Three against one.
While Johnny Rebus played out another fate entirely.
Rebus finished his drink, drove home. Sank into his chair, a double malt in his fist. Listened to Tommy Smith, The Sound of Love. Pondered whether or not you really could hear love.
Fell asleep in the orange sodium glow of the streetlights.
As close to being at peace as he got.
It had taken them a while to find a church with an unlocked door.
‘No one has any trust these days,’ Cary Oakes had said, ‘not even God.’
They’d walked through Leith and up the Walk to Pilrig. It was a Catholic church, nobody around but them. Cool and dark inside. There were plenty of windows, but the church was surrounded on three sides by tenement buildings. Time was, as Stevens recalled, you weren’t allowed to build anything higher than a church. Oakes was sitting in a pew near the front, head bowed. He didn’t look exactly peaceful or contemplative: his neck and shoulders were tensed, his breathing fast and shallow. Stevens wasn’t comfortable. The door might not have been locked, but he felt like a trespasser. A Catholic church, too: he didn’t think he’d been in one of those his whole life. Didn’t look much different from the Presbyterian modeclass="underline" no smell of incense. Confession boxes, but he’d seen those before in films. One of them, the curtain was open. He glanced in, trying not to think that it looked like a Photo-Me booth. He tried to take soundless steps; didn’t want a priest appearing, having to explain what they were doing there.
Oakes’s request: ‘I’d like to go to church.’
Stevens: ‘Can’t it wait till Sunday?’
But Oakes’s eyes had told him it was no joking matter. So they’d headed off on foot, the surveillance car following at a crawl, drawing attention to itself and to them.
‘They want to play it that way,’ Oakes had said, ‘that’s fine by me.’
Ten, fifteen minutes passed. Stevens wondered if maybe Oakes had nodded off. He walked down the aisle, stopped beside him. Oakes looked up.
‘A couple more minutes, Jim.’ Oakes motioned with his head. ‘Take a break, if you like.’
Stevens didn’t need telling twice. Stepped outside for a cigarette. Cop car parked at the end of the street, driver watching him. He’d just got one lit when the thought struck him: you’re a reporter on a story. You should be in there, trying to find an angle, running phrases through your head. Oakes in church: it could open one of the book chapters. So he nipped the cigarette, slipped it back into the packet. Pushed open the door and went inside.
There was no sign of Oakes in any of the pews. Sound of running water. Stevens peered into the gloom, eyes adjusting slowly. A shape over by the confessional. Oakes standing there, looking over his shoulder towards Stevens, body arched as he urinated through the curtain. Oakes grinned, winked. Finished his business and zipped himself up. He was walking back up the aisle, back to where Stevens stood, face failing to disguise his shock. Oakes pointed up towards the ceiling.
‘Got to remind Him just who’s boss, Jim.’ He moved past Stevens and out into daylight. Stevens stood there a moment longer. Pissing into the confessionaclass="underline" a message to God, or to the reporter himself? Stevens turned and left the church, wondering how the hell his world had come to this.
16
A young DS called Roy Frazer was the fourth member of the surveillance team. He’d arrived at St Leonard’s the previous month, a rare recruit from F Division, based in Livingston. Edinburgh city cops knew the Livingston operation as ‘F Troop’. They’d had a few digs at Frazer, but he’d been able — or at least willing — to take them. The Farmer had chosen Frazer for the team. The Farmer thought Frazer was a bit special.
Rebus sat beside him in the Rover, listening to his report.
‘Only real highlight,’ Frazer was saying, ‘that restaurant next to the pub back there, they took pity on me, brought me out a meal.’
‘You’re kidding.’ Rebus looked back towards the pub in question. Just past closing time, and drinkers were taking their grudging leave.
‘Carrot soup, then some chicken thing in puff pastry. Wasn’t bad at all.’
Rebus looked down at the carrier bag he’d brought with him: flask of strong coffee; two filled rolls (corned beef and beetroot); chocolate and crisps; some tapes and his Walkman; an evening paper and a couple of books.
‘Brought it out on a tray, came back half an hour later with some coffee and mints.’
‘You want to be careful, son,’ Rebus cautioned. ‘No such thing as a free dinner. Once you start taking bribes...’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘I mean, it might have been the done thing in Livingston, but you’re not in the sticks now.’
Frazer saw at last that he was joking, produced a grin which was two parts relief to one part humour. He was strong-looking, played rugby for the police team. Cropped black hair, square-jawed. When he’d arrived at St Leonard’s, he’d sported a thick moustache, but had shaved it off for some reason. The skin beneath still looked pink and delicate. Rebus knew he came from farming stock — somewhere between West Calder and the A70. His father still farmed there. Something he had in common with The Farmer, whose family had worked the land around Stonehaven. Another thing the two men shared: regular church-going. Rebus, too, went to churches, but seldom on a Sunday. He liked them empty except for his thoughts.
‘Have you got the log?’ Rebus asked. Frazer produced the A4-sized notebook. Bill Pryde had taken over from Siobhan Clarke at 6 a.m., recorded that Oakes and Stevens had stayed in the hotel until eleven. Up till then, they hadn’t come downstairs — he’d checked with the front desk. Morning coffee for two had been ordered for Oakes’s room. Pryde’s interpretation: they were working. A cab had arrived at eleven, and both men had come out of the hotel. Stevens had handed a large envelope to the cabbie, who’d driven off again. Pryde’s guess: tape of first interview, heading for the newspaper office.
With the taxi gone, Stevens and Oakes had walked into Leith Docks, Pryde following on foot. They looked like they were killing time, taking a breather. Then it was back to the hotel. Siobhan Clarke took over at noon: Rebus had persuaded her to change shifts with him. Not that it had been difficult: ‘I like my own bed at night,’ she’d admitted.
The afternoon had gone much as the morning: the two men ensconced in the hotel; taxi taking delivery of an envelope; the two men taking a break. Except this time they’d headed into town, stopping at a church in Pilrig. Rebus looked at Frazer.
‘A church?’
Frazer just shrugged. After the church, they’d headed to the top of the Walk and John Lewis’s, where they shopped for clothes for Oakes. New shoes, too. Stevens put everything on his plastic. Then they’d hit a couple of pubs: the Café Royal, Guildford Arms. Clarke had stayed outside: ‘Didn’t know whether to go in or not. It’s not as if they didn’t know I was there.’
Back to the hotel, Oakes giving her a wave as she pulled up outside.
Relieved by Frazer at 6 p.m. The two men, Stevens and Oakes, had walked to one of the new restaurants built facing the Scottish Office. One wall was all glass, affording them a view of Frazer as he kicked his heels outside. Apart from his own surprise dinner — not mentioned in the notebook — that was about it.
‘Would I be right in thinking this is a complete waste of time?’ Frazer stated when Rebus had finished reading.