Saints of the Shadow Bible (Rebus) (13 page)

Rebus had texted Paterson to say as much. He nodded slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose and swallowing back a yawn.

‘Not quite got his trust yet, though,’ he said. ‘Everything’s kept behind a locked door and Fox is the only one with a key.’

‘He’s sent out invitations, you know. Wants me at three p.m. tomorrow.’

‘Guess who else he’s asking.’

‘Who?’

‘Albert Stout and Norman Cuttle.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Paterson puffed out his cheeks and exhaled.

‘It’s Stefan he’s after.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Saunders belonged to Stefan. Stands to reason Stefan would be the one pulling strings to get him off that murder charge.’ Rebus paused, studying Paterson over the rim of his glass. ‘Unless you know different.’

‘John . . .’

‘Going through some of the old files reminded me that I was still earning your trust back then. Might be there’s stuff you think needs keeping from me, even now. Walking into Fox’s office was like wandering into a minefield – I’d hate to find out one of my old pals from the Saints had a map tucked away showing where all those explosives were buried.’

‘I’m keeping nothing from you, John,’ Paterson said quietly.

‘And you can vouch for Stefan and Dod?’

Paterson considered this, then gave a shrug. ‘Everybody’s got a skeleton or two – you should know that better than most. Can you hear them clanking, John? Because I can – but I’m not about to tell that to anyone else.’ Paterson’s eyes had hardened. ‘Just find out what you can, and report back. That way we’re
all
covered.’ Leaving the rest of his drink, he got to his feet and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat. ‘And don’t forget to finish those nuts I bought – they cost enough . . .’

Rebus watched him leave. Thirty-odd years since he had been introduced to the man, and he was left wondering if he really knew him at all.

Easy to blame Fox.

Maybe too easy.

Rebus walked through to the main bar and stood with three or four other regulars. They were intent on a local news bulletin. Rebus saw Page give his ad hoc press conference. It was followed by footage of a car arriving at the McCuskey home, Bethany McCuskey in the passenger seat, her son Forbes driving. Both wore tense, worried faces.

‘You
can
drive, you little bastard,’ Rebus muttered, finishing his drink and ordering another. While it was being poured, he stepped out into the street for a smoke. Behind him, on the TV, the First Minister was telling an interviewer of his ‘great shock and dismay’.

‘And what might this mean for the independence campaign?’ the journalist asked, but the door had closed before Rebus could hear the answer. Clarke’s car drew to a halt kerbside as he was halfway down the cigarette.

‘What are you drinking?’ he asked her, but she shook her head.

‘On my way somewhere,’ she explained.

‘The lawyer again?’

‘Maybe.’ She had changed into fresh clothes, maybe just a dab of make-up. And perfume – subtle but present. ‘So how did you get on with Owen Traynor?’

‘He admitted everything,’ Rebus stated. Just for a moment she was taken in, but then she scowled. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Shiv, but he says he had nothing to do with it.’

‘You asked him to his face?’

‘In front of his daughter,’ Rebus added. ‘Hers was an interesting reaction.’

‘In what way?’

‘I just sensed that cogs were turning; she wasn’t sure what to make of it. Her dad meantime has created his own little office so he can keep on doing whatever it is he does.’

‘Meaning he’s sticking around?’

‘Looks like.’

‘Not running, the way someone guilty might?’

‘There’s something else – were you at the house when the wife arrived?’

‘No.’

‘Young Forbes was behind the wheel.’

She took a moment to consider this. ‘Can’t really haul him in now, though, can we?’

‘With his dad in intensive care, you mean?’

‘Page would have kittens.’

‘Wouldn’t want the media falling out of love with him.’

‘He’s got half the office going through folders of housebreakings in the city. Old-timers dragged in and questioned . . .’ She looked at him. ‘Doesn’t
feel
like locals, though, does it?’

‘The man just wants a quick result – that way the politicians will love him too.’

‘Can you put word out? See if anyone’s heard anything?’

‘I don’t have the contacts I used to.’

‘Thing is, no one else I’ve spoken to has
any
. It’s a skill that seems to have died out.’

‘Do we have a list of what was taken?’

‘It’s getting there.’

‘Get me a copy and I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thanks. Anything else I should know?’

‘Just that me and Foxy are best buds now.’

‘Somehow I doubt that.’ She couldn’t help smiling.

‘Then let’s just say he’s thawing.’

‘Really?’

Rebus gave it three beats. ‘No, not really,’ he admitted. The smile was still there as she shifted the Astra’s gearstick into first, giving him a little wave with the fingers of her right hand.

Back inside the bar, Rebus was asked if Alistair Darling was being brought in for questioning, since he was heading the No campaign.

‘Aye, or that mate of his, Stefan Gilmour,’ someone else piped up.

‘Guy like that can spend his way out of any amount of trouble,’ the first speaker argued. ‘See, when you back out of buying a football team, tends to leave you with a bit of spare cash – am I right, John?’

‘Absolutely, Dennis,’ Rebus said, handing over his last five-pound note to the barman.

Alone in the flat in Great King Street, Alice Bell splashed water on her face and dried it with a towel, staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were reddened from crying, and she knew the pillow on her narrow single bed would be damp to the touch. She had closed the shutters in her room, aiming to blot out as much of the world as she could. Her knees were threatening to buckle as she made her way to the kitchen, hands brushing the hallway walls as if for support. With her mug of green tea, she settled at her desk in the living room. Her laptop, notes and books – what did any of these mean? Her throat felt cramped, heart pounding. When her phone rang suddenly in the silence, she gave a little gasp of fright. Forbes’s name was on the screen, so she answered.

‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘I should be asking you that. I’m sorry about your dad. I tried calling earlier . . .’

‘I know, thanks. Wasn’t in a position to answer.’

She listened to him exhale noisily.

‘And your mum?’ she asked.

‘Soldiering on.’

‘It was a break-in . . . ?’

‘Of course it was.’

‘No connection . . . ?’

‘Let’s not even get into that, Alice, okay?’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘Of course I’m not
sure
!’ He paused, his voice calming. ‘Look, I need to go. Have you been to see Jess?’

‘She was sleeping.’

‘You spoke to Owen? You know he blames me? He phoned me to tell me as much.’

‘You need to steer clear of him.’

‘I plan to. Jess should be home in a day or two, and with any luck he’ll bugger off back south.’

‘This all feels like my fault,’ Alice said quietly.

‘We’re in it together, Alice. United we stand and all that. Talk to you tomorrow, yeah?’

‘Okay,’ she said, listening as he ended the call. She placed the phone on the surface of the desk and stared at it.

‘Divided we fall,’ she whispered to herself, closing the lid of her laptop.

Rebus’s pub crawl started at opening time the next morning – not that he was on anything other than soft drinks. Clarke had sent a list of the stolen items to his phone, plus photographs provided by the McCuskeys’ insurance company: pearl necklace, antique brooch, Rolex watches. The laptop was expensive, but whoever had taken it had left its cable behind. Same went for the missing mobile phones – both chargers still plugged into power points. Pat McCuskey himself had yet to regain consciousness, though the word ‘coma’ was being avoided in the news bulletins. At least one tabloid was stirring up a debate on crime and punishment, and every paper Rebus had seen had run the story on its front page.

The pubs he visited were in unglamorous corners of the city, from Granton to Gorgie and the Inch to Sighthill. Some of the old places had closed. They were either boarded up or had been demolished and replaced by fast-food outlets. Rebus felt like an explorer returning to find that some wilderness had been tamed. Those haunts that did still exist were doing little or no business, the staff complaining about supermarket drink deals and the smoking ban.

‘Lot of the old punters would rather stay at home, puffing away in front of the horse racing with a dozen cans of Special Offer . . .’

And that was another thing: lifestyle choices had hacked away at Rebus’s network of faces. Some had passed away without him knowing; others had grown senile and moved in with family members in distant climes.
Hasn’t been in for a while
, Rebus would be told. Or:
Never see him around these days
. In some pubs, the staff had no idea who he was talking about.

‘Used to drink in here all the time,’ Rebus would persist. ‘Tall guy, thick mop of silver hair, worked on the buses . . .’ Followed by yet another shake of the head. Even the hardened eleven a.m. regulars would struggle to recall ‘Big Tony’, ‘Shug the Spit’ and ‘Ecky Shake’. Rebus would recite the list of stolen property to anyone who’d listen, and leave a card behind the bar with his number on it. He had texted Fox to ask if he was needed before the three p.m. interview with Eamonn Paterson. Fox had replied:
You’ve been talking to him then? No other way you’d know
.

‘Nice work, John,’ Rebus had muttered to himself.

He was on his way to the final pub of his dispiriting tour when his phone rang. Not a number he recognised, but he answered anyway.

‘Hello, you.’

Maggie Blantyre’s voice, instantly recognisable.

‘Hi there, Maggie. Everything all right?’

‘Fine. Are you in the car?’

‘On my way to Silverknowes.’

‘For your sins, eh?’

‘Something like that. I didn’t know you had my number.’

‘Porkbelly gave it to me.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t sound so worried – I told him you’d left something behind the other night.’

‘So how’s Dod doing?’

‘Same old.’ She paused. ‘It was fun seeing you at the house.’

‘Nice to catch up – just a shame about the circumstances.’

‘That man Fox has been on the phone, asking if Dod would be up for answering a few questions. Dod tells me you’ll know about that.’

‘Sort of.’

‘And if he really doesn’t want to talk . . . ?’

‘I suppose his doctor could write him a note.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ Another pause. ‘It’s not that he has anything to hide. It’s just that he’s not up to it.’

‘Understood.’

‘But will Fox see it that way?’

‘Doesn’t really matter, does it?’

‘Dod doesn’t want to go to his grave with a black mark against his whole career. Surely you can see that?’

‘Of course.’

She seemed to relax a little, as though relieved he was now sharing her burden. ‘Maybe we could meet for a coffee after Silverknowes – it would be lovely to see you.’

‘At the house, you mean?’

‘There’s a café on Roseburn Terrace. I sometimes take an hour out and sit there. Dod seems to manage without me . . .’

‘Do they do food?’ Rebus enquired.

‘Just sandwiches and baked potatoes.’

‘Then I’ll see you there at half-one.’

‘Always supposing you can bear to leave Silverknowes.’

‘Always supposing,’ Rebus echoed with a smile.

He was five minutes early, but she was already there, seated at a table by the window, the window itself opaque with condensation.

‘John,’ she said in greeting, rising and pecking him on the cheek. Then the familiar touch of her thumb as she brushed away the lipstick. ‘I ordered a pot of tea – is that okay?’

‘Fine.’

She didn’t want anything to eat, but Rebus ordered a toasted ham sandwich. When he turned from the waitress, Maggie Blantyre was studying him intently.

‘Have you left a mark on me?’ he asked, rubbing at his left cheek.

‘I was just thinking back. You were a lovely lot – a real gang of friends.’

‘The job does that to you.’

‘And a lot more besides.’

‘Despite which, here I am.’

‘Here you are,’ she said, lifting her teacup. But then her smile faltered. ‘There are times I wonder . . .’

‘What?’

‘How things might have turned out – if we’d been a little braver.’

‘You and me, you mean? At the time, I seem to remember we thought we’d taken leave of our senses.’

‘But thinking back . . .’

‘The past’s a dangerous place, Maggie.’

‘I know it is – look at what this man Fox is trying to do.’

‘It’s not Fox, it’s the Solicitor General – she wants to retry Billy Saunders, and for that to happen she needs to know nothing’s going to bite her arse in the courtroom.’

‘You paint a lovely picture.’

Rebus’s phone was buzzing. ‘I need to take this,’ he apologised, seeing Clarke’s name on the screen.

‘Of course.’

He got to his feet and exited the café. ‘Siobhan?’ he said by way of greeting.

‘Pat McCuskey just died,’ she said, no emotion in her voice.

‘Shite.’

‘It’s now a murder inquiry. A team’s being assembled at Torphichen.’ Meaning the C Division HQ on Torphichen Place. Made sense: nearest manned station to the crime scene. Come reorganisation, there’d be something called the Specialist Crime Division to investigate serious cases, but not yet.

‘I can be there in five minutes,’ Rebus said.

‘Your name’s not been mentioned, John. I don’t mean to say you won’t be needed in future . . .’

‘But
you’re
in?’

‘At the moment, yes.’

‘And Page?’

‘No, not Page – and not Esson or Ogilvie either. Seems they only need an extra DI right now.’