“I was looking for possible tie-ins, sir,” Jazz explained. “See if anyone else had gone missing, or any unidentified bodies turned up.”
“And?”
“And nothing, sir. Though I think I’ve discovered why DI Rebus didn’t seem overly helpful when Glasgow CID came calling.”
Rebus stared at him. Could he really know? Here Rebus was, supposedly infiltrating the trio, and every move they made seemed calculated to undermine him. First Rico Lomax, now the Murrayfield rape. Because there was a connection between the two . . . and that connection was Rebus himself. No, not just Rebus . . . Rebus and Cafferty . . . and if the truth came out, Rebus’s career would cease to be on the skids.
It would be a car wreck.
“Go on,” Tennant pressed.
“He was involved in another inquiry, sir, one he was loath to take time out from.” Jazz handed the rape story to Tennant.
“I remember this,” Tennant said quietly. “You worked it, John?”
Rebus nodded. “They pulled me off it to look for Dickie Diamond.”
“Hence your reluctance?”
“Hence my perceived reluctance, sir. Like I said, I helped the Glasgow CID as much as I could.”
Tennant made a thoughtful sound. “And does this get us anywhere nearer Mr. Diamond, DI McCullough?”
“Probably not, sir,” Jazz conceded.
“Three of us went down to Leith, sir,” Allan Ward piped up. “Interviewed two individuals who had known him. It seems Diamond may have shared his old lady with Rico Lomax on at least one occasion.”
Tennant just looked at him. Ward fidgeted a little.
“In a caravan,” he went on, eyes darting to Rebus and Barclay for support. “John and Tam were there too, sir.”
Tennant’s eyebrows shot up. “In the caravan?”
Ward reddened as laughter filled the room. “In Leith, sir.”
Tennant turned to Rebus. “A useful trip, DI Rebus?”
“As fishing expeditions go, I’ve been on worse.”
Tennant was thoughtful again. “The caravan angle: is there any mileage in that?”
“Could be, sir,” Tam Barclay said, feeling left out. “It’s something I feel we should follow up.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” Tennant told him. Then he turned to Gray and Sutherland. “And meantime you two were . . . ?”
“Making phone calls,” Gray announced calmly. “Trying to locate more of Diamond’s associates.”
“But still finding enough time to go walkabout, eh, Francis?”
Gray knew he’d been rumbled, decided silence was the best policy.
“DCS Templer tells me you were nosing around her inquiry.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She wasn’t happy about it.”
“And she came crying to you, sir?” Ward said belligerently.
“No, DC Ward . . . she quite properly mentioned it to me, that’s all.”
“There’s us and there’s them,” Ward went on, his eyes scanning the Wild Bunch. Rebus knew what he meant: it wasn’t so much a team thing, more something approaching a siege mentality.
There’s us . . . and there’s them.
Except that Rebus didn’t feel that way. Instead, he felt isolated inside his own head. Because he was a mole, brought here to con the group, and now working a case which, if solved, would be his ruin.
“Take this as a warning,” Tennant was telling Gray.
“You’re saying we shouldn’t fraternize?” Gray asked. “We’re a leper colony now, are we?”
“We’re here through the good graces of DCS Templer. This is her station. And if you want to get through this course . . .” He paused to allow them to prepare for his next words. “You’ll do exactly what you’re told, understood?”
There were mutters of grudging acquiescence.
“Now get back to work,” Tennant said, checking his watch. “I’m headed back to base, and I’ll expect to see all of you at Tulliallan tonight. Just because you’re in the big city, don’t think you’re here on anything other than parole . . .”
After he’d gone, they sat staring into space and at each other, wondering where they went from here. Ward was first to speak.
“That guy should be in porn films.”
Barclay frowned. “Why’s that then, Allan?”
Ward looked at him. “Tell me, Tam, when did you last see a bigger prick?”
The laughter eased some of the tension. Not that Rebus felt inclined to join in. He was imagining a blind woman, suddenly feeling a stranger’s hand grab her wrist. He was thinking of the terror involved. There was a question he’d asked of a psychologist at the time: “Blind or sighted, which would have been worse?”
The psychologist had just shaken his head, unable to provide an answer. Rebus had gone home and fashioned a blindfold for himself. He’d lasted all of twenty minutes, then had collapsed into his chair, his shins bruised, crying himself towards sleep.
He took a break now and went to the toilet, Gray warning him not to stray too close to “the real detectives.” When he walked in, Derek Linford was shaking his hands free of water.
“No towels,” Linford said, explaining his actions. He was studying his appearance in the mirror above the sinks.
“I heard you were filling my shoes,” said Rebus, approaching the urinals.
“I don’t think we’ve got anything to say to one another, do you?”
“Fair enough.” The silence lasted only half a minute.
“I’m about to do an interview,” Linford couldn’t help revealing. He tucked a stray hair behind one ear.
“Don’t let me keep you,” Rebus said. As he faced the urinal, he could almost feel Linford’s eyes drilling into his back. Then the door swung open again. It was Jazz. He started to introduce himself to Linford, but was interrupted.
“Sorry, I’ve got a suspect waiting for me.” By the time Rebus had zipped himself up, Linford was gone.
“Was it something I said?” Jazz mused.
“The only people Linford gives the time of day to are ones he thinks he should be sucking up to.”
“Career opportunist,” Jazz said, nodding his understanding. He went to the sink and ran his hands under the cold tap. “What was that Clash song again . . . ?”
“ ‘Career Opportunities.’ ”
“That’s the one. I always felt I wasn’t supposed to like The Clash: too old, not political enough.”
“I know what you mean.”
“A good band’s a good band, though.”
Rebus watched Jazz looking around for a towel of some kind. “Cutbacks,” Rebus explained. Jazz sighed and took out his handkerchief.
“That night we ran into your . . . your girlfriend, was it?” He waited till Rebus nodded. “Everything sorted now between the pair of you?”
“Not exactly.”
“They never tell you when you join, do they? That being a cop will screw up your love life.”
“You’re still married, though.”
Jazz nodded. “It’s never easy, though, is it?” He paused. “That rape inquiry got to you, I could see it in your eyes. The moment you read that story, you were back in the middle of it.”
“A lot of cases have got to me over the years, Jazz.”
“Why let them?”
“I don’t know.” Rebus paused. “Maybe I used to be a good cop.”
“Good cops put up barriers, John.”
“Is that what you do?”
Jazz took his time before answering. “End of the day, it’s just a job. Not worth losing sleep over, never mind anything else.”
Rebus saw an opening. “I started coming to that same conclusion . . . Maybe too late, though: I’ll be retiring soon.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning all that’s waiting for me out there is a lousy pension. This job’s taken away my wife, my kid . . . most of the friends I ever had . . .”
“That’s pretty tough.”
Rebus nodded. “And what’s it given me?”
“Apart from the drinking problem and lack of discipline?”
Rebus smiled. “Apart from those, yes.”
“I can’t answer that, John.”
Rebus let the silence rest between them, then asked the question he’d been preparing for.