by Ian Rankin
‘What are you thinking, John?’ Maggie Blantyre asked, swirling her glass of white wine.
‘I’m thinking I shouldn’t have brought my car.’ He made show of examining his orange juice.
‘Leave it where it is, then – drop by tomorrow and get it.’
But he shook his head.
‘I hear you’re still working,’ Dod Blantyre said.
‘I was retired for a while – did some civvy stuff for the Cold Case Unit.’
‘That the one set up by Gregor Magrath?’
‘It’s been wound up now. I reapplied for CID, and got lucky.’
‘Bit like the old codgers they take on at B and Q,’ Paterson joked.
‘John was always a hard worker,’ Blantyre said.
‘Did that stroke affect your memory, Dod?’ Paterson asked with a snort. ‘John was about the laziest bugger going.’ He turned towards Rebus. ‘Back me up here, John!’
‘You’re confusing John with poor Frazer,’ Gilmour interrupted. ‘Frazer was the boy who’d always be nipping to the shops.’
‘Is that right?’ Paterson was frowning as he tried to remember.
‘Don’t give Porkbelly any more whisky,’ Blantyre warned his wife. ‘He’s got too few synapses left as it is.’
There was a bit of laughter, after which they concentrated on their drinks. This is okay, Rebus thought to himself. But then he knew these men; the mood could change . . .
‘Does anyone still have the Shadow Bible?’ Gilmour asked into the silence.
‘Don’t know what happened to it,’ Blantyre said. ‘Maggie thinks it might have gone into a skip when we cleared out the garage.’
‘That’s a shame.’
Blantyre looked at Gilmour. ‘I’m betting you’re glad you got out when you did – more money than us poor buggers will ever have.’
‘How many hotels have you got now, Stefan?’ The question came from Maggie.
‘They’re not exactly mine. I just seem to have landed the job of heading the company.’
‘How many, though?’
‘Seventeen at the last count.’
‘You must rack up the air miles.’
‘First-name terms with the staff at Emirates.’
She smiled, seeming pleased for him. ‘And are you still dating that model?’
‘She’s not a model – she used to be on TV.’
‘Same sort of thing, though – you need the looks.’
Gilmour nodded slowly. ‘We’re still together,’ he acknowledged. ‘Not married, though.’
‘We read about you in the papers – all that stuff to do with the referendum.’
‘“Stefan Gilmour Says No”,’ Paterson parroted. ‘This you pushing for your knighthood?’
‘And what happened,’ Dod Blantyre added, ‘to that plan you and your football pal had to buy Tynecastle?’
‘This is turning into an interrogation,’ Gilmour pretended to complain. ‘And we all know how those can turn nasty.’ He smiled and drank from his glass.
‘How about you, John?’ Maggie asked Rebus. ‘You split up with Rhona, didn’t you? Just the one kid . . . ?’
‘Leave the man in peace,’ Blantyre complained to his wife. Then, to Rebus: ‘Too many soap operas, John – that’s the trouble.’
‘Should I pop the pies in the oven, then?’ Maggie asked, starting to get to her feet. Her husband nodded.
‘Pies?’ Paterson queried.
‘Dod thought it would be a nice touch. He says you lot ate nothing else for about two years.’
‘Certainly seemed that way.’ Paterson patted not his own stomach but Rebus’s. ‘With John here and Frazer doing the fetching.’
‘I’ll just be a minute then.’ She went over to her husband’s armchair and kissed him on the forehead before making for the kitchen. As soon as she was gone, Blantyre asked that the door be closed. Stefan Gilmour obliged.
‘All three of you, over here,’ Blantyre demanded. The three visitors approached his chair. ‘Means I don’t have to talk too loud.’
‘What’s going on, Dod?’ Gilmour asked, keeping his own voice low.
‘Last few times I’ve been to see the white coats, I’ve not let Maggie come with me. So she doesn’t know things are as bad as they are. It’s not just the stroke. There’s plenty else wrong with the engine.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ Paterson said.
‘I’ve got a few months yet – at least I hope I have. But word’s come to me that they may not be as pleasant as I’d like them to be.’ He looked at each man in turn. ‘Elinor Macari’s on the warpath.’
‘Macari?’ Gilmour queried.
‘The Solicitor General,’ Rebus informed him.
‘She wants the Saunders case looked at.’
‘What the hell for?’
‘Because she can. Double jeopardy’s been axed, if you hadn’t heard.’
‘I hadn’t,’ Gilmour admitted.
‘Not axed exactly,’ Rebus felt it necessary to add. ‘But in certain cases a retrial can be requested.’
‘It was thirty years ago,’ Gilmour argued. ‘We can’t be expected to remember . . .’
‘Won’t stop them asking.’ Paterson turned towards his friend. ‘Fancy seeing your photo in the papers, Stefan? And not in a clinch with a TV star but next to a mug shot of Billy Saunders?’
‘Is Saunders even in the land of the living?’ Gilmour enquired.
‘Macari wouldn’t go after him if he wasn’t,’ Blantyre said. Then: ‘My throat’s dry – can one of you . . . ?’
Paterson lifted the tumbler and angled the straw towards Blantyre’s lips. Gilmour produced a clean cotton handkerchief with which to dab the man’s chin.
‘So what do we do?’ he asked.
‘I’m just giving fair warning,’ Blantyre told him. ‘Few months from now, it won’t matter a damn to me. You lot, on the other hand . . .’
Gilmour turned towards Rebus. ‘You’re the only one of us with a finger in the CID pie, John – can you find out what’s happening?’
‘I can try,’ Rebus conceded.
‘Without looking like there’s something you’re trying to keep covered up,’ Paterson added.
‘Covered up?’ Rebus echoed, as Maggie came back into the room.
‘Oh!’ she said, face growing fearful at the sight of all three guests huddled around her husband. ‘Has something . . . ?’
‘I’m fine,’ Blantyre assured her. ‘Just been taking a drink.’
She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘You scared me there.’ Then she gestured back towards the kitchen. ‘About fifteen minutes for those pies – and I think I need to step out and have a cigarette.’
‘I might join you,’ Rebus said. He fixed his eyes on those of Dod Blantyre. ‘If that’s okay . . . ?’
‘Fine,’ Blantyre agreed, after only a moment’s hesitation.
Rebus followed Maggie through the small kitchen and into the back garden. There was a patio, its furniture covered, awaiting better weather, with a patch of lawn beyond. She lit her own cigarette before handing her gold lighter to Rebus. She had folded her arms in a show of keeping warm.
‘Want me to fetch a coat?’ he asked. But she shook her head.
‘I get too hot in the house sometimes. Dod likes the thermostat turned up.’
‘The two of you have been managing okay?’
‘What else can you do?’ She flicked a strand of hair from one eye. ‘Must be hard, though.’
‘Can we change the subject?’
‘If you like.’
She thought for a moment. ‘Actually, no, let’s stick to that exact subject – why are you all here?’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘When was the last time the four of you were in the same room?’
‘Frazer’s funeral.’
‘And that was ten years back – so why now?’ She held up a hand. ‘Don’t bother trying any flannel. I’ve seen enough of it in my time to open a pyjama factory.’ She too
k a step closer. He could smell her perfume. ‘It’s because he’s dying, right? He’s dying and he thinks he can keep it from me?’ She saw the answer in his eyes and turned away, sucking hard on her cigarette, exhaling through her nostrils so that her whole face was wreathed in smoke.
‘Maggie,’ he began, but she was shaking her head. Eventually she took a deep breath and began to compose herself.
‘Is that still your address?’ she asked. ‘The one I send the card to every year?’
‘Yes.’
‘You never bothered moving? Did you think Rhona was coming back?’
‘Not especially.’ He shifted his feet.
‘We like to stay tied to the past, though, don’t we? Dod still talks about Summerhall. Sometimes I think it’s a priest he needs rather than a wife.’ She saw his look and held up a hand. ‘He spares me whatever gory details there are. Different times, different rules, isn’t that right?’
‘It might be what we tell ourselves.’ Rebus examined the glowing tip of his cigarette.
‘Something’s got him worried, though, hasn’t it – not just the cold hard fact that he’s dying? And it’s to do with the Saints?’
‘You best ask him.’
She smiled. ‘I’m asking you, John. I’m asking my old pal.’ And when he didn’t answer she leaned in and kissed him on the lips, kissed him slowly, brushing away the evidence with a finger afterwards. ‘He never did find out,’ she said, her voice just above a whisper. ‘Not unless you told him.’
Rebus shook his head, saying nothing.
‘You were just boys, the lot of you. Boys playing at being cowboys.’ She ran a different finger down his cheek and neck.
‘And what were you, Maggie?’ he asked as she inspected the contours of his face.
‘I was the same as I am now, John. No more, no less. You, on the other hand . . .’
‘There’s certainly a bit more of me.’
‘But you seem sadder, too. It makes me wonder why you think you need to keep doing the job you do.’
‘So what was I like back then?’
‘There was an electric wire running through you.’
‘Lucky I got that seen to.’
‘I’m not so sure.’ She took one final draw on her cigarette and flicked it into a nearby pot. ‘Better get back indoors before tongues start wagging. Not that you Saints don’t trust each other . . .’
Rebus finished his own cigarette and dropped it next to hers. ‘It was just a name we gave ourselves,’ he explained. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Try telling that to Dod.’ She paused at the back door, her hand turning the handle. ‘Far as he’s concerned, you lot came straight from a comic book.’
‘I don’t remember too many superheroes stoking up on pies,’ Rebus argued.
‘You probably don’t wear your underpants outside your trousers either,’ she agreed. ‘Unless there’s something you want to tell me . . .’
Paterson’s home was a semi-detached Victorian property on Ferry Road. Most of his neighbours ran bed-and-breakfast operations, meaning gardens turned into rudimentary car parks. Paterson’s frontage, however, was distinguished by mature trees and an established holly hedge. He had been a widower for seven years, but showed no sign of wishing to downsize.
‘Kids are always nagging me,’ he confided to Rebus in the Saab. He had sunk enough whisky to make him sleepy, his sentences drifting off. ‘Less maintenance with a nice modern flat somewhere, but I like it fine where I am.’
‘Same goes for me,’ Rebus said. ‘Couple of spare rooms I’ll never need.’
‘You get to our age, who can be bothered? Look at poor Dod – you never know what’s waiting for you round the next corner. Best just to get on with things and not get too . . .’ He couldn’t find the right words, so spun his hands around one another instead.
‘Wrapped up in stuff?’ Rebus suggested.
‘Aye, maybe.’ Paterson exhaled noisily. ‘Stefan’s done well for himself though, eh? Millions in the bank and jetting around the place.’ Rebus nodded his agreement. ‘And Maggie’s still a lovely woman – Dod got lucky there.’
‘That he did.’
‘She’s still bonny and . . .’ Paterson broke off, brow furrowing. ‘There’s a poem I’m trying to remember – bonny and something and maybe something else after that.’
‘I’m on tenterhooks.’
Paterson looked at him, trying to focus. ‘You’re a cold man, John. You always were. I don’t mean . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘What do I mean?’
‘Cold as in stand-offish?’ Rebus suggested.
‘Not that, no. It’s more that you never liked to show emotion – afraid you might get the sympathy vote.’
‘And I didn’t want that?’
‘You did not,’ Paterson agreed. ‘We were battlers, the lot of us. That’s who joined the police back then – not college graduates and the like. And if we had half a brain, we maybe made it to CID . . .’ He paused, peering through the windscreen. ‘We’re here.’
‘I know.’
Paterson stared at him. ‘How?’
‘Because we’ve been sat outside your house the past five minutes.’ Rebus held out a hand for Paterson to shake. ‘Good to see you again, Porkbelly.’
‘Are you glad now you went?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘And the thing Dod mentioned – do you think you can . . . ?’
‘Maybe. No promises, though.’
Paterson released Rebus’s hand. ‘Good man,’ he said, as though only now coming to a decision on this. Then he pushed open his door and started to get out.
‘Helps if you unbuckle your seat belt,’ Rebus reminded him. A moment or two later and Paterson was free, weaving down the path towards his front door. A security light came on and he waved without looking back, letting Rebus know he could take it from here. With a tired smile, Rebus put the Saab into first and tried to calculate the simplest route home.
It took him twenty minutes, with a Mick Taylor CD playing on the stereo and traffic lights that seemed to turn green at his every approach. The phone in his pocket buzzed, but he waited until he was parked outside his tenement before taking it out and checking the text. It was from Siobhan Clarke.
Can we speak?
Rebus stayed in the car while he called her. She picked up straight away.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I stopped by your flat a couple of times – wanted to do this face to face.’
‘Do what?’
‘Intercede.’
He wasn’t sure he had heard her right. ‘Intercede?’
‘On Malcolm Fox’s behalf. He’s requesting the pleasure of your company at some point in the next day or so.’
‘And he’s too scared to ask me direct?’
‘Something like that.’
‘And you’re “interceding” because . . . ?’
‘Because sometimes a friendly face helps.’ She paused. ‘But I know you’re going to say no to him anyway.’
‘Am I?’
‘He’s the Complaints, John – you’re hard-wired to spit in his face.’
Hard-wired . . . He remembered Maggie’s words: there was an electric wire running through you . . .
‘Some truth in that,’ he said.
‘So what should I tell him? Bearing in mind I’m a fragile flower of a soul.’
‘Your patter’s pish, DI Clarke.’
‘But you’re still going to say no?’
‘I’m going to say tomorrow, the back room of the Ox, twelve noon.’
There was silence on the line.
‘You still there?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Twelve tomorrow,’ he confirmed.
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
‘I’m never going to sleep now – not until you tell me why.’ She paused again. ‘It’s almost as if you already knew.’
‘Is it?’
&n
bsp; ‘Knew he was on his way,’ she went on. ‘But how is that possible? I’m the only one he told . . .’
‘Magicians never reveal their secrets, Siobhan.’
‘You know it’s to do with Summerhall? And the Saints of the Shadow Book?’
‘Shadow Bible,’ Rebus corrected her.
‘But you know?’ she persisted.
‘One thing I don’t know, though . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘At this meeting tomorrow, will you be on my side or his?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Might be wiser not to be there at all.’
‘But then who would stop you lamping him?’
‘I’m not going to lamp him, Shiv – I want to hear what he’s got to say.’
‘It concerns a man called Billy Saunders.’
‘Well of course it does,’ Rebus said, ending the call and exiting the car.
Day Three
5
At twelve the next day, Rebus was seated at a corner table with a pint of IPA. The Oxford Bar consisted of two rooms – one containing the bar itself, and the other tables and chairs. The walls of the back room were lined with reclaimed church pews. A coal fire had been lit, and the place smelled of smoke, with undertones of bleach from the morning’s sluicing. A large window gave on to Young Street, but the natural light was only ever fitful. Rebus had taken a couple of sips from his glass. There was no one else in the back room and only Kirsty the barmaid out front, the TV news keeping her company. When the door to the outside world rattled open, Rebus allowed himself a thin smile – of course Malcolm Fox would be punctual. The man himself appeared, spotting Rebus and moving towards the table. He drew out a chair and sat down, not bothering to find out if the offer of a handshake would be rejected. Siobhan Clarke was in the doorway, pointing towards Rebus’s drink. He shook his head and she retreated to the bar, appearing again moments later with two glasses of sparkling water.
‘Thanks for meeting me,’ Malcolm Fox said, fussing with the positioning of his glass on the beer mat. Clarke squeezed into the same pew as Rebus, but equidistant between the two men, saying nothing. ‘Mind if I ask: why here?’
‘There’s an old Edinburgh tradition of transacting business in pubs,’ Rebus explained. ‘Besides which, it shows how keen you are.’
