“Is your dad in?” Rebus asked cheerily.
“No . . .” The word stretched out longer than necessary as the boy tried to decide what else to tell the caller.
“I’ve got the right number for Jazz?”
“He’s not here,” the boy said.
“I’m a friend of his from work,” Rebus explained.
The boy relaxed a little. “I can give you another number if you’ve got a pen.”
“That’d be great.”
The number was recited from an address book or piece of notepaper. Rebus jotted it down. “That’s a great help, thanks.”
“No problem.” The boy put the phone down just as Rebus could hear the faint voice of a woman asking who was calling. He looked at the number he’d just been given. It was Jazz’s mobile. No point trying that: it wouldn’t help pinpoint a location. Rebus settled his neck against the headrest, then called Siobhan.
“I’m here,” he told her. “Any action your end?”
“Maybe they’re down the pub.”
“I wish I was with them.”
“Me too. I had a gin a couple of hours ago and it’s given me a thumping head.”
“For which the only cure is more alcohol,” Rebus agreed.
“What the hell are we doing, John?”
“I thought we were on surveillance.”
“But for whose benefit?”
“Our own.”
She sighed. “I suppose you’re right . . .”
“Don’t feel duty-bound to stick around.” Rebus watched a sports car turn into the street. Its brake lights glowed as it passed the house, but it kept going, signaling to turn into the road at the end. “What car does Dempsey drive?” Rebus asked, starting his ignition.
“Latest-model red MG.”
“One just drove past me.” He made the same turn the MG just had, and saw it round another corner. Rebus kept up his commentary. “Slowed down as if the driver wanted a quick recon of McCullough’s family pile.”
“And now?”
Rebus made to turn into another street, but changed his mind when he saw the MG reverse into a tight parking spot. A man was standing on the pavement, looking to left and right.
Jazz McCullough.
With better lighting, he might have spotted Rebus, but Rebus had the feeling it was McCullough’s wife he was watching for. A woman got out of the car, and he led her briskly indoors.
“Result,” Rebus told Siobhan. “She’s just gone into McCullough’s flat.” He described the woman he’d seen.
“That’s her all right,” Siobhan confirmed. “What now?”
“I think we’ve got as much as we can expect. Jazz McCullough’s playing away from home with Ellen Dempsey.”
“That’s why he was so keen to keep tabs on the Marber case? He wanted to check we weren’t hassling her?”
“I suppose so . . .”
“But why?” Siobhan persisted. “What was it they thought we’d find?”
“I don’t know,” Rebus admitted. He didn’t see what else he could say.
“You’re giving up?” Siobhan’s voice asked.
“I just think it can wait till Monday,” he told her. “It doesn’t make me a bad person.”
“No, of course not . . .”
“Look, Siobhan, it’s something you should take to Gill Templer. Whether she decides to act on it — or if there’s anything for her to act on — is down to Gill herself.”
“She thinks the case is closed.”
“Maybe she’s right.”
“What if she’s wrong?”
“Jesus, Siobhan, what are you saying here? You take Dempsey and McCullough for some latter-day Bonnie and Clyde? You think they killed Edward Marber?”
“Of course not,” she answered, trying for the sound of a dismissive laugh.
“Well, then,” Rebus told her.
She went on to say he was right. She’d sleep on it, cogitate over the weekend, maybe put it into some kind of binary . . .
“Some kind of what?”
“Never mind.”
They ended the call, but Rebus didn’t move the car, not quite yet. Dempsey and McCullough as Bonnie and Clyde . . . It had been said in jest, but now Rebus was starting to wonder, not about Bonnie and Clyde as such, but about the relationship between McCullough and Ellen Dempsey, and how it might tie in to something much bigger than even Siobhan could have imagined.
“Fuck it,” he said, finally unable to sort out the jumble of strands in his head. Then he turned the car around and headed south.
Jean’s lights were still on.
When she opened the door he was standing there with a fish supper and a bottle of red wine.
“Enough for two,” he told her as she stood back to let him in.
“I’m naturally flattered. First dinner at Number One, now this . . .”
He kissed her forehead. She didn’t resist. “Got any plans for the weekend?” he asked.
“Nothing I can’t change if I feel like it.”
“I just thought we might spend some time together. There’s a lot about you I need to get to know.”
“Such as?”
“Such as . . . for future reference, do you prefer perfume, bouquets or fish suppers with wine?”
“That’s a tough one,” she admitted, closing the door behind them.
27
The weekend passed in a blur. Saturday morning, Rebus suggested they go for a drive. They headed over to the west coast, stopping for lunch at Loch Lomond, spending the afternoon as tourists, passing through Tarbet and Crianlarich. Rebus found them a hotel just outside Taynuilt and they checked in, laughing at their lack of baggage.
“How will you cope?” he asked her. “There’s not a Napier’s the Herbalist within a hundred miles.” She just thumped his arm, then went out and found a chemist’s shop, returning with toothbrushes and toothpaste. Replete after dinner, they managed a short stroll down to Airds Bay before retiring to their room. They left the curtains and the window open, so that the first thing they’d see on waking would be Loch Etive. Then they fell asleep in one another’s arms.
Sunday, they didn’t rise till nine, blaming the country air as they embraced and kissed. Neither felt the need for any breakfast, just orange juice and tea. Some of the other residents were reading newspapers in the lounge. Rebus and Jean said good morning and then walked outside. The grass was damp with dew underfoot, and there were thick gray clouds overhead. Yesterday’s distant views across the loch had disappeared into the mist. They walked anyway. Jean was good at recognizing birdsong. She knew plant names, too. Rebus took deep lungfuls of the air, reminded of childhood walks in the countryside around his home village in Fife, coal mines coexisting with farmland. He wasn’t used to walking, could feel his heart pumping, his breathing slightly labored. Jean kept up a stream of conversation, but Rebus was eventually reduced to monosyllables. He’d smoked only eight cigarettes the whole weekend. Maybe lack of nicotine was slowing him down.
Back at the hotel, they checked out and settled into the car. “Where now?” Jean asked.
“Home?” Rebus suggested, part of him itching to spend the afternoon in a smoky pub. Jean looked disappointed. “The slow route,” he added, watching her face brighten.
They stopped in Callander and Stirling, after which Rebus took an unwilling detour because Jean wanted to see Tulliallan.
“I was expecting some sort of guard,” she said, as they stopped halfway up the driveway. “Nice grounds, though.”
Rebus nodded, only half listening. Tomorrow, he would be back here. Four more days of the course to endure. Maybe Strathern was right; maybe he should bail out. Gray, McCullough and Ward might well feel cheated, feel there was unfinished business, but would they do anything about it?
Not if they didn’t think he was a danger. He wondered if Siobhan might now look more of a threat to them . . .
“John?” Jean was saying.
“Hmm?”
“I think I los
t you for a moment there. Thinking about next week?” He nodded. “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” she went on, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry.”
Rebus shrugged. “Seen enough?” he asked. He was thinking of the three men’s bedrooms, and whether there’d be anything there for him to find if he broke in. He doubted it, but all the same . . . And where were they anyway? Was Gray at home in Glasgow? Had he taken Ward there with him, the two of them plotting their next move? Would Jazz have joined them, or was he tucked up in bed with Ellen Dempsey? Risky, her visiting him at home. It meant his wife knew about them, or Jazz wanted her to find out.
Or Dempsey didn’t want him in her own home . . . Which would mean what? That this was some sort of arrangement she went along with, without necessarily being too thrilled about it? That there was a large part of her life she didn’t feel like sharing with him?
“John . . . ?”
He realized he’d completed two-thirds of a three-point turn, leaving the car stationary in the driveway.
“Sorry, Jean,” he said, moving the gearshift into first.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “I had you all to myself for a whole day. I’m rather proud I managed that.”
“You certainly took my mind off things,” he agreed with a smile.
“But now they’re back?” she guessed.
“They’re back,” he admitted.
“And they’re not going away?”
“Not unless I do something about them,” he said, flooring the accelerator.
He dropped her home, said he wouldn’t stay. They kissed and hugged. She held up her handbag.
“Want your new toothbrush?”
“Maybe we could keep it at your place,” he suggested.
She nodded slowly. “All right,” she said.
He drove out of Portobello, trying to remember if the roads through Holyrood Park were closed on a Sunday. If they were, he should probably take Duddingston Road. His mind busy with calculations, he was slow to spot the blue light behind him. When he did see it, it was accompanied by flashing headlights.
“Hell is this?” he muttered, pulling over to the curb. The patrol car stopped behind him, a uniform emerging from the passenger seat. Rebus was already out of his Saab.
“Planning to breathalyze me, Perry?” The passenger was PC “Perry” Mason. Mason looked anxious.
“We’ve had cars out all day trying to track you down, sir.”
Rebus’s face hardened. “What’s happened?” His mobile had been switched off since Friday night — and still was — while his pager was somewhere on the car’s backseat . . . His first thought was: Siobhan. Don’t let anything have happened to Siobhan . . .
The driver of the patrol car was on the two-way radio.
“We just had orders to be on the lookout for you.”
“Whose orders? What’s going on?”
“We’re to give him an escort!” the driver called out.
“I’ve really no idea what it’s about, sir,” Mason told Rebus. “I’m sure they’ll explain everything when we get there.”
Rebus got back into his Saab and let the patrol car move ahead of him. It put its blue light and siren on and sped up, leaving Rebus to follow close behind. The driver was enjoying himself, breaking the speed limit, pulling out onto the wrong side of the road to pass strings of traffic, ignoring red lights at junctions. They crossed north Edinburgh in no time at all, Rebus tensing up not so much from the drive as from the sense of expectation. Something bad had happened. He didn’t want to think what. He’d expected them to be making for the Big House, but they continued west. It wasn’t until they hit Dalry Road that Rebus realized they were heading for the warehouse . . .
The gates were open, four cars parked in the compound. Ormiston was waiting for them. He pulled open Rebus’s door.
“Fuck have you been?” he asked.
“What’s happened?”
Ormiston ignored him, turning instead towards the officers who were just emerging from the patrol car. “You lot can go,” he snapped. Mason and his driver looked disgruntled, but as far as Ormiston was concerned they’d already ceased to exist.
“Going to give me a clue, Ormie?” Rebus asked as he was led into the warehouse. Ormiston turned towards him.
“How’s your alibi looking for last night?”
“I was in a hotel seventy-odd miles away.”
“Any company around midnight?”
“Asleep in the arms of a good woman.” Rebus grabbed Ormiston’s arm. “Jesus, Ormie, going to give me a break here?”
But they were inside the warehouse now, and it became crystal clear what had happened. Two or three of the crates nearest the front had been upended, wrenched open.
“Compound got turned over last night,” Ormiston explained. “We were going to move the stuff today.”
Rebus’s head reeled. “What about the guard?”
“Guards, plural: both of them nursing fractured skulls in the Western General.” Ormiston was leading him through the warehouse towards the back, where Claverhouse stood, peering into a single, open crate.
“They found the right one then?” Rebus guessed.
“All too easily,” Ormiston muttered, his eyes targeting Rebus, pupils as dark as the barrels of a shotgun.
“About time,” Claverhouse growled at Rebus.
“He was a long way away at the time,” Ormiston informed his colleague.
“That’s what he says.”
“Whoa,” Rebus said. “You saying I had something to do with this?”
“Half a dozen people knew about this place . . .”
“Did they bollocks. You said it yourself: news had leaked out all over town.”
Claverhouse was pointing a finger. “But you knew about the packing crates.”
“I didn’t know which one the stuff was in, though.”
“He’s got a point,” Ormiston said, folding his arms.
Rebus looked back at the opened boxes. “They seemed to find it bloody quick.”
Claverhouse slapped the edge of the crate. A door in the warehouse’s rear wall opened and three men stepped through. They’d been out back, carrying on what, from their faces, had been an angry conversation. Fingers were being pointed. The fingers belonged to two men Rebus hadn’t seen before. They were being pointed at Assistant Chief Constable Colin Carswell.
“Customs?” Rebus guessed. Claverhouse didn’t say anything, but Ormiston nodded. The two agents from Customs and Excise were turning to leave. Carswell looked furious as he came towards Rebus.
“Christ Almighty, what’s he doing here?”
“DI Rebus knew about the packing crates, sir,” Ormiston explained.
“But I didn’t steal it,” Rebus added.
“Any idea who did?” Carswell asked.
“What did C&E say?” Claverhouse interrupted.
“They’re absolutely fucking furious. Said it should have been their shout . . . lack of cooperation and all that shit. No way they’re taking any portion of the blame.”
“Do the media have hold of it?” Rebus asked.
Carswell shook his head. “Nor are they going to — I want that understood. We handle this internally.”
“That quantity of dope suddenly appears on the street, it won’t stay quiet for long,” Rebus commented, rubbing in some salt.
Carswell’s mobile rang. He looked at the display, ready to ignore it, then changed his mind. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Will do, sir . . . Right away.” He ended the call, started playing with the knot in his tie. “Strathern’s just arriving,” he said.
“Strathern knows?” Rebus asked Claverhouse.
“Course he bloody well knows!” Claverhouse spat back. “No way he couldn’t be told.” He kicked the side of the packing crate. “Should have moved the stuff yesterday!”
“Bit late for that,” Carswell muttered, heading off to meet his fate. Rebus could hear one car leaving the compound — the Customs agents — and another, the c
hief constable’s, arriving.
“Who knew the move was planned for today?” he asked.
“Necessary personnel,” Ormiston answered. “We’ve been talking to them all morning.”
“No one saw anything? What about CCTV?”
“We’ve got it on tape,” Claverhouse admitted. “Four men in ski masks, two of them tooled-up.”
“Sawed-offs,” Ormiston added. “They thumped the guards, put some cutters to the padlocks, drove in.”
“Stolen van, of course,” Claverhouse growled. He was pacing the room now. “White Ford Transit. Picked it up this morning half a mile from here.”
“Two guards for that amount of stuff?” Rebus shook his head slowly. “No prints?” he guessed.
Ormiston shook his head. “Two vans, actually,” he said, correcting his colleague.
Four men, Rebus was thinking. He was wondering who the fourth might be . . . “Can I take a look?” he asked.
“At what?”
“The video.”
Ormiston’s eyes went to his partner’s. Claverhouse shrugged.
“I’ll show you,” Ormiston told Rebus, angling his head back towards the door. They left Claverhouse still staring into the empty crate. Exiting the warehouse, Rebus saw Carswell in the back of Strathern’s car. The driver had got out for a smoke, leaving the two men alone. Carswell looked distinctly uncomfortable, which pleased Rebus more than it should have.