Rebus thought of paying the club a visit, but knew he should talk to the local cops first, and decided that it could all wait until morning. He knew he was jumping through hoops. He didn’t expect to find anything the locals had missed. At best, he could reassure the family that everything possible had been done.
Next morning he made a few phone calls from his office, trying to find someone who could be bothered to answer some casual questions from an Edinburgh colleague. He had one ally – Detective Sergeant Hendry at Dunfermline CID – but only reached him at the third attempt. He asked Hendry for a favour, then put the phone down and got back to his own work. But it was hard to concentrate. He kept thinking about Bowhill and about Janis Mee, née Playfair. Which led him – eventually – guiltily – to thoughts of Damon. Younger runaways tended to take the same route: by bus or train or hitching, and to London, Newcastle, Edinburgh or Glasgow. There were organisations who would keep an eye open for runaways, and even if they wouldn’t always reveal their whereabouts to the anxious families, at least they could confirm that someone was alive and unharmed.
But a twenty-three-year-old, someone a bit cannier and with money to hand… could be anywhere. No destination was too distant – he owned a passport, and it hadn’t turned up. Rebus knew, too, that Damon had a current account at the local bank, complete with cashcard, and an interest-bearing account with a building society in Kirkcaldy. The bank might be worth trying. Rebus picked up the telephone again.
The manager at first insisted that he’d need something in writing, but relented when Rebus promised to fax him later. Rebus held while the manager went off to check, and had doodled half a village, complete with stream, parkland and school, by the time the man came back.
‘The most recent withdrawal was from a cash machine in Kirkcaldy. One hundred pounds on the twenty-second.’
‘What time?’
‘I’ve no way of knowing.’
‘No other withdrawals since then?’
‘No.’
‘How up-to-date is that information?’
‘Very. Of course a cheque – especially if post-dated – would take longer to show up.’
‘Could you keep tabs on that account, let me know if anyone starts using it again?’
‘I could, but I’d need it in writing, and I might also need Head Office approval.’
‘Well, see what you can do, Mr Brayne.’
‘It’s Bain,’ the bank manager said coldly, putting down the phone.
DS Hendry didn’t get back to him until late afternoon.
‘Gaitanos,’ Hendry said. ‘I don’t know the place personally. Locals call it Guisers. It’s a pretty choice establishment. Two stabbings last year, one inside the club itself, the other in the back alley where the owner parks his Merc. Local residents are always girning about the noise when the place lets out.’
‘What’s the owner’s name?’
‘Charles Mackenzie, nicknamed “Charmer”. He seems to be clean. A couple of uniforms talked to him about Damon Mee, but there was nothing to tell. Know how many missing persons there are every year? They’re not exactly a white-hot priority. God knows there are times I’ve felt like doing a runner myself.’
‘Haven’t we all? Did the woolly suits talk to anyone else at the club?’
‘Such as?’
‘Bar staff, punters.’
‘No. Someone did take a look at the security video for the night Damon was there, but they didn’t see anything.’
‘Where’s the video now?’
‘Back with its rightful owner.’
‘Am I going to be stepping on toes if I ask to see it?’
‘I think I can cover you. I know you said this was personal, John, but why the interest?’
‘I’m not sure I can explain.’ There were words – community, history, memory – but Rebus didn’t think they’d be enough.
‘They mustn’t be working you hard enough over there.’
‘Just the twenty-four hours every day.’
Three
Matty Paine could tell a few stories. He’d worked his way round the world as a croupier. Cruise liners he’d worked on, and in Nevada. He’d spent a couple of years in London, dealing out cards and spinning the wheel for some of the wealthiest in the land, faces you’d recognise from the TV and the papers. Moguls, royalty, stars – Matty had seen them all. But his best story – the one people sometimes disbelieved – was about the time he’d been recruited to work in a casino in Beirut. This was at the height of the civil war, bomb sites and rubble, smoke and charred buildings, refugees and regular bursts of small-arms fire. And amazingly, in the midst of it all (or, to be fair, on the edge of it all), a casino. Not exactly legal. Run from a hotel basement with torchlight when the generator failed and not much in the way of refreshments, but with no shortage of punters – cash bets, dollars only – and a management team of three who prowled the place like Dobermanns, since there was no surveillance and no other way to check that the games were being played honestly. One of them had stood next to Matty for a full forty minutes one session, making him sweat despite the air-conditioning. He’d reminded Matty of the gaffers casinos employed to check on apprentices. He knew the gaffers were there to protect him as much as the punters – there were professional gamblers out there who’d psych out a trainee, watch them for hours, whole nights and weeks, looking for the flaw that would give them an edge over the house. Like, when you were starting out, you didn’t always vary the force with which you span the wheel, or sent the ball rolling, and if they could suss it, they’d get a pretty good idea which quadrant the ball was going to stop in. Good croupiers were immune to this. A really good croupier – one of a very select, very highly thought of group – could master the wheel and get the ball to land pretty well where they wanted.
Of course, this might be against the interests of the house, too. And in the end, that’s why the checkers were out there, patrolling the tables. They were looking out for the house. In the end it all came down to the house.
And when things had got a wee bit too hot in London, Matty had come home, meaning Edinburgh, though really he was from Gullane – perhaps the only boy ever to be raised there and not show the slightest interest in golf. His father had played – his mother too, come to that. Maybe she still did; he didn’t keep in touch. There had been an awkward moment at the casino when a neighbour from Gullane days, an old business friend of his father’s, had turned up, a bit the worse for wear and in tow with three other middle-aged punters. The neighbour had glanced towards Matty from time to time, but had eventually shaken his head, unable to place the face.
‘Does he know you?’ one of the all-seeing gaffers had asked quietly, seeking out some scam against the house.
Matty had shaken his head. ‘A neighbour from when I was growing up.’ That was all; just a ghost from the past. He supposed his mother was still alive. He could probably find out by opening the phone book. But he wasn’t that interested.
‘Place your bets, please, ladies and gentlemen.’
Different houses had different styles. You either did your spiel in English or French. House rules changed, too. Matty’s strengths were roulette and blackjack, but really he was happy in charge of any sort of game – most houses liked that he was flexible, it meant there was less chance of him trying some scam. It was the one-note wonders who tried small, stupid diddles. His latest employers seemed fairly laid back. They ran a clean casino which boasted only the very occasional high roller. Most of the punters were business people, well enough heeled but canny with it. You got husbands and wives coming in, proof of a relaxed atmosphere. There were younger punters too – a lot of those were Asians, mainly Chinese. The money they changed, according to the cashier, had a funny feel and smell to it.