But Claverhouse was the one to watch.
“How’s Tulliallan treating you, John?” he asked now. The use of his first name seemed portentous to Rebus.
“It’s fine.” Rebus slid his own window down, flicked out some ash.
“Which other bad boys have they cornered this time round?”
“Stu Sutherland and Tam Barclay . . . Jazz McCullough . . . Francis Gray . . .”
“That’s about as motley as a crew could come.”
“I seem to fit right in.”
“There’s a surprise,” Ormiston snorted.
“No tip for you, driver,” Rebus said, flicking his nails against the Plexiglas screen which separated him from Ormiston.
“Speaking of which,” Claverhouse said. It was a signal. Ormiston turned the ignition, crunched into first gear and started off.
Rebus turned to Claverhouse. “Where are we going?”
“We’re just having a chat, that’s all.”
“I’ll get detention for this.”
Claverhouse smiled. “I’ve had a word with your headmaster. He said it would be okay.” He leaned back in the seat. The cab clanked and rattled, doors juddering. Rebus could feel each spring beneath the frayed leather seat cover.
“I hope you’ve got breakdown insurance,” Rebus complained.
“I’m always covered, John, you know that.” They were leaving the college grounds, turning left towards the Kincardine Bridge. Claverhouse turned to face the window, taking in the view. “It’s about your friend Cafferty,” he said.
Rebus bristled. “He’s not my friend.”
Claverhouse had spotted a thread on the leg of his trousers. He picked it up now, as though it were more pertinent than Rebus’s denial. “Actually, it’s not Big Ger so much as his chief of staff.”
Rebus frowned. “The Weasel?” He caught Ormiston watching him in the rearview, thought he could make out a certain reticence, mixed with excitement. The pair of them believed they were onto something. Whatever it was, they needed Rebus’s help but weren’t sure they could trust him. Rebus himself knew the rumors: that he was too close to Cafferty, that they were too much alike in so many ways.
“The Weasel never seems to put a foot wrong,” Claverhouse continued. “When Cafferty went away, that should have been the end of him in Edinburgh.”
Rebus nodded slowly: during Cafferty’s time in jail, the Weasel had kept his city warm for him.
“Just wondering,” Claverhouse mused, “if, with Cafferty back behind the wheel, our friend the Weasel maybe feels a bit aggrieved. From driver’s seat to backseat, so to speak.”
“Some people prefer to be chauffeured. You won’t get to Cafferty through the Weasel.”
Ormiston noisily cleared his nostrils, the sound of a snuffling bull. “Maybe aye, maybe no,” he said.
Claverhouse didn’t say anything, just held his body very still. Even so, his partner seemed to get the message. Rebus doubted he’d hear another word from Ormiston until Claverhouse gave the nod.
“Can’t be done,” Rebus felt it necessary to stress.
Now Claverhouse turned his head and fixed him with a stare. “We’ve got some leverage. The Weasel’s son’s been a bit naughty.”
“I didn’t even know he had one.”
Claverhouse blinked slowly in lieu of nodding: it took less energy. “His name’s Aly.”
“What’s he done?”
“Started a little business of his own: Morningside speed predominantly, but also a bit of Billy Whizz and wacky baccy.”
“You’ve charged him?” Rebus asked. They’d left the bridge far behind and were on the M9, heading east. The oil refinery at Grangemouth would be off to their left in the next few minutes.
“That depends,” Claverhouse was saying by way of an answer.
It was like a Polaroid developing in front of him — Rebus saw the full picture now. “You’ll do a trade with the Weasel?”
“That’s what we’re hoping.”
Rebus was thoughtful. “He still won’t go for it.”
“Then Aly’s going down. Could be a long one, too.”
Rebus looked at him. “How much stuff did you catch him with?”
“We thought it would be best if we showed you.”
Which was just what they did.
West Edinburgh, a commercial estate just off Gorgie Road. The place had seen better days. Rebus got the idea the only growth industry would be in security — protecting vacated premises from vandalism and arson. The warehouse was ringed by a chain-link fence, twenty-four-hour guard detail on the gate. Rebus had been there before, years back: a weapons haul in the back of a truck. The truck inside the warehouse this time round didn’t look so different, except that it had been stripped, many of its component parts laid out in order on the concrete floor. Doors and panels had been unbolted and unscrewed. All the wheels had been jacked up and removed, their tires taken off. A couple of boxes provided a makeshift step. Rebus climbed up and peered inside the cab. The seats weren’t there, and the flooring had been sliced away to reveal a secret compartment, now empty. Rebus climbed down again and walked around the back of the lorry to where the haul now lay, the whole lot displayed on a length of light-blue tarpaulin. Not all the packages had been opened as yet. A chemist — one of the forensics crew from the labs at Howdenhall — was working with test tubes and solutions. He’d dispensed with the white coat and was dressed for the cold in a bright-red ski jacket and woolen tammy. He’d labeled about half the clear-wrapped packets. There were maybe fifty left to go through . . .
Nearby, Ormiston was snuffling again. Rebus turned to Claverhouse, who was warming his hands by blowing on them. “Better watch Ormy doesn’t get too close to the drugs. He could end up hoovering the lot.”
Claverhouse smiled. Ormiston muttered something Rebus didn’t catch.
“It looks like a fair haul,” Rebus commented. “Who ratted him out?”
“Nobody. We got a lucky break, that’s all. Knew Aly had been doing a bit of dealing.”
“You’d no idea he was shifting quantities like this?”
“Not a scooby.”
Rebus looked around. It was much more than a fair haul; they all knew it. Bulk like this, it was a PR coup. Yet there was nobody here but himself, the two SDEA men and the chemist. Drug runs from the Continent were usually a job for Customs and Excise . . .
“It’s aboveboard,” Claverhouse said, reading Rebus’s face. “Carswell gave us the nod.”
Carswell was the assistant chief constable. Rebus had had run-ins with the ACC before.
“Does he know about me?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Let’s see if I’ve got this. You stopped a lorry, found a heap of illegal substances. It’s enough to put the Weasel’s son away for ten years . . .” He broke off. “How does the Weasel’s son tie in exactly?”
“Aly’s a lorry driver. Long-distance a specialty.”
“You were tailing him?”
“We just had an inkling. Arsehole was smoking a joint in a rest area when we stopped him.”
“No Customs involvement?”
Claverhouse shook his head slowly. “Stopped him on spec. Docket showed he’d been delivering computer printers to Hatfield, bringing back a load of software and computer games.” Claverhouse nodded towards the far corner of the warehouse, where half a dozen pallets sat. “Aly started shitting it the minute we introduced ourselves . . .”
Rebus watched the chemist pouring himself some tea from a flask. “And you want me to do what exactly? Talk to his dad, see if I can fix a deal?”
“You know the Weasel better than we do. Maybe he’ll listen to you. Just two fathers having a little chat . . .”
Rebus stared at Claverhouse, wondering how much the man knew. A little while back, when Rebus’s daughter had been put in a wheelchair, the Weasel had found the culprit, handed him over to Rebus in a warehouse not unlike this one . . .