Saints of the Shadow Bible (Rebus) (30 page)

‘Just thought I’d drop by.’

‘If I’d known you were coming.’ She dabbed her fingers to her face.

‘You look fine,’ he assured her, while she draped his coat over the banister. ‘Dod’s not in bed, is he?’

‘In his chair.’ She motioned towards the sitting room door. ‘Watching TV while I wash up. Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘Tea would be great. I’ll just go say hello.’

She nodded and began backing towards the kitchen as Rebus headed for the sitting room. Dod Blantyre was in his usual chair, and seemed to be wearing the same clothes as on Rebus’s previous visit, but with a stained tea towel draped around his neck.

‘Thought I recognised the voice,’ he said.

‘Evening, Dod.’

‘Get this thing off me, will you?’ Blantyre gestured with a trembling hand towards the tea towel. The room smelled of stewed beef. Rebus undid the towel and draped it over the arm of Blantyre’s chair. There was a trolley nearby with a beaker of liquid on it.

‘Want a drink?’ Rebus asked.

‘Double whisky, if you’re buying.’ Blantyre tried twisting his mouth into a smile.

‘Thought it was your round,’ Rebus replied, smiling back.

‘What brings you here, John?’

‘Just wondered how you were doing.’

‘I’m doing my best not to die – not just yet. I see Stefan’s been getting a kicking from your lot.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Silly of him to phone Saunders in the first place.’

‘Not a crime, though.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘They’ve not talked to me yet, but I know they want to.’

Rebus nodded.

‘And you too?’

‘And Porkbelly.’

‘Are you here to make sure we get our stories straight?’

‘I’m here because . . .’

Rebus broke off as Maggie nudged open the door, carrying a tray. She’d made a whole pot of tea, and added a plate of chocolate digestives.

‘Milk?’ she enquired.

‘And no sugar.’ Rebus took the mug from her. It bore the Airfix logo and a painting of a Spitfire. ‘You used to make models,’ he said to Blantyre, suddenly remembering.

‘That’s right.’

‘There were a couple of them on your desk at Summerhall.’

‘He’d spend hours on them,’ Maggie Blantyre added. ‘Tiny pots of paint lying everywhere. Each detail had to be perfect.’

‘Just like police work, eh, John?’ Blantyre said.

‘Just like,’ Rebus echoed.

‘John and me need a minute to ourselves,’ Blantyre informed his wife.

‘To do with that man Saunders?’

‘Less you know, the better.’

She hesitated. Then she spotted the tea towel and picked it up. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen,’ she snapped, striding from the room. Rebus sipped from his mug and sat on the corner of the sofa nearest to Blantyre’s chair.

‘How much does she know?’ he asked.

Blantyre managed to shake his head. ‘How much do
you
know?’ he said.

‘Tell me about Philip Kennedy.’

‘Care to give me a clue?’

‘Slippery Phil. We got him as far as court but the verdict was not proven. Next thing, he’s found dead at home with a broken neck.’

‘Yes?’

‘You attended the post-mortem examination.’

‘Did I?’

‘According to Professor Norman Cuttle.’

‘Bloody hell – is he still alive?’

‘Good memory on him, too. Remembers you and Stefan being present. Then the senior pathologist – Professor Donner – invents an excuse to get him out of the room. When he returns, Kennedy’s stomach has been opened and Stefan has emptied a hip flask of whisky into it. Why would he do that, Dod? You were there, so I’m assuming you know the answer.’

‘What does Stefan say?’

‘Stefan thinks I should mind my own business – but this
is
my business.’

‘Kennedy was a scumbag of the first order, John.’

‘I’m not going to argue about that. But Stefan killed him and made it look like an accident. I mean, maybe it
was
an accident. I’m not saying he meant to push him down those stairs. But it happened, and he was quick to arrange a cover-up. Probably left one or two empty bottles lying around the place, but then realised that the autopsy would show Kennedy hadn’t been drinking. Donner was a mate and open to a bit of bribery. Cuttle wasn’t, and had to be out of the room for it to work.’ Rebus paused, and leaned forward. ‘But
you
were there, Dod. So you know how it went down.’

‘You’re jumping to conclusions, John.’

‘I hadn’t been a Saint long enough to be let in on it. But somehow Billy Saunders found out, and that meant he could kill Douglas Merchant knowing Stefan and you owed him one huge favour. Thirty years later, he might be on his way to jail again and he doesn’t want that. He’d be happy to trade what he knows. Stefan couldn’t let that happen . . .’

Blantyre was trying to shake his head, his shoulders jerking.

‘Remember the gun, Dod?’ Rebus asked. ‘The one taken from Laurie Martin? The Saunders inquiry knows all about it. They think it’s the same one they pulled from the canal, the one used to shoot Billy Saunders. Now isn’t that neat? It disappears from Porkbelly’s drawer and thirty years later turns up again . . .’

Blantyre fixed Rebus with a heavy-lidded stare. The silence stretched until he broke it.

‘Remember your promise, John? That night in the pub? The oath you swore?’

The years melted away. Rebus remembered all right. A bar on Buccleuch Street, just along from Summerhall. The regular haunt of the Saints. Rebus wasn’t sure the owner liked this, but he put up with it. A place filled with billowing smoke and curses, the waft of stale urine every time someone opened the door to the toilets. A Friday evening probably, hence the densely packed bar, Rebus having just got in the drinks. Then Dod Blantyre at his shoulder, offering to carry a couple of them back to the table. But tightening a hand around Rebus’s forearm first, leaning in so that his lips brushed Rebus’s left ear.

I know about you and Maggie. And it’s going to stop right now. Do we understand one another?

Rebus nodding mutely. And then the growling voice again.

One more thing – this is the price you pay for me not thumping you. Whatever happens among the Saints, we never talk, we never grass – okay?

Another nod. Rebus with his mouth open, but unable to find the words. The glasses of whisky lifted from him – the usual generous measures – and transported to the corner table, where Gilmour, Paterson and Frazer Spence waited with smiles and a sheen of sweat.

Here’s to us . . .

One for all . . .

Come on, Johnny Boy, drink up – what’s the matter with you? You’ve a face like a burst coupon . . .

‘I remember,’ Rebus said, in the sitting room of Dod Blantyre’s overheated bungalow, his eyes fixed on a man in constant discomfort, a man with not much longer to live.

‘A promise is a promise, John.’ Blantyre noticed Rebus’s eyes flitting towards the door. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t know. This is just you and me here.’

‘You’re telling me it’s okay to cover up a murder?’

‘Nobody’s mentioned murder – you said so yourself: Kennedy could have taken a tumble. All we need from you is your silence.’

Rebus got up and placed the mug back on its tray, still half full. Then he turned to face Dod Blantyre. The man was mustering as much of his old grit as he could, hands gripping the sides of his chair, as if he might try to rise from it at any moment.

‘I’ll see myself out,’ Rebus said.

‘We deserve better from you, John – all of us.’

But Rebus was shaking his head slowly as he left the room. He had already pulled his coat on when Maggie emerged from the kitchen.

‘Cigarette in the back garden?’ she asked.

‘I have to go.’

‘What’s wrong? What’s he been saying?’

‘Nothing, Maggie – I just need to be elsewhere.’

She reached out to him, but he turned away and opened the front door, glad of the cold air and the squall.

‘John?’ she was calling as he headed down the path towards the gate. ‘John?’

He lifted a hand, waving without looking.

We never talk, we never grass . . .

Come on, Johnny Boy . . .

It’s going to stop right now . . .

‘Too true,’ Rebus muttered to himself, unlocking his car and getting in. When his phone buzzed, he knew it would be Maggie. He didn’t take it out of his pocket to check. Just turned the key in the ignition and got going.

‘If I didn’t know better,’ Malcolm Fox said, ‘I’d think you were relishing the chance to get your hands on the Summerhall files now they’re not under lock and key.’ He was removing his coat and scarf and shaking rainwater from both.

Rebus was seated at the desk in Wester Hailes police station, the one with the boxes of folders next to it. He’d already been there over an hour and it wasn’t quite half past eight.

‘Morning,’ he said, as Fox hung up his things. He’d bought a coffee from a petrol station on his way into work, but the inch or so left of it was stone cold.

‘Maybe there’s some other reason why you seem so interested in being here when I’m not?’ Fox went on, rubbing at his hair to dry it.

‘You’re keen,’ a fresh voice added. Siobhan Clarke was standing in the doorway, paperwork clutched to her chest.

‘Maybe it’s because you’ve won me over,’ Rebus said.

‘In what way?’ she asked, stepping into the room.

Rebus tapped the sheets on the desk in front of him. ‘Say you’re right and Saunders was killed by one of the Saints. From what I’m seeing here, we’re not going to find proof from Summerhall. Any amount of paperwork could have been tampered with or removed. At most we’d find anomalies and things that can be explained away as admin errors.’

‘Okay.’

‘And if we go asking Stefan Gilmour to account for his movements on the night Saunders died . . . well, we’re dealing with a pro – you can bet he’ll have set something up that’s as watertight as it can be.’

‘Leaving us where exactly?’ Fox asked, resting against a corner of the desk.

Rebus looked from him to Clarke and back again. ‘It might be that the best way to get to him is to go after the others. It worked before. He fell on his sword precisely so that the Complaints didn’t tear apart the rest of the Saints.’

‘We bring in Paterson and Blantyre?’ Clarke guessed.

‘You sweat them,’ Rebus agreed. ‘You let Gilmour know you intend to prosecute all three.’ He held up a finger. ‘Blantyre was at the autopsy when it was rigged and he never said anything.’ A second finger. ‘Paterson meantime had the gun in his desk drawer. Gives you the opportunity to say you intend taking them all down.’

‘And you really think that’ll be enough to get him to confess?’ Fox asked, sounding sceptical.

‘With all he’s got to lose?’ Clarke added.

‘You won’t know till you try.’

Clarke looked at him. ‘And where are you when all this is going on?’

‘I know my place, Siobhan – I’ll be nowhere near.’

‘And if one of them implicates you . . . ?’

‘Up to you to decide if they’re lying.’

Clarke’s focus had shifted to Fox. ‘What do you think?’

‘I really doubt it’ll work – but right now I’m not sure what else we’ve got.’

Clarke nodded slowly, then turned to leave the room.

‘I’d say that’s a definite maybe,’ Fox commented to Rebus. ‘But you must know this could end up rebounding on you?’

‘I can live with that.’ Rebus leaned back in the chair. ‘How did we get away with it?’ he asked, tapping the tip of one finger against the paperwork again.

‘Most of the journalists that mattered could be bought or silenced,’ Fox surmised. ‘No social media for the airing of grievances.’ He offered a shrug. ‘How am I doing?’

‘On the nail, I’d say. The more we got away with it, the more we kept doing it . . .’

‘Conscience getting to you?’

‘Fuck off, Malcolm.’ But there was no venom behind the words.

‘You really think you can keep your nose out while we question your pals?’

‘I’m busy on the Jessica Traynor crash.’

‘Still?’

‘New name I need to look at – Rory Bell. Villain who might be a player in West Lothian.’

‘Same name as Jessica’s flatmate,’ Fox commented.

‘What?’

‘Isn’t the flatmate’s name Bell?’

‘It’s not that uncommon.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Fox said, walking over to the window and sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘Ever since I started hanging out with you, I seem to be seeing conspiracies everywhere – conspiracies, connections
and
coincidences. Think we’re due a break in this bloody weather any time soon?’

But Rebus had stopped listening.

‘DI Clarke says hello,’ Rebus told Laura Smith.

‘She owes me a favour,’ Smith retorted.

‘She knows that, which is why these coffees are on her.’

They were in a spacious modern café near the foot of Holyrood Road, across the street from the offices of the
Scotsman
. Stripped wood, the day’s newspapers, and workers from the nearby BBC building. The café sold food, but all Smith had wanted was the biggest latte they would give her. Rebus had paid for a croissant to go with his cappuccino. He tore a piece off and dunked it before popping it into his mouth.

‘Very French,’ Laura Smith said.

‘I’ve never been.’

‘Never been to France?’ She sounded disbelieving.

‘Or anywhere else, for that matter.’ He chewed and swallowed. ‘Scotland’s always been more than enough to be getting on with.’

‘And we do live in interesting times.’

‘Reckon independence will do you out of a job?’

‘I doubt we’ll go crime-free overnight.’ She smiled, and stirred her drink.

‘Too much to hope for,’ Rebus agreed.

‘You said you wanted to pick my brains?’ she nudged eventually.

Rebus nodded. ‘I’m assuming Albert Stout was before your time?’

‘I wasn’t even born when he was in his heyday.’

‘Back then, crime reporters drank in the same lunchtime pubs as us. Bought us a dram or two and we’d tell them stories – not necessarily
true
stories, mind.’