10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (376 page)

‘Nothing but the truth?’ she asked.

‘What do you think?’

She blew on her cup. ‘Any idea who’d want him dead?’

‘I can’t think of many who didn’t. We’ve got half the population of Greenfield to start with.’ Especially Cal Brady, with his previous convictions; and not forgetting his mother . . .

‘Chasing him out and killing him aren’t quite in the same league.’

‘No, but something like that can escalate. Maybe Billy Horman was all it took.’

She rested against the corner of the desk. ‘Hit with a rock . . . doesn’t sound premeditated, does it?’

Hit with a rock . . . Deirdre, Alan Archibald’s niece, had been killed in a similar way: smashed over the head with a rock and then strangled. Clarke could read his mind.

‘Cary Oakes?’

‘Have we got a time of death yet?’ Rebus asked, reaching for a telephone.

‘Not that I know of. Body was found at eleven thirty.’

‘And we’re guessing the killer heard someone coming and ran for it.’ Rebus had pressed the digits and was waiting. Connected. ‘Hello, could you put me through to James Stevens, please?’

Clarke looked at him. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I want to know what happened after breakfast.’ He listened again, took his hand away. ‘Could you try Cary Oakes’s room for me?’ Shook his head to let Clarke know Stevens wasn’t in his own room. This time the call was answered.

‘Oakes, is that you? It’s Rebus here, put Stevens on.’ He waited a moment. ‘One question: what happened after breakfast?’ Listened again. ‘Was he out of your sight? You’ve been there all morning?’ Listened. ‘No, it’s all right. You’ll find out soon enough.’

Replaced the receiver.

‘They’ve been working all morning.’

‘No chance it was Oakes then.’ She looked at the computer screen. ‘What would be his motive anyway?’

‘Christ knows. But he was at my flat. He took the patrol car. Maybe he saw Rough leave, worked out he was connected to me.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘No.’

‘Then all he has to do is deny it.’

Rebus exhaled noisily. ‘It’s all games with him.’

Gill Templer was staring at them from across the room.

‘I’d better get back to work,’ Clarke said, taking her tea with her. Rebus finished his report, printed it out, handed it personally to Gill Templer.

‘When’s the post-mortem?’

She checked her watch. ‘I was just about to head over there.’

‘Need a driver?’

She studied him. ‘Has your driving improved?’

‘I’ll let you be the judge, ma’am.’

The city mortuary wasn’t in business. Health and Safety; changes needed to be made. Meantime, they were using the Western General Hospital. Because they couldn’t find any relatives or friends, Andy Davies had been called to verify Rebus’s identification. The social worker was waiting when Rebus and Gill Templer arrived. He made the ID, said nothing to Rebus but shot him a cold look before leaving.

‘Bad blood?’ Templer asked.

‘Better than none at all, Gill.’

Professor Gates was already at work by the time they’d got their gowns and masks on. For the official ID, Rough’s corpse had worn a shroud. Now, lying on the stainless-steel bench, it wore nothing at all. Prominent ribs, Rebus noted. He was thinking of the meal he’d made for Rough. Grudgingly made. Beans on toast. Probably the man’s last meal ever. And eventually, Gates would reveal it to the world again. Rebus half-turned his face.

‘Seasick, Inspector?’ Gates asked.

‘I’ll be fine so long as we keep out of the bilges.’

Gates chuckled. ‘But below decks is the most interesting part.’ He was measuring, muttering his findings to his assistant, a young man with a face the colour of a cancer bed.

‘And how are you, Gill?’ he asked at last.

‘Overworked.’

Gates glanced up. ‘Fine lassie like you should be at home, bringing up strong healthy bairns.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

Gates chuckled again. ‘Don’t tell me you lack suitors?’

She chose to ignore the remark.

‘What about you, John?’ Gates persisted. ‘Love life satisfactory? Maybe I should play Cupid, put the two of you together. What do you say to that now, eh?’

Rebus and Templer shared a look.

‘Professions like ours,’ Gates drawled on, ‘aren’t the same as being a lawyer or a novelist, are they? Not much of an ice-breaker at parties.’ He nodded towards his assistant. ‘Bear that in mind, Jerry. No nookie unless you lie about what you do.’ Gates’s final chuckle turned into a choking bark, a bronchial cough which almost doubled him over. He wiped his eyes afterwards.

‘Time to stop smoking,’ Templer warned him.

‘I can’t do that. It would spoil the bet.’

‘What bet?’

‘Dr Curt and myself: who’ll live the longer on twenty a day.’

‘That’s . . .’ Templer had been about to say ‘sick’, but then she saw that the body had been opened up almost without her noticing, and she realised why Gates kept the conversation going: it was to take everyone’s mind off the task at hand. And for a few moments, it had worked.

‘I’ll tell you one thing straight off,’ the pathologist said. ‘His clothes were damp, and to me that means rain. I’ve checked: we had a short shower early this morning and nothing since.’

‘Could he have got wet lying on the path?’

‘He was lying on his front. The back of his clothing was damp. So he was out in that shower, whether alive or dead I can’t say. But his hair was wet, too. Now, if you’re caught in a sudden downpour, wouldn’t you usually pull your jacket up over your head?’

‘Depends on your state of mind,’ Rebus said.

Gates shrugged. ‘I’m only surmising. But one thing I’m sure of.’ He ran a finger along the body, tracing patches of pale bluish markings. ‘
Livor mortis
. It was present at the scene. I arrived forty-five minutes after the body was discovered.’

‘But lividity starts . . .?’

‘Well, it starts from the moment the heart stops pumping, but it becomes visible somewhere between half an hour and an hour after death. This was well-established by the time I arrived.’

‘What about rigor mortis?’

‘Eyelids had stiffened, as had the jaw. I’ll take a potassium sample from the eye, to get a better idea of timing, but right now I’d guess the body had been lying there for three hours, maybe more.’

Rebus took a step forward. If Gates was right – and he invariably was – the dog-walker had not disturbed the killer. The killer had been long gone by the time the spaniel and its owner had arrived, and Darren Rough had died around seven or eight in the morning. At five he’d been asleep on Rebus’s couch; by six he’d gone . . .

‘Did he die where we found him?’ Rebus asked, wanting to be sure.

‘Judging by the patterns of lividity, I’d say it’s a racing certainty.’ The pathologist paused. ‘Of course, I’ve lost a few pounds on horses in my time.’

‘We need a more specific time of death.’

‘I know you do, Inspector. You
always
do. I’ll do what tests the budget will stretch to.’

‘And ASAP.’

Gates nodded. He was about ready to begin removing the inner organs. Jerry was fussing with the necessary tools.

Rebus was thinking: three, maybe four hours.

Thinking: Cary Oakes was back in the running.

They took him in for questioning, Rebus keeping out of the way, listening to the tapes afterwards. Stevens’ paper had provided their client with a solicitor from one of the city’s top firms, despite Templer’s insistence that all they had were a few questions, easily cleared up. But Oakes was saying nothing. Templer was good, and she had Pryde with her: their routine was well-honed, but Rebus got the feeling Oakes had seen all the moves before. He’d been examined and cross-examined and called to the stand again, he’d been through all that in an American courtroom. He just sat there and said he knew nothing about the patrol car, nothing about where Rebus lived, and nothing about any dead paedophile. His final comment:

‘What’s all the fuss about a kiddie-fucker?’

Pryde, listening to the tape, folded his arms at that and puckered his lips, most of him agreeing with the sentiment. When Pryde asked if Rebus was heading outside for a smoke, Rebus, inwardly gasping for one, shook his head. Later, he went out into the car park alone, pacing as he sucked hungrily on first one Silk Cut and then a second. Ten a day, he was keeping to ten a day. And if he went as high as twelve today, that meant only eight tomorrow. Eight was fine, he could handle that. It gave him a margin for today, a margin he reckoned he’d need.

Only thing was, he was already in arrears for the week; for the whole month, truth be told.

Tom Jackson came out, lit one of his own. They didn’t
speak for the first couple of minutes. Jackson scuffed his shoes on the tarmac and broke the silence.

‘I hear you took him in.’

Rebus blew smoke from his nose. ‘That’s right.’

‘Rescue act, let him stay the night.’

‘So?’

‘So not everyone would have been so charitable.’

‘I’m not sure it was charity.’

‘What then?’

What then? It was a good question.

‘Thing is,’ Jackson went on, ‘a few days back, you were all for stringing him up.’

‘Don’t exaggerate.’

‘You set that pack of wild dogs on him.’

‘You mean the papers or his neighbours?’

‘Both.’

‘Careful, Tom. You’re their community officer. That’s your flock you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about
you
: what happened?’

‘He only slept on my couch, Tom. It’s not like I gave him a gam or anything.’ Rebus flicked his third cigarette on to the ground, stubbed it out. Only half-smoked, so he’d count two and a half; round it down to two.

‘We still haven’t turned up the kid.’

‘How’s his mother doing?’

Jackson knew the question’s subtext, answered accordingly. ‘Nobody seems to think she’s a suspect.’

‘What’s her history?’

‘Billy’s her only kid. Had him at nineteen.’

‘Is the father around?’

‘Did the usual vanishing act before the baby was born. Ran off to Ulster to join the paramilitaries.’

‘He’ll be running for office now then.’

Jackson snorted. ‘She’s had half a dozen blokes since; been living with the latest for the past few weeks.’

‘The three of them in the flat together?’

Jackson nodded. ‘He’s being interviewed. We’re digging into his history.’

‘A fiver says he’s got form.’

‘What? Living in Greenfield?’ Jackson smiled. ‘Keep your money in your pocket.’ He paused. ‘You really don’t think this connects to our deceased friend?’

‘It might do, Tom. But just maybe not in the way we think.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Be seeing you,’ Rebus said, moving away.

Thinking of an old Gravy Train song: ‘Won’t Talk About It’.

He told Patience he wouldn’t be seeing her. There must have been something in his tone of voice.

‘Out on the ran-dan?’ she said.

‘You know me too well.’ He put the receiver down before she could say anything else. He started at The Maltings, headed up Causewayside to Swany’s, then took a taxi to the Ox. His car was back at St Leonard’s: no problem, he could walk into work next morning. Salty Dougary, one of the Young Street regulars, had just been in hospital: a coronary; they’d operated, angioplasty or something like that. He was telling the bar all about it. For some reason Rebus couldn’t fathom, the operation had apparently started at Dougary’s groin.

‘Way to a man’s heart,’ Rebus commented, sinking another whisky. He was diluting them with water, but not overly so. He felt fine, as in not drunk; mellow, kind of. But he knew if he walked out of the bar, he’d start to feel the alcohol. A good excuse to stay put, like that character in
Apocalypse Now
: ‘Never get out of the boat.’ It was only when you left the boat that you got into trouble. The same thing, in Rebus’s experience, was true of pubs, which was why he was still in the Ox at half past midnight. The back room had been taken over by musicians, a dozen or more
of them; guitars mostly, twelve-bar blues. One guy with a beard was playing the harmonica like he was in front of a Madison Garden crowd. Janis Joplin: ‘Buried Alive in the Blues’.

Rebus was talking with George Klasser, a doctor at the Infirmary. Klasser usually left early – sevenish or a little after. When he stayed late, it was a sign things were fraught at home. He’d started the evening advising Salty Dougary to regulate his alcohol intake.

‘The pot calling the kettle black,’ had been Dougary’s riposte. Dougary looking like he’d just been on holiday rather than in surgery: face tanned, ciggies cut down from forty a day to ten. Klasser with dark shadows under his eyes, a slight trembling to the hand when he picked up his glass. Rebus had had an uncle who’d smoked a pack of cigarettes every day of his life and lived to be eighty. His own father had died younger, having given up cigarettes two decades previously.

You never could tell.

There were only four of them in the front bar, five including Harry. Dougary, who’d drunk in every pub in the city, reckoned Harry was Edinburgh’s rudest barman, which was quite a feat, considering the competition.

‘I wish youse lot would bugger off home,’ Harry said, not for the first time that evening.

‘Night’s young yet, Harry,’ Dougary said.

‘How come they let you out of intensive care?’

Dougary winked. ‘Intensive care’s what I come in here for.’ He toasted them with his glass and raised it to his lips. Twenty minutes before, Rebus had told Klasser about Darren Rough. Now Klasser turned to him, eyes heavy-lidded.

‘There was a famous murder case. Turn of the century, I think it was. German couple came here on their honeymoon, only it turned out he wanted her money rather than love. He planned to kill her, make it look like
suicide. So they went for a walk up on Arthur’s Seat, and he pushed her off the Crags.’

‘But he didn’t get away with it?’

‘Obviously not, or there’d be no story to tell.’

‘So how was he caught?’

Klasser stared into his glass. ‘I can’t recall.’