Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“Which is why you’re here in the first place,” Tennant reminded him. He prodded the file with a finger. “This guy never turned up again?”

Rebus shrugged.

“And did a runner just before the Glasgow CID could come calling?”

Rebus shrugged again.

“Did a runner or got himself disappeared,” Allan Ward said.

“You still here, Allan?” Gray said. Rebus studied both men. There didn’t seem to be much love lost. He wondered if Allan Ward was ripe to rat out his fellow conspirators. He doubted it. On the other hand, of the three supposed miscreants, he was definitely the wettest behind the ears . . .

“Allan’s right,” Tam Barclay said. “Diamond could have got himself killed. But whichever it was, it looks likely that he knew something . . . or was scared someone would think he did.”

Rebus had to concede, Barclay had taken his brainy pills this morning. Tennant was prodding the file again.

“This is just deadwood. It doesn’t tell us anything about what’s happened to Diamond in the years since.”

“We could circulate his description, see if he’s turned up on another force’s turf.” The suggestion came from Jazz McCullough.

“Good thinking,” Tennant conceded.

“The one thing this file does tell us, though,” Francis Gray said, “is who Dickie Diamond hung around with. Someone like him goes walkies, there’s always someone who knows. Back then, they may not have wanted to say anything, but time’s passed . . .”

“You want to talk to his accomplices?” Tennant said.

“Can’t do any harm. Years go by, stories start to get told . . .”

“We could ask Lothian and Borders to —”

Stu Sutherland’s suggestion was cut short by Gray. “I believe our friends in the east are a bit tied up.” He glanced towards Rebus. “Isn’t that right, John?”

Rebus nodded. “The Marber inquiry’s on the go.”

“Pretty high-profile, too,” Gray added. “Which turned out not to be John’s cup of tea.”

There were smiles at this. Gray had come around the table so that he could lock eyes with Tennant.

“So what do you reckon, sir? Is it worth a day or two in Auld Reekie? It has to be your call in the end, not ours.” He opened his arms and gave a shrug.

“Maybe a couple of half days,” Tennant agreed at last. “Now what else have we got to go on . . . ?”

As it turned out, they did have something else by the end of that day’s play. But first, there were classes to attend. The canteen was noisy at lunchtime, everyone relieved that the top brass had come and gone. Tennant seemed strangely subdued, and Rebus wondered if secretly he’d wanted them to come to watch his “show.” It had crossed Rebus’s mind that Tennant had to be in on it. Much easier to smooth Rebus’s way into the course as a latecomer if the chief constables had someone on the inside. Then there was that niggling doubt about the “coincidence” that their unsolved case just happened to be one Rebus had worked . . .

One Francis Gray had worked, too.

Gray as a mole, sent in by Strathern. . . ? Rebus couldn’t get thoughts of the double bluff out of his head. The lasagna on his plate had flattened itself out, a swirl of yellow and red, rimmed with orange grease. The more he stared at it, the more the colors seemed to blur.

“Lost your appetite?” Allan Ward asked.

“You want it?” Rebus replied. But Ward shook his head.

“Frankly, it looks like afterbirth.”

As the description took effect, Allan Ward smirked from behind a forkful of ham.

Straight after lunch, some of the probationers took to one of the football pitches. Others took a stroll around the grounds. But up in Crime Management, the Wild Bunch were being taught how to put together a Manual of Murder Investigation, the MMI being, in the words of their tutor, “the bible of a good, tight inquiry.” It had to detail avenues taken and procedures followed. It showed that the investigating team had done their utmost.

To Rebus, it was paperwork.

And it was followed by Forensic Entomology, at the end of which they streamed out of the classroom.

“Gives me butterflies just thinking of it,” Tam Barclay said, referring to some of the slides they’d been shown. Then he winked and smiled. Down in the break-out area, they sprawled on the sofas, rubbing their foreheads, eyes squeezed shut. Rebus and Ward headed down a farther flight and outside for a ciggie.

“Does your head in, that stuff,” Ward said, nodding thanks as Rebus produced a lighter.

“Certainly makes you think,” Rebus agreed. They’d been shown close-ups of putrefying corpses and the bugs and insects found on them. They’d been told how maggots could help pinpoint time of death. They’d been shown floaters and bloaters and human forms reduced to something more akin to melted raspberry ripple.

Rebus thought of his uneaten lasagna and took another drag on his cigarette.

“Thing is, Allan, we let a lot of shite get in the way. We get cynical and maybe even a bit lazy. All we can see are brass breathing down our necks and another load of paperwork to be completed. We forget what the job’s supposed to be about.” Rebus looked at the younger man. “What do you think?”

“It’s a job, John. I joined because no other profession would have me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

Ward thought about it, then flicked ash into the air. “Ach, maybe not. It feels that way sometimes, though.”

Rebus nodded. “You seem to have Francis on your back a lot of the time.”

When Ward looked up sharply, Rebus wondered if he’d introduced the subject too rapidly. But Ward just gave a wry smile.

“That stuff’s like water off a duck’s back.”

“You two know one another?”

“Not really.”

“It’s just that I’m not sure Francis would try it with everyone . . .”

Ward wagged a finger. “You’re not so daft, are you? We did work one case. I mean, we weren’t close or anything.”

“Understood. But you’re not complete strangers, so he feels he can rag you a bit, right?”

“Right.”

Rebus took another draw on the cigarette, then exhaled. He was staring into the distance, as though maybe there was something of interest to him in the football match. “What was the case?” he asked, finally.

“Some Glasgow drug dealer . . . gangster sort of thing.”

“Glasgow?”

“This guy had tentacles everywhere.”

“Even as far south as your patch?”

“Oh, aye. Stranraer, you know — gateway to and from Ireland. Guns, drugs and cash bouncing backwards and forwards like a Ping-Pong ball.”

“What was the guy’s name? Would I know him?”

“Not now you wouldn’t. He’s dead.” Rebus watched for some sign from Ward — a pause, or a hooding of the eyes. But there was nothing. “Name was Bernie Johns.”

Rebus made a show of running the name through his memory. “Died in jail?” he offered.

Ward nodded. “Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bloke.”

“We’ve got one just like him in Edinburgh.”

“Cafferty?” Ward guessed. “Yeah, I’ve heard of that bastard. Didn’t you help put him away?”

“Problem was, they didn’t keep him there.” Rebus squashed the remains of his cigarette underfoot. “So you don’t mind the ribbing Francis is giving you?”

“Don’t you worry about me, John,” Ward said, patting him on the shoulder. “Francis Gray will know when he’s crossed the line . . . I’ll make sure of that.” He made to turn away, but stopped. Rebus felt a tingling in his shoulder from where he’d been touched. “You going to show us a good time in Edinburgh, John?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”