by Ian Rankin
“About the caravan,” Rebus pressed on, “whereabouts was it exactly?”
“Somewhere Port Seton way.”
“You knew Rico Lomax, didn’t you?”
“Oh aye, nice man, Rico.”
“Ever go with Dickie to one of his parties?”
She nodded vigorously. “Wild times,” she grinned. “And no neighbors to kick up a stink.”
“Unlike here, you mean?” Ward guessed. At which point, someone through the wall started shouting at their offspring:
“I’m telling you to clean that up!”
Bell stared at the wall. “Aye, not like here,” she replied. “There’s more space in a bloody caravan for a start.”
“What did you think when you heard Rico had been killed?” Barclay asked.
She shrugged. “What was there to think? Rico was what he was.”
“And what was he?”
“You mean apart from a bloody good shag?” She started cackling, offering a view of pale pink gums.
“Did Dickie know?” Ward asked.
“Dickie was there,” she declared.
“He didn’t object?” Ward asked. She just stared at him.
“I think,” Rebus explained for Ward’s benefit, “Miss Bell is saying that Dickie was a participant.”
Bell grinned at the look on Ward’s face as he digested this. Then she started cackling again.
“Is there a shower at St. Leonard’s?” Ward asked on the drive back.
“Reckon you need one?”
“Half an hour’s scrubbing should suffice.” He scratched his leg, which made Rebus start to feel itchy.
“That’s an image that will be with me to the grave,” Barclay stated.
“Allan in the shower . . . ?” Rebus teased.
“You know damned well what I mean,” Barclay complained. Rebus nodded. They were quiet for the rest of the journey. Rebus lingered in the car park, saying he needed a cigarette. After Ward and Barclay had disappeared inside, he reached for his mobile, called Enquiries and got the number for Calder Pharmacy in Sighthill. He knew the pharmacist there, a guy called Charles Shanks, who lived in Dunfermline and taught kickboxing in his spare time. When his call was answered, he asked for Shanks.
“Charles? John Rebus here. Look, do pharmacists have some kind of Hippocratic oath?”
“Why?” The voice sounded amused . . . and a little suspicious.
“I just wanted to know if you were doling out methadone to an addict called Malky Taylor.”
“John, I’m really not sure I can help.”
“All I want to know is whether he’s doing okay, sticking with the program . . . ?”
“He’s doing fine,” Shanks said.
“Thanks, Charles.” Rebus ended the call, slipped the phone back into his pocket and headed indoors. Francis Gray and Stu Sutherland were in the interview room, talking with Barclay and Ward.
“Where’s Jazz?” Rebus asked.
“He said he was going to the library,” Sutherland answered.
“What for?”
Sutherland just shrugged, leaving Gray to explain. “Jazz thinks it would help to know what else was happening in the world around the time Rico got hit and Mr. Diamond did his vanishing act. How did you get on in Leith?”
“Zombie Bar’s gone downwardly upmarket,” Ward commented. “And we talked to Dickie’s old girlfriend.” He made a face to let Gray know what he thought of her.
“Her flat was skanky,” Barclay added. “I’m thinking of investing in some disinfectant.”
“Mind you,” Ward said mischievously, “I think she might have serviced John here sometime in the dim and distant past.”
Gray’s eyebrows rose. “That right, John?”
“She thought she recognized me,” Rebus stressed. “She was mistaken.”
“She didn’t think so,” Ward persisted.
“John,” Gray pleaded, “tell me you never shagged Dickie Diamond’s bird?”
“I never shagged Dickie Diamond’s bird,” Rebus repeated. Just then, Jazz McCullough walked in through the door. He looked tired, rubbing his eyes with one hand and carrying a sheaf of papers in the other.
“Glad to hear it,” he said, having just caught the last few words.
“Find anything at the library?” Stu Sutherland asked, as if doubting that Jazz had been within a hundred yards of one.
Jazz dropped the sheets onto the desk. They were photocopies of newspaper stories.
“Look for yourself,” he said. As they passed the sheets among them, he explained his reasoning. “We had the newspaper cuttings at Tulliallan, but they were focusing on Rico’s murder, and that was a Glasgow case.”
Which meant the Glasgow paper — the Herald — had covered the story more comprehensively than its east coast rival. But now Jazz had gone to the Scotsman, finding a few scant references to the “disappearance of a local man, Richard Diamond.” There was a grainy photograph: it looked like Diamond leaving a courtroom, buttoning his check jacket. His hair was longish, sticking out over the ears. His mouth hung open, teeth angular and prominent, and he had stubby little eyebrows. Skinny and tall with what looked like acne on his neck.
“A bonny-looking bugger, isn’t he?” Barclay commented.
“Does this lot tell us anything new?” Gray asked.
“It tells us O. J. Simpson’s going to catch his wife’s killer,” Tam Barclay said. Rebus looked at the front page. There was a picture of the athlete after his acquittal. The paper was dated Wednesday, October 4, 1995.
“ ‘HOPES RISE FOR AN END TO DEADLOCK ON ULSTER,’ ” Ward said, quoting another headline. He looked around the table. “That’s encouraging.”
Jazz picked up one sheet and held it in front of him: “ ‘POLICE STYMIED IN HUNT FOR MANSE RAPIST.’ ”
“I remember that,” Tam Barclay said. “They drafted officers in from Falkirk.”
“And Livingston,” Stu Sutherland added.
Jazz was holding the sheet for Rebus to see. “You remember it, John?”
Rebus nodded. “I was on the team.” He took the photocopied story from Jazz and started to read.
It was all about how the inquiry was running out of steam, no result in sight. Officers were being sent back to their postings. A core of six officers will continue to sift information and seek out new leads. Those six had eventually dwindled to three, Rebus not among them. There wasn’t much in the story about the assault itself, which was as brutal as anything Rebus had seen in his years on the force. A church manse in Murrayfield — leafy Murrayfield, with its large, expensive homes and pristine avenues. It had started as a break-in, most probably. Silver and valuables had been taken in the raid. The minister himself had been out visiting parishioners, leaving his wife at home. Early evening, and no lights on. That was probably why the man — just the one attacker, according to the victim — had chosen the manse. It was next door to the church, hidden behind a tall stone wall and surrounded by trees, almost in a world of its own. No lights on meant no one home.
Being blind, however, the victim had needed no lights. She’d been in the bathroom upstairs. The clatter of breaking glass. She’d been running a bath, thought maybe she’d misheard. Or it was kids outside, a bottle thrown. The manse had a dog, but her husband had taken it with him to give it a walk.
She felt the breeze from the top of the stairs. There was a telephone in the hall next to the front door, and she put one foot on the first step down, heard the floorboard creak. Decided to use the phone in the bedroom instead. She almost had it in her hand when he struck, snatching her by the wrist and twisting her around so that she fell onto the bed. She thought she remembered the sound of him turning on the bedside lamp.
“I’m blind,” she’d pleaded. “Please don’t . . .”
But he had, giving a little laugh afterwards, a laugh that stayed with her during the months of the inquiry. Laughing because she couldn’t identify him. It was only after the rape that he tore her clothes off, punchin
g her hard in the face when she screamed. He left no fingerprints, just a few fibers and a single pubic hair. He’d swept the phone to the floor with his arm and then stamped on it. He’d taken cash, small heirlooms from the jewelry box on her dressing table. None of the missing items ever turned up.
He hadn’t said anything. She could give little sense of his height or weight, no facial description.
From the start, officers had refused to voice their thoughts. They’d given it their best shot. The business community had put up a £5,000 reward for information. The pubic hair had given police a DNA fingerprint, but there hadn’t been a database around back then. They’d have to catch the attacker first, then make the match.
“It was a bad one,” Rebus conceded.
“Did they ever catch the bastard?” Francis Gray asked.
Rebus nodded. “Just a year or so back. He did another break-in, assaulted a woman in her flat. This was down in Brighton.”
“DNA match?” Jazz guessed. Rebus nodded again.
“Hope he rots in hell,” Gray muttered.
“He’s already there,” Rebus conceded. “His name was Michael Veitch. Stabbed to death his second week in prison.” He shrugged. “It happens, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does,” Jazz said. “I sometimes think there’s more justice meted out in jails than in the courts.”
Rebus knew he had just been given an opening. You’re right . . . remember that gangster who got stabbed in the Bar-L? Bernie Johns, was that his name? But it felt too obvious. If he said it aloud, it would alert them, put them on their guard. So he held back, wondering if he’d ever take the chance.
“Got what he deserved anyway,” Sutherland stated.
“Not that it did his victim much good,” Rebus added.
“Why’s that, John?” Jazz asked. Rebus looked at him, then held up the sheet of paper.
“If you’d extended your search a few weeks, you’d have found she committed suicide. She’d become a recluse by then. Couldn’t stand the thought of him still being out there . . .”
Weeks, Rebus had worked on the manse inquiry. Chasing leads provided by informants desperate for the cash reward. Chasing bloody shadows . . .
“Bastard,” Gray hissed under his breath.
“Plenty of victims out there,” Ward suggested. “And we’re stuck with a toerag like Rico Lomax . . .”
“Working hard, are we?” It was Tennant, standing in the doorway. “Making lots of lovely progress for your SIO to report to me?”
“We’ve made a start, sir,” Jazz said, his voice full of confidence, but his eyes betraying the truth.
“Plenty of old news stories anyway,” Tennant commented, his eyes on the photocopies.
“I was looking for possible tie-ins, sir,” Jazz explained. “See if anyone else had gone missing, or any unidentified bodies turned up.”
“And?”
“And nothing, sir. Though I think I’ve discovered why DI Rebus didn’t seem overly helpful when Glasgow CID came calling.”
Rebus stared at him. Could he really know? Here Rebus was, supposedly infiltrating the trio, and every move they made seemed calculated to undermine him. First Rico Lomax, now the Murrayfield rape. Because there was a connection between the two . . . and that connection was Rebus himself. No, not just Rebus . . . Rebus and Cafferty . . . and if the truth came out, Rebus’s career would cease to be on the skids.
It would be a car wreck.
“Go on,” Tennant pressed.
“He was involved in another inquiry, sir, one he was loath to take time out from.” Jazz handed the rape story to Tennant.
“I remember this,” Tennant said quietly. “You worked it, John?”
Rebus nodded. “They pulled me off it to look for Dickie Diamond.”
“Hence your reluctance?”
“Hence my perceived reluctance, sir. Like I said, I helped the Glasgow CID as much as I could.”
Tennant made a thoughtful sound. “And does this get us anywhere nearer Mr. Diamond, DI McCullough?”
“Probably not, sir,” Jazz conceded.
“Three of us went down to Leith, sir,” Allan Ward piped up. “Interviewed two individuals who had known him. It seems Diamond may have shared his old lady with Rico Lomax on at least one occasion.”
Tennant just looked at him. Ward fidgeted a little.
“In a caravan,” he went on, eyes darting to Rebus and Barclay for support. “John and Tam were there too, sir.”
Tennant’s eyebrows shot up. “In the caravan?”
Ward reddened as laughter filled the room. “In Leith, sir.”
Tennant turned to Rebus. “A useful trip, DI Rebus?”
“As fishing expeditions go, I’ve been on worse.”
Tennant was thoughtful again. “The caravan angle: is there any mileage in that?”
“Could be, sir,” Tam Barclay said, feeling left out. “It’s something I feel we should follow up.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” Tennant told him. Then he turned to Gray and Sutherland. “And meantime you two were . . . ?”
“Making phone calls,” Gray announced calmly. “Trying to locate more of Diamond’s associates.”
“But still finding enough time to go walkabout, eh, Francis?”
Gray knew he’d been rumbled, decided silence was the best policy.
“DCS Templer tells me you were nosing around her inquiry.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She wasn’t happy about it.”
“And she came crying to you, sir?” Ward said belligerently.
“No, DC Ward . . . she quite properly mentioned it to me, that’s all.”
“There’s us and there’s them,” Ward went on, his eyes scanning the Wild Bunch. Rebus knew what he meant: it wasn’t so much a team thing, more something approaching a siege mentality.
There’s us . . . and there’s them.
Except that Rebus didn’t feel that way. Instead, he felt isolated inside his own head. Because he was a mole, brought here to con the group, and now working a case which, if solved, would be his ruin.
“Take this as a warning,” Tennant was telling Gray.
“You’re saying we shouldn’t fraternize?” Gray asked. “We’re a leper colony now, are we?”
“We’re here through the good graces of DCS Templer. This is her station. And if you want to get through this course . . .” He paused to allow them to prepare for his next words. “You’ll do exactly what you’re told, understood?”
There were mutters of grudging acquiescence.
“Now get back to work,” Tennant said, checking his watch. “I’m headed back to base, and I’ll expect to see all of you at Tulliallan tonight. Just because you’re in the big city, don’t think you’re here on anything other than parole . . .”
After he’d gone, they sat staring into space and at each other, wondering where they went from here. Ward was first to speak.
“That guy should be in porn films.”
Barclay frowned. “Why’s that then, Allan?”
Ward looked at him. “Tell me, Tam, when did you last see a bigger prick?”
The laughter eased some of the tension. Not that Rebus felt inclined to join in. He was imagining a blind woman, suddenly feeling a stranger’s hand grab her wrist. He was thinking of the terror involved. There was a question he’d asked of a psychologist at the time: “Blind or sighted, which would have been worse?”
The psychologist had just shaken his head, unable to provide an answer. Rebus had gone home and fashioned a blindfold for himself. He’d lasted all of twenty minutes, then had collapsed into his chair, his shins bruised, crying himself towards sleep.
He took a break now and went to the toilet, Gray warning him not to stray too close to “the real detectives.” When he walked in, Derek Linford was shaking his hands free of water.
“No towels,” Linford said, explaining his actions. He was studying his appearance in the mirror above the sinks.
“I
heard you were filling my shoes,” said Rebus, approaching the urinals.
“I don’t think we’ve got anything to say to one another, do you?”
“Fair enough.” The silence lasted only half a minute.
“I’m about to do an interview,” Linford couldn’t help revealing. He tucked a stray hair behind one ear.
“Don’t let me keep you,” Rebus said. As he faced the urinal, he could almost feel Linford’s eyes drilling into his back. Then the door swung open again. It was Jazz. He started to introduce himself to Linford, but was interrupted.
“Sorry, I’ve got a suspect waiting for me.” By the time Rebus had zipped himself up, Linford was gone.
“Was it something I said?” Jazz mused.
“The only people Linford gives the time of day to are ones he thinks he should be sucking up to.”
“Career opportunist,” Jazz said, nodding his understanding. He went to the sink and ran his hands under the cold tap. “What was that Clash song again . . . ?”
“ ‘Career Opportunities.’ ”
“That’s the one. I always felt I wasn’t supposed to like The Clash: too old, not political enough.”
“I know what you mean.”
“A good band’s a good band, though.”
Rebus watched Jazz looking around for a towel of some kind. “Cutbacks,” Rebus explained. Jazz sighed and took out his handkerchief.
“That night we ran into your . . . your girlfriend, was it?” He waited till Rebus nodded. “Everything sorted now between the pair of you?”
“Not exactly.”
“They never tell you when you join, do they? That being a cop will screw up your love life.”
“You’re still married, though.”
Jazz nodded. “It’s never easy, though, is it?” He paused. “That rape inquiry got to you, I could see it in your eyes. The moment you read that story, you were back in the middle of it.”
“A lot of cases have got to me over the years, Jazz.”
“Why let them?”
“I don’t know.” Rebus paused. “Maybe I used to be a good cop.”
“Good cops put up barriers, John.”
“Is that what you do?”
Jazz took his time before answering. “End of the day, it’s just a job. Not worth losing sleep over, never mind anything else.”
