Ian Rankin - Mortal Causes

'He said you had a way with words.’

'Not just with words.’

Rebus started to cross the road to Patience's flat. The man followed, so close he might have been on a leash.

'I'm trying to be pleasant,' the weasel said.

'Tell the charm school to give you a refund.’

`He said you'd be difficult.’

Rebus turned on the man. 'Difficult? You don't know just how difficult I can get if I really try. If I see you here again, you'd better be ready to square off.’

The man narrowed his eyes. 'That'd suit me fine. I'll be sure to mention your co-operation to Mr Cafferty.’

'Do that.’

Rebus started down the steps to the garden flat. The weasel leaned down over the rails.

'Nice flat.’

Rebus stopped with his key in the lock. He looked up at the man. 'Shame if anything happened to it.’

By the time Rebus ran back up the steps, the weasel had disappeared.

`Have you heard from your brother?’

It was next morning, and Rebus was at Fettes, talking with Ken Smylie.

`He doesn't phone in that often.’

Rebus was trying to turn Smylie into someone he could trust. Looking around him, he didn't see too many potential allies. Blackwood and Ormiston were giving him their double-act filthy look, from which he deduced two things. One, they'd been assigned to look into what, if anything, remained of the original Sword and Shield.

Two, they knew whose idea the job had been.

Rebus, pleased at their glower, decided he wouldn't bother mentioning that Matthew Vanderhyde was looking into Sword and Shield too. Why give them shortcuts when they'd have had him run the marathon? Smylie didn't seem in the mood for conversation, but Rebus persisted. 'Have you talked to Billy Cunningham's flatmate?’

'She kept going on about his motorbike and what was she supposed to do with it?’

'Is that all?’

Smylie shrugged. `Unless I want to buy a stripped down Honda.’

`Careful, Smylie, I think maybe you've caught something.’

`What?’

'A sense of humour.’

As Rebus drove to St Leonard's, he rubbed at his jaw and chin, enjoying the feel of the bristles under his fingertips. He was remembering the very different feel of the AK 47, and thinking of sectarianism. Scotland had enough problems without getting involved in Ireland's. They were like Siamese twins who'd refused the operation to separate them. Only one twin had been forced into a marriage with England, and the other was hooked on self-mutilation. They didn't need politicians to sort things out; they needed a psychiatrist.

The marching season, the season of the Protestant, was over for another year, give or take the occasional small fringe procession. Now it was the season of the International Festival, a 'festive time, a time to forget the small and insecure country you lived in. He thought again of the poor sods who'd decided to put on a show in the Gar-B.

St Leonard's looked to be joining in the fun. They'd even arranged for a pantomime. Someone had owned up to the Billy Cunningham murder. His name was Unstable from Dunstable.

The police called him that for two reasons. One, he was mentally unstable. Two, he claimed he came from Dunstable. He was a local tramp, but not without resources. With needle and thread he had fashioned for himself a coat constructed from bar towels, and so was a walking sandwich-board for the products which kept him alive and kept him dying.

There were a lot of people out there like him, shiftless until someone (usually the police) shifted them. They'd been `returned to the community' – a euphemism for dumped – thanks to a tightening of the government's heart and purse strings. Some of them couldn't tighten their shoe laces without bursting into tears. It was a crying shame.

Unstable was in an interview room now with DS Holmes, being fed hot sweet tea and cigarettes. Eventually they'd turf him out, maybe with a couple of quid in his hand, his technicolor beercoat having no pockets.

Siobhan Clarke was at her desk in the Murder Room. She was being talked at by DI Alister Flower.

So someone had forgotten Rebus's advice regarding the duty roster.

`Well,' Flower said loudly, spotting Rebus, `if it isn't our man from the SCS. Have you brought the milk?’

Rebus was too slow getting the reference, so Flower obliged.

`The Scottish Co-Operative Society. SCS, same letters as the Scottish Crime Squad.’

'Wasn't Sean Connery a milkman with the Co-Op,' said Siobhan Clarke, 'before he got into acting?’

Rebus smiled towards her, appreciating her effort to shift the gist of the conversation.

Flower looked like a man who had comebacks ready, so Rebus decided against a jibe. Instead he said, `They think very highly of you.’

Flower blinked. `Who?’

Rebus twitched his head. `Over at SCS.’

Flower stared at him, then narrowed his eyes. 'Do tell.’

Rebus shrugged. `What's to tell? I'm serious. The high hiedyins know your record, they've been keeping an eye on you… that's what I hear.’

Flower shuffled his feet, relaxing his posture. He almost became shy, colour showing in his cheeks.

`They told me to tell you…’

Rebus leaned close, Flower doing likewise, `… that as soon as there's a milk round to spare, they'll give you a call.’

Flower showed two rows of narrow teeth as he growled. Then he stalked off in search of easier prey.

`He's easy to wind up, isn't he?’

said Siobhan Clarke.

`That's why I call him the Clockwork Orangeman.’

`Is he an Orangeman?’

`He's been known to march on the 12th.’ He considered. `Maybe Orange Peeler would be a better name for him, eh?’

Clarke groaned. 'What. have you got for me from our teuchter friends?’

'You mean the Orkneys. I don't think they'd appreciate being called teuchters.’

She tried hard to pronounce the word, but being mostly English, she just failed.

'Remember,' said Rebus, 'teuch is Scots for tough. I don't think they'd mind me calling them tough.’

He dragged a chair over to her desk. 'So what did you get?’

She flicked open a paper pad, finding the relevant page. 'Zabriskie House is actually a croft. There's a small cottage, one bedroom and one other room doubling as 'I'm not thinking of buying the place.’

'No, sir. The current owners didn't know anything about its past history, but neighbours remembered a chap renting the place for a year or two back in the '70s. He called himself Cuchullain.’

'What?’

'A mythical warrior, Celtic I think.’

'And that was all he called himself?’

'That was all.’

It fitted with the tone of the Floating Anarchy Factfile: Celtic hippy. Rebus knew that in the early ' 70s a lot of young Scots had emulated their American and European cousins by 'dropping out'. But then years later they tended to drop back in again, and did well for themselves in business. He knew because he'd almost dropped out himself. But instead he'd gone to Northern Ireland.

'Anything else?’ he asked.

'Bits and pieces. A description that's twenty-odd years old now from a woman who's been blind in one eye since birth.’

'This is your source, is it?’

'Mostly, yes. A police constable went sniffing. He also talked to the man who used to run the sub-post office, and a couple of boatmen. You need a boat to get provisions across to Rousay, and the postman comes by his own boat.

He kept himself to himself, grew his own food. There was talk at the time, because people used to come and go at Zabriskie House, young women with no bras on, men with beards and long hair.’

'The locals must've been mortified.’

Clarke smiled. 'The lack of bras was mentioned more than once.’

'Well, a place like that, you have to make your own entertainment.’