Saints of the Shadow Bible (Rebus) (9 page)

‘Yet you seemed to have nailed Fox – this job’s just deferring the evil hour when he’s consigned to CID.’ She paused. ‘You don’t mind me acting as go-between?’ She watched him shrug. ‘Actually,’ she corrected herself, ‘I think the word Fox used was “referee”.’

‘We were just a bunch of guys, Siobhan, typical of CID back then.’

‘Except that you had a name for your gang.’

‘I never had as much time for it as the others. When we went out on a job, we had this tape in the car – The Skids singing “The Saints Are Coming”. It was mandatory to play it.’

‘And if you forgot?’

‘Someone would get annoyed – Gilmour usually.’

‘He’s a developer these days, isn’t he?’

‘Hotels mostly. Went into business with a big-name footballer.’

‘He’s worth millions?’

‘So the story goes.’

‘I’ve seen him on No campaign posters . . . You still know him?’

Rebus stopped walking and turned to face her. ‘I saw him last night.’

‘Oh?’

‘At Dod Blantyre’s house.’

‘The meeting your friend Porkbelly was telling you about?’

Rebus nodded, eyes boring into hers. ‘You can take that to Fox if you like. Bound to get his antennae twitching – a panicky reunion of the Saints.’

‘Is that what it was?’

Rebus scratched at his jaw. ‘I’m not sure,’ he confided. ‘The pretext was we wanted to catch up with Blantyre.’

‘Because he’s had a stroke?’

‘But he knew about Macari. And they wanted me to see what I could find out.’

Clarke nodded her understanding. ‘Which is why you agreed to meet Fox? And that phone call you just made . . .’

‘Was me reporting back to Paterson,’ Rebus confirmed. He had started to walk again, Clarke eventually catching up.

‘You’re trying to play both sides?’ she guessed. ‘Meaning you really don’t know what happened with Billy Saunders.’

‘I’m not sure it’s as straightforward as Fox thinks.’

‘So tell him that.’

‘And drop the others in it?’ Rebus shook his head. ‘Not until I’m certain.’

‘You’re going to do some digging of your own? You know how that will look to Fox, don’t you?’

‘I don’t give a damn
how
it looks to your friend Fox.’

Clarke grabbed his arm. ‘You know whose friend I really am.’

Rebus had stopped walking again. He looked down at his forearm, her hand clamped around it. ‘Of course I do,’ he said, almost gently. ‘You’re Malcolm Fox’s friend.’

She looked furious for the two or three seconds before he burst into a grin.

‘
You’re
an absolute prick sometimes,’ she said, releasing her grip so she could curl her hand into a fist with which to punch him on the shoulder. Rebus winced and rubbed at the spot.

‘You been training with weights?’ he asked.

‘More than you have,’ she snapped back.

‘Same gym as your lawyer friend? Any more cheap dinners planned?’

‘You’re really not funny.’

‘Then why are you smiling?’ Rebus asked as they set off again.

‘Fox is taking charge of the files on the case,’ Clarke eventually commented.

‘Yes, he is,’ Rebus agreed.

‘So if you want to go digging . . .’

‘All it’ll cost is my dignity,’ Rebus told her.

‘But back in the bar . . .’

‘If I’d kowtowed straight away, he’d have suspected something.’ He glanced in her direction. ‘Some people might mistake that look for grudging admiration.’

‘They might,’ Clarke acknowledged. But she kept on looking.

The comms centre had gone through their logs for the night of the crash and found nothing from the western side of the city, other than the motorist who had called to report the crash itself. Rebus asked for those details anyway and jotted them down. He remembered the driver had been on her way home from her supermarket job in Livingston. He phoned her mobile and caught her at work. She asked how Jessica Traynor was doing.

‘Recovering,’ Rebus told her. ‘Meantime, I’ve a couple of follow-up questions, if that’s okay. When you stopped your car, you didn’t see any other signs of life?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing to indicate that she might not have been on her own at the time of the smash?’

‘Was there someone else there?’

‘We’re just trying to establish a picture, Mrs Muir.’

‘She was in the driver’s seat.’

‘And her door was open?’

‘I think so.’

‘What about the boot?’

‘I’ve really no idea. I suppose the impact could have . . .’

‘You don’t remember whether it was open or closed?’

‘No.’ She paused, then apologised and asked if it was important.

‘Not really,’ Rebus assured her. ‘And you didn’t see any other vehicle? No lights further down the road?’ ‘No.’

‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but did you pass any cars travelling in the other direction in the minutes before you reached the scene?’

‘I was thinking about my supper. And I had the radio on, singing along most likely.’

‘So you don’t remember?’

‘I don’t.’

Rebus thanked her and hung up. He reckoned she
would
have remembered if some boy racer had come roaring out of nowhere. He got up from his desk and walked across to Christine Esson’s. ‘What have you got for me?’ he asked.

She pointed towards the printer. ‘You being old school, I decided you’d want it on paper.’

‘Are we out of papyrus then?’ He scooped up the thirty or so printed sheets.

‘There was more,’ she told him. ‘But it was all mergers and acquisitions – and a lot of duplication.’

‘This’ll do to start,’ Rebus said, returning to his desk and angling his chair so he could stretch his legs out. Then he began to read the internet’s version of Owen Traynor’s life and times. Age fifty-two, married for seventeen years to Josephine Gray, acrimonious (and costly) divorce. Traynor had been declared bankrupt in his mid twenties but come good again within ten years. He was Croydon-born, and had told one interviewer that he’d attended the ‘university of hard knocks’. More than one profile spoke of his rapid change of mood whenever a subject he didn’t like was raised. An interviewer even confided that Traynor had threatened to hang him by the feet from the window – while making it sound like a joke. Not so much of a joke when that irate investor had started kicking up a fuss – attacked on his doorstep, ending up in intensive care. Charges never pressed. There had been other instances of flare-ups, Traynor’s temper getting the better of him. Barred from at least one racecourse and one five-star hotel in London.

Quite the character, Mr Owen Traynor.

Rebus tapped the number for the Infirmary into his phone and asked how Jessica Traynor was faring.

‘She’s been released,’ he was told.

‘So soon?’

‘There’ll be a series of physio sessions and the like . . .’

‘But she can manage stairs?’ Rebus was thinking of the three steep flights to her Great King Street flat.

‘Her father’s booked her into a hotel for a few days.’

In the room next to his, Rebus presumed. He thanked the nurse, ended the call and skimmed through the sheets of notes again. He realised the case was disappearing, as though it had been hoisted on to a trailer and was on its way for scrap. He looked around the office. Page was at some meeting, taking Clarke with him. Ronnie Ogilvie was prepping to give evidence at a trial. Christine Esson was studying statements. Was this what he had craved during his retirement? He had forgotten the lulls, the hours spent on paperwork, the hanging around. He thought of Charlie Watts – hadn’t he said something about life as a Rolling Stone? Fifty years in the band, ten spent drumming and the other forty waiting for something to happen. Segue to Peggy Lee: ‘Is That All There Is?’

‘Bollocks to that,’ Rebus muttered, getting to his feet. Probably just about enough time had passed. He patted his pockets, checking for cigarettes, matches, phone.

‘Leaving so soon?’ Esson teased him.

‘Just for a few minutes.’

‘Acting as boss has taken its toll, eh?’

‘I don’t mind acting,’ Rebus told her, heading for the door. ‘In fact, I’m just heading to another audition . . .’

The small car park was a courtyard of sorts, the grey concrete cop shop hemming it in. Rebus was almost always the only smoker to use it. He called Police HQ and asked to be put through to Professional Standards – ‘or whatever they’ve decided to call it this week’. The extension rang half a dozen times before being answered.

‘Sergeant Kaye,’ the voice said by way of identification. Tony Kaye: Rebus had had dealings with him.

‘Is your boyfriend there? Tell him John Rebus wants a word.’

‘He’s in conference.’

‘He’s not Alan fucking Sugar,’ Rebus complained.

‘A meeting, then – sorry, I didn’t realise grammar was your strong point.’

‘Vocabulary, you arsehole, not grammar.’

‘Mind and get a refund from that charm school, eh?’

‘Soon as I’ve spoken to your generalissimo. Is this meeting of his with the fragrant Ms Macari, by any chance?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I’m a detective, son. A
proper
detective.’

‘You forget I’ve seen your files. Plenty six-letter words, but “proper” got scratched from the dictionary the day you left the academy.’

‘I think I’m a little bit in love with you, Sergeant Kaye. Let me give you my vital statistics.’ He reeled off his mobile number. ‘Tell Fox I think I can help him. Have him call me once Macari unzips his gimp mask.’ He ended the call before Kaye could respond. Staring at the screen of his phone, he broke into a smile. He
did
like Kaye, didn’t know what the hell the guy was doing in the Complaints. When a text arrived, he peered at it.

Blow me
, it said, followed by three kisses. Dispatched, presumably, from Kaye’s own mobile. Rebus added the number to his contacts and paced the space between the rows of cars, finishing his cigarette in peace.

It turned out the Solicitor General had given Fox his own little office within the Sheriff Court on Chambers Street, not half a minute’s walk from her own fiefdom.

‘Cosy,’ Rebus said, examining his surroundings. The building was relatively new, but he was struggling to remember what had been there before. He had passed stressed lawyers outside, gabbling into phones, plus, nearby, their devil-may-care clients, sharing cigarettes and war stories and comparing tattoos.

Fox was seated behind a desk that was too big for his immediate needs, in a room that was a riot of wood panelling. He sat with a pen gripped between both hands. To Rebus, it seemed like a pose the man had spent too long preparing. Fox looked stiff and unconvincing, and maybe he sensed this himself – placing the pen on the desk in front of him as Rebus took the seat opposite.

‘So suddenly you can help me?’ he asked. ‘Bit of a Damascene conversion since lunchtime.’

Rebus offered a shrug. ‘You plan to dump on my friends from a great height; least I can do is make sure you’ve not got the squits.’

‘An arresting image.’

‘Are those the files?’ Rebus gestured towards two large cardboard boxes by Fox’s side.

‘Yes. Mid ’83, around the time Saunders killed Merchant.’

‘
Allegedly
,’ Rebus countered. ‘You’ve already been through them?’ He watched the other man nod. ‘And if my name was in the frame at any point, you wouldn’t want me here?’

Fox nodded again. ‘Of course, until recently you worked for the Cold Case Unit. You could have accessed the files at any time, making sure nothing incriminating was left from your days at Summerhall.’

‘For the sake of argument, let’s say I didn’t do that and I’m clean.’

‘In this particular instance,’ Fox felt it necessary to qualify.

‘In this particular instance,’ Rebus echoed. ‘And here I am, back in CID on sufferance . . .’

‘Something you don’t want to jeopardise.’

‘Which is why I’m offering my services – means I can keep an eye on you.’

‘If you had nothing to do with it, you’ve nothing to fear from me.’

‘Unless you start screwing up and I find myself lumped in with everyone else who ever worked at Summerhall.’

Fox picked up the pen again. It was a cheap yellow ballpoint, but he handled it as if it were Montblanc’s finest.

‘So your idea of helping me is to doubt my abilities from the off?’

‘Saves us the trouble of discussing it later,’ Rebus offered.

‘And meantime I’m supposed to trust
you
? These are some of the first officers you bonded with, men you’ve known most of your professional life – why would you turn against them?’

‘That’s not why I’m here. I’m just making sure you don’t start a firefight.’

‘Firefights aren’t my style.’

‘That’s good, because the Saints – retired as they might be – aren’t lacking ammo.’

‘
You’re
not retired, though.’

Rebus nodded. ‘And they’ll see me as part of their armoury.’

‘But you won’t be?’

‘That’s for you to decide – once we start work on those files.’ Rebus gestured towards the boxes. Fox stared at him, then looked at the display on his phone.

‘Only an hour or so left before going home.’

‘Depends what time you knock off,’ Rebus countered.

Another lengthy examination, and then a slow nod of the head.

‘Okay, cowboy,’ Fox said, almost in a drawl. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.’ They lifted the boxes on to the desk and started to get to work.

Sandy Bell’s wasn’t the closest bar to the Sheriff Court, but it was Rebus’s choice, and as Fox himself conceded: ‘You probably know better than I do.’ There was a small table near the back, so they grabbed it, Rebus fetching a cola for his new-found colleague and an IPA for himself. Fox was rubbing at his eyes and stifling a yawn. He insisted on chinking glasses. Rebus sank an inch of the pint and smacked his lips.

‘You never touch the booze?’ he asked. Fox shook his head. ‘Because you can’t?’

Fox nodded, then looked at him. ‘I can’t and you shouldn’t.’

Rebus toasted the sentiment and took another mouthful.

‘Was it the drinking that made your wife leave you?’ he enquired.

‘I could ask the selfsame question,’ Fox shot back.