Ian Rankin - Set in Darkness

‘Piss off!’ Callan growled.

‘I think you can take that as a denial,’ Milligan said tonelessly.

‘I think you’re probably right,’ Watson agreed.

‘Away to hell, the lot of you!’ Callan yelled. There was a click on the line.

‘I think Mr Callan has left us,’ Rebus said. ‘Are you still there, Mr Milligan?’

‘I’m here, and I really do feel the need to protest in the strongest—’

Rebus cut the connection. ‘I think we just lost him,’ he told the room. There were whoops from the doorway. Rebus got up. Watson reclaimed his chair.

‘Let’s not get too carried away,’ he said as Rebus switched off the tape-recorder. ‘Pieces are beginning to fit, but we still don’t know who did the killing, or even who was killed. Without those two pieces, all the fun we’ve just had with Bryce Callan counts for nothing.’

‘All the same, sir...’ Grant Hood was grinning.

Watson nodded. ‘All the same, DI Rebus showed us the way to that man’s black heart.’ He looked at Rebus, who was shaking his head.

‘I didn’t get enough.’ He hit the rewind button. ‘I’m not sure I got anything.’

‘We know what we’re dealing with, and that’s half the battle,’ Wylie said.

‘We should bring in Hutton,’ Siobhan Clarke added. ‘It seems to revolve around him, and at least he’s here.’

‘All he has to do is deny it,’ Watson reminded her. ‘He’s not a man without influence. Drag him in here, it would reflect badly on us.’

‘Can’t have that,’ Clarke grumbled.

Rebus looked to his boss. ‘Sir, it’s my shout. Any chance you can join us?’

The Farmer glanced at his watch. ‘Just the one then,’ he said. ‘And a packet of mints for the car home — my wife can smell alcohol on my breath at twenty paces.’

Rebus brought the drinks to the table, Hood helping. Wylie just wanted cola from the gun. Hood himself was on a pint of Eighty. For Rebus: a half and a ‘hauf’. A single malt for the Farmer, and red wine for Siobhan Clarke. They toasted each other.

‘To teamwork,’ Wylie said.

The Farmer cleared his throat. ‘Speaking of which, shouldn’t Derek be here?’

Rebus filled the silence. ‘DI Linford is following up a line of inquiry of his own: a description of Grieve’s possible murderer.’

The Chief Super met his eyes. ‘Teamwork should mean just that.’

‘You don’t have to tell me, sir,’ Rebus said. ‘I’m usually the one out in the cold.’

‘Because that’s where you’ve wanted to be,’ the Chief Super reminded him. ‘Not because we wouldn’t let you in.’

‘Point taken, sir,’ Rebus said quietly.

Clarke put down her glass. ‘It’s my fault really, sir, blowing up the way I did. I think John just thought there’d be less tension if DI Linford was kept at a distance.’

‘I know that, Siobhan,’ Watson said. ‘But I also want Derek appraised of what’s been going on.’

‘I’ll talk to him, sir,’ Rebus said.

‘Good.’ They sat in silence for a minute. ‘Sorry if I put a damper on things,’ the Farmer said at last. Then he drained his glass and said he’d better be off. ‘Just get my round in first.’ They assured him he didn’t need to, that it wasn’t expected, but he got the round in anyway. When he’d gone, they could feel themselves relax. Maybe it was the alcohol.

Maybe.

Hood brought draughts over from the bar, and commenced a game against Clarke. Rebus said he never played.

‘I’m a bad loser, that’s my problem.’

‘What I hate is a bad winner,’ Clarke said, ‘the kind that rubs your nose in it.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Hood said, ‘I’ll be gentle with you.’

The lad was definitely coming out of himself, Rebus thought. Then he watched as Siobhan Clarke took her opponent apart, getting a crown while her own top row was still covered.

‘This is brutal,’ Wylie said, comforting Hood by ruffling his hair. When a second game was set up, Wylie and Hood swapped places. Hood sat across from Rebus now, and drained his first pint, replacing it with the one the Chief Super had bought.

‘Cheers,’ he said, taking a sip. Rebus raised his glass to him. ‘I can’t drink whisky,’ Hood confided. ‘Gives me blazing hangovers.’

‘Me, too, sometimes.’

‘Then why do you drink it?’

‘The pleasure before the pain: it’s a Calvinist thing.’ Hood looked at him blankly. ‘Never mind,’ Rebus told him.

‘He had it all wrong, you know,’ Siobhan Clarke said, as Wylie concentrated on her next move.

‘Who did?’

‘Callan. Using a front company so the plans stood a better chance of going through. There was an easier route.’

Wylie glanced over towards the men. ‘Wonder if she’s going to tell us?’

‘I think she wants us to guess first,’ Rebus said.

Wylie jumped one of Clarke’s draughts; Clarke retaliated. ‘Simple really,’ she said. ‘Why not just pay off the planners?’

‘Bribe the council?’ Hood smiled at the thought.

‘Bloody hell,’ Rebus said, staring into his drink. ‘Maybe that’s it...’

A comment he refused to explain, even when they threatened to make him play draughts.

‘I’ll never crack,’ he said, making light of it. But inside, his mind was buzzing with new possibilities and permutations, some of them including Cafferty’s face. He sat there wondering what the hell he could do about them...

Rebus and Derek Linford, the canteen at Fettes police HQ, Friday morning. Rebus nodded towards familiar faces: Claverhouse and Ormiston, Scottish Crime Squad, tucking into bacon rolls. Linford glanced in their direction.

‘You know them?’

‘I’m not in the habit of nodding at strangers.’

Linford looked at the slice of toast cooling on his plate. ‘How’s Siobhan?’

‘All the better for not seeing you.’

‘She got my note?’

Rebus drained his cup. ‘She hasn’t said anything.’

‘Is that a good sign?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Look, you’re not suddenly going to be pals again. She could have reported you as a stalker, for Christ’s sake. How would that have gone down in Room 279?’ Rebus pointed upstairs with his thumb.

Linford’s shoulders slumped. Rebus got up, fetched a fresh cup of coffee. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘there’s some news.’ He went on to explain about the links between Freddy Hastings and Bryce Callan. The tension came back into Linford’s shoulders. He was forgetting about Siobhan Clarke.

‘So how does Roddy Grieve enter the equation?’ he asked.

‘That’s what we don’t know,’ Rebus admitted. ‘Revenge for the way his brother ripped off Callan?’

‘And Callan waits twenty years?’

‘I know, I can’t see it either.’

Linford stared at him. ‘But there’s something, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘But do yourself a favour: look into Barry Hutton. If it was Callan, he had to have someone here.’

‘And Barry fits the bill?’

‘He’s his nephew.’

‘Any evidence he’s not just the Rotarian businessman?’

Rebus gestured towards Claverhouse and Ormiston. ‘Ask Crime Squad, maybe they’ll know.’

‘From what little I know of Hutton, he doesn’t fit the witness description of the man on Holyrood Road.’

‘He has employees, doesn’t he?’

‘Chief Superintendent Watson’s already warned that Hutton has “friends”: how do I go snooping without raising hackles?’

Rebus looked at him. ‘You don’t.’

‘I don’t go snooping?’ Linford seemed confused.

Rebus shook his head. ‘You don’t not raise hackles. Look, Linford, we’re cops. Sometimes you have to step out from behind the desk and get in people’s faces.’ Linford didn’t look convinced. ‘You think I’m setting you up for something?’