At twelve, Rebus’s own daughter had been living with her mother, the marriage over.
“I always did the best I could,” the Weasel was saying. There was no emotion in the voice, but Rebus didn’t think the man was acting any longer.
“Did you know he was dealing?”
“Course not. I’d have stopped him otherwise.”
“Bit hypocritical in the circs?”
“Fuck you, Rebus.”
“I mean, least you could have done was give him a job in the firm. Your boss has always got a vacancy for a pusher.”
“Aly doesn’t know about me and Mr. Cafferty,” the Weasel hissed.
“No?” Rebus smiled without humor. “Big Ger’s not going to be too happy, is he? Either way you’re shafted.” He nodded to himself. If the Weasel ratted out his boss, he was dead meat. But when Cafferty found out that his most trusted servant’s son had been dealing on his turf . . . well, the Weasel was a marked man either way. “I wouldn’t like to be there,” Rebus went on, lighting a cigarette. He crushed the empty packet and tossed it onto the ground, then toed it into the canal.
The Weasel looked at it, then crouched down and fished it out, slipping it still wet into a greasy coat pocket. “I always seem to be picking up other people’s shite,” he said.
Rebus knew what he meant: he meant Sammy in her wheelchair, the hit-and-run driver . . .
“I don’t owe you anything,” Rebus said quietly.
“Don’t fret, that’s not the way I work.”
Rebus stared at him. Whenever he’d met the Weasel in the past he’d seen . . . what exactly? Cafferty’s henchman, a piece of lowlife — someone who served a certain function in the big picture, fixed, unchanging. But now he was being offered glimpses of the father, the human being. Until today, he hadn’t even known the Weasel had a son. Now he knew the man had lost a wife, raised the kid himself through the difficult teenage years. In the distance, a pair of swans were busy preening themselves. There’d always been swans on the canal. Story was, the pollution kept killing them, and the brewery kept replacing them so no one would be any the wiser. They were only ever apparently changeless.
“Let’s go get a drink,” Rebus said.
The Diggers wasn’t really called the Diggers. Its given name was the Athletic Arms, but because of its proximity to a cemetery, the name had stuck. The place took pride in its beer, a polished brass advert for the nearby brewery. Initially, the barman had looked on the Weasel’s request as a joke, but when Rebus shrugged he went and filled the order anyway.
“Pint of Eighty and a Campari soda,” the barman said now, placing the drinks before them. The Campari sported a little paper umbrella and maraschino cherry.
“Trying to be funny, son?” the Weasel said, fishing both out and depositing them in the ashtray. A second later, the rescued cigarette packet joined them there.
They found a quiet corner and sat down. Rebus took two long gulps from his glass and licked foam from his top lip. “You’re really going to do it?”
“It’s family, Rebus. You’d do anything for your family, right?”
“Maybe.”
“Mind you, you put your own brother away, didn’t you?”
Rebus glanced towards him. “He put himself away.”
The Weasel just shrugged. “Whatever you say.” They concentrated on their drinks for half a minute, Rebus thinking of his brother Michael, who’d been a small-time dealer. He was clean now, had been for a while . . . The Weasel spoke first. “Aly’s been a bloody fool. Doesn’t mean I won’t stand by him.” He lowered his head, pinched the bridge of his nose. Rebus heard him mutter something that sounded like “Christ.” He remembered the way he’d felt when he’d seen his daughter Sammy in the hospital, hooked up to machines, her body broken like a puppet’s.
“You all right?” he asked.
Head still down, the Weasel nodded. The crown of his head was bald, the flesh pink and flaky. Rebus noticed that the man’s fingers were curled, almost like an arthritic’s. He had barely touched his drink, while Rebus was finishing his.
“I’ll get us another,” he said.
The Weasel looked up, eyes reddened so that more than ever he resembled the animal which had given him his nickname. “My shout,” he said determinedly.
“It’s okay,” Rebus assured him.
But the Weasel was shaking his head. “That’s not the way I work, Rebus.” And he got up, kept his back straight as he walked to the bar. He came back with a pint, handed it over.
“Cheers,” Rebus said.
“Good health.” The Weasel sat down again, took another sip of his drink. “What do you suppose they want from me anyway, these friends of yours?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call them friends.”
“I’m assuming the next step is a meeting between me and them?”
Rebus nodded. “They’ll want you to feed them everything you can get on Cafferty.”
“Why? What good will it do them? The man’s got cancer. That’s why they let him out of the Bar-L in the first place.”
“All Cafferty’s got are some doctored X rays. Build up a case against him, and we can ask for a new set of tests. When they show up negative, he goes back inside again.”
“And suddenly there’s no crime in Edinburgh? No drugs on the street, no moneylending . . . ?” The Weasel offered a weak smile. “You know better than that.”
Rebus didn’t say anything, concentrated on his beer instead. He knew the Weasel was right. He licked more foam from his lip and made up his mind. “Look,” he said, “I’ve been thinking . . .” The Weasel looked at him, eyes suddenly interested. “The thing is . . .” Rebus shifted in his seat, as if trying to get comfortable. “I’m not sure you need to do anything right now.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean you shouldn’t agree to anything, not straightaway. Aly needs a lawyer, and that lawyer can start asking questions.”
The Weasel’s eyes widened. “What sort of questions?”
“The way the drugs boys found the lorry and searched it . . . it might not have been entirely aboveboard. They’ve kept the whole thing quiet from the likes of Customs and Excise. Could be there’s some technicality somewhere . . .” Rebus held up his hands at the look of hope which had bloomed on the Weasel’s face. “I’m not saying there is, mind.”
“Of course not.”
“I can’t say one way or the other.”
“Understood.” The Weasel rubbed his chin, nails rasping over the bristles. “If I go to a lawyer, how do I stop Big Ger finding out?”
“It can be kept quiet; I doubt the SDEA will want to make a noise.”
The Weasel had brought his face a little closer to Rebus’s, as if they were conspirators. “But if they ever got a whiff that you’d said anything . . . ?”
Rebus leaned back. “And what exactly have I said?”
A smile spread across the Weasel’s face. “Nothing, Mr. Rebus. Nothing whatsoever.” He reached out a hand. Rebus took it, felt soft pressure as the two men shook. They didn’t say anything, but the eye contact was enough.
Claverhouse’s words: Just two fathers having a little chat . . .
Claverhouse and Ormiston dropped him off at Tulliallan. There hadn’t been much conversation on the trip back.
Rebus: “I don’t think he’s up for it.”
Claverhouse: “Then his son’s going to jail.”
It was a point Claverhouse reiterated angrily and often, until Rebus reminded him that he was trying to convince the wrong man.
“Maybe I’ll talk to him,” Claverhouse had said. “Me and Ormie, maybe we could be more persuasive.”
“Maybe you could.”
When Ormiston pulled on the hand brake, it sounded like a trapdoor opening. Rebus got out and walked across the car park, listening to the cab moving away. When he stepped into the college, he headed straight for the bar. Work had finished for the day.
“Did I miss anything?” he asked the circle of officers.