Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“Been there since lunchtime, has it?” he asked Harry the barman.

“I wasn’t on at lunchtime. You want it or not?”

Rebus nodded. “And a packet of nuts.” There were times he wished the Ox did a bit more in the catering line. He remembered the previous owner, Willie Ross, dragging some hapless punter outside after the man had asked to see the menu, pointing up at the Oxford Bar sign and asking: “Does that say ‘Bar’ or ‘Restaurant’?” Rebus doubted the client had become a regular.

The Ox was quiet tonight. Murmurs of conversation from a couple of tables in the lounge, and only Rebus himself in the front bar. When the door creaked open, he didn’t bother turning to look.

“Get you one?” the voice beside him asked. It was Gill Templer. Rebus straightened up.

“My shout,” he said. She was already easing herself onto a bar stool, letting her shoulder bag slump to the floor. “What’ll it be?”

“I’m driving. Better make it a half of Deuchars.” She paused. “On second thought, a gin and tonic.” The TV was playing quietly, and her eyes drifted towards it. One of the Discovery Channel programs favored by Harry.

“What’re you watching?” Gill asked.

“Harry puts this stuff on to scare away the punters,” Rebus explained.

“That’s right,” Harry agreed. “Works with every bugger but this one.” He nodded in Rebus’s direction. Gill offered a tired smile.

“Bad one?” Rebus guessed.

“It’s not every day someone does a runner from the interview room.” She gave him a sly look. “I suppose you’re pleased enough?”

“How?”

“Anything that makes Linford look bad . . .”

“I hope I’m not that petty.”

“No?” She considered this. “Looks like he might be, though. Word’s going around that you and another of the Tulliallan crew had a punch-up in the car park.”

So Linford had been talking.

“Just thought I’d warn you,” she went on, “I think it’s already reached the ears of DCI Tennant.”

“You came looking for me to tell me?”

She shrugged.

“Thanks,” he said.

“I suppose I was also hoping to have a word . . .”

“Look, if it’s about the mug of tea . . .”

“Well, you did give it some welly, John, be honest.”

“If I’d pushed it off the desk with my pinkie, you’d hardly have had reason to send me into purdah.” Rebus paid for her drink, raised his own pint glass to her in a toast.

“Cheers,” she said, taking a long swallow and exhaling noisily.

“Better?” he asked.

“Better,” she confirmed.

He smiled. “And people wonder why we drink.”

“One’ll be enough for me, though — how about you?”

“Would you settle for a ballpark figure?”

“I’d settle for knowing how things are going at Tulliallan.”

“I’ve not made much headway.”

“Is that likely to change?”

“It might.” He paused. “If I take a few risks.”

She looked at him. “You’ll talk to Strathern first, won’t you?”

He nodded, but could see she wasn’t convinced.

“John . . .”

Same tone Siobhan had used earlier in the day. Listen to me . . . trust me . . .

He turned towards Gill. “You could always take a cab,” he told her.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning you could have another drink.”

She examined her glass. It was already mostly ice. “I could probably manage one more,” she conceded. “It’s my round anyway. What are you having?”

After the third gin and tonic, she confided to him that she had been seeing someone. It had lasted about nine months, then fizzled out.

“You kept that pretty quiet,” he said.

“There’s no way I was ever going to introduce him to you lot.” She was playing with her glass, watching the patterns it made on the bar. Harry had retreated to the other end of the small room. Another regular had arrived, and the two of them were talking football.

“How are things with Jean and you?” Gill asked.

“We had a bit of a misunderstanding,” Rebus admitted.

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Want me to act as peacemaker?”

He looked at her and shook his head. Jean was Gill’s friend; Gill had introduced them to one another. He didn’t want her feeling awkward about it. “Thanks anyway,” he said. “We’ll sort it out.”

She glanced at her watch. “I better get going.” Slid off the stool and collected her shoulder bag. “This place isn’t so bad,” she decided, studying the bar’s faded decor. “I might grab something to eat. Have you had dinner?”

“Yes,” he lied, feeling that a meal with Gill would be a betrayal of sorts. “I hope you’re not going to drive in that condition,” he called as she made for the door.

“I’ll see how I feel when I get outside.”

“Think how much worse tomorrow will be if you’re charged with drunk driving!”

She waved a hand and was gone. Rebus stayed for one more. Her perfume lingered. He could smell it on the sleeve of his jacket. He wondered if he should have sent Jean perfume instead of flowers, then realized he didn’t know what kind she liked. Scanning the gantry, he guessed that when pushed he could reel off the names of over two dozen malts, straight from memory.

Two dozen malts, and he’d no idea what perfume Jean Burchill used.

As he pushed open the main door to his tenement, he saw a shadow on the stairwell: someone descending. Maybe one of the neighbors, but Rebus didn’t think so. He looked behind him, but there was no one on the street. Not an ambush then. The feet came into view first, then the legs and body.

“What are you doing here?” Rebus hissed.

“Heard you were looking for me,” the Weasel replied. He was at the bottom of the stairs now. “I wanted a bit of a chat anyway.”

“Did you bring anyone with you?”

The Weasel shook his head. “This isn’t the sort of meeting the boss would approve of.”

Rebus looked around again. He didn’t want the Weasel in his flat. A bar would be okay, but any more drink and his brain would start clouding. “Come on then,” he said, passing the Weasel and making for the back door. He unlocked it and dragged it open. The tenement’s shared garden wasn’t much used. There was a drying green, the grass almost a foot long, surrounded by narrow borders where only the hardiest plants survived. When Rebus and his wife had first moved in, Rhona had replaced the weeds with seedlings. Hard to tell now if any of them still thrived. Wrought-iron railings separated the garden from its neighbors, all the gardens enclosed by a rectangle of tall tenement buildings. There were lights on in most of the windows: kitchens and bedrooms, stair landings. The place was well enough lit for this meeting.

“What’s up?” Rebus asked, fishing for a cigarette.

The Weasel had stooped to pick up an empty beer can, which he crushed and dropped into his coat pocket. “Aly’s doing okay.”

Rebus nodded. He had almost forgotten the Weasel’s son. “You took my advice?”

“They’ve not let him off the hook yet, but my solicitor says we’re in with a shout.”

“Have they charged him?”

The Weasel nodded. “But only with possession: the spliff he was smoking when they picked him up.”

Rebus nodded. Claverhouse was playing this one cautiously.

“Thing is,” the Weasel said, crouching by the nearest flower border, picking up empty crisp bags and sweet wrappers, “I think my boss might have got wind of it.”

“Of Aly?”

“Not Aly exactly . . . the dope, I was meaning.”

Rebus lit his cigarette. He was thinking about Cafferty’s network of eyes and ears. It only needed the technician from the police lab to tell a colleague back at base, and that colleague to tell a friend . . . There was no way Claverhouse was going to keep the haul under wraps forever. All the same . . .