Ian Rankin - Standing in another's man grave

‘You holding up?’ Cafferty had felt it polite to ask.

‘That’s not the question you really want an answer to.’

‘All right then — where’s Frank Hammell?’

‘He’s out of the game. Signed all his businesses over to me.’ Christie’s eyes had come to rest on Cafferty’s. ‘Is that okay with you?’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

‘Because you still want to feel like a player. But we both know that’s not going to happen now. I’ve seen the way you operate, and that means I’m armed for any fight you want to start.’

‘I’m past all that.’

‘Those are the right words, but your brain needs to start believing them. I’ve studied hard, Cafferty, and I know which bits of this city Hammell controlled. As things stand, I’m not looking for a war — what’s yours is still yours. Only thing that’ll change that is if you decide this is a good time to try a bit of poaching or border-crossing. Do we understand one another?’

And only then had Christie reached out his hand towards Cafferty. The kid was eighteen! Eighteen! At eighteen, Cafferty had been no more than a foot soldier. And now he was being told what was what by a skinny waif with a Napoleon complex and a handful of paid minders to stop him coming to harm.

But he had shaken the hand nonetheless.

Now, as he sat in his study, he knew Darryl Christie had made the right move at the right time. The changeover had been smooth. Hammell was keeping his head down, but as yet no one was saying he wouldn’t be seen alive.

What’s yours is still yours. . as things stand . .

The cheek of the little bastard!

A clever sod, though; not to be underestimated or misjudged. Cafferty was embarrassed at the way he himself had played the whole thing — trying to be avuncular, an arm around a shoulder — when Darryl already had his plans in place, as cool and calculating as you liked.

It was to be admired, at least in the short term.

But when all was said and done, the lad was still in his teens. There were hard lessons he had not yet learned. Mistakes would be made, along with enemies. No one was untouchable.

No one.

Which was why Cafferty rose from his chair and checked that both front and back doors were bolted. .

On Saturday morning, Rebus called Magrath again. This time, the phone did not ring. Instead, a different automated voice told him the number he had dialled had not been recognised and he should try again. He took more care the second time, but got the selfsame message.

‘Changed your number, Gregor?’ he asked quietly. Then he nodded to himself and went to take a shower.

By late lunchtime, he was parked on the seafront at Rosemarkie, directly opposite the cottage. He sounded his horn a few times, keeping watch on the windows for signs of life. All the curtains were closed. When he eventually went to check, brushing past the Land Rover, there was mail lying on the mat inside the porch. He went next door and the neighbour answered.

‘Remember me?’ Rebus asked. ‘I was here before.’

The elderly woman agreed that yes, Rebus was not a stranger.

‘Just wondering if you’ve seen hide or hair of Gregor.’

‘He was at the shop yesterday, collecting his paper.’

‘He’s all right, then? It’s just that he’s not answering his door and the place looks deserted.’

‘He’s had reporters turning up at all hours,’ the woman explained. ‘And the phone, too — I can hear it ringing and ringing.’ She paused, leaning in towards Rebus and lowering her voice. ‘You heard what happened?’

Rebus nodded, as he felt was expected.

‘Awful business, just awful. You never think these things will. . Well, you know what I mean.’

‘Plenty of talk in the village, I suppose.’

The woman tilted her head back. ‘You wouldn’t credit it.’

‘Is everybody agreed it’s beyond belief?’ Rebus was doing his best to sound like a local himself. He had relaxed his stance and was resting his weight against the door frame, arms folded — just two old cronies having a chinwag.

‘Beyond belief,’ the woman echoed.

‘No doubters?’ Rebus raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s just that there usually are.’

‘There’s hardly a family around here Kenny Magrath hasn’t helped out at one time or another.’

‘I’m sure that’s true, but all the same. .’

But the woman was shaking her head in a resolute fashion.

‘So you’re all sticking together, looking after your own?’ Rebus’s tone had hardened. She frowned, took a step back and started to close the door on him.

‘Has Gregor given you his new number, by any chance?’

The click of the door as it locked was his only reply. ‘Nice speaking to you,’ he muttered, returning to Magrath’s cottage and hammering on the door.

The rain was falling again — huge sleety gobbets of the stuff, making slapping sounds as they hit his shoulders and back. He retreated to the Saab and sat there, waiting for the storm to pass. The sky was almost black, and he switched the wipers on. Hailstones now, bouncing off the surface of the road, coating it white. Rebus turned the engine on and put the car into reverse, backing seventy feet along the road until he was outside Kenny Magrath’s garden. Again, the house looked deserted. The upstairs blinds were closed and the octagonal conservatory had no lights on. The windscreen was steaming up, so he turned the fan to high and opened his window an inch. After a few minutes, the hail stopped. The sky remained leaden, but there wasn’t even rain, just a suffocating sense that a weight was being pressed down on the locality. Rebus sucked in lungfuls of air, and wiped sweat from his forehead and neck. He took a cigarette from the packet and realised his hands were trembling. He pressed them together, as if that might help. His heart was pounding, too.

‘Not yet,’ he said to his chest and the organs within. ‘Not just yet, eh?’

He drove up the lane and took a left towards Kenny Magrath’s front door. No van. The place definitely felt empty. Another short drive to the lock-up. Still no van. Maybe he worked Saturdays. Or he’d persuaded his wife they needed some time away — with brother Gregor in tow. A chance to check and recheck their stories. Hell, maybe they were just out shopping, a regular jaunt to Inverness or Dingwall. Photographs of both brothers had appeared in the media, but only for a day. They probably had little fear of being recognised outside their immediate community.

Rebus sat there drumming his fingers. He wondered what kind of weekend others were enjoying. Was Siobhan buying food, or off to watch Hibs? Was Daniel Cowan being measured for a suit for his new job? Did Gillian Dempsey have a family dinner planned, maybe with nephew Raymond on the guest list? Supermarkets would be thronged, cinemas preparing to entertain the masses. Lunchtime trade picking up in bars and restaurants, crosswords tackled, walking boots thrown into the backs of estate cars. Skiing and boating and golf. Swimming and indoor games. Kids with homework, adults with chores — queues at the car wash and petrol station. Everyone going about their business. Maybe the Edderton team had been granted enough of a budget to keep covering weekend shifts. But shifts comprising what, exactly? More interviews, paperwork and briefings? To no end other than a slightly swollen pay packet. .

‘What the hell are you doing, John?’ he asked himself. Returning to Gregor Magrath’s cottage, he wrote out a note and pinned it under one of the Land Rover’s windscreen wipers.

All it said was: This has to end .

As he headed home, he noticed that the roadworks to the north of Pitlochry seemed to have finished. It wasn’t just that no one was working — one of the Portakabins was being loaded on to a flatbed truck, and the Portaloos had already gone. He wondered what would happen to the men — did they have new projects waiting for them? A never-ending process of digging up and resurfacing?