Even dogs in the wild

  ‘Christie told me he was going to take the Starks out of the game. He said the best thing the rest of us could do was keep well out of the way.’

  Rebus thought about this for a moment, then made the call, holding the phone to his ear. ‘Here goes,’ he said. ‘Wish me luck . . .’

  Having identified his only son at the mortuary, Joe Stark was in a room at Fettes, answering a few questions with his lawyer present.

  That had interested Rebus – not too many parents of murder victims turned up with a solicitor in tow. But then Joe Stark was

  no ordinary parent. The media had upped camp from Constitution Street and were now on Fettes Avenue, their numbers swelling as the sky got lighter.

  Compston had wanted to come to Fettes too, but Rebus had cautioned against it – ‘unless you’re winding down Operation Junior’.

  His reasoning: the place would be crawling with members of the Stark crew. And sure enough, Joe’s trusted lieutenants – Walter Grieve and Len Parker – were in the reception area, awaiting their boss. Rebus had even had a word with them.

  ‘Are you members of the family?’ he had asked, sounding sympathetic.

  ‘As good as.’

  ‘Well, I just wanted to say how sorry we all are. Hellish thing to happen to a young man, especially when he’s a visitor to the city.’

  ‘Aye, thanks.’

  They had twitched in their seats, unable to work out how to react. Probably the only time they ever talked to cops was when under caution or slipping a bung beneath a pub table.

  ‘If there’s anything we can do for you gentlemen . . .’ Rebus had left them there, nodding and frowning.

  Elsewhere in the building, Dennis Stark’s men were being questioned or were waiting their turn. Rebus wondered if Jackie Dyson would come out of character. He doubted it. Always supposing Fox had got the right man. Fox himself was in the incident room, committing to memory the various items pinned to one wall – crime scene photos, maps, newspaper clippings.

  ‘Page and Siobhan are putting together a media release,’ he told Rebus. ‘You spoken to Cafferty?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘He’s like you were earlier – not answering his phone.’

  ‘Thumping on the front door sometimes works.’

  ‘I was there two nights back. He’s done a flit.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Self-preservation, most likely.’

  ‘Surely he’ll be in touch when he hears.’

  ‘Who knows what he’ll do – this is Cafferty we’re talking about.’

  Siobhan Clarke emerged from Page’s office but walked straight past them without noticing, her mind elsewhere. She had paperwork in one hand and her phone in the other as she disappeared into the corridor.

  ‘I thought she might have said something about my bruises,’

  Fox commented. Then, his eyes on Rebus: ‘Are we doing any good here?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Where are you meeting Compston?’

  ‘St Leonard’s. You coming along for the ride?’

  ‘I suppose I might.’

  ‘You scared I won’t play nice?’

  ‘I’ve often been told I’m a civilising influence.’

  ‘Tell that to the guys who jumped you.’

  ‘One lucky punch, that’s all . . .’

  Eighteen

  ‘Well if it isn’t De Niro’s stunt double from Raging Bull,’

  Compston announced as Fox walked into the room, Rebus right behind him. The mood was sombre, weeks and months of work most likely just flushed down the toilet.

  Fox was ready with a question: ‘Where was the overnight surveillance?’

  ‘We all have to sleep sometime,’ Alec Bell complained.

  ‘From which I take it you were the one napping in the car?’

  ‘Actually it was me,’ Beth Hastie piped up. ‘I needed petrol, a hot drink and the loo, so I took twenty minutes out at an all-night garage on Leith Walk. First I knew we had a problem was when uniforms turned up at the guest house.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have been an issue,’ Compston added, ‘if we hadn’t lost Selway and Emerson, but they were still in Glasgow keeping an eye on the dad.’

  ‘Chief Constable’s not going to be happy with you, Ricky,’

  Rebus said.

  ‘My problem, not yours. But at least I’m not the one failing to apprehend some nutcase serial killer.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Fox chipped in, ‘with Dennis gone, I dare say the others will want to go back to Glasgow.’

  Compston gave him a hard stare. ‘Are you off your head?

  Why would they do that?’ Then, to Rebus: ‘Tell him.’

  Rebus obliged. ‘Joe’s the Old Testament sort, an eye for an eye and all that. He’d raze Edinburgh to the ground to find who killed his son. DI Compston here probably relishes that prospect, because Joe’s not going to hold back and that means he’ll start to make mistakes. The more he does that, the easier it is to catch him in the act and put him and his boys away.’

  ‘So you see,’ Compston told Fox, ‘nobody’s going anywhere. And we’re all going to have front-row seats. Trust me, Edinburgh doesn’t know what’s about to hit it.’

  Cafferty’s heart was pounding as he stood at the window of his Quartermile flat, looking down on to the Meadows. Students were striding and cycling down Jawbone Walk, full of confidence and vitality. He felt nothing but a sweeping dissociation – what was this other world like, the one most people seemed to inhabit? Why were they happy? He couldn’t remember ever feeling carefree. Always alert to possible attack, surrounded by those he could not risk trusting, new threats piling on top of old. He had clambered his way to the top, trampling those he needed to, gouging and scratching and kicking, making a slew of enemies but ensuring, too, that those enemies would lack the strength to topple him.

  Was that any sort of kingdom?

  Joe Stark had done much the same in Glasgow, ruling by fearful reputation, reinforced in time by son Dennis. But Dennis had lacked his father’s guile and innate canniness, and this surely had contributed to his downfall. Cafferty pressed his

  forehead against the tinted glass as he made the call. Darryl Christie picked up immediately.

  ‘I was about to call you,’ Christie announced.

  ‘Christ, Darryl, you don’t hang about, do you?’

  ‘I knew that’s what you’d be thinking.’

  ‘It’s what everyone’s going to be thinking – especially the forces of law and order.’

  ‘The very fact you say that tells me something interesting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You no longer have friends on the force.’

  ‘And you do?’

  ‘Which is why I know about the note.’

  ‘They found a note?’

  ‘It’s not been reported yet, but yes, same as you got. So this wasn’t some isolated hit – and it certainly wasn’t me or mine pulling the trigger.’

  ‘Two gangsters targeted . . .’

  ‘Agreed – the cops are going to want to question me. And I’d be hard pressed to lie and say I’m sorry that bawbag’s been eliminated. I could kiss whoever did it.’

  ‘Joe’s going to come gunning for you – maybe for me too.

  He won’t believe it was random, and even if he did, he’d still need revenge on somebody.’

  ‘Well he knows where to find me. You, on the other hand . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re hiding out, and that’s bound to make you look guilty in his eyes.’

  ‘I hope I can trust you to put him right on that score.’

  Christie just laughed and hung up. Cafferty stepped away from the window and considered phoning Rebus, but ended up

  sitting down with his laptop instead, knowing he would have to add Dennis Stark to his search list. It was going to be a long day.

  Joseph Stark stood in the alley while his men formed a line behind th
e cordon, scowling at the officer on duty who had refused to let them through.

  ‘Immediate family only,’ the officer had stipulated.

  This hadn’t bothered Joe Stark unduly – he’d wanted the place to himself anyway, to see if any trace of his son could still be found there. He remembered that Cath had wanted the name Dennis – her own father’s name. So Joe had nodded away his preference for Joseph Junior. Then Cath had gone and died, leaving Joe to try running the show while bringing up the kid.

  His friends had told him to marry again, but he knew he wouldn’t. Cath had been the woman for him. He was trying now to bring back memories of Dennis’s childhood, but there were huge gaps. First day at school? A neighbour had taken him, Joe away on business. Playing football for the youth club, Halloween dressing-up, end-of-term reports . . . What stuck in the father’s mind were the summonses to the head’s office.

  After a while, they’d realised he wasn’t the kind of man to be given bad news in person. Letters after that, torn up and binned.

  His own father had been handy with his trouser belt, delivering it to ears, hands, backside. Fists later on. Joe had behaved in much the same way, until Dennis grew to be a couple of inches taller than him and learned to resist. Good times too, though, surely: dinner and drinks at some fancy new place; a drive in the Jag to the seaside for ice cream; passing on knowledge about the way the world really worked.

  It was the gaps that gnawed at him, however – those huge chunks of time spent away from one another. When Dennis had gone to jail, Joe had preferred not to visit. Leave the lad alone, let him learn. He knew that when he went home to Glasgow, he’d find precious few photos of the two of them together. But then what was the point of all that? What was the point of standing in a freezing alley in a strange city when your son was in a drawer at the mortuary? The formal identification had been hard, but he’d insisted on seeing the bullet hole. Small it was, in comparison to the rest of the unharmed torso. A couple of tattoos Joe couldn’t remember having been told about – one a purple thistle, the other a lion rampant. He’d winced – he bore near-identical markings on his own arms. Why had the boy never said?

  He crouched down, placing the palm of one hand against the wall and one on the rough ground. Then he closed his eyes, trying to feel something, anything. When he opened his eyes again, the world seemed unchanged. The six men were focused on him as he walked towards them: Dennis’s four, plus Walter and Len. Joe Stark made silent eye contact with each one of them in turn. Len Parker gave him a handkerchief so he could wipe his hands clean. Stark nodded his thanks before handing it back, then led them away from the uniform and the locals who had come to gawp.

  ‘Whoever did this,’ he began, keeping his voice low, ‘knew about the guest house. So I need you to give me names, and then we’re going to have a talk with each and every one of them, see who they maybe spilled the beans to. Cops will be doing their own thing, but I doubt they’ll be busting a gut – CID

  in Glasgow are probably opening the champagne as I speak.

  But my boy’s dead and I want to know why and I need to know

  who. Until then, no rest, no jokes, no fun. Understood? If I’m in hell, you lot are too. Anyone want to say anything?’

  There was a shuffling of feet, but then Rob Simpson cleared his throat. ‘I know one of us should have been with him, but it was just something he did. Only seemed to need four hours’

  sleep a night, and he’d go out for a stroll. Never woke us up to go with him. He knew he could if he wanted to.’

  ‘You all knew about this?’ Joe Stark waited until Dyson, Andrews and Rae all nodded. ‘Then you should have talked sense into him. Or one of you should have taken the night shift, so he wouldn’t be on his own.’

  They looked at the ground and shuffled uneasily.

  ‘I hold all four of you personally responsible,’ Stark went on, stabbing with his finger. ‘You want me in your corner when this is done? You’ll get me some answers.’

  ‘Whatever it takes?’ Jackie Dyson queried.

  ‘Take a wild fucking guess, son,’ came the ice-cold reply.

  Nineteen

  James Page listened as Rebus and Clarke told him their theory.

  ‘So our killer doesn’t have a gun,’ Page said, ‘until he takes one from Lord Minton’s house? He then tests it, shoots at Cafferty and misses, and a few days later takes down Dennis Stark at point-blank range?’

  ‘Do we know it was point blank?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Powder burns on the deceased’s jacket,’ Page confirmed.

  ‘And no bullet yet?’ Clarke checked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what happened to it?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ Page folded his arms. He was seated behind his desk, his phone lying in front of him. Every five or ten seconds there was another incoming text for him to ignore.

  ‘Looks like the killer maybe took it away with him,’ Rebus commented.

  ‘Why, though?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘Pity, mind – be good to verify all three bullets came from the same weapon.’

  ‘Three?’

  ‘The tree in the Hermitage, plus Cafferty and Stark.’

  Page stared at him. ‘You think there’s more than one maniac out there?’

  ‘Copycats have been known to happen.’

  Page dismissed this with a scowl. ‘This team who’ve been keeping the Starks under observation . . .’

  ‘Red faces all round.’

  Page’s nostrils flared. ‘And just how did Lord Minton get a gun in the first place?’

  ‘Not legally,’ Clarke said. ‘No firearms certificate ever issued to him.’

  ‘But with him being a lawyer and all,’ Rebus added, ‘he probably got to know one or two people down the years who could find him what he wanted. Thing is: why did he want it?’

  ‘He’d been sent a threatening note,’ Page reminded him.

  ‘He’d probably had threats in the past, though. For some reason, this latest one got to him.’

  ‘Because it had merit?’ Page guessed. ‘You think the gun was a recent purchase?’

  ‘I phoned his bank and managed to get a few details,’ Clarke said. ‘A couple of weeks ago he took out five hundred pounds a day on four consecutive days. Normally he made do with withdrawals of a hundred or two hundred twice a week. In his wallet at time of death he had exactly thirty-five pounds.’

  Page’s eyes were on Rebus. ‘Would two grand buy him a handgun?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Why in batches of five hundred?’

  ‘Maximum he could take from a cash machine each day,’

  Clarke explained.

  ‘We’re sure he had a gun in his desk drawer?’

  ‘It’s feasible.’

  ‘So who sold it to him? Is there anyone in the city we know of?’

  ‘We can make enquiries,’ Rebus stated.

  ‘Let’s do that then.’

  ‘Probably best not to say anything to the grieving father,’

  Rebus cautioned.

  Page nodded his understanding and picked up his phone. ‘I wonder how many of these texts are from the boss,’ he said.

  ‘We’re not going public with the note to Stark, are we, sir?’

  Clarke asked.

  ‘Not just yet.’

  ‘And forensics are checking it?’

  ‘For what it’s worth.’ But Page’s attention was now firmly on the contents of his phone’s screen. Rebus gestured to Clarke that it was time to go. Outside in the main office, she asked him about the pistol.

  ‘You still have snitches working for you?’

  ‘No,’ he stated. ‘But Darryl Christie might put the word out if we ask nicely.’

  ‘And why would he do that?’

  ‘Because right now he needs all the friends he can get.’

  Clarke considered this, eventually nodding her agreement.

  ‘You okay to talk to him?’

  ‘In my consulta
tive capacity, DI Clarke?’

  ‘In your consultative capacity, Mr Rebus.

  Fox had listened to the interviews with Dennis Stark’s associates.

  Actually, that wasn’t strictly true – he had skimmed three of them, but listened to the fourth in full. Jackie Dyson was good, very good, not once letting the mask slip. He was belligerent, obstructive, and grudging in his answers.

  ‘You’re here as a friend of the deceased, Mr Dyson,’ he was reminded at one point. ‘We’re just looking for anything that can help us track down his killer.’

  ‘Then get out and look,’ Dyson had snarled in response.

  ‘Because as soon as you let me out of here, that’s what I’m doing.’

  Fox wondered: would Dyson want to be brought in, mission scuppered? At the very least, he would be looking to talk to Compston, just to get some pointers.

  Or was he beyond all that? Was he self-sufficient and comfortable in his new skin?

  Was there even an opportunity for advancement, now that Dennis was gone?

  Fox looked at his phone – nothing from Siobhan or Rebus.

  For want of anything better to do, he decided to head back to St Leonard’s. But once in his car, he opted for a quick detour first.

  He parked kerbside on Constitution Street and walked to the alleyway’s opening. It was protected by police tape. A couple of elderly shoppers had stopped for a gawp, while the uniform on duty did his best to ignore them. He recognised Fox and lifted the tape. But having ducked beneath it, Fox paused.

  ‘Anyone else been along?’ he asked.

  ‘Victim’s father.’

  ‘Plus entourage?’

  The officer nodded. ‘I only let the father through, though.’

  ‘Bet that made you popular.’ Fox smiled and headed deeper into the alley. Forensics had picked it clean, not even a bloodstain visible. Dennis liked to go for a night-time walk, always unaccompanied – that much had been gleaned from the interviews. Fair enough, but the guest house sat on the edge of Leith Links, a much more congenial spot than this. Had he

  arranged some sort of meeting? There was nothing on his phone, no texts or late-night calls. Yet something or someone had brought him here. Ducking back below the tape, Fox thanked the uniform and retraced the route Dennis had most likely taken. It was a short walk past Leith police station, and yes, there were the Links, with a kids’ park visible beyond the fenced-off allotments. A large wooden board was hanging from a post in the small front garden of the guest house: LABURNUM – NO VACANCIES.