‘How can you be sure?’
‘We’d’ve known.’
‘He’s not likely to have told you himself.’
‘No, but the screws would have, somebody would have. It’s one secret you can’t have in the nick.’
‘Unless,’ Rebus said quietly, ‘nobody wanted you to know.’
25
Rebus called CID from a phone box near St Leonard’s and, without identifying himself, asked to speak to either DS Holmes or DC Clarke.
It was a morning of heavy haar, floating across the city in a wet cloud from the coast. The kind of morning where you could imagine yourself back in time, a horse and coach clopping out of the mist rather than cars with their headlights on full. Rebus’s skin and clothes were damp to the touch.
‘DC Clarke speaking.’
‘It’s me. I want you to look up a name on the computer.’
‘Well, it’s a bit chaotic here just now. There was a small fire last night, a waste-bin went up. It’s a bit of a mystery, nobody was here at the time.’
‘Dear me.’
‘The chief super’s ordered an investigation. Meantime, half the office is off limits.’
‘But the computer system’s OK?’
‘The only damage is the bin and the desk next to it. It was Inspector Flower found the blaze.’
‘Really?’
‘He threw a coat over the bin to snuff it out. It was Holmes’s coat.’
‘The one Nell gave him for Christmas?’
‘That’s the one. What’s the name you want checking?’
‘Charters.’ He spelt it for her. ‘I don’t have a first name, but he’s serving time in Saughton. I’d like his record. I’m in a callbox about a hundred yards away. There’s a cafe across from the DIY store, I’ll wait for you there.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘The dough-rings are on me.’
But when Siobhan Clarke finally turned up at the cafe, she ordered a fried-egg sandwich instead, then handed Rebus a manila envelope.
‘Did anyone see you at the computer?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Watch your back. It’s not just the Farmer — Flower’s up to something, too.’
‘What?’
‘Fire-raising for a start.’ Rebus opened the envelope and read through the contents. Clarke’s food arrived and she bit into it, dripping yolk on to the plate.
“‘Derwood Charters”,’ Rebus read aloud, ‘“age forty-six, divorced, ex-company director. Found guilty of fraud, serving three years of a six-year sentence at HMP Edinburgh. Home address in Cramond till the place had to be sold. Date of birth … name of solicitor … no wife or next of kin”.’ Rebus skipped through what little else there was. ‘It’s a bit bald, isn’t it?’
‘A bit.’
‘Like somebody’s been into the computer and shorn it. Which station dealt with him?’ He looked through the notes again. ‘Well, welclass="underline" St Leonard’s.’
‘But before our time?’
Rebus nodded. ‘I was still at Great London Road. But then so was Chief Inspector Lauderdale, yet his name’s down here as part of the team.’ He was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Right, what I want you to do is — ’
‘Go back to the station and pull the case-notes out of the vault?’
‘I know it’s asking a lot.’
‘Only my career.’
But he knew she’d do it anyway.
Rebus waited over an hour for Clarke to return. She carried a supermarket carrier-bag with her, and laid it on the floor next to him. He ordered her a mug of tea; his own stomach was swilling with the stuff.
‘It wasn’t where it should have been,’ she told him. ‘It had been put back out of order.’
‘Like someone wanted to hide it?’
‘But without being too obvious. There are so many reports in the vault, it’s easy for one to disappear if it’s filed in the wrong place.’
‘Did anyone see you?’
‘Brian came to see what I was up to. I got him to keep an eye out for anyone else. Meantime, the sooner you read the case-notes, the sooner I can put them back.’
The woman who ran the cafe brought Siobhan Clarke’s tea, and saw Rebus lift a heavy folder out of the carrier-bag.
‘Thinking of taking up residence?’ she asked him.
‘I’m doing you a favour,’ he said, glancing at all the empty tables. ‘Nobody comes into an empty cafe.’
‘You did,’ she replied.
Rebus just smiled and opened the case-notes, starting to read.
At lunchtime, Rebus made a dentist’s appointment.
When he explained the problem, the receptionist asked him to hold the line. When she came back, she told him Dr Keene could squeeze him in at five.
The surgery was in a substantial semi-detached property on Inverleith Row, facing the entrance to the Botanic Gardens. Rebus was in a sweat as he sat in the waiting room. There was a woman in there with him, and he was relieved when she was called first. But that left only him. His ears seemed more receptive than usual. He could hear the whine of a drill, the clatter of metal probes being dropped on to trays. When the woman patient came out, she walked to the reception desk to make another appointment. The dentist was with her. Then the dentist turned and, smiling, came to the waiting-room doorway.
‘Mr Rebus? Through here, please.’
He wore a white coat and half-moon glasses, and Rebus judged him to be in his late fifties.
‘Sit down, please,’ Dr Keene said, washing his hands. ‘Some swelling around the mouth?’
Rebus sat on the chair and swung his legs up on to it, his hands gripping the armrests. Dr Keene came over.
‘Now, just lie back and try to relax.’ Rebus could hear his own hoarse breathing. ‘That’s it.’ The dentist used an electric foot-switch to set the chair back so it was nearly flat, and to raise it up. He angled the lamp over the chair and switched it on. ‘We’ll just take a look.’ He swivelled a tray of dental tools towards him and sat down on a high chair by Rebus’s side.
‘Open wide.’
There was music playing. Radio Two, the airwaves’ answer to a placebo. Rebus opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. There was a blown-up photograph there, a huge black and white aerial shot of Edinburgh, from Trinity in the north to as far south as the Braid Hills. He started to map out the streets in his mind.
‘Looks like a wee abscess,’ the dentist was saying. He put down one tool and reached for another, tapping it against one of Rebus’s teeth. ‘Feel anything?’ Rebus shook his head. The assistant had joined them. Dr Keene said a few things to her in a language the patient wasn’t supposed to understand, then started packing Rebus’s mouth with cotton.
‘What I’m going to do is drill into the tooth from behind, to try to drain off the poison. That’ll release the pressure. The tooth is pretty well dead anyway, I’ll do a root canal later. But for now the abscess needs to drain.’
Rebus could feel sweat on his forehead. A tube was being placed in his mouth, hoovering up what saliva there was.
‘A little injection first. It’ll take a minute or two to take.’
Rebus stared at the ceiling. There’s Calton Hill, where Davey Soutar ended up. There’s St Leonard’s … and Great London Road. Hyde’s Club was just down there. Ooyah! There’s Stenhouse, where Willie and Dixie lived. You could see Saughton Jail quite clearly. And Warrender School, where McAnally blew his head off. He had a sense of the way the streets interconnected, and with them the lives of the people who lived and died there. Willie and Dixie had known Kirstie Kennedy, whose father was Lord Provost. McAnally had sought out a councillor as witness to his act of self-destruction. The city might cover a fair old area, its population might be half a million, but you couldn’t deny how it all twisted together, all the crisscrossed lines which gave the structure its solidity …
‘Now,’ the dentist was saying, ‘you might feel some discomfort at first …’
Rebus raced up and down the streets. Marchmont, where he lived; Tollcross, Tresa McAnally’s home; South Gyle, only just taking off when the photograph was taken. There was no sign of the newer building work around the town. He saw holes in the ground and areas of wasteland where now there were structures and roads. And Jesus Christ Almighty it was hurting!