“He’s doing fine,” Shanks said.
“Thanks, Charles.” Rebus ended the call, slipped the phone back into his pocket and headed indoors. Francis Gray and Stu Sutherland were in the interview room, talking with Barclay and Ward.
“Where’s Jazz?” Rebus asked.
“He said he was going to the library,” Sutherland answered.
“What for?”
Sutherland just shrugged, leaving Gray to explain. “Jazz thinks it would help to know what else was happening in the world around the time Rico got hit and Mr. Diamond did his vanishing act. How did you get on in Leith?”
“Zombie Bar’s gone downwardly upmarket,” Ward commented. “And we talked to Dickie’s old girlfriend.” He made a face to let Gray know what he thought of her.
“Her flat was skanky,” Barclay added. “I’m thinking of investing in some disinfectant.”
“Mind you,” Ward said mischievously, “I think she might have serviced John here sometime in the dim and distant past.”
Gray’s eyebrows rose. “That right, John?”
“She thought she recognized me,” Rebus stressed. “She was mistaken.”
“She didn’t think so,” Ward persisted.
“John,” Gray pleaded, “tell me you never shagged Dickie Diamond’s bird?”
“I never shagged Dickie Diamond’s bird,” Rebus repeated. Just then, Jazz McCullough walked in through the door. He looked tired, rubbing his eyes with one hand and carrying a sheaf of papers in the other.
“Glad to hear it,” he said, having just caught the last few words.
“Find anything at the library?” Stu Sutherland asked, as if doubting that Jazz had been within a hundred yards of one.
Jazz dropped the sheets onto the desk. They were photocopies of newspaper stories.
“Look for yourself,” he said. As they passed the sheets among them, he explained his reasoning. “We had the newspaper cuttings at Tulliallan, but they were focusing on Rico’s murder, and that was a Glasgow case.”
Which meant the Glasgow paper — the Herald — had covered the story more comprehensively than its east coast rival. But now Jazz had gone to the Scotsman, finding a few scant references to the “disappearance of a local man, Richard Diamond.” There was a grainy photograph: it looked like Diamond leaving a courtroom, buttoning his check jacket. His hair was longish, sticking out over the ears. His mouth hung open, teeth angular and prominent, and he had stubby little eyebrows. Skinny and tall with what looked like acne on his neck.
“A bonny-looking bugger, isn’t he?” Barclay commented.
“Does this lot tell us anything new?” Gray asked.
“It tells us O. J. Simpson’s going to catch his wife’s killer,” Tam Barclay said. Rebus looked at the front page. There was a picture of the athlete after his acquittal. The paper was dated Wednesday, October 4, 1995.
“ ‘HOPES RISE FOR AN END TO DEADLOCK ON ULSTER,’ ” Ward said, quoting another headline. He looked around the table. “That’s encouraging.”
Jazz picked up one sheet and held it in front of him: “ ‘POLICE STYMIED IN HUNT FOR MANSE RAPIST.’ ”
“I remember that,” Tam Barclay said. “They drafted officers in from Falkirk.”
“And Livingston,” Stu Sutherland added.
Jazz was holding the sheet for Rebus to see. “You remember it, John?”
Rebus nodded. “I was on the team.” He took the photocopied story from Jazz and started to read.
It was all about how the inquiry was running out of steam, no result in sight. Officers were being sent back to their postings. A core of six officers will continue to sift information and seek out new leads. Those six had eventually dwindled to three, Rebus not among them. There wasn’t much in the story about the assault itself, which was as brutal as anything Rebus had seen in his years on the force. A church manse in Murrayfield — leafy Murrayfield, with its large, expensive homes and pristine avenues. It had started as a break-in, most probably. Silver and valuables had been taken in the raid. The minister himself had been out visiting parishioners, leaving his wife at home. Early evening, and no lights on. That was probably why the man — just the one attacker, according to the victim — had chosen the manse. It was next door to the church, hidden behind a tall stone wall and surrounded by trees, almost in a world of its own. No lights on meant no one home.
Being blind, however, the victim had needed no lights. She’d been in the bathroom upstairs. The clatter of breaking glass. She’d been running a bath, thought maybe she’d misheard. Or it was kids outside, a bottle thrown. The manse had a dog, but her husband had taken it with him to give it a walk.
She felt the breeze from the top of the stairs. There was a telephone in the hall next to the front door, and she put one foot on the first step down, heard the floorboard creak. Decided to use the phone in the bedroom instead. She almost had it in her hand when he struck, snatching her by the wrist and twisting her around so that she fell onto the bed. She thought she remembered the sound of him turning on the bedside lamp.
“I’m blind,” she’d pleaded. “Please don’t . . .”
But he had, giving a little laugh afterwards, a laugh that stayed with her during the months of the inquiry. Laughing because she couldn’t identify him. It was only after the rape that he tore her clothes off, punching her hard in the face when she screamed. He left no fingerprints, just a few fibers and a single pubic hair. He’d swept the phone to the floor with his arm and then stamped on it. He’d taken cash, small heirlooms from the jewelry box on her dressing table. None of the missing items ever turned up.
He hadn’t said anything. She could give little sense of his height or weight, no facial description.
From the start, officers had refused to voice their thoughts. They’d given it their best shot. The business community had put up a £5,000 reward for information. The pubic hair had given police a DNA fingerprint, but there hadn’t been a database around back then. They’d have to catch the attacker first, then make the match.
“It was a bad one,” Rebus conceded.
“Did they ever catch the bastard?” Francis Gray asked.
Rebus nodded. “Just a year or so back. He did another break-in, assaulted a woman in her flat. This was down in Brighton.”
“DNA match?” Jazz guessed. Rebus nodded again.
“Hope he rots in hell,” Gray muttered.
“He’s already there,” Rebus conceded. “His name was Michael Veitch. Stabbed to death his second week in prison.” He shrugged. “It happens, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does,” Jazz said. “I sometimes think there’s more justice meted out in jails than in the courts.”
Rebus knew he had just been given an opening. You’re right . . . remember that gangster who got stabbed in the Bar-L? Bernie Johns, was that his name? But it felt too obvious. If he said it aloud, it would alert them, put them on their guard. So he held back, wondering if he’d ever take the chance.
“Got what he deserved anyway,” Sutherland stated.
“Not that it did his victim much good,” Rebus added.
“Why’s that, John?” Jazz asked. Rebus looked at him, then held up the sheet of paper.
“If you’d extended your search a few weeks, you’d have found she committed suicide. She’d become a recluse by then. Couldn’t stand the thought of him still being out there . . .”
Weeks, Rebus had worked on the manse inquiry. Chasing leads provided by informants desperate for the cash reward. Chasing bloody shadows . . .
“Bastard,” Gray hissed under his breath.
“Plenty of victims out there,” Ward suggested. “And we’re stuck with a toerag like Rico Lomax . . .”
“Working hard, are we?” It was Tennant, standing in the doorway. “Making lots of lovely progress for your SIO to report to me?”
“We’ve made a start, sir,” Jazz said, his voice full of confidence, but his eyes betraying the truth.
“Plenty of old news stories anyway,” Tennant commented, his eyes on the photocopies.