Rebus had stepped past a posse of kids and their bikes to get into the grocer’s, where he bought more gum and tried to ask a few questions that weren’t too obvious. The kids outside were just about to enter their teens. One or two of them had probably already driven a stolen car or trail bike at speed. It had become both sport and rite of passage in Edinburgh’s poorer enclaves. You stole keys from a house and went for a drive, blood pumping. When you got bored or ran out of petrol, you wrote the car off or dumped the bike. Job done till tedium set in again.
Once upon a time, Cafferty and his men would have come along looking to recruit. They would cherry-pick the best, the sharpest, the most agile. These foot soldiers would transport drugs, learning the trade until they could afford to buy the cars and bikes they’d previously stolen. For all Rebus knew, it still worked that way. With Darryl Christie in jail, his network gone, there was no way of knowing how much Cafferty had taken over. Fox’s lot at Serious Crimes didn’t know, but then they were based half the country away. Police Scotland’s process of centralisation meant a lot of local information-gathering either didn’t happen or went ignored.
There were more bikes in the play park, and two kids kicking around a glass bottle that would shatter eventually. Seona Meikle’s house was part of a terrace that had been given a facelift: freshly harled walls and new door and windows. Not too many keen gardeners, though, and a dumped car with four flat tyres and a notice on it that said POLICE AWARE. Rebus smiled at that. Back in the day, there would have been a beat cop who would have known every face, able to put a name to each. Not these days, not outside the Oor Wullie cartoon in the Sunday Post Rebus had just bought at the shop. The car being washed outside Seona Meikle’s house looked nearly new. Rebus recognised the man soaping it. He walked over and gave a nod of greeting.
‘All right?’ Dallas Meikle responded.
‘Nice car.’
‘My brother’s a mechanic — he’d give me pelters if I didn’t treat it right.’
‘That’ll be your brother Charles? The one who used to live here?’ Rebus watched for a reaction. There was a slight tensing of the forearms, but nothing else. ‘My name’s John Rebus,’ he went on. I used to be CID. I’m giving DI Clarke a hand.’
‘Oh aye?’ Meikle was dressed in a white vest and oily denims.
‘You like the odd tattoo then,’ Rebus commented. ‘Did you start when you were a soldier? I was army myself — never could stand needles, though.’
‘This us forming a bond?’ Meikle asked, pausing in his work. ‘Old troopers together? I met more arseholes than amigos in my time in the forces.’
‘I’ve no interest in us becoming pals,’ Rebus shot back. ‘You tried putting the frighteners on a good friend of mine. I had my way, you’d be facing a doing followed by a good long bit of jail time. Only thing you’d be soaping then would be your cellmate’s hairy arse.’
‘That right?’
‘The bastards who gave you her number and address are just that — bastards. But they’re clever with it. Tried huckling her, and when they got nowhere, they turned to you. Didn’t really matter to them whether you just gave her a scare or a thumping. They knew damned well you’d do something.’
‘This you telling me to back off? Bit late for that.’
‘It’s me telling you that I’m the one looking at Ellis’s trial. If you want to have a go at anyone, I’m the one you want.’
Meikle was squeezing foamy water from the grey sponge. He gave a thin smile. ‘Bet you thought you were a bit tasty back in the day, eh, old-timer? Nowadays I’d have you on the canvas before you could blink.’
‘Try me.’ Rebus pulled back his shoulders. ‘I’ll tear your head from your shoulders and use it to sponge off that graffiti you wrote.’
Meikle seemed to make up his mind, ignoring Rebus as he tossed the sponge back into the bucket. ‘Ellis did this, you know,’ he said. ‘Cleaned the car, I mean. I’d give him a couple of quid. He’d save up to buy stuff for his computer. Time he spent on shoot-’em-ups, I was worried he might enlist.’ He turned towards Rebus. ‘Clarke told you what I think?’
‘You don’t think he did it, despite all those violent video games.’
Meikle gave a snort. ‘Defence lawyer used that in her summing-up: a young man made momentarily violent by a world of violence. She mentioned me and my PTSD, Ellis’s dad and his outbursts, even Seona, for standing up for herself. She was looking for a culpable homicide verdict, but the judge had other ideas.’
‘Say for the sake of argument Ellis didn’t do it, who else would you be looking at?’
Meikle stared at Rebus. ‘Well, me, obviously — seems everyone thinks that’s why I wanted to head the search party, so I could lead them anywhere but the right direction.’
‘And why did you?’
‘I can organise; I can get things started. Kristen’s family were happy to wait for your lot to do something. Fuck that.’
‘How did Ellis’s prints get on the knife?’
‘Maybe it was his knife; or he found it and tossed it.’
‘Or he was there,’ Rebus added. ‘And he at least played a role.’
Dallas was shaking his head as the door behind him opened and Seona Meikle stepped out.
‘Who’s this?’ she called, her voice hoarse, a cigarette dangling from her fingers. Dyed blonde hair and too much make-up around the eyes; knee-length dress slightly too tight at the stomach.
‘Nobody,’ Dallas told her. ‘He just drinks in McKenzie’s.’
‘You wanting a coffee or anything?’
‘I’m nearly finished, and this bawheid’s just leaving.’ He lifted the pail and poured its contents over the bonnet of the car. ‘I’m not as good at this as Ellis,’ he told Rebus. ‘Sorry I splashed your shoes.’
Rebus looked down at them, then back up at Meikle. ‘Anything you think I should know?’
Meikle shrugged. ‘Something happened at that bunker. Maybe Ellis was there and maybe he wasn’t. Look a bit closer at Kristen and her family.’ He took a step towards Rebus, the pail hanging from one hand. ‘When they came to the house... well, what parent wouldn’t want a search party? Your kid goes missing, you do anything and everything, no?’
Rebus found himself nodding.
‘Something’s not right. All the way through the trial, I could feel it.’
‘I’m in the middle of going through the transcripts,’ Rebus said.
‘No you’re not — you’re pissing about in Restalrig, getting right up my fucking nose.’ Dallas began to walk back towards the house. Watching him retreat, Rebus lifted his foot and scraped some dirt from the sole on to the nearest gleaming chrome wheel rim. Then decided to continue his tour.
He checked no one had been at his Saab. Not that he thought it an obvious target: too old and unglamorous. He was chewing a fresh piece of gum as he headed to the park. Some people he’d passed — walking their dogs or fetching milk and papers — had nodded a greeting. It wasn’t a bad area, he decided; it had just elements. That was the way they phrased it these days in Police Scotland.
Elements. Meaning a combination of feckless parenting, lack of opportunity, boredom and disenfranchisement. Rebus knew all the buzz words and he didn’t necessarily disagree. But knowledge was one thing and politicians’ words came cheap.
‘Paedo.’ The insult carried to him from across the park. He’d found a bench and settled with his Sunday Post. There were empty cans and takeaway cartons strewn around an overfilled bin next to him. A gull was pecking a hole in one of the cartons, seeking whatever was within.