Back at the office, he played the tape again, watching the blonde. The way her head was angled, strong jawline, mouth open slightly. Could she be saying something to Damon? A minute later, he was gone. Had she said she’d meet him somewhere? After he’d gone, she’d stayed at the bar, ordering a drink for herself. At dead on midnight, fifteen minutes after Damon had vanished, she’d left the nightclub. The final shot was from a camera mounted on the club’s exterior wall. It showed her turning left along Rose Street, watched by a few drunks who were trying to get into Gaitano’s.
Someone put their head round the door and told him he had a call. It was Mairie Henderson.
‘Thanks for getting back to me,’ he said.
‘I take it you’ve a favour to ask?’
‘Quite the reverse.’
‘In that case, lunch is on me. I’m in the Engine Shed.’
‘How convenient.’ Rebus smiled: the Engine Shed was just behind St Leonard’s. ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
‘Make it two, or all the meatballs will have gone.’
Which was a joke of sorts, in that there was no meat in the meatballs. They were savoury balls of mushroom and chickpea with a tomato sauce. Though a one-minute walk from his office, Rebus had never eaten in the Engine Shed. Everything about it was too healthy, too nutritious. The drink of the day was organic apple juice, and smoking was strictly forbidden. He knew it was run by some sort of charity, and staffed by people who needed a job more than most. Typical of Mairie to choose it for a meeting. She was seated by a window, and Rebus joined her with his tray.
‘You look well,’ he said.
‘It’s all this salad.’ She nodded towards her plate.
‘Lifestyle still suit you?’
He meant her decision to quit the local daily paper and go freelance. They’d helped one another out on occasion, but Rebus was aware he owed her more brownie points than she owed him. Her face was all clean, sharp lines, her eyes quick and dark. She’d restyled her hair to early Cilia Black. On the table beside her sat her notebook and cellphone.
‘I get the occasional story picked up by the London papers. Then my old paper has to run its own version the next day.’
‘That must annoy them.’
She beamed. ‘Have to let them know what they’re missing.’
‘Well,’ Rebus said, ‘they’ve been missing a story that’s right under their noses.’ He pushed another forkful of food into his mouth, having to admit to himself that it wasn’t at all bad. Looking around the other tables, he realised all the other diners were women. Some of them were tending to kids in high chairs, some were involved in quiet gossip. The restaurant wasn’t big, and Rebus kept his voice down when he spoke.
‘What story’s that?’ Mairie said.
Rebus’s voice went lower. ‘Paedophile living in Greenfield.’
‘Convicted?’
Rebus nodded. ‘Served his time, now they’ve plonked him in a flat with a lovely view of a kids’ play-park.’
‘What’s he been up to?’
‘Nothing yet, nothing I can pin him for. Thing is, his neighbours don’t know what’s living next door to them.’
She was staring at him.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘Nothing.’ She munched on more salad, chewing slowly. ‘So where’s the story?’
‘Come on, Mairie...’
‘I know what you want me to do. She pointed her fork at him. ‘I know why you want it.’
‘And?’
‘And what has he done?’
‘Christ, Mairie, do you know what the reoffending rate is? It’s not something you cure by slapping them in prison for a few years.’
‘We’ve got to take a chance.’
‘We? It’s not us he’ll be after.’
‘All of us, we’ve all got to give them a chance.’
‘Look, Mairie, it’s a good story.’
‘No, it’s your way of getting to him. Does this all come back to Shiellion?’
‘It’s got bugger all to do with Shiellion.’
‘I hear they’ve got you down to give evidence.’ She stared at him again, but all he did was shrug. ‘Only,’ she went on, ‘the knives are out as it is. If I do a story on a paedophile living in Greenfield of all places... it’d be incitement to murder.’
‘Come on, Mairie...’
‘Know what I think, John?’ She put down her knife and fork. ‘I think something’s gone bad inside you.’
‘Mairie, all I want...’
But she was on her feet, unhooking her coat from the back of the chair, collecting her phone, notebook, bag.
‘I don’t have much of an appetite any more,’ she said.
‘Time was, you’d have gnawed a story like this to the bone.’
She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘I hope to God you’re not, but maybe you are.’
She walked the length of the restaurant’s wooden floorboards on noisy heels. Rebus looked down at his lunch, at the untouched glass of juice. There was a pub not three minutes away. He pushed the plate away. He told himself Mairie was wrong: it had nothing to do with Shiellion. It was down to Jim Margolies, to the fact that Darren Rough had once made a complaint against him. Now Jim was dead, and Rebus wanted something back. Could he lay Jim’s ghost to rest by tormenting Jim’s tormentor? He reached into his pocket, found the sliver of paper there, the telephone number still perfectly legible.
I think something’s gone bad inside you.
Who was he to disagree?
8
Four years before, Jim Margolies had been passing through St Leonard’s, seconded to help with a staff shortfall. Three of the CID were down with flu, and another was in hospital for a minor op. Margolies, whose usual beat was Leith, came highly recommended, which made his new colleagues wary. Sometimes a recommendation was made so a station could offload dead weight elsewhere. But Margolies had proved himself quickly, handling a paedophile inquiry with dedication and tact. Two boys had been interfered with on The Meadows during, of all things, a children’s festival. Darren Rough was already in police files. At twelve, he’d interfered with a neighbour’s son, aged six at the time. He’d had counselling, and spent time in a children’s home. At fifteen, he’d been caught peeping in at windows at the student residences in Pollock Halls. More counselling. Another mark in his police file.
The schoolboys’ description of their attacker had taken police to the house Rough shared with his father. At nine in the morning, the father was drunk at the kitchen table. The mother had died the previous summer, which looked to be the last time the house had been cleaned. Soiled clothes and mouldy dishes were everywhere. It looked like nothing ever got thrown out: burst and rotting binbags stood inside the kitchen door; mail was piled high in a corner of the front hall, where damp had turned it into a single sodden mass. In Darren Rough’s bedroom, Jim Margolies found clothing catalogues, crude penned additions made to the child models. There were collections of teen magazines under the bed, stories about — and pictures of — teenage girls and boys. And best of all from the police point of view, tucked under a corner of rotting carpet was Darren’s ‘Fantasy League’, detailing his sexual proclivities and wish lists, with his Meadows exploit dated and signed.
For all of which the Procurator Fiscal was duly grateful. Darren Rough, by now twenty years old, was found guilty and sent to jail. A crate of beer was opened at St Leonard’s, and Jim Margolies sat at the top of the table.
Rebus was there, too. He’d been part of the shift team interviewing Rough. He’d spent enough time with the prisoner to know that they were doing the right thing locking him up.