‘Even with the addition of a coulis of brown sauce?’
‘Listen, John, you’ve got cold case experience...’
‘I’ve worked a few.’
‘If I got you to do some digging on one that’s still fairly fresh, it might give us some leverage with Steele and Edwards.’
‘How?’
‘They’re the ones who gave my number to Ellis Meikle’s uncle. My number and my home address.’
‘No end to the spite in those bastards, is there?’
‘They might end up getting their jotters if we make this work.’
‘And all I have to do is take a look at the Meikle case.’
‘Better still if you prove we put an innocent young man away.’
‘Doesn’t seem to me that would play too well for you. Funny thing is, when I read about how the uncle tried to start a search party, know what went through my mind?’
‘What?’
‘That’s who did it — the uncle.’
‘Bit odd that he’d want the case looked at again, if that were true.’
‘I suppose. Then again, isn’t he a short-fuse merchant? Could be he’s not thinking straight.’
‘He blames PTSD for the short fuse.’
‘And Steele and Edwards gave Mr PTSD your address?’
‘Yes.’
‘He came to see you?’
‘He scoped the place out, put up some graffiti so the neighbours would know they had a farmyard animal in the vicinity.’
‘Bastard needs a kicking.’
‘Maybe back in your day.’
‘Don’t piss about, Siobhan — you know how these things work. They always escalate.’ He paused. ‘Why don’t you want to report it?’
‘How do you think they’ve survived in ACU, John? They hear every rumour and bit of dirt...’
Rebus lifted the handcuffs, clutching them in his free hand. ‘Meaning whoever you took it to, Steele would most likely have something on them?’
‘It has to be more than my word against theirs. I need Dallas Meikle to tell his story.’
‘And for that to happen, I have to take a look at the nephew’s case?’ Rebus thought for a moment. ‘He really reckons the kid’s innocent?’
‘Seems that way.’
‘He thinks or he knows? Is there something he’s not telling you?’
‘I don’t know.’ He listened to the pause as she considered this. ‘Maybe,’ she eventually conceded.
‘We should take him out of the game, Shiv. He sounds dangerous.’
‘I can handle him.’
‘Got a taser tucked under your pillow?’
‘Pepper spray,’ she corrected him.
‘Might help explain your love life.’
‘Will you do it, John?’
‘Of course I will. But if I don’t get anywhere...?’
‘Then we won’t have much choice, will we?’
‘You mean we’ll take Uncle Dallas out of the game?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’ll get started in the morning then.’
‘Will it mean juggling your diary?’
‘Don’t worry about it. Just you concentrate on finding who killed Stuart Bloom.’
‘Enjoy your stovies, John. I hope there’s a helping left over for Brillo.’
‘Night, Siobhan. And keep your hand on that pepper spray.’
Saturday/Sunday
23
Clarke and Crowther chose to work through the weekend, with the promise of at least one day’s rest the following week. Not that they achieved very much, since both Joseph Madden and Colin Speke were out of the country, Madden finishing work on a TV documentary in Italy and Speke holidaying in Corfu. They’d be back by Tuesday, and both were based in Glasgow.
‘That’ll be our Tuesday evening then,’ Clarke told her colleague.
‘Oh, the glamour.’
With the office quiet — Callum Reid the only other masochist — they drank a lot of coffee and ate too many filled baguettes and chocolate digestives. Sutherland had a nephew’s wedding in Dingwall, but phoned and texted half a dozen times both days for updates. Clarke, too, was keen for updates of her own. Christine Esson and Ronnie Ogilvie, the latter back from sick leave, had dropped off the Meikle case files at Rebus’s flat. She’d told them everything — well, almost everything — and they’d been keen to help.
‘Fair warning,’ she’d told them. ‘Could get you into trouble.’
But they’d insisted. ‘If anyone asks,’ Esson had joked, ‘we’ll pin the blame on you.’
‘You better,’ Clarke had replied in all seriousness.
Rebus had then phoned to say he’d commenced digging. ‘Though half the stuff is on memory sticks — whatever happened to paper, ink and cassette tape?’
‘Give us time, it’ll all be kept in the Cloud, whatever that is. Good luck, John.’
‘I should be thanking you — when you get to my age, the brain needs a bit of a workout...’
It had taken four messages from her before he’d told her to stop bugging him.
When I know, you’ll know.
So she waited. Neither the soil expert nor the forensic lab was working a weekend shift. Crowther kept talking about what she’d do with her free Monday. Laundry and shopping, maybe a film or drinks with pals.
‘How about you?’
‘Much the same.’ Clarke was trying to remember the last time she’d been to the cinema. The latest Star Wars instalment at the end of the previous year? Her phone pinged: incoming text. It was Fox, wondering how everything was going.
Personally or professionally? she texted back, though she already knew the answer.
I keep waiting for your boss to tell me I’m done and can go back to Gartcosh.
Clarke got busy on her screen: Not his call, though, your boss’s, no? If you want to hang with us, tell your boss there’s more to find.
There probably IS more to find. I’m just not sure I want to find it.
It’s the weekend, Malcolm. Try to relax.
Buy you dinner?
Not this weekend. Thanks for the thought. Why not ask Tess?
Maybe I will. You off Monday?
Feet well and truly up.
Which was a lie. She knew precisely what she’d be doing with her day off.
She’d be working.
Sunday late afternoon in Restalrig. Rebus didn’t know this part of town well. He found the Meikle house easily enough, though, and the unloved park where the local teens hung out, when they weren’t trying to procure cigarettes and booze from the grocer’s nearby. Charles Meikle, Ellis’s dad, had piqued Rebus’s interest. Nobody had given him too much thought. He’d split up with his wife after a series of escalating arguments, arguments that had got physical, with Seona seeming to give back almost as good as she got — no police involved, no thought of pressing charges. He’d found himself a flat in Causewayside, his daughter Billie opting to go live with him. Meantime, Charles’s brother Dallas, who had often had to keep the peace when things flared up between husband and wife — and between father and son — had moved into the family home.
From photos, Charles had got the looks and Dallas the muscles. Ex-army, PTSD — Rebus knew a bit about both, though he’d served in Northern Ireland in the days before PTSD was a thing the forces recognised. He’d lain awake plenty nights in the barracks, though, listening to the nightmares his fellow squaddies were suffering, knowing those same dreams might well be waiting for him if he allowed himself to relax. Coiled springs, the whole lot of them, overwound mechanisms constantly on the very edge of snapping. So yes, he reckoned he knew what Dallas Meikle was capable of — but what about his brother? They had evidence from the wife that Charles wasn’t above raising his hand to his son, though never his daughter. In a city of short tempers, Restalrig made for a pretty good proving ground.