Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

She also got the feeling Dempsey lived alone. No other cars outside the bungalow, and no garage . . . Hadn’t Dempsey said something about owning other MGs, about having them stored in her garage? Well, wherever that garage was, it wasn’t here. Always supposing the cars existed at all. Why would she have lied? To impress her visitor . . . to stress that the name of her company was down to her passion for the sports cars which bore that brand . . . There could be multiple reasons. People lied to police officers all the time.

If they had something to hide . . . If they were talking for the sheer sake of talking, because as long as they were talking, they weren’t being asked any awkward questions. Dempsey had sounded confident enough, calm and collected, but that could have been all front.

What could she be hiding, this woman who hid herself away from the world? She drove a car that wanted you to look at it . . . wanted you to admire the shiny surface, the promise of performance. But here was this other side to its owner: the woman who dressed immaculately only to spend her days alone in an office, enduring only a little physical contact with the outside world. Her employees called her “Mrs.” . . . she didn’t let them get too close, didn’t want them to think she was single, available. And when she came home it was to this quiet haven, to a house hidden behind walls and a hedge.

There was a whole side to Ellen Dempsey which she kept away from the world. Siobhan wondered what it might consist of. Would she find any answers in Dundee? Dempsey had friends, people even Cafferty was wary of. Was she fronting for some Dundee villains? Where had the money come from to kick-start her business? A fleet of cars didn’t exactly come cheap, and it was a bit of a step up from “a couple of taxis in Dundee” to the operation she now ran at Lochend. A woman with a past . . . a woman who could spot CID and gave work to ex-cons . . .

Ellen Dempsey didn’t just have a past, Siobhan realized. She had a police record of her own. It was the simplest explanation. What was it Eric Bain had told her? Reduce it to binary. His way of saying, keep it simple. Maybe she was trying to make everything too complex. Maybe the Marber case was simpler than it seemed.

“Reduce it to binary, Siobhan,” she told herself. Then she started the car and headed for the bridge.

By the time Rebus drove home, it was almost half past seven. His mobile had stored a couple of messages: Gill and Siobhan. Then it started ringing.

“Gill,” he said, “I was just about to call you.” He was in a queue at traffic lights.

“Have you seen tonight’s final edition?” He knew what she was going to say. “You made the front page, John.”

Bingo . . .

“You mean they got a picture of me?” he pretended to guess. “Hope it was my good side.”

“I wasn’t aware that you had a good side.” A low blow, but he let her get away with it.

“Look,” he said, “it was my own stupid fault. I wanted out of the station for an hour, and they were all heading for the cars. I insisted on going, so don’t go blaming anyone else.”

“I’ve already spoken to Siobhan.”

“She told me to clear off, and that’s pretty much what I did.”

“Which is almost exactly what she told me, except that in her version it was you who decided to leave voluntarily.”

“She’s trying to make me look good, Gill. You know what Siobhan’s like.”

“You’re supposed to be off the Marber inquiry, John: remember that.”

“I’m also supposed to be the sort of cop who can’t take a telling: do you want me to blow my cover at Tulliallan?”

She sighed. “No luck so far then?”

“There’s a ray of light in the tunnel,” he admitted. The lights had changed, and he drove across the junction into Melville Drive. “Problem is, I’m not sure I want to go anywhere near it.”

“Dangerous?”

“I won’t know that till I get there.”

“For Christ’s sake, be careful.”

“It’s nice to know you care.”

“John . . .”

“Speak to you later, Gill.”

He didn’t bother responding to Siobhan, knew now what her message had been.

Gray, Jazz and Allan Ward would be waiting for him as arranged, but he’d already prepared his story. He didn’t want them hitting the warehouse . . . not because it would or wouldn’t work, but because it was wrong. He knew now that he could go to Strathern, tell him that he was able to lead the three men into a trap. He still doubted Strathern would go for it. It wasn’t clean; it didn’t answer the question. All the trio had to do was say they’d merely been following Rebus’s lead.

He’d parked at the top end of Arden Street, but the trio had found a space right outside his tenement door. The headlamps flashed at him, letting him know they were there. One of the rear doors opened on his approach.

“Let’s go for a drive, John,” Gray said from the front. Jazz was driving, leaving Allan Ward in the rear beside Rebus.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“How did it go at the compound?”

Rebus looked into the rearview, where he could connect with Jazz’s eyes. “It’s a non-starter, lads,” he sighed.

“Tell us.”

“For a start, they’ve got twenty-four-hour security on the gate. Plus there’s an alarm system on the fence as well as some serious-looking razor wire. Then there’s the warehouse itself, which is locked tight and almost certainly alarmed, too. But Claverhouse has been cleverer than I’d have credited. He’s filled the interior with packing crates, dozens of them.”

“And the merchandise is in one of them?” Jazz guessed.

Rebus nodded, aware of the driver’s eyes still on him. “And he’s not about to say which one.”

“So all it needs is a lorry,” Gray piped up. “Take the whole damned lot of them.”

“Takes time to load a lorry, Francis,” Jazz told his friend.

“We don’t need a lorry,” Ward pitched in, leaning forward. “We just take whichever case feels the heaviest.”

“That’s good thinking, Allan,” Jazz said.

“It still takes time,” Rebus argued. “A hellish lot of time.”

“And meantime the forces of law and order are streaming towards the scene?” Jazz guessed.

Rebus knew he hadn’t quite managed to dissuade them. His head was swimming. They don’t have Bernie Johns’s money, always supposing there was any money to begin with. All they’ve got is this dream I’ve offered them, and they want to make it real. Which makes me the mastermind . . . He started shaking his head without realizing he was doing it. But Jazz noticed.

“You don’t rate our chances, John?”

“There’s one more problem,” Rebus said, thinking fast. “They’re moving the stuff over the weekend. Claverhouse is antsy that Cafferty will try something.”

“Tomorrow’s Friday,” Ward said unnecessarily.

“Not much time to procure a lorry,” Gray grumbled. He pulled down on his seat belt, making some slack so he could turn to face Rebus. “You come to us with this big fucking plan of yours, and this is what it turns into?”

“It’s not John’s fault,” Jazz said.

“Then whose is it?” Ward asked.

“It was a nice idea, but it wasn’t to be,” Jazz told him.

“It was a half-cocked idea that we should have kiboshed from the start,” Gray snarled, still giving Rebus the full force of his scowl. Rebus turned to peer out of the window.

“Where are we going?”

“Back to Tulliallan,” Ward explained. “Tennant gave the word: that’s the end of our wee holiday.”

“Hang on, I haven’t got any of my stuff with me.”