‘You wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ve been there, Rebus. Earlier tonight.’
‘You’re lying.’ Rebus’s voice was dry, his throat acrid. Trying to get you off your guard, same trick worked with Archibald …
Oakes just shrugged. They were at the corner. Diagonally across from them, two cars had drawn up side by side at a red light. Taxi on the inside lane; boy racer revving beside him. The taxi driver was watching what looked like a fight about to break out: nothing he hadn’t seen before.
‘You’re lying,’ Rebus repeated. He slipped his free hand into his pocket, brought out the mobile. Used his thumb to press the digits, holding the phone to his face so he could watch it and Oakes at the same time.
‘She didn’t need her legs anyway,’ Oakes was saying. The phone was ringing. ‘There’s no answer, is there?’
Sweat was trickling into Rebus’s eyes. But if he shook his head to clear the drops, Oakes would think he was answering his question.
The phone stopped ringing.
‘Hello?’ Ned Farlowe’s voice.
‘Ned! Is Sammy there? Is she all right?’
‘What? Is that you, John?’
‘Is she all right?’ Knowing the answer: needing to hear it anyway.
‘Of course she’s—’
Oakes flew at him, the knife emerging from his right-hand pocket. Missing Rebus’s chest by centimetres. Rebus stepped back, dropped the phone. He had the longer reach. The taxi driver had his window down.
‘Cut that out, the pair of you!’
‘I’ll cut it out all right,’ Oakes hissed. ‘I’ll dice it and slice it.’ He made another sweep with the knife. Rebus tried to kick it away, almost lost his footing. Oakes laughed at him. ‘You’re no Nureyev, pal.’ A quick thrust took the knife into Rebus’s arm. Rebus felt his nerves go dull: prelude to agony. Finish it.
Rebus took a step forward, feinted with the knife, so that Oakes had to move position. On the edge of the pavement now. Rebus saw the traffic lights behind Oakes were changing. Oakes leaned forward, slashed at his chest. Thin whistling sound as Rebus’s shirt split. Blood warm on his arm, more blood trickling from the fresh wound. Red to red/amber.
To green.
Rebus charged in with his foot up and hit Oakes solid in the chest with his sole. Oakes got in a swipe before he was propelled back into the road, where the boy racer, oblivious to the fight, radio on full-blast and his girl with her arm around him, was showing off his car’s acceleration from a flat start. The car clipped Oakes, sent him flying, breaking his hip and, Rebus hoped, a few more bones to boot. The car screeched to a halt, the young man’s head appeared through the window. He saw knives. He pulled his foot off the clutch and roared off.
Rebus didn’t bother to catch the licence plate. He stood on Oakes’s knife-hand, forcing the fingers open, then lifted the knife and pocketed it. The taxi driver was still at the lights.
‘Phone for police assistance!’ Rebus called to him. He held his injured arm to his chest.
Oakes was rolling on the ground, hand to his thigh and side, teeth bared not in a grin now but in a grimace of pain.
Rebus stood up, took a step back, and kicked him in the groin. As Oakes groaned and retched, Rebus gave him another kick, then crouched down again.
‘I’d like to say that was for Jim Stevens,’ he said. ‘But if I’m being entirely honest with you, really it was for me.’
Rebus spent an hour in the casualty department—four stitches to his arm, eight to his chest. The arm wound was deepest, but both were clean. Oakes was somewhere nearby, being treated for breaks and fractures. Six of Crime Squad’s finest on guard detail.
A patrol car took Rebus back to his flat, where he retrieved his cordless phone—didn’t want any of the students pocketing it—and had a mouthful of whisky. Then another after that.
The rest of the night he spent at St Leonard’s, typing his report one-handed. giving an additional verbal briefing to Chief Superintendent Watson, who’d been summoned from bed and whose hair sported a cow’s-lick which flapped when he moved his head.
There was little certainty that Oakes could be charged with Jim Stevens’ murder. It would depend on forensic evidence: fingerprints, fibres, saliva. Stevens’ cassette had been bagged and handed over to the white-coat brigade.
‘But he’ll go down for the attack on me and Alan Archibald?’ Rebus asked his superior.
Farmer Watson nodded. ‘For the Pentland attack, yes.’
‘What about the attempted murder of three hours ago?’
The Farmer shuffled paperwork. ‘You’ve said yourself, most of the witnesses will have seen you with the knife, not him.’
‘But the taxi driver …’
The Farmer nodded. ‘He’ll be crucial. Let’s hope he gets his story straight.’
Rebus saw what his boss was getting at. ‘Sir, you do believe I acted in self-defence?’
‘Of course, John. Goes without saying.’ But the Farmer wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Rebus tried to think of something to say; decided it wasn’t worth his breath.
‘Crime Squad are pissed off,’ the Farmer added with a smile. ‘They hate an anti-climax.’
‘I might not look it, but inside I’m crying for them.’ Rebus turned to leave the room.
‘No going back to the hospital, John,’ the Farmer warned. ‘Don’t want him falling out of bed and saying he was pushed.’
Rebus snorted, went downstairs and into the car park. It would be growing light soon. He dry-swallowed some more painkillers, lit a cigarette and stared in the direction of Holyrood Park. They were there—Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags—it was just, you couldn’t always see them. It didn’t mean they weren’t there.
Easy to lose your footing in the dark … Easy for someone to come up behind you …
Rebus left the car park and headed into St Leonard’s Bank. Stevens’ car had been taken away for examination at Howdenhall. At the end of the road, there was a gap in the fence, allowing passage into the park itself. Rebus headed down the slope towards Oueen’s Drive. Once across it, he started to climb. Away from the street-lighting now, his steps were more tentative. He sensed more than saw the starting-point of Radical Road, above which loomed the irregular rockface of the Crags themselves. Rebus ignored the path, kept climbing until he was on top of the Crags, the city spread out below him in a grid of orange sodium and yellow-white halogen. The beast was definitely beginning to awake: cars heading into the city. Turning round, he saw that the sky was a lighter shade of black than the mass of rock below it. Some people said Arthur’s Seat looked like a crouched lion, ready to pounce. It never did pounce, though. There was a lion on the Scottish flag too—not crouched but rampant .
Had Jim Margolies come up here with the express intention of leaping off ? Rebus thought he knew the answer now. And he knew because of the Margolies’ dinner engagement that evening, across the park from where they lived.
That, and the fact of a white saloon car …
50
Dr Joseph Margolies lived with his wife in a detached house in Gullane, with an uninterrupted view of Muirfield golf course. Rebus didn’t play golf. He’d tried a few times as a kid, dragging a half-set of clubs around his local course, losing half a dozen balls in Jamphlars Pond. He knew some of his colleagues had taken up the game thinking it would help their careers, making sure to concede defeat to their superiors.
That didn’t sound like a game to Rebus.
Siobhan Clarke parked the car, and switched off the radio news. It was ten in the morning. Rebus had managed a couple of hours’ shut-eye in his Arden Street flat, and had phoned Patience to let her know Cary Oakes was behind bars.
‘Stay in the car,’ he told Clarke, manoeuvring himself out of the door. Not easy with one arm strapped up and his chest giving him grief every time he stretched.
Mrs Margolies answered the door. Close up, she resembled her son. Sa
me flat chin, same narrow eyes. She even had the same smile.
Rebus introduced himself and asked if he could have a word with her husband.
‘He’s in the greenhouse. Is there a problem, Inspector?’
He smiled at her. ‘No problem, madam. Just a couple of questions, that’s all.’
‘I’ll show you the way,’ she said, standing back to let him in. She’d glanced at his arm, but wasn’t going to comment on it. Some people were like that: didn’t like to ask questions … As he followed her down the corridor, he glanced through open doorways, seeing domestic order everywhere: knitting on a chair; magazines in a paper-rack; dusted ornaments; gleaming windows. The house dated from the 1930s. From the outside, it seemed to be all eaves and gables. Rebus asked her how long they’d lived there.
‘Over forty years,’ Mrs Margolies replied, proud of the fact.
So this was the house Jim Margolies had grown up in. And his sister too. From the notes, Rebus knew she’d committed suicide in the family bathroom. Often, in a situation like that, the families elected to sell up and move somewhere new. But he knew other families would elect to stay, because something of their loved one still remained in the home, and would be lost forever if they abandoned it.
The kitchen was tidy too, not so much as a cup and saucer drying on the draining-board. A message-list had been fixed to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a teapot. But the list remained blank. Mrs Margolies asked him if he’d like some tea. He shook his head.
‘I’m fine, thanks anyway.’ Still smiling, but studying her. Thinking: The wife often knows … Thinking: Some people just don’t ask questions …
Outside the kitchen door was a short hall with two walk-in cupboards—both open to display garden tools –and the back door, which also stood open. They stepped outside and into a walled garden. obviously much worked-on. There was a rockery, and next to it some flowerbeds. These were separated by a trimmed lawn from a long, narrow vegetable bed. Towards the bottom of the garden were trees and bushes, and tucked away in one corner a small greenhouse with a figure moving around inside.
Rebus turned to his guide. ‘Thank you, I’ll be fine.’
And he walked across the lawn. It was like walking across luxury Wilton. He looked back once, saw Mrs Margolies watching him from the doorway. In a neighbouring garden, someone was having a bonfire. Smoke crackled over the wall, white and pungent. Rebus walked through it as he neared the greenhouse. A black labrador pricked up its ears at his approach, then pushed itself up to sitting and gave a half-hearted bark. Its nose and whiskers were grey, and it had about it a pampered look: overfed and, in its declining years, under-exercised. The door of the greenhouse slid open and an elderly man peered through half-moon glasses at his visitor. Tall, grey hair, black moustache—just the way Jamie Brady had described him: the man who’d gone to Greenfield looking for Darren Rough.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’
‘Dr Margolies, I’m DetectiveInspector John Rebus.’
Margolies held up his hands. ‘You’ll forgive me for not shaking.’ The hands were blackened with soil.
‘Me too,’ Rebus said, gesturing to his arm.
‘Looks nasty. What happened?’ Not sharing his wife’s reticence. But then maybe she’d had half a lifetime of biting back questions. Rebus leaned down to rub the labrador’s head. Its heavy tail thumped the ground in appreciation.
‘Got into a fight,’ Rebus explained.
‘Line of duty, eh? We’ve met before, I think.’
‘Hannah’s competition.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Nodding slowly. ‘You wanted to speak to Ama.’
‘I did then, yes.’
‘Is this something to do with her?’ Margolies was retreating back into the greenhouse. Rebus followed, and saw that the old man was potting seedlings. It was warm in the greenhouse, despite the day being overcast. Margolies asked Rebus to close the door.
‘Keep the heat in,’ he explained.
Rebus slid the door shut. Most of the available space was taken up with work surfaces, trays of seedlings laid along them in rows. A bag of potting compost lay open on the ground. Dr Margolies was scooping a black plastic flowerpot into it.
‘How does it feel to get away with murder?’ Rebus asked.
‘I’m sorry?’ Margolies took a seedling, pushed it into its new pot.
‘You murdered Darren Rough.’
‘Who?’
Rebus took the pot from Margolies’ fingers. ‘It’s going to be a devil trying to prove it. In fact, I don’t think it will happen. I really do think you’ve got away with it.’
Margolies met his eyes, reached to take his pot back.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’
‘You were seen in Greenfield. You were asking about Darren Rough. Then off you drove in your white Mercedes. A white saloon car was seen in Holyrood Park around the time Darren was killed. I think he went there for sanctuary, but you found it an ideal site for a murder.’
‘These riddles, Inspector … Do you know who I am?’
‘I know exactly who you are. I know both your children committed suicide. I know you were part of the Shiellion set-up.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ A slight trembling in the voice now. A seedling slipped from parchment fingers.
‘Don’t worry, Harold Ince is going to keep his side of the bargain. He talked to me, but it wouldn’t be admissible, and he won’t tell anyone else. He told me you were at Shiellion that night. Ince had talked with you often, had come to know you. He’d told you what he did to the kids in his care. He knew you wouldn’t say anything, because the two of you were alike. He knew how useful it would be to him if a doctor, the man responsible for examining the children, were part of the whole enterprise.’ Rebus leaned close to Margolies’ ear. ‘He told me all of it, Dr Margolies.’
The after-hours drinking, loosening up the doctor. Then the arrival of Ramsay Marshall with a fresh new kid, Darren Rough. Making the kid wear a blindfold so he wouldn’t recognise Margolies—this at the doctor’s insistence. Sweating and trembling … knowing this night changed everything .
And afterwards: self-loathing perhaps; or maybe just fear of exposure. He hadn’t been able to cope, had feigned ill-health, opting for early retirement.
‘But you could never loose Ince’s grip on you. He’d been blackmailing you, him and Marshall both.’ Rebus’s voice was little more than a whisper, his lips almost touching the old man’s ear. ‘Know what? I’m so fucking glad he’s been sucking you dry all these years.’ Rebus stood back.
‘You don’t know anything.’ Margolies’ face was blood-red. Beneath the checked shirt, he was breathing hard.
‘I can’t prove anything, but that’s not quite the same thing. I know, and that’s what matters. I think your daughter found out. The shame of it killed her. You were always the first one awake in the morning; she knew you’d be the one to find her. And then somehow Jim found out, and he couldn’t live with it either. How come you can live with it, Dr Margolies? How come you can live with the deaths of both your children, and the murder of Darren Rough?’
Margolies lifted a gardening fork, held it to Rebus’s throat. His face was squeezed into a mask of anger and frustration. Beads of perspiration dripped from his forehead. And outside, the billowing smoke seemed to be cutting them off from everything.
Margolies didn’t say anything, just made sounds from behind gritted teeth. Rebus stood there, hand in pocket.
‘What?’ he said. ‘You’re going to kill me too?’ He shook his head. ‘Think about it. Your wife’s seen me. There’s another officer waiting for me out front. How will you talk your way out of it? No, Dr Margolies, you’re not going to kill me. Like I say, I can’t prove anything I’ve just said. It’s between you and me.’ Rebus lifted the hand from his pocket, pushed the fork aside. The black lab was watching through the door, seemed to sense all was not well. It frowned at Rebus, looking disappointe
d in him.
‘What do you want?’ Margolies spluttered, gripping the work-bench with both hands.
‘I want you to live the rest of your life knowing that I know.’ Rebus shrugged. ‘That’s all.’
‘You want me to kill myself ?’
Rebus laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ve got it in you. You’re an old man, you’re going to die soon enough. Once you’re dead, maybe Ince and Marshall will rethink their loyalty to you. You won’t be left with any reputation at all.’
Margolies turned towards him, and now there was clear, focused hatred in his eyes.
‘Of course,’ Rebus said, ‘if any evidence does turn up, you can be assured I’ll be back here at the double. You might be celebrating the millennium, you might be getting your card from the Queen, and then you’ll see me walking through the door.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll never be very far away, Dr Margolies.’
He slid open the greenhouse door, manoeuvred his way past the dog. Walked away.
It didn’t feel like any sort of victory. Unless something turned up, there’d be no justice for Darren Rough, no public trial. But Rebus knew he’d done what he could. Mrs Margolies was in the kitchen, making no pretence of doing anything other than waiting for him to return.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked.
‘Fine, Mrs Margolies.’ He headed down the hall, making for the front door. She was right behind him.
‘Well, I just was wondering …’
Rebus opened the door, turned to her. ‘Why not ask your husband, Mrs Margolies?’
The wife often knows, never bringsherself to ask.
‘Just one thing, Mrs Margolies … ?’
‘Yes?’
Yourhusband’s a cold-blooded murderer. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came. He shook his head, started down the garden path.
Clarke drove him to Katherine Margolies’ house, in the Grange area of Edinburgh. It was a three-storey Georgian semi in a street half of whose homes had been turned into bed-and-breakfast establishments. The white Merc was parked in front of the gate. Rebus turned to Clarke.
‘I know,’ she said: ‘stay in the car.’