Saints of the Shadow Bible (Rebus) (34 page)

‘You’re DS Rebus?’ she asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘I was just telling DCI Page . . .’

‘You had to bring the autopsy forward.’

‘I need to be at a lecture.’ She glanced at her wristwatch.

‘I could give you a lift.’

‘Quicker walking – it’s just by the McEwan Hall.’

‘I’ll walk with you, then.’

She fixed him with her blue eyes. Mascara coated her eyelashes and thick red hair fell to her shoulders and just beyond. Rebus placed her in her mid forties, maybe a touch older. No rings on any of her fingers, but that could have been for professional reasons. The backs of her hands were pink, perhaps from the scrubbing they’d just been given.

‘Just so you can update me,’ Rebus explained.

‘Fine then,’ she said, gathering paperwork into a capacious leather bag before lifting her coat from the back of the chair and putting it on, Rebus resisting a sudden urge to help.

‘Always supposing the case is worth updating,’ he felt it necessary to qualify.

‘I’m trying to find time for a second examination later today – if I can locate another pathologist to work with me.’

‘Oh?’

She was looking around the cramped space, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.

‘It’s a strange one,’ she said.

‘He didn’t drown, then?’

‘Dead when he entered the water. The question is: for how long?’ She saw the look he was giving her. ‘I’m thinking months,’ she explained. ‘Possibly even years.’

‘
Years?
’

‘Spent seated, judging by the way the bones have fused.’

‘Professor, are we talking about a skeleton here?’

‘There’s skin, but it has all but mummified. Hard to say much more right now. Body probably wasn’t in the water for more than a couple of days – the dock isn’t exactly tidal, so it almost certainly was disposed of there rather than being washed up from elsewhere.’ She grew thoughtful. ‘That’s about as much as I was able to tell DCI Page. Sure you still want that walk?’

‘I’m sure,’ Rebus said, holding open the door.

They climbed from the Cowgate to Chambers Street, Rebus working hard to keep up with her.

‘So you’re the notorious John Rebus?’ she asked.

‘You must be thinking of someone else.’

‘I don’t think so. You knew Professors Gates and Curt?’

‘Worked with them for years.’

‘I think it was Professor Curt who mentioned you. He used to teach me, back in the day. You featured in a few of his war stories.’ They were passing the museum, and she asked him if he’d been in.

‘Not since it reopened,’ he admitted.

‘You should.’

‘Are you sure about this corpse, Professor Quant?’

‘My name’s Deborah. And I’ll admit I have more questions than answers right now.’

‘Nothing to identify the body?’

‘He was naked when they pulled him out of the water. No obvious tattoos or scars. Fair haired, five feet ten. I’d say he weighed around a hundred and seventy pounds at one time – bit of a paunch. Someone from Forensics will be there when we do the next examination. There were fibres stuck to the body. I’m guessing he was wrapped in something.’ She stopped walking for a moment. ‘I did read somewhere about a similar case – husband couldn’t bear to part with his wife, so he left her in the chair where she died, wouldn’t let anyone into the room for the best part of five years.’

‘You think that’s what happened here?’

‘All I know is there are no immediate signs of violence.’

‘Who spotted the body?’

‘A jogger. Usual story – mistook it for a bag of rubbish at first.’ She had resumed walking, turning left out of Chambers Street and heading down Bristo Place. ‘We’re almost there,’ she said, checking her watch again. ‘And for once I’m going to start on time.’

‘You lecture in the medical faculty?’

She nodded. ‘Are you going all the way back to the mortuary now to collect your car?’

‘Yes,’ he admitted, earning a smile. ‘What time’s the second autopsy?’

‘If I can find a willing helper, four forty-five. Will I see you there?’

‘Hopefully.’

They were on Teviot Place now, at the entrance to her building. She held out her hand and he shook it. The hand was slender, and he could feel the bones beneath the skin. Then she headed through the archway and was gone.

‘Fucking mummies now,’ Rebus muttered to himself, readying to retrace his route. His phone rang and he answered it.

‘Why is nothing ever simple with you, John?’ Page asked.

‘I didn’t ask for the assignment.’

‘From what Professor Quant tells me, we have a suspicious death at the very least.’

‘She told me that too.’

‘You saw her, then? I hear she’s a fine-looking specimen.’

‘You’re misinformed,’ Rebus responded, ending the call and searching his pockets for his cigarettes.

He met Eamonn Paterson at a lunchtime pub on Raeburn Place. Rebus was seated at a corner table when Paterson arrived. Paterson got himself a pint of lager, Rebus shaking away the offer.

‘What the hell is that?’ the older man asked, nodding towards the bright green drink in front of Rebus.

‘Lime juice and soda – Siobhan Clarke swears by it.’

‘I’d swear too if you plonked one in front of me.’ Paterson picked up the menu and studied it. ‘You eating?’

‘I’m fine,’ Rebus said.

‘Just want to get down to business, eh?’ Paterson put the menu back and took a mouthful of lager.

‘The thing is, Porkbelly, I know about Phil Kennedy.’

‘Oh aye?’

Rebus nodded slowly, his eyes on his old friend. ‘You had him on a chair in the cell, giving him a doing. He smacks his head and that’s that. To cover your arse, the body’s taken back to his house and arranged at the foot of the stairs. The relevant bit of the custody ledger is torn out so no one’s any the wiser – except Billy Saunders, who heard everything from the cell next door.’

Paterson stared at the table, as if committing to memory the pattern of its grain. He was holding his glass but not drinking from it. Eventually he sniffed and rubbed at his nose. But still he failed to make eye contact with Rebus, finding the window, the walls and the bar staff more interesting.

‘Aye,’ he said at last, stretching the single syllable as far as he could. Then he risked meeting Rebus’s gaze. ‘You found out from Saunders? He wrote it down somewhere?’

‘Doesn’t matter how I found out.’

‘It can always be denied, you know. There’s no actual proof.’

‘You’re right.’

‘And it really was an accident, if it was anything.’

‘The cover-up was no accident, though. It was planned to almost the last detail.’

‘Almost?’

‘The custody ledger, and the presence in the vicinity of Billy Saunders. He cuts a deal: you’ll go out of your way to see he gets off next time he’s arrested. He knew precisely what he was going to do – batter Douglas Merchant to death. And if you didn’t help him, he’d tell everyone what he knew. Wouldn’t just be you with your head on the block; it’d be Gilmour and Blantyre too, plus Professor Donner, and I’m guessing Magnus Henderson had to be in on it – hard to tamper with the ledger without the custody sergeant knowing.’

‘Magnus Henderson is dead, John. Professor Donner is dead. So is Saunders, and our old friend Dod Blantyre hasn’t much longer to go. Ask yourself what any of this –
any of it
– is going to achieve.’

‘Probably not much,’ Rebus conceded. ‘But a man was shot dead in cold blood in the present day. Are you going to tell me that doesn’t matter?’

‘It matters,’ Paterson said. ‘Of course it matters.’

‘Do you know what happened to that pistol, Porkbelly?’

Paterson considered how to answer. Another mouthful of lager gave him courage. ‘I always thought Stefan lifted it. It was never seen again after he left Summerhall for the last time.’ He managed the most rueful of smiles. ‘When he started making a go of his business, I used to wonder if he maybe produced it at meetings to get the signatures on the relevant documents.’

‘It’s a thought,’ Rebus said.

‘You’re not managing to sound convinced. You know, we kept you out of it as a way of protecting you.’

‘Protecting me?’

‘The less you knew, the better.’

‘What about Frazer Spence – was he in on it?’

‘You were still the apprentice back then, John – Frazer had served his time.’

‘Meaning you didn’t trust me?’

‘We didn’t know how you’d react.’

‘Thanks very much.’ Rebus pushed his garish drink aside. ‘You say Stefan had the pistol? That must mean you think he shot Billy Saunders?’

‘I doubt I’m alone in that.’

‘You’re not – doesn’t make it the truth, though.’

‘Is it the truth that’s needed here, or just a convincing story? My bet is any one of us would do as far as your friend Fox is concerned.’ Paterson paused. ‘That’s why we should offer him Frazer.’

‘The more you and Stefan try to use Frazer, the more I realise how much of a lie the Saints were. And here’s the thing – Frazer used to send titbits Albert Stout’s way, but never once did he give the press anything on you or Stefan or the rest of us. He went to his grave with whatever dirt on you he had, and now you’re offering him up as a sacrifice.’

Paterson seemed to have no answer to this. He lifted his glass again, but put it down without drinking. ‘We’re old men, John. You think I’d do any of the stuff I did in Summerhall, knowing what I do now? Every night I lie in my bed and think back on the people we were. But you won’t find those versions of us any more.’

‘Except for whoever killed Billy Saunders. And it wasn’t Frazer Spence.’

‘Stefan isn’t going to own up to it.’

‘The meeting with Saunders had to be arranged – somewhere traces will exist. Maybe on CCTV, maybe on a phone. Siobhan Clarke won’t rest till she’s peered into every last corner.’

‘Good luck to her.’ Paterson was rising to his feet. ‘Next time I see you might be Dod’s funeral – you realise that?’ He took one last look at the contents of Rebus’s glass. ‘Soft drinks and playing things by the book. Who’d have thought it?’

Rebus watched as his one-time colleague left the pub. There was a slight limp – maybe his hip was playing up. And a stoop to the spine, too. But at one time Paterson had struck a fearsome figure – using his heft to intimidate suspects, hardening his face to suggest violence was not out of the question. Rebus could well visualise him tipping Phil Kennedy out of his chair. Maybe that was as far as it had gone. Then again, with Kennedy’s head resting against the cold concrete floor, the temptation would have been to haul it up by the hair and thump it down again. Rebus remembered Stefan Gilmour rubbing his hands together as if washing them clean. He had glimpses of entering the CID office and the conversation ending, or changing.

The less you knew, the better . . .

Still the apprentice . . .

‘Not any more,’ Rebus said to himself, heading to the bar for a whisky.

‘Good of you to meet me,’ Rebus said, shaking John McGlynn’s hand. McGlynn was younger than he’d expected and wore a black V-neck T-shirt below the jacket of his tailored suit. They were in the foyer of the Balmoral Hotel on Princes Street.

‘I can only offer a few minutes,’ McGlynn apologised.

‘Probably all I’ll need.’

There were some chairs by the reception desk, so they sat down. McGlynn exuded restless energy, his eyes alive to possibilities. ‘Stefan said you’re interested in Rory Bell,’ he began.

‘I don’t know much about him.’

‘Am I allowed to ask why he’s on your radar?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

McGlynn digested this. ‘Well I can’t say it surprises me. A few businesses got on the wrong side of him when he tried selling them his services.’

‘I’ve heard the rumours. Is that what happened to you?’

McGlynn shook his head. ‘He came to me looking for a favour, actually. Couple of years back, this was. I own a few car parks in Glasgow, and Bell was interested. No way I wanted him as a partner, though – or anywhere near my firm. But I did seem to whet his appetite. Next thing, he’d got himself a couple of multi-storeys – one by Edinburgh Airport and the other in Livingston.’

‘The airport?’

McGlynn nodded. ‘Your ears seem to have pricked up.’

‘Might be something or nothing.’ Near the crash scene . . . Bell’s niece’s pals going off the road . . .

‘Would that be a genuine something or nothing or a policeman’s something or nothing?’ McGlynn was smiling.

‘Do I need to answer that?’

‘Not really.’

‘Anything else you can share regarding Rory Bell?’

‘He’s left me and mine well alone – I’d hate to think that might change because I’ve talked to you.’

‘It won’t.’

‘I’m only here because of Stefan.’

Rebus nodded slowly. ‘You’ve known Stefan a while?’

‘A few years.’

‘Get on well with him?’

‘I’ve no complaints.’ McGlynn checked the time.

‘He’s had a bit of bad publicity lately – you reckon he’s coping with it?’

‘He’s Stefan Gilmour – bullets bounce off him.’ McGlynn was rising to his feet, extending a hand for Rebus to shake. ‘Are you telling me his armour might be weakening?’

‘Would that cause something of a feeding frenzy?’

‘Business is business, Mr Rebus. Lot of hungry mouths out there . . .’

With a farewell nod, McGlynn walked in the direction of the restaurant, a member of staff giving a little bow as they met. Rebus headed out front, where his car was parked. The tram works were just as bad this end of Princes Street. He listened to the gripes of the Balmoral’s liveried doorman as he smoked a cigarette.

‘Place deserves better than this,’ the doorman told him. ‘Capital city? Makes what we’re doing to it a capital crime.’

‘So tell me who to arrest,’ Rebus offered.

‘What would be the point? Damage is already done.’

‘True enough,’ Rebus said, unlocking the Saab and getting in.

He preferred Glasgow to Edinburgh, though he chose to live in neither. Partly it was the people – too many of them, mostly just passing through. Then there was the narrowness of the streets, which felt claustrophobic. The layout made no sense until you drove into the New Town, and even there the roadworks and diversions meant you could not rely on satnav. No matter how much time you’d given yourself, it almost always took longer to get anywhere.