Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“Does Cynthia inherit?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.” But she did know: Marber’s will left portions of his estate to various charities and friends — including Cynthia Bessant—and the residue to a sister and two nephews in Australia. The sister had been contacted but had said that it would be difficult for her to come to Scotland, leaving Marber’s solicitor and accountant to deal with everything. Siobhan was hoping they’d charge well for their services.

“I suppose Cyn deserves it more than most,” Mann was musing. “Sometimes Eddie treated her like his bloody servant.” He looked at Siobhan, then at Hynds. “I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but Eddie wasn’t the easiest friend anyone could have. The occasional tantrum or rudeness.”

“But people put up with it?” The question came from Hynds.

“Oh, he was charming, too, and he could be generous.”

“Mr. Mann,” Siobhan said, “did Mr. Marber have any close friends? Closer than Ms. Bessant, I mean.”

Mann’s eyes twinkled. “You mean lovers?”

Siobhan nodded slowly. This was what Mann had wanted to be asked. His whole body seemed to writhe with pleasure.

“Well, Eddie’s tastes . . .”

“I think we can guess at Mr. Marber’s proclivities,” Hynds interrupted, aiming for levity. Siobhan fixed him with a stare: No guesses, she wanted to hiss.

Mann was looking at Hynds too. He held his hands against his cheekbones. “My God,” he gasped, “you think Eddie was gay, don’t you?”

Hynds’s face sagged. “Well, wasn’t he?”

The art dealer forced a smile. “My dear, wouldn’t I have known if he was?”

Now Hynds looked to Siobhan.

“We got the impression from Ms. Bessant . . .”

“I don’t call her Madame Cyn for nothing,” Mann said. He’d stepped forward to straighten one of the paintings. “She was always good at protecting Eddie.”

“Protecting him from what?” Siobhan asked.

“From the world . . . from prying eyes . . .” He looked around, as though the gallery were filled with potential eavesdroppers, then leaned in towards Siobhan. “Rumor was, Eddie only liked short-term relationships. You know, with professional women.”

Hynds opened his mouth, ready with a question.

“I think,” Siobhan told him, “Mr. Mann means prostitutes.”

Mann started nodding, moistening the corners of his mouth with his tongue. The secret was out, and he couldn’t have been more thrilled . . .

“I’ll do it,” the Weasel said.

He was a small, gaunt man, always dressed just this side of ragged. On the street, he’d be taken for a transient, someone not worth bothering or bothering about. This was his skill. Chauffeured Jaguars took him around the city, doing Big Ger Cafferty’s work. But as soon as he stepped from them, he got in character again and became as conspicuous as a piece of litter.

Normally, he worked out of Cafferty’s cab-hire office, but Rebus knew they couldn’t meet there. He’d called from his mobile, asked to speak with the Weasel. “Just tell him it’s John from the warehouse.”

They’d arranged to meet on the towpath of the Union Canal, half a mile from the cab office. It was a route Rebus hadn’t taken in many a year. He could smell yeast from the local brewery. Birds were paddling in the canal’s oily water. Coots? Moorhens? He’d never been good with names.

“Ever do any ornithology?” he asked the Weasel.

“I was only in hospital once, appendicitis.”

“It means bird-watching,” Rebus said, though he suspected the Weasel knew this as well as he did, the two-short-planks routine part of his image, inviting the unwary to underestimate him.

“Oh aye,” he said now, nodding. Then: “Tell them I’ll do it.”

“I haven’t told you what they want.”

“I know what they want.”

Rebus looked at him. “Cafferty’ll have you killed.”

“If he can, yes, I don’t doubt it.”

“You and Aly must be pretty close.”

“His mum died when he was twelve. Shouldn’t happen to someone that young.” The way he was staring out over the narrow, debris-strewn stretch of water, he might have been a tourist in Venice. A bicycle came towards them along the path, the rider nodding a greeting as they made room for her to pass.

At twelve, Rebus’s own daughter had been living with her mother, the marriage over.

“I always did the best I could,” the Weasel was saying. There was no emotion in the voice, but Rebus didn’t think the man was acting any longer.

“Did you know he was dealing?”

“Course not. I’d have stopped him otherwise.”

“Bit hypocritical in the circs?”

“Fuck you, Rebus.”

“I mean, least you could have done was give him a job in the firm. Your boss has always got a vacancy for a pusher.”

“Aly doesn’t know about me and Mr. Cafferty,” the Weasel hissed.

“No?” Rebus smiled without humor. “Big Ger’s not going to be too happy, is he? Either way you’re shafted.” He nodded to himself. If the Weasel ratted out his boss, he was dead meat. But when Cafferty found out that his most trusted servant’s son had been dealing on his turf . . . well, the Weasel was a marked man either way. “I wouldn’t like to be there,” Rebus went on, lighting a cigarette. He crushed the empty packet and tossed it onto the ground, then toed it into the canal.

The Weasel looked at it, then crouched down and fished it out, slipping it still wet into a greasy coat pocket. “I always seem to be picking up other people’s shite,” he said.

Rebus knew what he meant: he meant Sammy in her wheelchair, the hit-and-run driver . . .

“I don’t owe you anything,” Rebus said quietly.

“Don’t fret, that’s not the way I work.”

Rebus stared at him. Whenever he’d met the Weasel in the past he’d seen . . . what exactly? Cafferty’s henchman, a piece of lowlife — someone who served a certain function in the big picture, fixed, unchanging. But now he was being offered glimpses of the father, the human being. Until today, he hadn’t even known the Weasel had a son. Now he knew the man had lost a wife, raised the kid himself through the difficult teenage years. In the distance, a pair of swans were busy preening themselves. There’d always been swans on the canal. Story was, the pollution kept killing them, and the brewery kept replacing them so no one would be any the wiser. They were only ever apparently changeless.

“Let’s go get a drink,” Rebus said.

The Diggers wasn’t really called the Diggers. Its given name was the Athletic Arms, but because of its proximity to a cemetery, the name had stuck. The place took pride in its beer, a polished brass advert for the nearby brewery. Initially, the barman had looked on the Weasel’s request as a joke, but when Rebus shrugged he went and filled the order anyway.

“Pint of Eighty and a Campari soda,” the barman said now, placing the drinks before them. The Campari sported a little paper umbrella and maraschino cherry.

“Trying to be funny, son?” the Weasel said, fishing both out and depositing them in the ashtray. A second later, the rescued cigarette packet joined them there.

They found a quiet corner and sat down. Rebus took two long gulps from his glass and licked foam from his top lip. “You’re really going to do it?”

“It’s family, Rebus. You’d do anything for your family, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Mind you, you put your own brother away, didn’t you?”

Rebus glanced towards him. “He put himself away.”

The Weasel just shrugged. “Whatever you say.” They concentrated on their drinks for half a minute, Rebus thinking of his brother Michael, who’d been a small-time dealer. He was clean now, had been for a while . . . The Weasel spoke first. “Aly’s been a bloody fool. Doesn’t mean I won’t stand by him.” He lowered his head, pinched the bridge of his nose. Rebus heard him mutter something that sounded like “Christ.” He remembered the way he’d felt when he’d seen his daughter Sammy in the hospital, hooked up to machines, her body broken like a puppet’s.