“Middle cupboard, top shelf,” she called.
“Got it.”
Eric — the officers at Fettes called him “Brains” — had told Siobhan early on that his favorite film was When Harry Met Sally. Letting her know where he stood, and that if she wanted things to go any further, the first move would have to come from her.
Of course, none of their colleagues believed it. Eric’s car had been spotted parked outside at midnight, and next morning both police stations had been buzzing. It didn’t bother her, didn’t seem to bother Eric. He was coming into the living room now, carrying a tray containing cafetière, a jug of steamed milk, two mugs. He set it down on her coffee table, next to some notes she’d been writing.
“Been busy?” he asked.
“Just the usual.” She noticed the grin on his face. “What is it?”
He shook his head, but she dug her pen into his ribs.
“It’s your cupboards,” he confessed.
“My what?”
“Your cupboards. All the tins and jars . . .”
“Yes?”
“They’re arranged with the labels facing out.”
“So?”
“It just spooks me, that’s all.” He wandered over to her CD rack, pulled a disc out at random, opened its case. “See?”
“What?”
“You put your CDs back in the case so they’re the right way up.” He snapped the case shut, opened another.
“It makes them easier to read,” Siobhan said.
“Not many people do it.”
“I’m not like other people.”
“That’s right.” He kneeled in front of the tray, pushed down on the cafetière’s plunger. “You’re more organized.”
“That’s right.”
“A lot more organized.”
She nodded, then jabbed him with her pen again. He chuckled, poured milk into her mug.
“Just an observation,” he said, adding coffee to both mugs, handing hers over.
“I get enough grief at the office, Mr. Bain,” Siobhan told him.
“You working this weekend?”
“No.”
“Got plans?” He slurped from his mug, angled his head to read her notes. “You were at the Paradiso?”
A little vertical frown appeared between her eyes. “You know the place?”
“Only by reputation. It changed hands about six months back.”
“Did it?”
“Used to be owned by Tojo McNair. He has a couple of the bars down Leith.”
“Salubrious establishments, no doubt.”
“Sticky carpets and weak beer. What was the Paradiso like?”
She considered the question. “Not as seedy as I’d expected.”
“Better than having the girls walking the streets?”
She thought this over, too, before nodding agreement. There was a plan afoot to zone off part of Leith, turn it into a safe area for streetwalkers. But the first choice had been an industrial estate, badly lit and the scene of an attack a few years before. So now it was back to the drawing board . . .
Siobhan tucked her feet beneath her on the sofa; Eric slumped in the chair opposite.
“Who’s on the hi-fi?” he asked.
She ignored this and asked her own question instead. “Who owns the Paradiso nowadays?”
“Well . . . that all depends.”
“On what?”
He patted the side of his nose with his index finger.
“Do I have to thrash an answer out of you?” Siobhan asked, smiling above the rim of her mug.
“I bet you’d do it, too.” But he still wasn’t telling.
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“No point coming round here if you don’t want to talk.”
He sighed, sipped some coffee, leaving a milky residue along his top lip. “You know Big Ger Cafferty?” he said. The question was entirely rhetorical. “Word is, if you burrow deep enough, it’s his name you’ll find.”
Siobhan sat forward. “Cafferty?”
“He’s not exactly advertising the fact, and he never goes near the place.”
“How do you know?”
Bain wriggled in his chair, not at all comfortable with this conversation. “I’ve been doing some work for the SDEA.”
“You mean Claverhouse?”
Bain nodded. “It’s hush-hush. If he finds out I’ve been blabbing . . .”
“They’re after Cafferty again?”
“Can we drop it, please? I only have to get through this one job, then I’m off to the Forensic Computer Branch. Did you know their workload’s increasing twenty percent every three months?”
Siobhan was on her feet, walking over to the window. The shutters were closed, but she stood there as though staring at some startling new vista. “Whose workload? The SDEA?”
“The FCB — you’re not listening . . .”
“Cafferty?” she said, almost to herself.
Cafferty owned the Paradiso . . . Edward Marber had frequented the place . . . And there was a story that Marber had been cheating his clients . . .
“I was supposed to interview him today,” she said quietly.
“Who?”
She turned her head towards Bain; it was as if she’d forgotten he was there. “Cafferty,” she told him.
“What for?”
She didn’t hear him. “He was across in Glasgow . . . due back tonight.” She checked her watch.
“It’ll wait till Monday,” Bain said.
She nodded agreement. Yes, it could wait. Maybe if she could gather a bit more ammo first.
“Okay,” Bain said. “So sit down again and relax.”
She slapped a hand against her thigh. “How can I relax?”
“It’s easy. All you do is sit yourself down, take a few deep breaths and start telling me a story.”
She looked at him. “What sort of story?”
“The story of why it is that you’re suddenly so interested in Morris Gerald Cafferty . . .”
Siobhan backed away from the window, sat down again and took a few deep breaths. Then she reached down and picked her phone up off the floor. “There’s just one thing I have to do first . . .”
Bain rolled his eyes. But then Siobhan’s call was answered and he broke into a smile.
She was ordering pizza.
6
On Monday morning, Rebus was back at Tulliallan in time for breakfast. He’d spent most of Saturday in the Oxford Bar, passing time first with one set of drinkers, then with another. Finally, he’d headed back to his flat and fallen asleep in the chair, waking at midnight with a raging thirst and a thumping head. He’d not been able to get back to sleep until dawn, meaning he didn’t wake until midday on Sunday. A visit to the laundrette had filled in the afternoon, and he’d gone back to the Ox in the evening.
All in all, then, not a bad weekend.
At least he wasn’t having the blackouts anymore. He could remember the conversations he’d had in the Ox, the jokes he’d been told, the TV shows playing in the background. At the start of the Marber inquiry, he’d been at a low ebb, the past seeming to suffocate him just as surely as the present. Memories of his marriage and the day he had moved into the Arden Street flat with his young wife. That first night, he’d watched from the window as a middle-aged drunk across the street leaned for all his life against a lamppost, struggling for balance, seemingly asleep though standing. Rebus had felt an affection for the man; he’d felt affection for most things back then, newly married and with a first-time mortgage, Rhona talking about kids . . .
And then, a week or two before the tea-throwing incident, Rebus himself had become that man: middle-aged and clutching at the selfsame lamppost, struggling to focus, the crossing of the street an impossible proposition. He’d been due at Jean’s for dinner, but had got comfortable at the Ox, slipping outside to phone her with some lie. He’d probably walked back to Arden Street, couldn’t recall his journey. Hanging on to that lamppost and laughing at the memory of the man. When a neighbor had tried to help, Rebus had gripped the lamppost all the harder, crying out that he was useless, only good for sitting at a desk, making phone calls.