Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“Hello?”

In his ear, he heard the hum of the open line. He caught her eye and shrugged. “Must have got fed up,” he said.

She took the receiver from him, listened for herself, then dropped it back into its cradle.

“Who did they say they were?” Rebus asked.

“They didn’t.”

“Was it an external call?”

She shrugged.

“So what exactly did they say?”

“Just that they wanted to talk to DI Rebus. I said you were along the corridor, and they asked if . . . no . . .” She shook her head, concentrating. “I offered to get you.”

“And they didn’t give a name?” Rebus had settled into the chair behind the desk — her chair.

“I’m not an answering machine!”

Rebus smiled. “I’m just teasing. Whoever it was, they’ll call back.” At which point the phone rang again. Rebus held his hand out, palm facing her. “Just like that,” he said. He reached for the receiver, but she got to it first, her look telling him that this was still her office.

“Andrea Thomson,” she said into the phone. “Career Analysis.” Then she listened for a moment, before conceding that the call was for him.

Rebus took the receiver. “DI Rebus,” he said.

“I had a careers adviser at school,” the voice said. “He dashed all my dreams.”

Rebus had placed the voice. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “You weren’t tough enough to make it as a ballet dancer?”

“I could dance all over you, my friend.”

“Promises, promises. What the hell are you doing spoiling my holiday, Claverhouse?” Andrea Thomson raised an eyebrow at the word “holiday.” Rebus responded with a wink. Deprived of her chair, she’d slid one buttock up onto the desk.

“I heard you’d offered your chief super a cuppa.”

“And you called for a quick gloat?”

“Not a bit of it. Much though it pains me to say it, we just might require your services.”

Rebus stood up slowly, taking the phone with him. “Is this a windup?”

“I wish it was.”

Seeing her chance, Andrea Thomson had reclaimed her empty chair. Rebus walked around her, still holding the phone in one hand, receiver in the other.

“I’m stuck out here,” he said. “I don’t see how I can . . .”

“Might help if we tell you what we want.”

“We?”

“Me and Ormiston. I’m calling from the car.”

“And where’s the car exactly?”

“Visitors’ car park. So get your raggedy arse down here pronto.”

Claverhouse and Ormiston had worked in the past for the Scottish Crime Squad, Number 2 Branch, based at the Big House — otherwise known as Lothian and Borders Police HQ. The SCS dealt with big cases: drug dealing, conspiracies and cover-ups, crimes at the highest level. Rebus knew both men of old. Only now the SCS had been swallowed up by the Drug Enforcement Agency, taking Claverhouse and Ormiston with it. They were in the car park all right, and easily identified: Ormiston in the driver’s seat of an old black taxicab, Claverhouse playing passenger in the back. Rebus got in beside him.

“What the hell’s this?”

“Great for undercover work,” Claverhouse said, patting the doorframe. “Nobody bats an eye at a black cab.”

“They do when it’s in the middle of the bloody countryside.”

Claverhouse conceded as much with a slight angling of his head. “But then we’re not on surveillance, are we?”

Rebus had to agree that he had a point. He lit himself a cigarette, ignoring the NO SMOKING signs and Ormiston’s willful winding down of the front windows. Claverhouse had recently been promoted to detective inspector, and Ormiston detective sergeant. They made for an odd pairing — Claverhouse tall and thin, almost skeletal, his figure accentuated by jackets which he usually kept buttoned; Ormiston shorter and stockier, oily black hair ending almost in ringlets, giving him the appearance of a Roman emperor. Claverhouse did most of the talking, reducing Ormiston to a role of brooding menace.

But Claverhouse was the one to watch.

“How’s Tulliallan treating you, John?” he asked now. The use of his first name seemed portentous to Rebus.

“It’s fine.” Rebus slid his own window down, flicked out some ash.

“Which other bad boys have they cornered this time round?”

“Stu Sutherland and Tam Barclay . . . Jazz McCullough . . . Francis Gray . . .”

“That’s about as motley as a crew could come.”

“I seem to fit right in.”

“There’s a surprise,” Ormiston snorted.

“No tip for you, driver,” Rebus said, flicking his nails against the Plexiglas screen which separated him from Ormiston.

“Speaking of which,” Claverhouse said. It was a signal. Ormiston turned the ignition, crunched into first gear and started off.

Rebus turned to Claverhouse. “Where are we going?”

“We’re just having a chat, that’s all.”

“I’ll get detention for this.”

Claverhouse smiled. “I’ve had a word with your headmaster. He said it would be okay.” He leaned back in the seat. The cab clanked and rattled, doors juddering. Rebus could feel each spring beneath the frayed leather seat cover.

“I hope you’ve got breakdown insurance,” Rebus complained.

“I’m always covered, John, you know that.” They were leaving the college grounds, turning left towards the Kincardine Bridge. Claverhouse turned to face the window, taking in the view. “It’s about your friend Cafferty,” he said.

Rebus bristled. “He’s not my friend.”

Claverhouse had spotted a thread on the leg of his trousers. He picked it up now, as though it were more pertinent than Rebus’s denial. “Actually, it’s not Big Ger so much as his chief of staff.”

Rebus frowned. “The Weasel?” He caught Ormiston watching him in the rearview, thought he could make out a certain reticence, mixed with excitement. The pair of them believed they were onto something. Whatever it was, they needed Rebus’s help but weren’t sure they could trust him. Rebus himself knew the rumors: that he was too close to Cafferty, that they were too much alike in so many ways.

“The Weasel never seems to put a foot wrong,” Claverhouse continued. “When Cafferty went away, that should have been the end of him in Edinburgh.”

Rebus nodded slowly: during Cafferty’s time in jail, the Weasel had kept his city warm for him.

“Just wondering,” Claverhouse mused, “if, with Cafferty back behind the wheel, our friend the Weasel maybe feels a bit aggrieved. From driver’s seat to backseat, so to speak.”

“Some people prefer to be chauffeured. You won’t get to Cafferty through the Weasel.”

Ormiston noisily cleared his nostrils, the sound of a snuffling bull. “Maybe aye, maybe no,” he said.

Claverhouse didn’t say anything, just held his body very still. Even so, his partner seemed to get the message. Rebus doubted he’d hear another word from Ormiston until Claverhouse gave the nod.

“Can’t be done,” Rebus felt it necessary to stress.

Now Claverhouse turned his head and fixed him with a stare. “We’ve got some leverage. The Weasel’s son’s been a bit naughty.”

“I didn’t even know he had one.”

Claverhouse blinked slowly in lieu of nodding: it took less energy. “His name’s Aly.”

“What’s he done?”

“Started a little business of his own: Morningside speed predominantly, but also a bit of Billy Whizz and wacky baccy.”

“You’ve charged him?” Rebus asked. They’d left the bridge far behind and were on the M9, heading east. The oil refinery at Grangemouth would be off to their left in the next few minutes.

“That depends,” Claverhouse was saying by way of an answer.