybe you’re right. I suppose I
did
wonder about it, same as everyone else in Leith.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what conclusion did you draw?”

“None at all,” Daly said with a shrug. “Except that Our Lord moves in mysterious ways.”

“Amen to that,” said Hogan. Allan Ward rose to his feet, said he’d get another round.

“When you’ve finished polishing that ashtray . . . ,” he remarked to Malky. So he’d noted the barman’s actions, too. Maybe he was sharper than Rebus had given him credit for . . .

Linford was not to be deflected from his pursuit of Donny Dow. He’d called up what records they had, and was poring over them. Alongside them on his desk was a slim file with Laura Stafford’s name on it. Siobhan had taken a peek at the latter. The usual cautions and arrests: two sauna busts, one brothel bust. The brothel had been a flat above a video rental shop. The guy who owned the video shop, it was his girlfriend ran the operation upstairs. Laura had been one of the girls on duty the night the police, acting on a tip-off, had paid a visit. Bill Pryde had worked the case. His handwriting was in the margin of one page of the report: “tip-off anonymous, probably the sauna down the road . . .”

“The deep-throat business can be cutthroat, too” was Derek Linford’s comment.

He was having more joy with Donny Dow, who had been fighting since the age of ten. Arrests for vandalism and drunkenness, then Dow had taken up a healthy physical activity: Thai kickboxing. It had failed to keep him out of trouble: one charge of housebreaking — later dropped — several assaults, one drug bust.

“What sort of drugs?”

“Cannabis and speed.”

“A kickboxing headcase on speed? The mind boggles.”

“He worked as a bouncer for a time.” Linford pointed to the relevant line of the typed report. “His employer wrote a letter defending him.” He turned the page. The signature at the bottom of the letter was that of Morris G. Cafferty.

“Cafferty owned a security firm in the city,” Linford added. “Parted company with it a few years back.” He looked at Siobhan. “Still don’t think he could have clouted our art dealer?”

“I’m beginning to wonder,” Siobhan admitted.

Back at her desk, Davie Hynds had pulled his chair up alongside and was drumming a pen against his teeth.

“At a loose end?” Siobhan asked.

“I feel like the spare prick at an orgy.” He paused. “Sorry . . . that wasn’t a good way of putting it.”

Siobhan thought for a moment. “Wait here,” she said. She turned back towards Linford’s desk, but another man had entered the room and was shaking Linford’s hand. Linford nodded, as though the two knew each other, but not well. Frowning, Siobhan walked over.

“Hello,” she said. The man had picked up a sheet from Donny Dow’s file and was reading it. “I’m a DS here. Name’s Siobhan Clarke.”

“Francis Gray,” the man said. “Detective inspector.” He shook her hand, almost swamping it in his own. He was tall and broad, with a thick neck and salt-and-pepper hair, cut short.

“You two know one another?” she asked.

“We met once . . . a while back, at Fettes, right?” Gray said.

“Right,” Linford confirmed. “We’ve helped each other out by phone a couple of times.”

“I was just wondering how the inquiry was going,” Gray added.

“It’s fine,” Siobhan said. “You’re part of the Tulliallan crew?”

“For my sins.” Gray put down the sheet of paper, picked up another. “Looks like Derek here may be winding things up for you.”

“Oh, he’s a great windup merchant,” Siobhan said, crossing her arms. Gray laughed, and Linford himself joined in.

“Siobhan’s a bit of a doubting Thomas,” he stated.

Gray’s eyes widened. “Means, motive, opportunity. Looks to me like you’ve got two out of three. Least you can do now is interview the suspect.”