“Anywhere in particular?”
“That new hotel in the Scotsman Building. I wanted to see what it was like. And after that, the Royal Oak, listened to a bit of folk music . . .”
“Who was playing?” Siobhan asked.
Cafferty shrugged. “People just turn up and play.”
Hynds had his notebook out. “Were you with anyone, Mr. Cafferty?”
“A couple of business associates.”
“And their names?”
But Cafferty shook his head. “That’s a private matter. And before you go saying anything, I know you’re going to try to set me up for this, but it won’t work. I liked Eddie Marber, liked him a lot. I felt as miserable as anyone when I heard what happened.”
“You don’t know of any enemies he might have had?” Siobhan asked.
“Not one,” Cafferty said.
“Not even the people he’d cheated?” Claret’s ears suddenly pricked up, as though comprehending this last word.
Cafferty’s eyes narrowed. “Cheated?”
“We hear tell Mr. Marber might have been cheating his artists and clients alike: charging over the odds, paying too little . . . You haven’t heard anything of those allegations?”
“News to me.”
“Feel any different about your old friend now?” Hynds asked.
Cafferty glared at him. Siobhan was on her feet. She saw Claret watching her, saw the dog’s tail beginning to thump the floor. “You realize,” she said, “we’re not going to be able to verify your alibi unless you can give us your friends’ names?”
“I didn’t say friends, I said ‘business associates.’ ” Cafferty had risen to his feet too. Claret sat up.
“And I’m sure they’re all upstanding citizens,” Hynds said.
“I’m a businessman these days.” Cafferty wagged a finger. “A respectable businessman.”
“Who’s unwilling to help himself with an alibi.”
“Maybe that’s because I don’t need one.”
“Let’s hope that’s the case, Mr. Cafferty.” Siobhan shot out her hand. “Thanks for taking the time to see us.” Cafferty stared at the hand, then shook it, a smile flitting across his face.
“Are you as hard as you seem, Siobhan?”
“It’s Detective Sergeant Clarke to you, Mr. Cafferty.”
Hynds felt obliged to offer his hand too, and Cafferty shook it. A little game between the three of them, pretending to be polite and objective, to be on the same side, cut from the same human cloth.
Out on the pavement, Hynds clicked his tongue against his teeth. “So much for the infamous Big Ger Cafferty.”
“Don’t let him fool you,” Siobhan said quietly. She knew Hynds had been listening to the voice, seeing the shirt and tie . . . But she’d been concentrating on Cafferty’s eyes, and they’d seemed to belong to some alien species, predatory and cruel. What’s more, he had confidence now — the confidence that no prison could ever hold him.
Siobhan was staring back in through the window, and was being watched in turn by Donna, until a bark from the inner office had the secretary leaping to her feet, running in and closing the door behind her. The bark had been human . . .
“He only made that one slip,” Siobhan commented.
“About calling the taxi?”
Siobhan nodded. “Know what I’m wondering? I’m wondering just who exactly it was called for the cab.”
“You think Cafferty did?”
She started nodding, turning to face Hynds. “And which company do you think he would call?”
“His own?” Hynds guessed.
She kept on nodding, then noticed an old-style Jag parked across the road. She didn’t know the driver, but the small figure in the back was the ratty figure who’d been getting an earful from Cafferty when they’d arrived. She thought he was called the Weasel . . . something like that.
“Hang on here a second,” she told Hynds, then walked to the edge of the pavement, checking right and left for traffic. But something had been said to the driver, and by the time she reached the middle of the carriageway, the Jag was moving off, the Weasel’s eyes staying on her through the rear window. It took the horn of an approaching moped to bring Siobhan back to life. She trotted back to where Hynds was waiting.
“Someone you know?” he asked.
“Cafferty’s right-hand man.”
“Something you wanted to ask him?”
She thought about this, and had to suppress a smile. There hadn’t been anything she’d wanted to say to the Weasel . . . no reason for her to head off into the traffic.
Except that it was something Rebus would have done.
Back at the station, there was interest in the news of the missing painting. Marber’s secretary had unearthed a color photograph, which was now being copied, while DCI Bill Pryde itemized the expense. The reports from that morning’s cremation were being collated. No one was claiming any great breakthrough. The Vettriano was as solid a piece of news as they had. Hynds was heading off to Marber’s house, where he was due to meet Cynthia Bessant.
“Want to hook up for a drink later?” he asked Siobhan.
“Sure Madame Cyn will let you drag yourself away?” He smiled, but she was shaking her head. “Quiet night for me,” she told him. She said much the same thing half an hour later when Derek Linford asked her out to dinner — “nothing fancy . . . just somewhere local. A few of us are going . . .” When she gave him the brush-off, his face hardened. “I’m trying to be nice here, Siobhan.”
“A few more lessons needed, Derek . . .”
Gill Templer wanted a report on the missing painting. Siobhan kept it succinct. Templer looked thoughtful. When her phone rang, she picked it up, broke the connection and left the receiver off the hook.
“Where do we go from here?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Siobhan admitted. “It gives us something to look for. More than that, it gives us a question to work on. Namely: why that painting?”
“Spur of the moment?” Templer guessed. “Grab the first thing that came to hand . . . ?”
“And remember to reset the alarm and lock up after you?”
Templer conceded that Siobhan had a point. “You want to chase it down?” she asked.
“If there’s anything to chase, I’ll bring my running shoes. For now, I think we file it under ‘Interesting.’ ”
Siobhan watched Templer’s face darken, and thought she knew the reason why: the chief super could hear John Rebus mouthing near-identical sentiments . . .
“Sorry,” Siobhan said, feeling color rise to her cheeks. “Bad habit.” She turned to leave.
“By the way,” Templer said, “how was Big Ger Cafferty?”
“He’s bought himself a dog.”
“Really? Think we could persuade it to be our eyes and ears?”
“This one was more nose and tail,” Siobhan said, finally making her exit.
10
“What’s your poison, John?”
Each time he got a round in, Jazz McCullough asked the same question. They’d driven into Edinburgh in a two-car convoy. Rebus had agreed to be one of the designated drivers: that way, he’d be sure not to drink too much. Jazz had been the other driver, arguing that he didn’t drink much in any case, so it was no skin off his nose.
They’d worked solidly until six on the case notes, Archie Tennant sticking with them all the way. In the end, and with nothing to show, Ward had invited Tennant along for the evening. Maybe it was the looks from the other men, but Tennant had refused, albeit graciously.
“Not likely,” he’d said. “You lot could drink me under the bloody table.”
Six of them in two cars: Rebus acting the chauffeur while Gray and Stu Sutherland sat in the back, Gray commenting that Rebus’s Saab was “a bit of a clunker.”