Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

The only person who might know . . . who might have access . . . was the Weasel. But the Weasel was no snitch — he’d said it himself. And he’d also confided that Cafferty and him were not as close as had once been the case.

There was, quite simply, no way for Rebus to know . . .

And that sense of impotence had boiled up within him, finally gushing out when Cafferty had mentioned Jean.

The bastard had played his trump card, knowing the effect it would have. The feeling I get that you’d actually enjoy it . . . a bit of domination . . .

“Gill wants to bring in Malcolm Neilson,” Siobhan was saying.

Rebus raised an eyebrow. “We’re charging him?”

“Looks like.”

“In which case, Cafferty’s off the hook?”

“Not until we cut the line. Problem is, if we do that we might lose a man overboard.”

Rebus smiled. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “Go read Moby-Dick some time.”

“I don’t really see myself as Captain Ahab. He was Gregory Peck in the film, wasn’t he?”

Siobhan started shaking her head, eyes never leaving his. Rebus didn’t think she was disagreeing with the casting . . .

There was a noise in the corridor, then a knock at the door. Not Gill Templer this time, but a grinning Tam Barclay.

“Hynds said we’d find you here,” he told Rebus. “Want to come and take a look at what we found down in Leith?”

“I don’t know,” Rebus said. “Is it contagious?” But he allowed himself to be taken out of the room, past Ward and Sutherland, who were sharing a joke in the corridor, and into IR1, where Jazz McCullough and Francis Gray were standing, almost like zoologists studying some new and exotic creature in their midst.

The creature in question was supping tea from a Styrofoam cup. Its eyes never met Rebus’s, though by no means was it unaware of his sudden presence in the cramped room.

“Can you believe it?” Gray said, slapping his hands together. “First stop is the Bar Z, and who should we meet coming out as we’re going in?”

Rebus already knew the answer to that. It was seated not four feet from him. He’d known the answer from the moment Barclay had put his head round the door.

Richard Diamond, aka the Diamond Dog . . .

“Just to finish the introductions,” Barclay told Diamond, “this is DI Rebus. You might remember him as your arresting officer once upon a time.”

Diamond stared straight ahead. Rebus glanced in Gray’s direction. All Gray did was wink, as if to say Rebus’s secret was safe with him.

“We were just about to ask Mr. Diamond a few questions,” Jazz McCullough said, taking the seat opposite his prey. “Maybe we could start with the break-in and rape at a manse in Murrayfield . . .”

This got a reaction from Diamond. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It coincided with your disappearance, Mr. Diamond.”

“Did it bollocks.”

“Then why did you disappear? Funny that you pop up again just when we’ve started looking for you . . .”

“Man’s got a right to go where he wants,” Diamond said defiantly.

“Only if he has a good reason,” Jazz argued. “We’re curious as to what yours was.”

“What if I say it’s none of your business?” Diamond folded his arms.

“Then you’d be mistaken. We’re investigating the murder of your good friend Rico Lomax, over in Glasgow. CID came looking for you at the time, and suddenly nobody could find you. It wouldn’t take a conspiracy theorist to see a connection.”

The rest of the team had squeezed into the room, leaving the door open. Diamond looked around him, eyes failing to meet Rebus’s. “This is all getting a bit cozy, isn’t it?” he commented.

“Sooner you tell us, sooner you’ll be on your way back to anonymity.”

“Tell you what exactly?”

“Everything,” Francis Gray growled. “You and your good pal Rico . . . the caravan sites . . . the night he got whacked . . . his wife and Chib Kelly . . .” Gray opened his arms expansively. “Start wherever you like.”

“I don’t know who killed Rico.”

“Got to do better than that, Dickie,” Gray said. “He got hit . . . you ran.”

“I was scared.”

“Don’t blame you. Whoever wanted Rico out of the way might have been after you next.” He paused. “Am I right?”

Diamond nodded slowly.

“So who was it?”

“I’ve told you: I don’t know.”

“But you were scared anyway? Scared enough to leave town all this time?”

Diamond unfolded his arms, clasped his hands over his head. “Rico had made a few enemies down the years. Could have been any one of them.”

“What?” Jazz looked dismissive. “Don’t tell me they all had it in for you too?”

Diamond shrugged, said nothing. There was silence in the room until Gray broke it.

“John, you got anything you want to ask Mr. Diamond?”

Rebus nodded. “Do you think Chib Kelly could have been behind the killing?”

Diamond looked like he was thinking this over. “Could be,” he said at last.

“Any way of proving it?” Stu Sutherland broke in.

Diamond shook his head. “That’s your job, lads.”

“If Rico really was your friend,” Barclay said, “you’d want to help us.”

“What’s the point? It was a long time ago.”

“Point is,” Allan Ward answered, not wanting to be left out, “the killer’s still out there somewhere.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Diamond replied. He brought his hands down from his head. “Like I say, I don’t think I can help you.”

“What about the caravans?” Jazz asked. “Did you know one of them got torched?”

“If I did, I’d forgotten it.”

“You used to go out there, didn’t you?” Jazz continued. “You and your girlfriend Jenny. A bit of a ménage à trois going on there, way she tells it.”

“That what she told you?” Diamond seemed amused.

“You’re saying she’s lying? See, we were starting to wonder if there mightn’t have been some jealousy there . . . you being jealous of Rico? Or maybe Rico’s wife found out he was playing away from home . . . ?”

“I can see you’ve got an active fantasy life,” Diamond told Jazz. Francis Gray seemed to have heard enough.

“Do me a favor, will you, Stu — shut that door.”

Sutherland complied. Gray was standing behind Diamond’s chair. He leaned down and brought one arm around until he was fixing Diamond to the chair by his chest. Then he tilted the chair back, so their faces weren’t more than three inches apart. Diamond struggled, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Allan Ward had taken hold of him by both wrists, pressing them against the tabletop.

“Something we forgot to say,” Gray hissed at the prisoner. “Reason they put us on this case is, we’re the lowest of the low, the absolute fucking zero as far as the Scottish police force goes. We’re here because we don’t care. We don’t care about you, we don’t care about them. We could kick your teeth down your throat, and when they came to tell us off, we’d be laughing and slapping our thighs. Time was, buggers like you could end up inside one of the support pillars for the Kingston Bridge. See what I’m saying?” Diamond was still struggling. Gray’s arm had slid upwards, and was now around his throat, the crook of the elbow crushing his larynx.

“He’s turning beet red,” Tam Barclay said nervously.

“I don’t care if he’s turning fucking blue,” Gray retorted. “If he gets an aneurysm, the drinks are on me. All I want to hear from this slimy, watery trail of shite is something approximating the truth. What about it, Mr. Richard Diamond?”