Strong, male hands, according to the autopsy.
‘What are you up to?’
Rebus looked up. Deborah Quant was standing in the doorway, dressed in the long white T-shirt she kept in a drawer in his bedroom for the odd nights she stayed over. Almost a year now they’d been seeing one another, but moving in together was something they’d both dismissed — too set in their ways, too used to their own company and routine.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he said.
‘The coughing?’ She pulled her long hair back from her head.
He shrugged in place of an answer. How could he tell her he had dreamed of cigarettes and woken up craving nicotine, a craving no amount of patches or chewing gum or e-cigs was ever going to satisfy?
‘What’s all this stuff?’ She tapped a bare foot against one of the boxes.
‘You’ve not been in here before? This is just... old cases. Things that interested me at the time.’
‘I thought you were retired.’
‘I am retired.’
‘But you can’t let go?’
He gave another shrug. ‘I was just thinking of Maria Turquand. When I started telling you her story, I realised there were bits I couldn’t remember.’
‘You should try and sleep.’
‘Unlike some, I don’t have work in the morning. You’re the one who should be sleeping.’
‘My clients tend not to complain if I’m a few minutes late — one bonus of working with the deceased.’ She paused. ‘I need some water. Can I get you anything?’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t be too long then.’
He watched as she turned back into the hallway, heading for the kitchen. A cutting had slipped from his lap and fallen to the floor. It was from a few years later. A drowning in a swimming pool on Grand Cayman. The victim had been holidaying there with friends, among them Anthony and Francesca Brough, grandchildren of Sir Magnus. There was a photo of the house’s elegant exterior, along with a caption explaining that it belonged to Sir Magnus, who was recently deceased. Rebus wasn’t sure now why he had added this postscript to the history of Maria Turquand’s murder, except that the story had given the newspaper a further excuse to print a photo of Maria, reminding Rebus of her beauty and of how irritated he’d been to be pulled from the case.
He looked at the copies of the Scotsman he’d kept from the week of the murder: Vietnamese refugees arriving to start a new life; B. B. King on The Old Grey Whistle Test and Revenge of the Pink Panther at the cinema; an ad for the Royal Bank of Scotland featuring a photo of the Twin Towers; Margaret Thatcher visiting East Lothian prior to a by-election; rubbish piling up in Edinburgh as the bin strike dragged on...
And on the sports pages: No goals for Scots clubs in Europe.
‘Some things don’t change,’ Rebus muttered to himself.
Having put everything back in the box marked 77–80, he brushed dust from his hands and sat for a further moment studying the room and its contents. Most of the paperwork related to cases he had worked on, cases eventually solved — all of it adding up to what, exactly? A policeman’s lot. Yet the real story, he felt, remained unwritten, only hinted at in the various reports and scribbled notes. The bald facts of arrests and convictions — these told only partial truths. He wondered who might make sense of it all, and doubted anyone would bother. Not his daughter — she would take the briefest look then put the whole lot in a skip.
You can’t let go...
True enough. He’d walked away from the job only when told there was no alternative on offer, pensioned off, skills no longer germane or required. Adios. Brillo seemed to sense the atmosphere in the room and raised his head, nudging it against Rebus’s leg until Rebus reached down to offer a reassuring rub.
‘Okay, boy. Everything’s fine.’
Rising to his feet, he switched off the light, waiting until the dog had followed him from the room before closing the door. The kettle had boiled and Quant was pouring water into a mug.
‘Want one?’
‘Better not,’ Rebus said. ‘I’ll only have to get up for a pee in an hour.’
‘I’ll be gone by then, busy morning.’ She nodded towards where his phone was charging on the worktop. ‘It’s been vibrating.’
‘Oh aye?’ He picked up the phone and checked the screen.
‘I couldn’t help noticing the first text is a reminder from the Infirmary.’
‘So it is.’
‘You’re having more tests?’
‘So it would seem.’ He kept his eyes on the screen, avoiding her stare.
‘John...’
‘It’s nothing, Deb. Just as you say — more tests.’
‘Tests for what, though?’
‘I won’t know till I get there.’
‘You weren’t going to tell me, were you?’
‘What is there to tell? I’ve got bronchitis, remember?’ He pretended to cough, while giving his chest a thump. ‘They just want to run more tests.’
Having entered his passcode, he saw that there was another text, just below the automated NHS one. It was from Siobhan Clarke. His eyes narrowed a little as he read it.
Any dealings with Cafferty of late?
Quant had decided on the silent treatment, blowing on her tea and then sipping it.
‘Need to take this,’ Rebus muttered. ‘It’s from Siobhan.’
He headed into the darkened living room. A half-empty bottle of wine on the coffee table. A glow from the hi-fi system that told him he hadn’t switched it off. Last album played: John Martyn, Solid Air. Felt like that was what he was walking through as he padded across the carpet to the window. What was he supposed to say to Deb? There’s some sort of shadow on my lung, so now it’s all about things with scary names like ‘tomography’ and ‘biopsy’? He didn’t want to think about it, never mind say it out loud. A lifetime of smoking was doing all its catching-up at once. A cough that wouldn’t shift; spitting out blood into the sink; prescription inhaler, prescription nebuliser; COPD...
Lung cancer.
No way he was allowing that bad boy into his mental vocabulary. No, no, no. Keep the brain active, shift focus, don’t think about all the lovely cigarettes smoked at this very spot, many of them in the middle of the night with a John Martyn LP spinning at low volume. Instead, he waited for Clarke to answer, and looked past his own vague reflection at the windows across the street, each one curtained or in darkness. Nobody on the pavements below, no cars or taxis passing, the sky above giving not a hint of the day yet to come.
‘It would have waited,’ Clarke said eventually.
‘Then why text me at four in the morning?’
‘It was actually closer to midnight when I sent it. You been busy?’
‘Busy sleeping.’
‘You’re awake now, though.’
‘Just like you. So what’s Cafferty gone and done?’
‘Have you talked to him recently?’
‘Two or three weeks back.’
‘Keeping his nose clean? Still the respectable ex-gangster about town?’
‘Spit it out.’
‘Darryl Christie was roughed up last night outside his house. Damage report: a cracked rib or three and some loosened teeth. Nose isn’t quite broken but it looks the part. His mother was quick to blurt out Cafferty’s name.’