Mortal Causes

  ‘Nemo me impune lacessit.’ He turned to her. ‘Never my best subject.’

  ‘You might know it better as “Wha daur meddle wi’ me?”. It’s the motto of Scotland, or rather, the motto of Scotland’s kings.’

  ‘A while since we’ve had any of them.’

  ‘And of the Order of the Thistle. Sort of makes you the monarch’s private soldier, except they only give it to crusty old sods. Sit down.’ She led them back to the bench Rebus had been sitting on. She had files with her, which she placed on the floor rather than the bench, though there was space. Then she gave him her full attention. Rebus didn’t say anything, so she smiled again, tipping her head slightly to one side. ‘Don’t you see?’

  ‘Nemo,’ he guessed.

  ‘Yes! Latin for nobody.’

  ‘We already know that, Miss Rattray. Also a character in Jules Verne and in Dickens, plus the letters make the word “omen” backwards.’ He paused. ‘We’ve been working, you see. But does it get us any further forward? I mean, was the victim trying to tell us that no one killed him?’

  She seemed to puncture, her shoulders sagging. It was like watching an old balloon die after Christmas.

  ‘It could be something,’ he offered. ‘But it’s hard to know what.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You could have told me about it on the phone.’

  ‘Yes, I could.’ She straightened her back. ‘But I wanted you to see for yourself.’

  ‘You think the Order of the Thistle ganged up and murdered Billy Cunningham?’ Her eyes were holding his again, no smile on her lips. He broke free, staring past her at the stained glass. ‘How’s the prosecution game?’

  ‘It’s a slow day,’ she said. ‘I hear the victim’s father is a convicted murderer. Is there a connection?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘No concrete motive yet?’

  ‘No motive.’ The longer Rebus looked at the royal arms, the more his focus was drawn to its central figure. It was definitely a shield. ‘The Shield,’ he said to himself.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Nothing, it’s just …’ He turned back to her. She was looking eager about something, and hopeful too. ‘Miss Rattray,’ he said, ‘did you bring me here to chat me up?’

  She looked horrified, her face reddening; not just her cheeks, but forehead and chin too, even her neck coloured. ‘Inspector Rebus,’ she said at last.

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’ He bowed his head and raised his hands. ‘Sorry I said that.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know …’ She looked around. ‘It’s not every day I’m accused of being … well, whatever. I think I need a drink.’ Then, reverting to her normal voice: ‘I think you’d better buy me one, don’t you?’

  They crossed the High Street, dodging the leafleters and mime artists and clowns on stilts, and threaded their way through a dark close and down some worn stone steps into Caro Rattray’s preferred bar.

  ‘I hate this time of year,’ she said. ‘It’s such a hassle getting to and from work. And as for parking in town …’

  ‘It’s a hard life, all right.’

  She went to a table while Rebus stood at the bar. She had taken a couple of minutes to change out of her gown and wig, had brushed her hair out, though the sombre clothes that remained – the accent on black with touches of white – still marked her out as a lawyer in this lawyer’s howff.

  The place had one of the lowest ceilings of any pub Rebus had ever been in. When he considered, he thought they must be almost directly above some of the shops which led off Mary King’s Close. The thought made him change his order.

  ‘Make that whisky a double.’ But he added plenty of water.

  Caroline Rattray had ordered lemonade with lots of ice and lemon. As Rebus placed her drink on the table, he laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  He shook his head. ‘Advocate and lemonade, that makes a snowball.’ He didn’t have to explain to her. She managed a weary smile. ‘Heard it before, eh?’ he said, sitting beside her.

  ‘And every person who says it thinks they’ve just invented it. Cheers.’

  ‘Aye, slainte.’

  ‘Slainte. Do you speak Gaelic?’

  ‘Just a couple of words.’

  ‘I learnt it a few years ago, I’ve already forgotten most of it.’

  ‘Ach, it’s not much use anyway, is it?’

  ‘You wouldn’t mind if it died out?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘I thought you just did.’

  Rebus gulped at his drink. ‘Never argue with a lawyer.’

  Another smile. She lit a cigarette, Rebus declining.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘you still see Mary King’s Close in your head at night?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘And during the day. I can’t seem to erase it.’

  ‘So don’t try. Just file it away, that’s all you can do. Admit it to yourself, it happened, you were there, then file it away. You won’t forget, but you won’t harp on it either.’

  ‘Police psychology?’

  ‘Common sense, hard learnt. That’s why you were so excited about the Latin inscription?’

  ‘Yes, I thought I was … involved.’

  ‘You’ll be involved if we ever catch the buggers. It’ll be your job to put them away.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Until then, leave it to us.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘I’m sorry though, sorry you had to see it. Typical of Curt, dragging you down there. There was no need to. Are you and him …?’

  Her whoop filled the bar. ‘You don’t think …? We’re just acquaintances. He had a spare ticket, I was on hand. Christ almighty, you think I could … with a pathologist?’

  ‘They’re human, despite rumours to the contrary.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s twenty years older than me.’

  ‘That’s not always a consideration.’

  ‘The thought of those hands on me …’ She shivered, sipped her drink. ‘What did you say back there about a shield?’

  He shook his head. He saw a shield in his mind, and you never got a shield without a sword. With sword and shield, that was a line from an Orange song. He slapped the table with his fist, so hard that Caroline Rattray looked frightened.

  ‘Was it something I said?’

  ‘Caroline, you’re brilliant. I’ve got to go.’ He got up and walked past the bar, then stopped and came back, taking her hand in his, holding it. ‘I’ll phone you,’ he promised. Then: ‘If you like.’

  He waited till she’d nodded, then turned again and left. She finished her lemonade, smoked another cigarette, and stubbed it into the ashtray. His hand had been hot, not like a pathologist’s at all. The barman came to empty her ashtray into a pail and wipe the table.

  ‘Out hunting again I see,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You know too much about me, Dougie.’

  ‘I know too much about everyone, hen,’ said Dougie, picking up both glasses and taking them to the bar.

  *

  Several months back, Rebus had been talking to an acquaintance of his called Matthew Vanderhyde. Their conversation had concerned another case, one involving, as it turned out, Big Ger Cafferty, and apropos of very little Vanderhyde, blind for many years and with a reputation as a white witch, had mentioned a splinter group of the Scottish National Party. The splinter group had been called Sword and Shield, and they’d existed in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

  But as a phone call to Vanderhyde revealed, Sword and Shield had ceased to exist around the same time the Rolling Stones were putting out their first album. And at no time, anyway, had they been known as SaS.

  ‘I do believe,’ Vanderhyde said, and Rebus could see him in his darkened living room, its curtains shut, slumped in an armchair with his portable phone, ‘there exists in the United States an organisation called Sword and Shield, or even Scottish Sword and Shield, but I don’t know anything about them. I don’t think they’re connected to the S
cottish Rites Temple, which is a sort of North American Freemasons, but I’m a bit vague.’

  Rebus was busy writing it all down. ‘No you’re not,’ he said, ‘you’re a bloody encyclopaedia.’ That was the problem with Vanderhyde: he seldom gave you just the one answer, leaving you more confused than before you’d asked your question.

  ‘Is there anything I can read about Sword and Shield?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘You mean histories? I wouldn’t know, I shouldn’t think they’d bother to issue any as braille editions or talking books.’

  ‘I suppose not, but there must have been something left when the organisation was wound up, papers, documents …?’

  ‘Perhaps a local historian might know. Would you like me to do some sleuthing, Inspector?’

  ‘I’d appreciate it,’ said Rebus. ‘Would Big Ger Cafferty have had anything to do with the group?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Nothing, forget I said it.’ He terminated the call with promises of a visit, then scratched his nose, wondering who to take all this to: Kilpatrick or Lauderdale? He’d been seconded to SCS, but Lauderdale was in charge of the murder inquiry. He asked himself a question: would Lauderdale protect me from Kilpatrick? The answer was no. Then he changed the names around. The answer this time was yes. So he took what he had to Kilpatrick.

  And then had to admit that it wasn’t much.

  Kilpatrick had brought Smylie into the office to join them. Sometimes Rebus wasn’t sure who was in charge. Calumn Smylie would be back undercover, maybe drinking in The Dell.

  ‘So,’ said Kilpatrick, ‘summing up, John, we’ve got the word Nemo, we’ve got a Latin phrase –’

  ‘Much quoted by nationalists,’ Smylie added, ‘at least in its Scots form.’

  ‘And we’ve got a shield on this coat of arms, all of which reminds you of a group called Sword and Shield who were wound up in the early ’60s. You think they’ve sprung up again?’

  Rebus visualised a spring suddenly appearing through the worn covering of an old mattress. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘And then this source of yours mentions an organisation in the USA called Sword and Shield.’

  ‘Sir, all I know is, SaS must stand for something. Calumn Smylie’s been hearing about an outfit called The Shield who might be in the market for arms. There’s also a shield on the Scottish royal arms, as well as a phrase with the word Nemo. I know these are all pretty weak links, but all the same …’

  Kilpatrick looked to Smylie, who gave a look indicating he was on Rebus’s side.

  ‘Maybe,’ Smylie said in proof, ‘we could ask our friends in the States to check for us. They’d be doing the work, there’s nothing to lose, and with the back-up they’ve got they could probably give us an answer in a few days. As I say, we haven’t lost anything.’

  ‘I suppose not. All right then.’ Kilpatrick’s hands were ready for prayer. ‘John, we’ll give it a go.’

  ‘Also, sir,’ Rebus added, just pushing his luck a bit, ‘we might do some digging into the original Sword and Shield. If the name’s been revived, it wasn’t just plucked out of the air.’

  ‘Fair point, John. I’ll put Blackwood and Ormiston onto it.’

  Blackwood and Ormiston: they’d thank him for this, they’d bring him flowers and chocolates.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Rebus.

  11

  Ever since the riot, Father Leary had been trying to contact Rebus, leaving message after message at St Leonard’s. So when he got to St Leonard’s, Rebus relented and called the priest.

  ‘It hasn’t gone too well, father,’ he said gamely.

  ‘Then it’s God’s will.’

  For a second, Rebus heard it as God swill. He stuck in his own apostrophe and said, ‘I knew you’d say that.’ He was watching Siobhan Clarke striding towards him. She had her thumbs up and a big grin spread across her face.

  ‘Got to go, father. Say one for me.’

  ‘Don’t I always?’

  Rebus put down the receiver. ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Cafferty,’ she said, throwing the file onto his desk. ‘Buried way back.’ She produced a sheet of paper and handed it to him. Rebus read through it quickly.

  Yes, buried, because it was only a suspicion, one of hundreds that the police had been unable to prove over the course of Cafferty’s career.

  ‘Handling dirty money,’ he said.

  ‘For the Ulster Volunteer Force.’

  Cafferty had formed an unholy alliance with a Glasgow villain called Jinky Johnson, and between them they’d offered a service, turning dirty money into clean at the behest of the UVF. Then Johnson disappeared. Rumour had it he’d either fled with the UVF’s cash, or else he’d been skimming a bit and they’d found out and done away with him. Whatever, Cafferty broke his connection.

  ‘What do you think?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘It ties Cafferty to the Protestant paramilitaries.’

  ‘And if they thought he knew about Johnson, it’d mean there was no love lost.’

  But Rebus had doubts about the time scale. ‘They wouldn’t wait ten years for revenge. Then again, Cafferty did know what SaS stood for. He’s heard of it.’

  ‘A new terrorist group?’

  ‘I think so, definitely. And they’re here in Edinburgh.’ He looked up at Clarke. ‘And if we’re not careful, Cafferty’s men are going to get to them first.’ Then he smiled.

  ‘You don’t sound overly concerned.’

  ‘I’m so bothered by it all, I think I’ll buy you a drink.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Siobhan Clarke.

  As he drove home, he could smell the cigarettes and booze on his clothes. More ammo for Patience. Christ, there were those videos to take back too. She wouldn’t do it, it was up to him. There’d be extra to pay, and he hadn’t even watched the bloody things yet.

  To defer the inevitable, he stopped at a pub. They didn’t come much smaller than the Oxford Bar, but the Ox managed to be cosy too. Most nights there was a party atmosphere, or at the very least some entertaining patter. And there were quarter gills too, of course. He drank just the one, drove the rest of the way to Patience’s, and parked in his usual spot near the sports Merc. Someone on Queensferry Road was trying to sing Tie a Yellow Ribbon. Overhead, the streetlighting’s orange glow picked out the top of the tenements, their chimney pots bristling. The warm air smelt faintly of breweries.

  ‘Rebus?’

  It wasn’t dark yet, not quite. Rebus had seen the man waiting across the road. Now the man was approaching, hands deep in jacket pockets. Rebus tensed. The man saw the change and brought his hands out to show he was unarmed.

  ‘Just a word,’ the man said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Mr Cafferty’s wondering how things are going.’

  Rebus studied the man more closely. He looked like a weasel with misshapen teeth, his mouth constantly open in something that was either a sneer or a medical problem. He breathed in and out through his mouth in a series of small gasps. There was a smell from him that Rebus didn’t want to place.

  ‘You want a trip down the station, pal?’

  The man grinned, showing his teeth again. Close up, Rebus saw that they were stained so brown from nicotine they might have been made of wood.

  ‘What are the charges?’ the weasel said.

  Rebus looked him up and down. ‘Offence against public decency for a start. They should have kept you in your cage, right at the back of the pet shop.’

  ‘He said you had a way with words.’

  ‘Not just with words.’ Rebus started to cross the road to Patience’s flat. The man followed, so close he might have been on a leash.

  ‘I’m trying to be pleasant,’ the weasel said.

  ‘Tell the charm school to give you a refund.’

  ‘He said you’d be difficult.’

  Rebus turned on the man. ‘Difficult? You don’t know just how difficult I can get if I really try. If
I see you here again, you’d better be ready to square off.’

  The man narrowed his eyes. ‘That’d suit me fine. I’ll be sure to mention your co-operation to Mr Cafferty.’

  ‘Do that.’ Rebus started down the steps to the garden flat. The weasel leaned down over the rails.

  ‘Nice flat.’ Rebus stopped with his key in the lock. He looked up at the man. ‘Shame if anything happened to it.’

  By the time Rebus ran back up the steps, the weasel had disappeared.

  12

  ‘Have you heard from your brother?’

  It was next morning, and Rebus was at Fettes, talking with Ken Smylie.

  ‘He doesn’t phone in that often.’

  Rebus was trying to turn Smylie into someone he could trust. Looking around him, he didn’t see too many potential allies. Blackwood and Ormiston were giving him their double-act filthy look, from which he deduced two things. One, they’d been assigned to look into what, if anything, remained of the original Sword and Shield.

  Two, they knew whose idea the job had been.

  Rebus, pleased at their glower, decided he wouldn’t bother mentioning that Matthew Vanderhyde was looking into Sword and Shield too. Why give them shortcuts when they’d have had him run the marathon?

  Smylie didn’t seem in the mood for conversation, but Rebus persisted. ‘Have you talked to Billy Cunningham’s flatmate?’

  ‘She kept going on about his motorbike and what was she supposed to do with it?’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Smylie shrugged. ‘Unless I want to buy a stripped down Honda.’

  ‘Careful, Smylie, I think maybe you’ve caught something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A sense of humour.’

  As Rebus drove to St Leonard’s, he rubbed at his jaw and chin, enjoying the feel of the bristles under his fingertips. He was remembering the very different feel of the AK 47, and thinking of sectarianism. Scotland had enough problems without getting involved in Ireland’s. They were like Siamese twins who’d refused the operation to separate them. Only one twin had been forced into a marriage with England, and the other was hooked on self-mutilation. They didn’t need politicians to sort things out; they needed a psychiatrist.