Ian Rankin - Rather Be the Devil

‘Suspicions don’t make a case,’ Briggs said.

‘Sounds like you’ve had the benefit of the Procurator Fiscal’s wisdom. Hard to credit, I admit, but they don’t always know best.’ Rebus took another bite of biscuit. He had ended up at Fox’s desk, sitting on Fox’s chair, casting his eyes over Fox’s paperwork.

‘Alvin will blow a fuse if you’re here when he comes back.’

‘Nothing Big Ger likes more than a nice long chat,’ Rebus explained. ‘And as his lawyer is charging three figures per hour, he won’t be in a hurry either.’

‘Story is you know him almost too well.’

Rebus met Briggs’s gaze. ‘For the sake of my health, yes, that’s probably true.’

‘I’ve been checking his files. Seems this is the first time he’s used a hammer.’

Rebus considered this. ‘I think he may be regretting it. He walks past the shop and thinks, why not? He needs some thing. Kenny Arnott is twenty years younger than him and no pushover.’ He offered a shrug. ‘Besides which, a hammer and nails is old school — maybe he thought Arnott would appreciate that.’

‘ Appreciate it?’ Briggs sounded appalled.

‘It’s hard to explain.’ Rebus was about to anyway when Alvin James appeared in the doorway, his face like thunder.

‘I was just leaving,’ Rebus assured him.

‘He wants you. He won’t speak to me until after.’

‘That’s unfortunate.’

‘Yes it bloody well is. Five minutes, he says. Then we can get back to questioning him.’ James stabbed a finger towards Rebus’s chest. ‘You’re going to report back every word he utters, understood?’

‘Will you still be recording?’

James shook his head. ‘Five minutes,’ he repeated, spreading the fingers of one hand. ‘So don’t go getting too comfortable...’

Rebus knocked and entered the interview room, at which point Cafferty told Crawfurd Leach to stretch his legs.

‘I’m not sure that’s wise,’ the lawyer drawled.

‘Just fuck off, Crawfurd. Go try a proper shave or something.’

Cafferty watched his lawyer leave, closing the door softly after him. There was a beaker of tea in front of him, but nothing else. The tape recorder and camera had been turned off. Rebus sat down in what he presumed had been Alvin James’s seat, on the opposite side of the table. Cafferty was studying his surroundings as if considering an offer of tenancy.

‘We’ve been in a few of these down the years, eh, John?’

‘A few, yes.’

‘Craw tells me you roughed him up once — Johnny Bible case, wasn’t it?’

‘That was in Craigmillar, though.’

‘Different rules back then. But you know what?’ Cafferty puffed out his chest. ‘I feel like I’m getting my second wind.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because all those cards are landing just the way they should, and I’m so far ahead on points it’s almost embarrassing.’ He chuckled, fingers playing across the beaker.

‘Superintendent James has only given me five minutes,’ Rebus warned. ‘Is that enough time for you to make your full and frank confession?’

‘I just thought... we might not see one another again, ever , not in a place like this. Now that you’ve been pensioned off and everything. Is that cough of yours getting any better? Of course not. I seem to have this new lease of life, while everybody around me is falling apart.’

‘Some of them helped along by you.’ Rebus paused. ‘You’re not going to give them anything, are you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What about me, though?’

‘You?’

‘I think I deserve something.’

‘Is it your birthday again? I gave you Glushenko, isn’t that enough?’

‘You didn’t give me Glushenko — all you did was dangle a “Russian” in front of me. You’ve known about him all along, though, haven’t you? He’s the card you’ve had up your sleeve.’

‘You’re a piece of work, John. I’m sure I’ve told you that before. This lot don’t deserve you.’

‘They’re good cops.’

Cafferty snorted. ‘Not nearly good enough.’

‘You slipped up, you got identified.’

‘Was that really me, though? One shopkeeper in his seventies who wears glasses like the bottoms of milk bottles? You know yourself nobody’s going to trial on the weight of that.’

‘Have they asked for your clothes?’

‘I can give them clothes — they’ll look exactly like the ones I was dressed in yesterday.’

‘What did you do with the hammer? What did Arnott tell you?’

Cafferty gave a thin, almost rueful smile. ‘Glushenko’s close, John. He’s very close. And when he gets here... game over.’

The door swung outwards. Alvin James and Sean Glancey stood there, Leach’s head visible between their shoulders.

‘Time’s up,’ James stated briskly. Rebus was already on his feet.

‘He just wanted a walk down memory lane,’ he explained. ‘Five minutes of my life I’m not getting back.’

‘Off you jolly well fuck then,’ James told him, ‘and let the professionals have a go.’

Rebus left the room, glancing towards Cafferty as he went, but Cafferty’s eyes were on James, as he readied to continue the game.

Clarke and Fox arrived just in time to hear the news — a terraced house, its curtains closed but front door ajar, a single street away from the first reported sighting of Anthony Brough. A couple of uniforms had headed inside and were pretty confident. They were on the doorstep as Clarke and Fox approached. Clarke had her warrant card open.

‘DI Clarke,’ she said. ‘Give me what you have.’

‘Ground-floor bedroom, back of the house, next to the kitchen. Lock fitted to the outside of the door, but the padlock itself lying on the hall carpet. The room stinks. Window’s been boarded up, nailed shut. There’s a camp bed and a pail to piss in, bottle filled with what looks like water, but that’s about it.’

‘Pile of clothes just outside the door,’ his colleague added. ‘Suit, shirt, shoes.’

Clarke peered through the doorway. ‘Is it a squat, or what?’

‘There’s stuff in the kitchen, and a mattress upstairs with a sleeping bag on it, plus more clothes in a couple of bin bags.’

‘Toothbrush and razor in the bathroom,’ the first uniform said.

‘Anyone else been inside?’ Fox asked.

‘Just us.’

‘Touch anything?’

‘We know better than that.’ The constable’s face had tightened a little.

‘I want to know who lives here,’ Clarke said. A small crowd had gathered on the pavement, mostly kids on bikes. ‘Ask the neighbours either side. Then we can check for paperwork. Probably some bills in a drawer somewhere.’

‘Council will have a record of whoever’s coughing up the annual tax,’ Fox added.

Clarke studied the interior again before crossing the threshold. Fox didn’t look so sure.

‘Bedroom is the locus, Malcolm,’ she assured him. ‘Speaking of which...’ She took out her phone and tapped in the CSM’s number.

‘Siobhan,’ Haj Atwal said on answering. ‘Is this by way of another contribution to the coffers?’

She gave him the address. ‘It’s nothing too nasty — person held captive. But we need the locus given a once-over.’

‘Thirty minutes?’ he offered.

‘Someone will be here,’ Clarke said, ending the call. Then, to Fox: ‘Shall we?’

Fox followed her down the narrow hall. There was a tang of vomit in the air. They stopped at the bedroom door. The hook-and-eye fixings for the padlock looked cheap and flimsy, the padlock itself small and shiny.

‘As new,’ Fox commented.

Without stepping into the room itself, they could see that it was as the officer had described it. Nothing on the bare plaster walls. Plywood nailed across the entirety of the small window. Camp bed tipped on its side, a single blanket lying beneath it. Pail and water bottle. Some sick had dried to a crust on the threadbare carpet halfway between bed and pail. Fox had turned his attention to the bundled clothes near his feet. He nudged them with the toe of his shoe, dislodging a wallet from one of the suit jacket’s pockets. Taking a pen from his own pocket, he crouched down and flipped the wallet open. Credit and debit cards, driving licence. With his handkerchief covering his fingertips, he slid the driving licence out just far enough to determine that its owner was Anthony Brough.