Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“How do you reckon?”

“Wary men tend to change their routine, but here’s Rico, cool as you like, at his usual spot in his usual bar on the same night as always.”

There were nods of agreement. Their thinking had been: some gangland falling-out, an organized hit.

“We all spoke to our snitches at the time,” Francis Gray added. “A lot of pieces of silver crossed a good many undeserving palms. Result: zip.”

“Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a contract on him,” Allan Ward said.

“Still with us, Allan?” Gray said, sounding surprised. “Is it not time you were tucked up in bed with your teddy?”

“Tell me, Francis, do you buy your one-liners wholesale? Only they’re well past their sell-by.”

There was laughter at this, and a few fingers pointed at Gray, as if to say: The lad got you, Francis! He definitely got you!

Rebus watched Gray’s mouth twist itself into a smile so thin it could have graced a catwalk.

“I can see this is going to be a long night,” Jazz McCullough said, bringing them back to earth.

After a can of beer, Rebus excused himself to visit the toilet. It was at the end of the corridor and down a flight of stairs. As he left the room, he could hear Stu Sutherland repeating one of the earlier theories:

“Rico was freelance, right? As in not affiliated to any gang in particular. And one of the things he was good at, if the rumors are true, was getting the various soldiers off the battlefield when things got too hot . . .”

Rebus knew what Sutherland was talking about. If someone did a hit, or got into any other trouble which necessitated them getting out of town for a while, it was Rico’s job to find a safe haven. He had contacts everywhere: council flats, holiday homes, caravan sites. From Caithness to the border, the Western Isles to East Lothian. Caravans on the east coast were a specialty: Rico had cousins who ran half a dozen separate sites. Sutherland wanted to know who’d been hiding out at the time Rico had been hit. Could one of the safe houses have been breached, a visit with a baseball bat Rico’s punishment? Or had someone been trying to find out a location from him?

It wasn’t a bad notion. What troubled Rebus was how, six years on, they’d go about finding out. By the stairwell, he saw a shadowy figure heading down. Cleaner, he thought. But the cleaners had been round earlier. He started to descend, but then thought better of it. Walked the length of the opposite corridor: there was another set of stairs down at its end. Now he was on the ground floor. He walked on tiptoe back towards the central stairwell, keeping in against the wall. Pushed open the glass doors and surprised the figure who was skulking there.

“Evening, sir.”

DCI Archibald Tennant spun round. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Spying on us, sir?”

Rebus could see Tennant considering his options.

“I’d probably do the same thing,” Rebus said into the silence, “under the circumstances.”

Tennant tilted his head upwards. “How many are in there?”

“All of us.”

“McCullough’s not bunked off home?”

“Not tonight.”

“In that case, I am impressed.”

“Why don’t you join us, sir? Couple of cans of beer left . . .”

Tennant made a show of checking his watch, wrinkled his nose. “Time I was turning in,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t . . .”

“Mention bumping into you? Wouldn’t that be going against the team ethos, sir?” Beginning to smile, enjoying Tennant’s discomfort.

“Just this once, DI Rebus, maybe you could play the outsider.”

“Step out of character, you mean?”

This elicited a smile from the older man. “Tell you what, I’ll leave it to your judgment, shall I?” He turned and pushed his way out of the college’s main doors. The path outside was well lit, and Rebus watched him all the way, then stepped beneath the staircase, where the public telephones were.

His call was answered on the fifth ring. Rebus kept his eyes on the stairs, ready to hang up if anyone came down.

“It’s me,” he said into the receiver. “I need a meet.” He listened for a moment. “Sooner if you can manage it. What about this weekend? It’s nothing to do with you-know-what.” He paused. “Well, maybe it is. I don’t know.” He nodded as he learned that the weekend was out of the question. After listening to a few more words, Rebus hung up and pushed open the door to the toilets. Stood there at the sink, running the water. It was less than a minute before someone else came in. Allan Ward offered a grunt before making for one of the cubicles. Rebus heard the door lock, Ward loosen his trouser belt.

“Waste of time and brain cells,” Ward’s voice bounced off the ceiling. “Complete and utter waste of manpower.”

“I get the feeling DCI Tennant has failed to sway you?” Rebus called.

“Fucking waste of time.”

Taking this as a yes, Rebus left Ward to his business.

Friday morning, they were back on the Lomax case. Tennant had asked for a progress report. Several pairs of eyes had gone to Francis Gray, but Gray himself stared levelly at Rebus.

“John’s put in more hours than any of us,” he said. “Go on, John, tell the man what we’ve found.”

Rebus took a sip of coffee first, gathering his thoughts. “Mostly what we’ve got is conjecture, not much of it new. The feeling is, someone was waiting for the victim. They knew where he’d be, what time he’d be there. Thing is, that alley was used by the working girls, yet none of them saw anyone hanging around.”

“Not the world’s most reliable witnesses, are they?” Tennant interrupted.

Rebus looked at him. “They don’t always want to come forward, if that’s what you mean.”

Tennant shrugged by way of an answer. He was circling the table. Rebus wondered if he’d noticed that there were fewer hangovers this morning. Sure, some of them still looked like their faces had been drawn by kids armed with crayons, but Allan Ward had no need of his designer sunglasses, and Stu Sutherland’s eyes were dark ringed but not bloodshot.

“You think it’s a gang thing?” Tennant asked.

“That’s our favored explanation, same as it was with the original inquiry team.”

“But . . . ?” Tennant was facing Rebus from the other side of the table.

“But,” Rebus obliged, “there are problems. If it was a gang hit, how come no one seemed to know? The CID in Glasgow have their informers, but nobody’d heard anything. A wall of silence is one thing, but there’s usually a crack somewhere, sometime down the road.”

“And what do you glean from that?”

It was Rebus’s turn to shrug. “Nothing. It’s just a bit odd, that’s all.”

“What about Lomax’s friends and associates?”

“They make the Wild Bunch look like the Seven Dwarves.” There were a couple of snorts from the table. “Mr. Lomax’s widow, Fenella, was an early suspect. Rumor was, she’d been playing around behind hubby’s back. Couldn’t prove anything, and she wasn’t about to tell us.”

Francis Gray pulled his shoulders back. “She’s since hitched her wagon to Chib Kelly.”

“He sounds delightful,” Tennant said.

“Chib owns a couple of pubs in Govan, so he’s used to being behind bars.”

“Do I take it that’s where he is now?”

Gray nodded. “A wee stretch in Barlinnie: fencing stolen goods. His pubs do more business than most branches of Curry’s. Fenella won’t be pining — plenty men in Govan know what she likes for breakfast . . .”

Tennant nodded thoughtfully. “DI Barclay, you don’t look happy.”

Barclay folded his arms. “I’m fine, sir.”