The Hanging Garden (36 page)

‘Hello?’

‘Is that you, John?’ Country and western twanging in the background: Claverhouse.

‘You’ve just missed her,’ Rebus told him.

‘It’s not Clarke I wanted, it’s you.’

‘Oh?’

‘Something I thought you might be interested in. It’s just filtered down from NCIS.’ Rebus heard Claverhouse pick up a sheet of paper. ‘Sakiji Shoda … I think I’ve pronounced that right. Flew into Heathrow from Kansai
Airport yesterday. South-East Regional Crime Squad were apprised.’

‘Terrific.’

‘He didn’t hang around, caught a connection to Inverness. Stayed the night in a local hotel, and now I hear he’s in Edinburgh.’

Rebus looked out of the window. ‘Not exactly golfing weather.’

‘I don’t think he’s up here for the golf. According to the original report, Mr Shoda is a high-ranking member of the … can’t make it out on the fax. Socky-something.’

‘Sokaiya?’ Rebus sat up.

‘That looks about right.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘I tried a couple of hotels. He’s staying at the Caly. What’s the Sokaiya?’

‘It’s the upper echelons of the Yakuza.’

‘How does it read to you?’

‘I was going to suggest he’s Matsumoto’s replacement, but it sounds to me like he’s a few grades higher.’

‘Matsumoto’s boss?’

‘Which means he’s probably here to find out what happened to his boy.’ Rebus tapped a pen against his teeth. Hogan was listening, but not getting any of it. ‘Why Inverness? Why not direct to Edinburgh?’

‘I’ve been wondering that.’ Claverhouse sneezed. ‘How pissed off will he be?’

‘Somewhere between “mildly” and “very”. More importantly, how are Telford and Mr Pink Eyes going to react?’

‘You think Telford will drop Maclean’s?’

‘On the contrary, I think he’ll want to show Mr Shoda that he can do
some
things right.’ Rebus thought back to something Claverhouse had said. ‘South-East Crime Squad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rather than Scotland Yard?’

‘Maybe the two are the same?’

‘Maybe. Do you have a contact number?’

Claverhouse gave it to him.

‘You’ll speak to Jack Morton tonight?’ Rebus asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Better tell him about this.’

‘Talk to you again.’

Rebus put down the receiver, picked it up again, got an outside line and made the call. Explained his reason for calling and asked if there was anyone who could help him.

He was told to hold.

‘Is this to do with Telford?’ Hogan asked. Rebus nodded.

‘Hey, Bobby, did you ever talk to Telford again?’

‘I tried a couple of times. He just kept saying: “It must’ve been a wrong number”.’

‘And this was echoed by his staff?’

Hogan nodded, smiled. ‘Tell you a funny thing. I walked into Telford’s office, and someone was at his desk, back to me. I apologised, said I’d come back when he’d finished with the lady. Well, the “lady” turns, face like fury …’

‘Pretty-Boy?’

Hogan nodded. ‘And pretty fucking angry the last I saw him.’ Hogan laughed.

‘Putting you through,’ the switchboard told Rebus.

‘How can I help you?’ The voice sounded Welsh.

‘My name’s DI Rebus, Scottish Crime Squad.’ Rebus winked at Hogan: the lie would give him more clout.

‘Yes, Inspector?’

‘And you are …?’

‘DI Morgan.’

‘We had this message this morning …’

‘Yes?’

‘Concerning Sakiji Shoda.’

‘That would be my boss has sent you that.’

‘What I’m wondering is, what’s your interest?’

‘Well, Inspector, I’m more of an expert on
vory v zakone
.’

‘That clears things up then.’

Morgan chuckled. ‘“Thieves within the code”. Meaning
mafiya
.’

‘Russian mafia?’

‘That’s it.’

‘You’ll have to help me here. What’s that got to do with …?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

Rebus took a sip of coffee. ‘We’ve had a spot of bother with the Yakuza up here. One victim so far. My guess is that Shoda is the victim’s boss.’

‘And he’s up there for a sort of unofficial committal?’

‘We don’t have the committal stage in Scotland, DI Morgan.’

‘Well, pardon me for breathing.’

‘Thing is, we’ve also got a Russian gangster up here. I say he’s Russian, word is he’s Chechen.’

‘Is it Jake Tarawicz?’

‘You’ve heard of him?’

‘That’s my job, sonny boy.’

‘Well, anyway, with the Yakuza and the Chechens in town …’

‘You’ve got a nightmare scenario. Understood. Well, look … What about if you give me your number there, and I’ll call back in five minutes? Need to put some facts together first.’

Rebus gave him the number, then waited ten minutes for the call back.

‘You were checking me out,’ he told the Welshman.

‘Got to be careful. Bit naughty of you to say you were Crime Squad.’

‘Let’s just say I’m the next best thing. So is there anything you can tell me?’

Morgan took a deep breath. ‘We’ve been chasing a lot of dirty money around the world.’

Rebus couldn’t find a clean sheet of paper to write on. Hogan gave him a pad.

‘See,’ Morgan was saying, ‘the old Soviet Asia is now the biggest supplier of raw opium in the world. And wherever there’s drugs, there’s money needs laundering.’

‘And this money makes its way to Britain?’

‘On its way elsewhere. Companies in London, private banks in Guernsey … the money gets filtered down, getting cleaner all the time. Everyone wants to do business with the Russians.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they make everyone money. Russia’s one giant bazaar. You want weapons, counterfeit goods, money, fake passports, even plastic surgery? You want any of that, it’s in Russia. The place has open borders, airports nobody knows exist … it’s ideal.’

‘If you happen to be an international mobster.’

‘Exactly. And the
mafiya
have made links with their Sicilian cousins, with the Camorra, the Calabrians … I could go on forever. British villains go shopping there. They all love the Russians.’

‘And now they’re here?’

‘Oh, they’re here all right. Running protection and prossies, dealing drugs …’

Prostitutes, drugs: Mr Pink Eyes’s territory; Telford’s territory.

‘Any evidence of a hook-up with the Yakuza?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘But if they moved into Britain …?’

‘They’d be trying to control drugs and prostitution. They’d be laundering money.’

Ways to launder money: through legitimate businesses such as country clubs and the like; by swopping dirty money for casino chips at an establishment like the Morvena.

Rebus already knew that the Yakuza liked to smuggle artworks back into Japan. Rebus already knew Mr Pink had made his early money smuggling icons out of Russia. Put the two together.

Then add Tommy Telford to the equation.

Did they need the haul from Maclean’s? It didn’t sound to Rebus like they did. So why was Tommy Telford doing it? Two possible reasons: one, to show off; two,
because they’d told him to
. Some rite of passage … If he wanted to play with the big boys, he had to prove himself. He had to wipe out Cafferty, and pull off what would be the biggest heist in Scottish history.

Something hit Rebus between the eyes.

Telford wasn’t meant to succeed. Telford was meant to fail.

Telford was being set up by Tarawicz and the Yakuza.

Because he had something they wanted: a steady supply of drugs; a kingdom waiting to be plucked from his grasp. Miriam Kenworthy had said as much: rumour was, the drugs were going south from Scotland. Which meant Telford had a supply … something
nobody
knew about.

With Cafferty out of the way, there’d be no competition. The Yakuza would have their British base – solid, respectable, reliable. The electronics factory would act as perfect cover, maybe even as a laundering operation itself. Every way Rebus looked at it, Telford was unnecessary to the equation, like a zero that could be safely cancelled out.

Which was where Rebus wanted Telford … only not at the price being asked.

‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. He noticed that Hogan
had stopped listening and was staring into space. Rebus put the phone down.

‘Sorry to have bored you.’

Hogan blinked. ‘No, nothing like that. It’s just that I thought of something.’

‘What?’

‘Pretty-Boy. I mistook him for a woman.’

‘You’re probably not the first.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I’m not sure I follow you?’

‘In the restaurant … Lintz and a young woman.’ Hogan shrugged. ‘It’s a long shot.’

Rebus saw it. ‘Talking business?’

Hogan nodded. ‘Pretty-Boy runs Telford’s stable.’

‘And takes a personal interest in the higher-price models. It’s worth a try, Bobby.’

‘What do you think – bring him in?’

‘Definitely. Beef up the restaurant angle. Say there’s a positive ID. See what he says to that.’

‘Same gag we pulled with Colquhoun? Pretty-Boy’s bound to deny it.’

‘Doesn’t mean it ain’t so.’ Rebus patted Hogan on the shoulder.

‘What about your call?’

‘My call?’ Rebus looked at his scrawled notes. Gangsters preparing to carve up Scotland. ‘It wasn’t the worst news I’ve ever had.’

‘And is that saying much?’

‘Afraid not, Bobby,’ Rebus said, putting on his jacket. ‘Afraid not.’

By the end of play, Rebus still hadn’t received the files on the Crab, but he had fielded a frank and foul-mouthed call from Abernethy, accusing him of everything from obstruction – which was pretty rich, considering – to racism, which Rebus thought nicely ironic.

They’d given him back his car. Someone had run their finger through the dirt crusted on the boot, creating two messages:
TERMINAL CASE
, and
WASHED BY STEVIE WONDER
. The Saab, affronted, started first time and seemed to have shrugged off some of its repertoire of clanks and thunks. On the drive home, Rebus kept the windows open so he wouldn’t smell the whisky that had soaked into the upholstery.

The evening had turned out fine, the sky clear, temperature dropping sharply. The low red sun, curse of the city’s drivers, had disappeared behind the rooftops. Rebus left his coat unbuttoned as he walked down to the chip shop. He bought a fish supper, two buttered rolls, and a couple of cans of Irn-Bru, then returned to the flat. Nothing on the TV, so he put on a record. Van Morrison:
Astral Weeks
. The record had more scratches than a dog with eczema.

The opening track contained the refrain ‘To be born again’. Rebus thought of Father Leary, shored up by a fridge full of medicine. Then he thought of Sammy, crowned with electrodes, machines rising either side of her, like she was being offered to them in sacrifice. Leary often
talked of faith, but it was hard to have faith in a human race that never learned, that seemed ready to accept torture, murder, destruction. He opened his newspaper: Kosovo, Zaire, Rwanda. Punishment beatings in Northern Ireland. A young girl found murdered in England, another girl’s disappearance termed ‘a cause for concern’. The predators were out there, no doubt about it. Strip the veneer, and the world had moved only a couple of steps from the cave.

To be born again
… But sometimes only after a baptism of fire.

Belfast, 1970. A sniper’s bullet blew open the skull of a British squaddie. The victim was nineteen, came from Glasgow. Back in the barracks, there’d been little mourning, just an overspill of anger. The assassin would never be caught. He’d slipped back into the shadows of a tower-block, and from there deep into the Catholic housing estate.

Leaving one more newspaper story, one early statistic in the ‘Troubles’.

And anger.

The ring-leader went by the nickname of ‘Mean Machine’. He was a lance-corporal, came from somewhere in Ayrshire. Cropped blond hair, looked like he’d played rugby, liked to work out, even if it was just press-ups and sit-ups in the barracks. He started the campaign for retribution. It was to be covert – meaning behind the backs of the ‘brass’. It was to be a release-valve for the frustration, the pressure that was building in the cramped confines of the barracks. The world outside was enemy terrain, everyone a potential foe. Knowing there was no way to punish the sniper, Mean Machine had decided to hold the entire community to blame: collective responsibility, for which there would be collective justice.

The plan: a raid on a known IRA bar, a place where sympathisers drank and colluded. The pretext: a man with a handgun, chased into the bar, necessitating a search.
Maximum harassment, ending with the beating of the local IRA fundraiser.

And Rebus went along with it … because it
was
collective. You were either part of the team, or you were dead meat. And Rebus wasn’t in the market for pariah status.

But all the same, he knew the line between ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ had become blurred. And during the incursion, it disappeared altogether.

Mean Machine went in hardest, teeth bared, eyes ablaze. He swung with his rifle, cracking skulls. Tables flew, pint glasses shattered. Initially the other soldiers seemed shocked by the sudden violence. They looked to each other for guidance. Then one of them lashed out, and the others fell in beside him. A mirror dissolved into glittering stars, stout and lager washed over the wooden floor. Men were shouting, begging, crawling on hands and knees across the glass minefield. Mean Machine had the IRA man pinned to a wall, kneeing him in the groin. He twisted his body, threw him to the floor, then started pummelling him with the rifle-butt. More soldiers were pouring into the drinking-club: armoured cars arriving outside. A chair crashed into the row of optics. The smell of whisky was almost overpowering.

Rebus tried to shut it out, his own teeth bared not in anger but anguish. Then he aimed his rifle at the ceiling and let loose a single shot, and everything froze … A final kick to the bloodied figure on the floor and Mean Machine turned and walked out of the club. The others hesitated again, then followed. He’d proved something to the other men: for all his lowly rank, he’d become their leader.