And afterwards...
After the local anaesthetic, the CT scan, the needle biopsy...
Probably nothing to worry about, but better to be safe than sorry...
A shadow on the lung sometimes means little or nothing...
We do have some reading matter for you, and there are websites we can suggest, just to put your mind at ease...
Words that rolled from the consultant’s mouth like a script she’d learned by heart long ago. How many patients had sat where Rebus sat, hearing but not really listening? Then released to the fresh air and a world that couldn’t comprehend how they were feeling, accompanied by a dull pain and some medication to see them through.
Buck up, John, he told himself as he reached the car park. You’re not for the crow road just yet.
Fox had been given the task of going through the cold-case notes. He would bet a pound to a penny that Rebus had kept copies, but he wasn’t about to tell Alvin James that. Half the stuff he already knew from Siobhan’s summary in the Oxford Bar two nights back. James wanted Rebus to come in and be interviewed formally, with the session taped, so they could have a record of his conversation with Chatham. Mark Oldfield had been dispatched to the café to make sure Rebus’s story about breakfast checked out. Sean Glancey and Anne Briggs were interviewing Liz Dolan at her home. Wallace Sharpe was at his desk, studying the autopsy report with furious intensity while Alvin James took a phone call. The milk from the previous day had gone sour and not been replaced, meaning black tea or black coffee. Fox was the only one of the three who seemed not to mind.
He had done an internet search on Bruce Collier, even watched a few clips of the man in his prime. There was plenty of archive material about his 1978 homecoming concert. The show had gone on, of course, but Maria Turquand’s murder had been mentioned in a couple of the reviews. There was much less online information concerning Collier’s musician friend Dougie Vaughan, or the other players in the drama, most having lived out the bulk of their lives in the pre-internet age. A few photos of Maria and John Turquand on their wedding day and at subsequent society balls. Sir Magnus Brough, of course, captured in tweeds as he prepared to blast grouse or pheasant from the Perthshire skies; bowler-hatted in pinstripes on the steps of his bank’s Charlotte Square premises; at the well-attended funeral of his son and daughter-in-law, a hand on the shoulder of each of his teenage grandchildren.
Which, of course, led Fox to search for Anthony Brough himself. Not for the first time, but you never could tell what detail you might have missed — and Fox was nothing if not diligent. It was all flotsam, though, no real depth or insight. The drowning of his friend on Grand Cayman. The aftershock felt most keenly by Anthony’s ‘sensitive’ sister Francesca. A couple of business puffs regarding the setting-up of his investment company, but nothing, naturally, about shell companies or Darryl Christie.
Nothing to suggest why he hadn’t been seen of late.
Fox watched Alvin James end his call. He seemed to have been given a small but effective jolt of electricity. Wallace Sharpe had noticed, too, and was waiting for his boss to share the news.
‘Toxicology report,’ James obliged. ‘Our victim had imbibed the best part of a bottle of whisky.’ He started composing a text as he spoke. ‘I’m asking Sean to check with the widow how much he regularly took of an afternoon or evening.’
‘Wasn’t he supposed to be working the night he died?’ Fox enquired. ‘Would he have downed that much prior to starting a shift?’
‘Good point, Malcolm. There was some on his clothing, too — lab seems to think so anyway.’
‘Like it was forced down his throat?’
‘Or else something had scared him witless, giving him the shakes.’
‘Any news of the ligature?’ Sharpe enquired in a whisper.
‘Blue polyurethane,’ James said, reading from the sheet in front of him. ‘Cheap guy ropes use it — meaning tents and stuff. I’m not sure that gets us much further. Basic double knot, but tied tight enough to cut the circulation.’
‘He was alive when he went in the water, but do we know if he was conscious?’ Fox asked
‘After a bottle of hooch?’ James rubbed a hand across his forehead. ‘I’d have been KO’d. How about you?’
‘I don’t drink,’ Fox admitted, ‘so I doubt I’d be exactly chipper.’ He watched as James studied his phone, a text having newly arrived.
‘Well guess what, Malcolm — our chap was off the sauce, too. For the best part of a year, according to Ms Dolan.’
‘So person or persons unknown,’ Sharpe mused, ‘got him incapable, then tied him up and chucked him in the Forth.’
‘Or tied him up first,’ Fox countered. ‘Easier that way to force the whisky down him.’
Sharpe signalled his grudging acceptance of this. James was studying the chart they’d fixed to one wall — a timeline of Chatham’s final day, as yet hopelessly incomplete.
‘We need those phone records pronto — home and mobile. Plus CCTV from around the city. Everywhere he worked, we need to see their footage for the past few days. I want to know everyone he spoke with, every place he frequented. Co-workers, buddies, anyone who came on his radar. All we seem to know right now is that he had breakfast with John Rebus, headed home afterwards for a few hours, seemed anxious, then sloped out without a word of goodbye. After which, it’s like he doesn’t exist. It’s down to us to find out where he went. Twelve noon till whenever he died — all those gaps need to be filled.’ James was looking at Fox. ‘So where would you start, Malcolm?’
Fox thought for a moment. ‘I’d start with a map,’ he said.
‘This better be me having a bad dream,’ Cafferty said, staring at the figure on his doorstep.
‘You never sent a change of address card,’ Darryl Christie said with a shrug.
‘So how did you find me?’
‘Tried a couple of buzzers until someone answered. Told them I’d a delivery for Mr Cafferty. Nice place...’ He made to enter, but Cafferty blocked him. They stayed that way as the seconds passed, but then Cafferty stepped aside. ‘In you come, then.’
The hallway led to a large open-plan room, all pale wood and unadorned white walls. A glass door led to the balcony. Christie opened it without bothering to ask permission and stepped outside.
‘Quite a view,’ he said, peering down at the usual array of students, cyclists and joggers criss-crossing the Meadows. Raising his head, he took in Marchmont, with the Pentland Hills behind. ‘Can’t quite see Rebus’s flat, though — bet you wish you could.’
‘I thought you were laid low, Darryl,’ Cafferty said.
‘My body’s not quite as bruised as my ego.’ Christie dabbed the tips of his fingers against the skin around his nose. The strapping was gone, but there was still discolouring and slight swelling. ‘Hurts to take a deep breath, if that’s any consolation.’ He paused. ‘Someone takes you down, you start to wonder why they’re not as afraid of you as they ought to be.’ He kept his eyes on the vista. ‘You’ve had a bit of experience in that direction yourself, so I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.’
‘You think it’s something to do with me, is that it?’
‘You personally? No.’