Ian Rankin - Exit Music

'But say he snuffs it while you're there?'

'Not a bad point, DS Clarke.'

'So walk away.'

'Where do you want to meet?'

'I have to get back to Gayfield Square.'

'I thought we were going to pick up the chauffeur?'

'We are doing no such thing.'

'Meaning you're going to run it past Derek Starr?'

Tea.'

'He doesn't know this case like we do, Siobhan.'

'John, as of now we've got precisely nothing.'

'I disagree. The connections are beginning to come together…

don't tell me you can't sense it?' He'd risen from his chair again, but only to bend over Cafferty's face. One of the machines gave a loud beep, to which Clarke added a voluble sigh.

“You're still by his bed,' she stated.

'Thought I saw his eyelids flicker. So where is it we're going to meet?'

'Let me talk it through with Starr and Macrae.'

'Give it to Stone instead.'

She was silent for a moment. 'I must have misheard.'

'SCD has more clout than us. Give him the Todorov-Andropov connection.'

'Why?'

'Because it might help Stone build his case against Cafferty.

Andropov's a businessman… businessmen like to cut deals.'

'You know that's not going to happen.'

'Then why am I wasting my breath?'

'Because you think I need Stone to be my friend. He's got it in mind that I helped you get to Cafferty. Only way I can show him otherwise is to give him this.'

'Sometimes you're too clever for your own good.' He paused. 'But you should still talk to him. If the consulate starts pleading diplomatic immunity, SCD's got a stronger hand than us.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning channels to Special Branch and the spooks.'

'Are you going all James Bond on me?'

'There's only one James Bond, Shiv,' he told her, hoping for a laugh which didn't come.

'I'll mull it over,' she conceded instead, 'if you promise to be out of that hospital in the next five minutes.'

'Already on my way,' he lied, ending the call. His mouth was dry, and he didn't reckon the patient would mind if he borrowed some of the water on the bedside cabinet. There was a clear plastic jug with a tumbler next to it. Rebus drank two glasses, then decided to take a look inside the cabinet itself.

He wasn't expecting to find Cafferty's watch, wallet and keys. But since they were there, he flipped open the wallet and found that it contained five ten-pound notes, a couple of credit cards, and some scraps of paper with phone numbers on – none of them

meaning anything to Rebus. The watch was a Rolex, naturally, and he weighed it in his hand to confirm that it was the real deal.

Then he picked up the keys. There were half a dozen of them. They chinked and clinked as he rolled them between palm and fingers.

House keys.

Chinked them and clinked them and kept staring at Cafferty.

'Any objections?' he asked quietly. And then, after a further moment: 'Didn't think so…'

His luck just kept getting better and better: no one had bothered to set the alarm, and Cafferty's bodyguard was elsewhere. Having entered by the front door, the first thing Rebus did was check the corners of the ceiling for security cameras. There weren't any, so he padded into the drawing room. The house was Victorian, the ceilings high with ornate cornicing. Cafferty had started collecting art, big splashy paintings which hurt Rebus's eyes. He wondered if any of them were by Roddy Denholm. The curtains were closed and he left them that way, turning on the lights instead. TV and hi-fi and three sofas. Nothing on the marble-topped coffee table but a couple of old newspapers and a pair of spectacles – the gangster too vain to wear them anywhere outside the privacy of his home.

There was a door to the right of the fireplace and Rebus opened it.

Cafferty's booze cupboard, big enough to contain a double fridge and assorted wine racks, with bottles of spirits lining a shelf.

Resisting temptation, he closed the door again and headed back into the hall. More doors off: a huge kitchen; a conservatory with a pool table; laundry room; bathroom; office; yet another, less formal, living room. He wondered if the gangster really enjoyed rattling around in a place this size.

'Course you do,' he said, answering his own question. The stairs were wide and carpeted. Next floor up: two bedrooms with bathrooms attached; a home cinema, forty-two-inch plasma screen flush with the wall; and what seemed to be a storeroom, filled with boxes and tea chests, most of them empty. There was a woman's hat on the top of one box, photo albums and shoes beneath. This, Rebus guessed, was all that remained of the late Mrs Cafferty.

There was a dartboard on one wall, with puncture marks around its circumference, evidence that someone needed to improve their throwing. Rebus guessed that the dartboard would have fallen into disuse once the room changed identity.

The last door off the landing led to a narrow, winding stairwell.

More rooms at the top of the house: one containing a full-size snooker table covered with a dustsheet, the other a well-stocked library. Rebus recognised the shelves – he'd bought the same ones from Ikea. The books were mostly dusty paperbacks, thrillers for the gentleman and romances for the lady. There were also some children's books which had probably belonged to Cafferty's son.

The house felt little used, the floorboards creaking underfoot. He reckoned the gangster seldom took the trouble to climb this final set of stairs.

Heading back down, Rebus returned to Cafferty's office. It was a good-sized room with a window looking on to the back garden.

Again, the curtains were closed, but Rebus risked easing them open so he could take a look at the coach-house. Two cars parked in front of it – the Bentley and an Audi – and no sign of the bodyguard. Rebus closed the curtains again and switched on the light. There was an old bureau in the centre of the room, covered with paperwork – domestic bills, by the look of it. Rebus sat in the leather chair and started opening drawers. The first thing he came across was a gun, a pistol of some kind with what looked like Russian lettering along the barrel.

'Little present from your pal?' Rebus guessed. There was, however, no ammo in the clip, and no sign of any bullets in the drawer.

It was a long time since Rebus had held a firearm. He tested it for weight and balance, then used his handkerchief to place it back where he'd found it. Financial statements in the next drawer down. Cafferty had sixteen grand in his current account and a further quarter of a million earning him interest on the money market. His portfolio of shares added another hundred thousand to the pot. Rebus saw no sign of any mortgage payments, meaning Cafferty probably owned the house outright. This part of town, it had to be worth a million and a half. Nor would this be the end of the gangster's wealth; Stone had hinted at various shell companies and offshore holdings. Cafferty owned bars, clubs, the lettings agency, and a snooker hall. He was rumoured to hold a stake in a cab company. Rebus suddenly noticed something in the corner: a venerable safe with a tumbler lock. It was the colour of verdigris and came from Kentucky. Walking over to it, he was unsurprised to find it locked. The only combination he could think of to try was Cafferty's birthday. Eighteen ten forty-six. Rebus pulled the handle and the heavy door swung open.

He allowed himself a smile. Couldn't think why he had memorised that number, but it hadn't been wasted.

Inside the safe: two boxes of nine-mil ammo, four thick wads of notes, twenties and fifties, some business ledgers, computer disks, a jewellery box containing the late wife's necklaces and earrings.

Rebus lifted out Cafferty's passport and flicked through it: no visits to Russia. Birth certificate for the man himself, birth and death for the wife and son. The wedding certificate showed that Cafferty had married in 1973 at the registry office in Edinburgh. He replaced each item and studied the disks – no labels, no writing. There wasn't even a computer in the office… point of fact, he hadn't seen one anywhere in the house. On the bottom shelf of the safe sat a small cardboard box. Rebus lifted it out and opened it. It contained two dozen shiny silver discs. CDs, he thought at first. But holding one up to the light, he saw that it was marked DVD-R, 4.7G. Rebus was no technophile, but he reckoned whatever this was, it would play on the system upstairs. There was no writing on any of the discs, but coloured dots had been added to each one – some green, some blue, some red, some yellow.