The Oxford Bar’s back room was mid-evening quiet when Clarke arrived. Rebus was nursing a half-pint at one of the tables. She stared at it.
‘Things that bad?’
‘I brought the car.’
‘Walk would have been good for you.’
‘The downhill bit, yes.’
‘Your face looks sore.’
‘Tripped over Brillo’s lead.’
‘That’s the best story you could come up with?’
‘It’ll do till I can think of another.’
She shook her head before fetching herself a gin and tonic and perching opposite him, pressing a hand to her stomach.
‘Are congratulations in order?’ he asked.
‘Laura made me eat too much pasta.’
‘Any progress on the Molotov?’
‘Ronnie Ogilvie owes me a call.’ She lifted her phone, checking she had a signal. ‘How about you?’
‘I’m ticking over. Media seems to have gone quiet on Francis Haggard.’
‘There’s not been much we felt like sharing.’
‘Finished with those Complaints files?’
She nodded thoughtfully, her eyes meeting his. ‘Can I ask you something? In confidence, I mean? Proper confidence rather than the usual?’
‘Go ahead.’
She lifted her glass. ‘There’s talk of a promotion.’
‘Not before bloody time.’
‘It comes with strings attached. I’d be moved to Professional Standards.’
‘Those are pretty big strings.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You’d be mad not to, though.’ He watched her nod slowly. ‘Is this Fox’s doing? You hand him me and the others, he ensures you get a poke of sweets?’
‘I’m convinced it’s just Fleck he wants. He took me to see Josephine Kilgour — you know her?’
‘I know the name.’
‘It was such an ugly job back then, and it’s not exactly a beauty contest today. If there are no consequences, nothing will change.’
‘There usually are consequences, though — you just don’t always get to see them.’
‘What do you mean?’
Rebus was saved from forming an answer by the sudden buzzing of her phone. She held it to her ear.
‘Ronnie? Talk to me...’ She listened, eyes moving from her glass to Rebus and back again. ‘Might make sense,’ she said eventually. ‘When will you lift him?... Well, let me know. And that’s good work, well done... I know, but you did the rest. Cheers.’
She ended the call and turned her attention back to Rebus. ‘Range Rover was seen in the vicinity of the fire. It’s registered to Gareth Crosbie. He works as a nightclub doorman and lives at an address in Craigmillar.’ She paused. ‘In point of fact, he lives upstairs from the Moorfoot public house.’
‘That’s because he owns it,’ Rebus said. ‘I’ve had dealings with the guy.’
‘Me too. He’s pally with both Gaby Mackenzie and the Crew.’
‘You can place him at the scene of the blaze?’
‘Not exactly. But he was on Broughton Street a few minutes after.’
‘Then he needs to be spoken to.’
‘Which will happen at Gayfield Square in the morning. What do you think’s going on?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘I really doubt that.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I had Gaby Mackenzie pegged as the owner of the car — either her or her parents. We had the father in the station earlier today.’
‘Can I ask why?’
‘He told us Francis Haggard got a cheap rent as an act of charity.’
‘The man’s all heart.’
She was silent for almost half a minute. The only sound was muffled laughter from the front room. Eventually she breathed deeply. ‘Everything’s fucked, isn’t it? I mean, that’s how it feels to me. Brexit and COVID and Christ knows what’s coming at us next.’
‘Alien invasion?’
‘They’d take one look and do a U-turn.’ She watched him drain his glass. ‘Can I fetch you a real drink?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘Things to do,’ he told her.
‘Things like going straight home for a quiet night with the dog?’
‘What else?’
‘Right now, I can think of about a dozen alternative scenarios, most of them ending messily.’
‘Maybe in times past, Siobhan, but not these days.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
‘That’s not a real promise, though, is it?’
He was studying her face. ‘Professional Standards, eh, and you’re minded to say yes? Well, why the hell not? You’ve not ended up in anybody’s pocket, and I can’t recall you lying too baldly in court. Maybe you could even disappear my files for me?’
‘Don’t joke about it, John.’
‘Who said I was joking?’ he enquired, raising his empty glass in a toast.
As he drove towards Calder Road, Rebus thought about Clarke’s words: Everything’s fucked, isn’t it? Very often you’d be hard pressed to deny it. Yet he had the new Dean Owens CD on the car hi-fi, and a bottle of Caol Ila and Brillo waiting for him at home, plus a daughter and granddaughter who’d invited him to lunch on Sunday. Sometimes you had to focus on the small victories. Maybe that was what he would have told her in answer to her question. Those unseen consequences could be minor or tangential, but what mattered was that they were lying in wait. Malcolm Fox might not get Alan Fleck this time, but Fleck couldn’t forget that he was out there, continually trying. The little cabal at Tynecastle would melt away too, in time, now that the sarge wasn’t on hand to hold it together.
And meantime, Dean Owens was still singing.
The estate was dimly lit, half the lampposts non-functioning. He could see only a metre or so into the patch of grassland where the footballers had been. Beyond that, anything could be happening. The lane was well lit, though, nor was this the only deterrent to trespassers. The door to Tommy Oram’s lock-up was open, his van parked alongside. Two youths sat astride their bikes and seemed be talking to someone inside — presumably Oram himself. A joint was passed from one figure to another, and Buster emerged, licking his chops and sniffing the ground.
‘Party central,’ Rebus said ruefully, placing his foot down on the accelerator.
Rob Driscoll had been getting grief all day. He was on a double shift, by no means his first this week, covering for yet more COVID cases. So much for the booster jag and all the other needles they’d been given the past year. Money pissed up against a wall. Meantime, chief among the grief-givers were Chris Agnew and Deek Turnbull. They’d even talked of going to Laura Smith’s house and posing for a photo — ‘Put it on our website and see how she likes it.’ Trust the pair of them not to get the ’rona.
Driscoll had considered driving to the infirmary and rubbing himself up against a few of the patients. A couple of bars on his daily LFT and he could stay in bed for a week being waited on hand and foot. Instead of which he was pounding the night-time streets around Haymarket, looking for a psycho. There had been several reports, the first from the railway station itself. Male, late twenties, shaved head, baggy denims, stick-thin. Threatening people, abusive language, needing dealt with. But the suspect had headed elsewhere by the time Driscoll arrived — along West Maitland Street and into Palmerston Place reportedly. They only had one available patrol car, and it was on the prowl. Driscoll’s radio kept squawking, driving him demented.
The sarge had given him a right earful earlier, too, as if everything that had gone wrong could be laid at Driscoll’s door. Why couldn’t he get his house in order? Why didn’t the Crew all jump at his command? ‘It’s because you don’t instil fear, son,’ Fleck had told him. ‘There always has to be a bit of fear.’ Aye, right, phoning from his comfy office in his fancy car showroom before heading home to his twelve-room mansion and his bastard wine cellar.