by Ian Rankin
“How far?” Ward was asking.
“Need to get off the beaten track,” McCullough advised. He was looking around to ensure they were alone. Rebus’s blurred vision told him they were . . .
Quite, quite alone.
“Here, drink this . . .” Someone was tipping a hip flask into his mouth. Whiskey. Rebus swallowed, but McCullough wanted him to drink more. “Come on, John, finish it off. Eases the aches and pains.”
Yes, Rebus thought, and makes me even easier to deal with. But he swallowed anyway, coughing some of it down his shirt, more dribbling from his nose. His eyes were growing so tearful, nothing was staying in focus. They were having to hold him upright now, almost dragging him . . . One of his shoes came off, and Ward stooped to pick it up, carrying it with him.
One shoe off and one shoe on, diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son John . . .
Could he really remember his mother reading out nursery rhymes at his bedside? The rain was dripping down from his hair, stinging his eyes, running down into his shirtfront. Cold, cold rain. Dozens of songs about rain . . . hundreds . . . he couldn’t recall a single one . . .
“What were you doing at Tulliallan, John?” McCullough was asking.
“I threw a mug of tea . . .”
“No . . . that was just your story. Someone put you there to spy on us, didn’t they?”
“Is that why you broke into my flat?” Rebus took a deep, painful breath. “Didn’t find anything, did you?”
“You were too good for us, John. Who was it put you up to it?”
Rebus shook his head slowly.
“You want to take it to the grave, that’s fine. But just remember: it was no accident they had us working the Lomax case. So don’t think you owe them anything.”
“I know,” Rebus said. He’d already worked it out. There must have been something in the files, something pointing to his involvement in the murder of Rico Lomax, the disappearance of Dickie Diamond. Gray had said it himself: Tennant always used the same case, a murder in Rosyth, solved years back. There had to be some reason for the use of the Lomax case, and Rebus was that reason. The High Hiedyins had nothing to lose after all, and at best they’d be killing two birds with one stone: Rebus might solve his puzzle; the Wild Bunch might solve theirs . . .
“How much farther?” he could hear Ward complaining.
“This’ll do,” McCullough said.
“Allan,” Rebus spluttered. “I feel really sorry for you.”
“Don’t,” Ward snapped back. He’d taken the spade from its plastic sleeve and was straightening it out, tightening the connecting nuts. “Who wants to start?” he asked.
“I wish you could have been spared this, Allan,” Rebus persisted.
“You’re a lazy bastard sometimes, Allan,” Gray snarled.
“Correction: I’m a lazy bastard all the time.” Ward grinned and handed the spade to Gray, who snatched hold of it.
“Give me the knife,” Ward said. Gray gave it to him. Rebus noticed that it looked clean. Either Gray had wiped it on Rebus’s shirt, or else the rain had washed his blood away. Gray pushed the spade into the earth and pressed down with his foot.
Next thing, the knife was sticking out of his neck, embedded in the top of his spine. Gray gave a high-pitched squeal and brought a suddenly shaking hand around to find the knife. But all he did was flap at its handle before dropping to his knees.
Ward had picked up the spade and was swinging it at McCullough. “Lost my cherry now, eh, Jazz?” he was yelling. “You cheating bastard!” Rebus was working hard at staying upright, watching it all happen in a hazy slow motion, realizing that Allan Ward had been brooding and stewing these past hours. The spade was slicing into McCullough’s cheek, bringing with it a spume of blood. McCullough staggered backwards, stumbling and falling. Gray had keeled over onto his side and was shuddering like a wasp hit with a blast of insecticide.
“Allan, for Christ’s sake. . .” Blood gurgled in McCullough’s mouth.
“It was always you two against me,” Ward was explaining, voice shaking. There were flecks of white at the corners of his mouth. “Right down the line.”
“Kept you out of it to protect you.”
“Like hell you did!” Ward raised the spade again, towering over McCullough, but Rebus, standing next to the young man now, placed a hand on his arm.
“Enough, Allan. No need to take it further . . .”
Ward paused, then blinked, and his shoulders dropped. “Call it in,” he said quietly. Rebus nodded. He already had the phone in his hand.
“When did you decide?” he asked, pushing the buttons.
“Decide what?”
“To let me live.”
Ward looked at him. “Five, ten minutes ago.”
Rebus raised the phone to his ear. “Thanks,” he said.
Allan Ward slumped down onto the wet grass. Rebus felt like joining him, maybe laying down and going back to sleep.
In a minute, he told himself. In a minute . . .
33
With Allan Ward’s confession, there was no real necessity for the kilo of heroin which Claverhouse — recipient of an anonymous tip-off — found in Jazz McCullough’s rented flat. But Rebus hadn’t known that at the time. As it was, the fact that the heroin came from the stolen consignment meant that Claverhouse might salvage something of his career at the SDEA, though demotion remained a near cert. Rebus was curious to find out how Claverhouse would cope, serving under Ormiston, for so long his junior . . .
Rebus required a blood transfusion and seven stitches. As the blood from the anonymous donors dripped into him, Rebus felt he should repay them in some way for his gift of renewed life. He wondered who they were: adulterers, misfits, Christians, racists . . . ? It was the deed that mattered, not the individual. He was up and about soon afterwards. Rain was still falling on the city. On the route to the cemetery, Rebus’s taxi driver commented that it seemed it would never stop.
“And sometimes I don’t want it to,” he admitted. “Makes everything smell clean, doesn’t it?”
Rebus agreed that it did. He told the driver to keep the meter running, he’d be only five minutes. The newest headstones were closest to the gate. Dickie Diamond’s was no longer the latest addition. Rebus didn’t feel bad that he’d missed the funeral. He had no flowers for the Diamond Dog, even though he was carrying a small posy. He didn’t think Dickie would mind . . .
Farther into the cemetery were the older graves, some well tended, others seemingly forgotten. Louise Hodd’s husband was still alive, though no longer a Church of Scotland minister. He’d gone to pieces after her rape and suicide, picking himself up again only slowly. There were fresh flowers by her headstone, to which Rebus added his posy, staying on his knees for a minute. It was as close as he came these days to prayer. He’d memorized the inscription, her dates of birth and death. Her maiden name had been Fielding. Six years since she took her life. Six years since Rico Lomax had died as a kind of retribution. Her attacker, Michael Veitch, was dead also, stabbed in jail by someone who’d known nothing of this particular crime. No one had planned it, or asked for it to happen. But it had happened anyway.
A complete and utter waste. Rebus could feel his stitches tingling, reminding him that he was still alive. All because Allan Ward had changed his mind. He rose to his feet again, brushing the earth from his trousers and hands.
Sometimes that was all it took to effect a kind of resurrection. Maybe Allan Ward, plenty of jail time ahead of him for contemplation, would come to realize that.
34
“Then why are you here?” Andrea Thomson pressed her hands together, resting her chin on her fingertips. For this meeting, she had borrowed an office at Fettes HQ. It was the same office she always used when there were officers in Edinburgh with a need for counseling. “Is it because you feel cheated of some sort of victory?”
“Did I say that?”
“I felt it was what you were trying to say. Did I misunderstand?”
<
br /> “I don’t know . . . I used to think policing was about upholding the law . . . all that stuff they taught you at Tulliallan.”
“And now?” Thomson had picked up her pen, but only as a prop. She didn’t write anything down until after the sessions.
“Now?” A shrug. “I’m not sure those laws necessarily work.”
“Even when you achieve a successful result?”
“Is that what’s been achieved?”
“You solved the case, didn’t you? An innocent man has been released from custody. Doesn’t sound like a bad result to me.”
“Maybe not.”
“Is it the means of achieving the end? You think that’s where the system’s at fault?”
“Maybe the fault lies with me. Maybe I’m just not cut out to . . .”
“To what?”
Another shrug. “Play the game, perhaps.”
Thomson studied her pen. “You’ve seen someone die. It’s bound to have affected you.”
“Only because I let it.”
“Because you’re human.”
“I don’t know where any of this is going,” Siobhan said with a shake of her head.
“No one’s blaming you, DS Clarke. Quite the reverse.”
“And I don’t deserve it.”
“We all get things we feel we don’t deserve,” Thomson said with a smile. “Most of us treat them as windfalls. Your career so far has been a success. Is that the problem perhaps? You don’t want that easy success? You want to be an outsider, someone who breaks the rules with only a measure of impunity?” She paused. “Maybe you want to be like DI Rebus?”
“I’m well aware that there’s not the room for more than one of him.”
“But all the same . . . ?”
Siobhan thought about it, but ended up offering only a shrug.
“So tell me what you like about the job.” Andrea Thomson leaned forward in her chair, trying to appear genuinely interested.
Siobhan shrugged again. Thomson looked disappointed. “What about outside work? Are there any keen interests you have?”
Siobhan thought for a long time. “Music, chocolate, football, drink.” She looked at her watch. “With any luck, I’ll have time to indulge in at least three of them after this.”
Thomson’s professional smile faded perceptibly.
“I also like long drives and home-delivery pizza,” Siobhan added, warming to the subject.
“What about relationships?” Thomson asked.
“What about them?”
“Is there some special relationship you’re in just now?”
“Only with the job, Ms. Thomson . . . And I’m not absolutely sure it loves me anymore.”
“What do you plan to do about that, DS Clarke?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe I could take it to bed with me and feed it Cadbury’s Whole Nut. That’s always worked for me in the past.”
When Thomson looked up from her cheap blue pen, she saw that Siobhan was grinning.
“I think that’s probably enough for today,” the counselor said.
“Probably,” Siobhan said, getting to her feet. “And thank you . . . I feel heaps better.”
“And I feel like a large bar of chocolate,” Andrea Thomson said.
“The canteen should still be open.”
Thomson put her unblemished legal pad into her bag. “Then what are we waiting for?” she asked.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ian Rankin is the author of more than eighteen books. He is an Edgar Award nominee and the recipient of both a Gold Dagger Award for Fiction and the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and their two sons.
ALSO BY IAN RANKIN
The Inspector Rebus Series
Knots & Crosses
Hide & Seek
Tooth & Nail
A Good Hanging and Other Stories
Strip Jack
The Black Book
Mortal Causes
Let It Bleed
Black & Blue
The Hanging Garden
Death Is Not the End (a novella)
Dead Souls
Set in Darkness
The Falls
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