Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

“Come on!” he called, gesticulating. It was a twelve-year-old Ford with the exhaust practically hanging off. Rebus decided to memorize the license plate and make sure the bastard got some grief.

Still the car wasn’t budging.

Rebus undid his seat belt and got out, slammed shut his own door. Started walking towards the light-blue Ford. He was ninety percent of the way there when he suddenly thought: Trap! He looked around, but no one was coming up behind him. All the same, he stopped in his tracks, four feet from the driver’s door. The man was still sitting there, hands on the steering wheel. That was good. It meant he wasn’t carrying a weapon.

“Hey!” Rebus called. “Either move the car or let’s talk about it!”

The hands slid from the wheel. The door opened with a dry, grating clunk, the sound of unoiled hinges.

The man placed one foot on the road, eased himself halfway out of the car. “I want us to talk,” he said.

Rebus’s eyes widened. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.

This face . . . that voice . . .

This ghost.

“I can’t,” he managed to say. “I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes.”

“This’ll take ten,” the voice said. Rebus’s eyes were drawn to the mouth. There was new dental work there. Blackened teeth had been removed or polished.

The Diamond Dog was looking pretty good for a dead man.

“We can talk later,” Rebus pleaded.

Diamond shook his head, slid back into his car. He was reversing completely out of the parking spot. Rebus had to move aside so he wouldn’t be crushed between the Ford and his own Saab. A hand appeared from the window, motioning for him to follow.

Rebus glanced at his watch. Fuck!

Looked up and saw the Ford trundling forwards, moving away from him.

Ten minutes. He could afford ten minutes. He’d still be at the restaurant ahead of time . . .

Fuck!

Rebus got back behind the wheel of his own car and started following Dickie Diamond.

They drove only the distance of two or three streets. Diamond parked on a single yellow — safe enough this time of the evening. Rebus stopped directly behind him. Diamond was already out of the Ford. They were next to Bruntsfield Links, a wide grassy slope where golfers occasionally practiced their pitch ’n’ putt skills. Recently, students had taken to holding barbecues on the links, using cheap disposable kits. The tin trays left charred rectangular marks on the grass. Diamond was testing one of these rectangles with his foot. He was dressed well. Nothing expensive or showy, but not bargain-basement either.

“Who’s the lady?” he asked, his eyes running the length of Rebus’s suit.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Diamond met Rebus’s less-than-happy gaze. Then he gave a rueful smile and started walking down the slope. Rebus hesitated, then followed.

“What sort of game are you playing?” he asked.

“That’s the question I should be asking!”

“I thought I told you never to set foot here.”

“That was before I got wind of what’s been happening.” In the six years since they’d last met, Diamond’s face had grown even thinner, as had his hair. What remained of the latter was an unnatural depth of black. There were dark half-moons beneath the eyes, but no sign of excess weight or any lessening of the faculties.

“And what exactly has been happening?” Rebus asked.

“You’ve got people looking for me.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re going to find you . . . unless, of course, you come charging back into town.” Rebus paused. “Who told you? Was it Jenny Bell?”

Diamond shook his head. “She doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

“It was Malky then?” Rebus was guessing, but it hit home. Diamond revealed as much by saying nothing. Malky in the Bar Z, hovering near the table . . . “My advice,” Rebus continued, “is that you get back in your car and hightail it out of town. I meant it when I told you to stay away.”

“And I’ve been good as my word until now.” Diamond had started rolling himself a cigarette. “So why the sudden interest?”

“Coincidence, that’s all. I’m on a training course and they happened to pick out Rico Lomax as an exercise.”

“An exercise in what?” Diamond licked the edge of the paper. Rebus watched as he pulled a few stray strands of tobacco from the finished roll-up and put them back in the tin.

“They wanted us working a case, see how they could turn us back into team players.”

“A team player? You? ” Diamond chuckled and lit his cigarette. Rebus checked his watch.

“Look,” he said, “I’ve really —”

“I hope you’re leading them up the crow road, Rebus.” His voice had assumed an edge of menace.

“And what if I don’t?” Rebus said stubbornly.

“I’ve been away a long time. I miss the place. It’d be nice to come back . . .”

“I told you at the time . . .”

“I know, I know. But I was maybe too scared of you back then. I’m not so scared now.”

Rebus pointed a finger. “You were part of it. You come back here, somebody ’ll get you.”

“I’m not so sure. More I think about it, more I get the feeling it’s your arse I’ve been protecting all these years.”

“You want to walk into a police station, be my guest.”

Diamond examined the tip of his cigarette. “That’ll be for me to decide, not you.”

Rebus bared his teeth. “You little turd, I could have had you buried . . . remember that.”

“It’s Rico I remember. I think of him often. How about you?”

“ I didn’t kill Rico.”

“Then who did?” Diamond chuckled again. “We both know the score, Rebus.”

“And what about you, Dickie? Did you know Rico was giving your girlfriend one? Way she tells it, you were there at the time. Is that right? Maybe you’re the one who had the grudge, the one who wanted revenge.” Rebus nodded slowly. “That could be the way I’ll tell it in court. You whacked your old pal and did a runner.”

Diamond was shaking his head, chuckling once more. He looked around, slid the tobacco tin back into his jacket pocket.

Pulled out a snub-nosed revolver and aimed it at Rebus’s gut.

“I’m in the frame of mind to shoot you right now. Is that what you want?”

Rebus looked around them. No one within a hundred yards, dozens of tenement windows . . . “This is great, Dickie. Blending in with your surroundings and all that. Nobody notices people brandishing firearms in the middle of Edinburgh.”

“Maybe I don’t care anymore.”

“Maybe you don’t.” Rebus had his hands by his sides, bunched into fists. He was three feet or so from Diamond, but would he be quick enough . . . ?

“How long would I serve if I shot you? Twelve to fifteen, out in a bit less than that?”

“You wouldn’t serve ten minutes, Dickie. You’d be on a death sentence as soon as the prison gates shut behind you.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“People I know have long memories.”

“I want to come home, Rebus.” He looked around again. “I am home.”

“Fine . . . but put the gun away. You’ve proved your point.”

Diamond glanced down at the revolver. “Not even loaded,” he said.

Hearing which, Rebus swung at him, connecting with the hollow just beneath his breastbone. He grabbed Diamond’s gun hand and prized the revolver away. Sure enough, its chambers were empty. Diamond was down on his hands and knees, groaning. Rebus wiped his own prints off the gun with his handkerchief and dropped it onto the grass.

“You try that again,” Rebus was hissing, “and I’ll break every one of your fingers.”