Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“If you did have anything to do with the Rico case . . .”

“I’m not saying I did,” Rebus qualified. “I’m saying I knew Dickie Diamond.”

Gray accepted the point. “All the same, doesn’t it strike you as quite a coincidence that we’ve ended up working that exact same case?”

“Except that we haven’t: it’s Rico Lomax we’re investigating, not Dickie Diamond.”

“And there’s no connection between the two?”

“I don’t remember going quite that far,” Rebus said.

Gray looked at him and laughed, shaking his head slowly. “You think the brass have got an inkling and are out to get you?”

“What do you think?”

Rebus was pleased and disturbed that Gray’s mind was taking him down this road. Pleased because it deflected Gray’s thoughts from another coincidence: namely, that of him, Jazz and Ward being thrown together into Tulliallan, with Rebus a late and sudden recruit. Disturbed because Rebus himself was wondering about the Lomax case, too, and whether Strathern had some agenda that he was keeping to himself.

“I was talking to a couple of guys who’ve been on our course before,” Gray said. “Know what they told me?”

“What?”

“Tennant always uses the same case. Not an unsolved: a murder that happened in Rosyth a few years back. They got the guy. That’s the case he always uses for his syndicates.”

“But not for us,” Rebus stated.

Gray nodded. “Makes you think, eh? A case both you and I worked . . . what’re the chances?”

“Think we should ask him?”

“I doubt he’d tell us. But it does make you wonder, doesn’t it?” He came up close to Rebus. “How far do you trust me, John?”

“Hard to tell.”

“Should I trust you? ”

“Probably not. Everyone will tell you what an arse I can be.”

Gray smiled for effect, but his eyes remained bright, calculating orbs. “Are you going to tell me what it was you couldn’t tell Jazz?”

“There’s a price attached.”

“And what’s that?”

“I want the tour first.”

Gray seemed to think he was joking, but then he started nodding slowly. “Okay,” he said. “You’ve got a deal.”

They walked back to the car, where someone had attached a parking ticket to Gray’s windshield. He tore it off.

“Merciless bastards!” he growled, looking around for the culprit. There was no one in view. The DOCTOR ON CALL badge was still visible on the dashboard. “That’s Glasgow for you, eh?” Gray said, unlocking the car and getting in. “A city full of Prods and Tims, each and every one of them a callous, godless bastard.”

It wasn’t what you’d call the city’s tourist route. Govan, Cardonald, Pollok and Nitshill . . . Dalmarnock, Bridgeton, Dennistoun . . . Possilpark and Milton . . . There was an almost hypnotic sameness to a lot of the streets. Rebus let his eyes drift out of focus. Tenement walls, playgrounds, corner shops. Kids watchful but bored. Now and then Gray would relate some story or incident — no doubt with embellishments collected over the years of telling. He provided thumbnail sketches of villains and heroes, hard men and their women. In Bridgeton, they passed the grounds of Celtic FC: Parkhead to civilians like Rebus; Paradise to the club’s supporters.

“This’ll be the Catholic end of town then,” Rebus commented. He knew that the Rangers stadium — Ibrox — was practically next door to Govan, where Gray was stationed. So he added: “And you’ll be a bluenose?”

“I support Rangers,” Gray agreed. “Have done all my life. Are you a Hearts man?”

“I’m not really anything.”

Gray looked at him. “You must be something.”

“I don’t go to games.”

“What about when you watch on TV?” Rebus just shrugged. “I mean, there’s only two teams playing at any one time . . . you must take sides? ”

“Not really.”

“Say it was Rangers against Celtic . . .” Gray was growing annoyed. “You’re a Protestant, right?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well, Christ’s sake, man, you’d be on Rangers’ side, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know, they’ve never asked me to play.”

Gray let out a snort of frustration.

“See,” Rebus went on, “I didn’t realize it was meant to be religious warfare . . .”

“Fuck off, John.” Gray concentrated on his driving.

Rebus laughed. “At least I know now how to wind you up.”

“Just don’t wind the mechanism too tight,” Gray cautioned. He saw a sign for the M8. “Time to head back yet, or do you want to stop somewhere?”

“Let’s go back into town and find a pub.”

“Finding a pub should present no major difficulties,” Gray said, indicating right.

They ended up in the Horseshoe Bar. It was central and crowded with people who took their drinking seriously, the kind of place where no one looked askance at a tea-stained shirt, so long as the wearer had about him the price of his drink. Rebus knew immediately that it would be a place of rules and rituals, a place where regulars would know from the moment they walked through the door that their drink of preference was already being poured for them. It had gone twelve, and the fixed-price lunch of soup, pie and beans, and ice cream was doing a roaring trade. Rebus noticed that a drink was included in the price.

They each opted for pie and beans — no starters or dessert. There was a corner table just emptying, so they claimed it. Two pints of IPA: as Gray had argued, they could manage one pint apiece, surely.

“Cheers,” Rebus said. “And thanks for the tour.”

“Were you impressed?”

“I saw places I’d never been before. Glasgow’s a maze.”

“Jungle would be a better description.”

“You like working here, though.”

“I can’t imaging living anywhere else.”

“Not even when you retire?”

“Not really.” Gray took a mouthful of beer.

“You’ll be on full pension, I suppose.”

“Not long now.”

“I’ve thought about retiring,” Rebus confessed, “but I’m not sure what I’d do with myself.”

“They’ll turf you out one day.”

Rebus nodded. “I suppose they will.” He paused. “That’s why I’ve been thinking of supplementing my pension.”

Gray knew they were at long last coming to the point. “And how will you do that?”

“Not on my own.” Rebus looked around, as though someone in the noisy bar might be listening in. “Could be I’ll need some help.”

“Help to do what?”

“Knock off a couple of hundred grand’s worth of drugs.” There, it was out. The single, mad bloody scheme he could think of . . . something to snare the trio and maybe even maneuver them away from Rico Lomax . . .

Gray stared at him, then burst out laughing. Rebus’s face didn’t change. “Jesus, you’re serious,” Gray eventually said.

“I think it can be done.”

“You must have put your arse on backwards this morning, John: you’re supposed to be one of the good guys.”

“I’m one of the Wild Bunch, too.”

The smile had left Gray’s face by degrees. He stayed quiet, sipped at his drink. Their food arrived, and Rebus squirted brown sauce onto his piecrust.

“Christ, John,” Gray said. Rebus didn’t answer. He wanted to give Gray time. After he’d demolished half the pie, he put down his fork.

“You remember I got called out of class?” Gray nodded, not about to interrupt. “There were these two SDEA men downstairs. They took me back into Edinburgh. There was something they wanted to show me: a drug bust. They’ve got it tucked away in a warehouse. Thing is, they’re the only ones who know about it.”