‘Tell me what you know.’
‘About you and Stanley?’
‘Malky.’ Her face creased. ‘I hate that nickname.’
‘OK then, Malky. What do I know? I know just about everything. The two of you head north every now and then on business for Uncle Joe. I’d guess you’re go-betweens. He needs people he can trust.’ He gave a twist to the last word. ‘People who won’t share their hotel bedroom, leaving the other one vacant. People who won’t rip him off.’
‘Are we ripping him off?’ Disregarding Jack, she’d lit up. There were no ashtrays in sight, so Rebus placed a wastepaper-bin beside her, inhaling the smoke as he did so. Wonderful smoke. Almost a contact high.
‘Yes,’ he said, retreating to the desk. They’d placed Eve’s chair in the middle of the floor, Rebus to one side of her, Jack the other. She looked comfortable enough with the arrangement. ‘I don’t see Uncle Joe as a bank account kind of villain. I mean, he probably wouldn’t trust the banks in Glasgow, never mind Aberdeen. Yet there you are, you and Malky, dumping wads of cash into several accounts. I have dates, times, bank details.’ An exaggeration, but he reckoned he could wing it. ‘I’ve got statements from hotel employees, including maids who never need to clean Malky’s room. Funny, he doesn’t strike me as the tidy sort.’
Eve exhaled smoke down her nostrils, managed a smile. ‘All right,’ she said.
‘Now,’ Rebus went on, wanting to rid her of the confident smile, ‘what would Uncle Joe say to all this? I mean, Malky’s blood, but you’re not, Eve. I’d say you were expendable.’ Pause. ‘And I’d say you know it, have done for a while.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I don’t see you and Malky as an item, not long-term. He’s too thick for you, and he’ll never be rich enough to make up for that. I can see what he sees in you: you’re an accomplished seducer.’
‘Not that accomplished.’ Her eyes found his.
‘Pretty good though. Good enough to hook Malky. Good enough to talk him into skimming from the Aberdeen money. Let me guess: your story was that the two of you would bugger off together when there was enough set by?’
‘My language may not have matched yours.’ Her eyes were calculating slits, but the smile had gone. She knew Rebus was going to deal; she wouldn’t be here otherwise. She was wondering what she could get away with.
‘But you wouldn’t, right? Just between us, you were planning to clear off by yourself.’
‘Was I?’
‘I’m banking on it.’ He stood up, walked towards her. ‘I don’t want you, Eve. Good fucking luck to you, I say. Take the money and run.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But I want Malky. I want him for Tony El. And I want the answers to some questions. When he gets here, you’re going to talk to him. You’re going to persuade him to cooperate. Then we’ll talk, and it’ll go down on tape.’ Her eyes widened. ‘The story is, it’s my insurance in case you decide to stick around.’
‘But in reality?’
‘It’ll take Malky down, and Uncle Joe with him.’
‘And I walk away?’
‘Promise.’
‘How do I know I can trust you?’
‘I’m a gentleman, remember? You said as much in the bar.’
She smiled again, her eyes not moving from his. She looked like a cat: same morals, same instinct. Then she nodded her head.
Malcolm Toal arrived at the station fifteen minutes later, and Rebus left him with Eve in an interview room. The station was evening quiet, not yet late enough for pub rowdies, knife fights, blow-ups before bed. Jack asked Rebus how he wanted to play it.
‘Just sit there and look like everything I say is the word of God, that’ll be good enough for me.’
‘And if Stanley makes a move?’
‘We can handle him.’ He’d already told Eve to find out if Malky was carrying. If he was, Rebus wanted the weaponry on the table by the time he returned. He went into the toilets again, just to steady his breathing and look at himself in the mirror. He tried to relax his jaw muscles. In the past, he’d have been reaching for the quarter-bottle of whisky in his pocket. But tonight there was no quarter-bottle, no Dutch courage. Which meant for once he’d be relying on the real thing.
Back in the interview room, Malky looked at him with eyes like lasers, proof that Eve had said her piece. Two Stanley knives lay on the table. Rebus nodded, satisfied. Jack was busy setting up the recorder and breaking the seals on a couple of tapes.
‘Has Ms Cudden explained the situation, Mr Toal?’ Malky nodded. ‘I’m not interested in the pair of you, but I am interested in everything else. You slipped up, but you can still get out of this, same as you’ve been planning all along.’ Rebus tried not to look at Eve, who was looking anywhere but at lovelorn Stanley. Christ, she was a tough one. Rebus really had taken a liking to her; he almost liked her better now than he had that night in the bar. Jack nodded that the recorder was running.
‘OK, now we’re recording I’d like to make it clear that this is for my own personal insurance, and won’t be used against the pair of you at any time, so long as you clear off afterwards. I’d like you to introduce yourselves.’ They did, Jack checking the levels and adjusting them.
‘I’m Detective Inspector John Rebus,’ Rebus said, ‘and with me is Detective Inspector Jack Morton.’ He paused, pulled out the third chair at the table and sat down, Eve to his right, Toal to his left. ‘Let’s start with that night in the hotel bar, Ms Cudden. I’m not a great believer in coincidence.’
Eve blinked. She’d expected the questions to relate to Malky alone. Now she saw that Rebus really was going to have some insurance.
‘It wasn’t coincidence,’ she said, fumbling for another Sobranie. The packet slipped, and Toal picked it up, taking out a cigarette, lighting it for her, then handing it over. She could hardly bear to take it — or else wanted Rebus to think that. But Rebus was looking at Toal, surprised by the gesture. There was unexpected affection in ‘Mad Malky’, a real joy at being close to his lover, even in the present situation. He seemed very different from the scowling complainer Rebus had met at the Ponderosa: younger now, face shining, eyes wide. Hard to believe he could kill in cold blood — but not impossible. He was dressed in the same awful non-style of their previous meeting — the trousers from a shell-suit with an orange leather jacket and a blue patterned shirt, set off with scuffed black slip-on shoes. His mouth moved like he was chewing gum, even though he wasn’t. He sat low in the chair, legs open, hands resting between his thighs, high up near the crotch.
‘It was planned,’ Eve went on. ‘Well, sort of. I thought there was a good chance you’d hit the bar before you went to bed.’
‘How come?’
‘The word is, you like to drink.’
‘Says who?’
She shrugged.
‘How did you know which hotel I’d be in?’
‘I was told.’
‘Who by?’
‘The Yanks.’
‘Tell me their names.’ By the book, John.
‘Judd Fuller, Erik Stemmons.’
‘They both told you?’
‘Stemmons specifically.’ She smiled. ‘Coward that he is.’
‘Go on.’
‘I think he thought handing you to us was a better option than putting Fuller on to you.’
‘Because Fuller would have been harder on me?’
She shook her head. ‘He was thinking of himself. If we went after you, the two of them were in the clear. Judd’s difficult to control sometimes.’ Toal snorted at that. ‘Erik would rather he didn’t get worked up.’
Probably Stemmons had reined in Fuller, so all Fuller’s men had done was pistol-whip Rebus rather than put him out of the game. One yellow card: he couldn’t see Fuller giving a second. Rebus wanted to ask her more. He wanted to know how far she’d have gone to find out what he knew... But somehow he thought that line of questioning might blow all Malky’s fuses.