“What happens now?” Rebus asked.
Ormiston shrugged. “You mean apart from the internal inquiry and me and Claverhouse getting the boot?” He spoke phlegmatically, and Rebus knew what he was thinking: Claverhouse was the team’s senior partner. His idea, him for the boot. Ormie might just about hang in there. But Carswell knew, and Carswell hid the scheme from the chief constable. The sackings could go higher than just Claverhouse . . .
“Has the Weasel turned up?” Rebus asked.
Ormiston shook his head. “You think maybe he . . . ?”
“Look, Ormie, word got out about what you were hiding in that compound. Isn’t it feasible that there could have been another leak? Half the city could have known about Claverhouse’s little ploy with the packing crates.”
“But how did they know which one?”
Rebus shook his head. “I can’t answer that. Claverhouse apart, who knew which crate the stuff was in?”
“Just him,” Ormiston replied with a shake of the head. It sounded like this was already very old ground.
“And was there anything about the crate that made it different from the others?”
“Not apart from its weight.”
“There had to be some way of telling which one it was?”
“The corner farthest from the loading bay. With another case on top of it.”
Rebus was thoughtful. “Maybe the guards knew” was all he could come up with.
“Well, they didn’t.”
Rebus folded his arms. “Sounds like it was your partner, then.”
Ormiston smiled without humor. “He thinks you told your pal Cafferty.” He’d turned to watch from the cabin’s window as Claverhouse marched across the compound towards them.
“The team were in and out of there in under ten minutes, Ormie,” Rebus explained patiently. “They knew which box they were looking for.”
Claverhouse appeared at the cabin’s open door. “I was just explaining to Ormie here,” Rebus informed him, “how it had to be you.”
Claverhouse stared at him, but Rebus wasn’t blinking, so the SDEA man turned towards his partner.
“Don’t go blaming me,” Ormiston said. “We’ve been through this a dozen times . . .”
It looked like there might be a dozen more in the future, too. Rebus squeezed out of the booth.
“Well,” he said, “I think I’ll leave you gentlemen to grind and gnash your teeth. Some of us have got the last precious hours of the weekend to look forward to.”
“You’re going nowhere,” Claverhouse told him. “Not until you’ve made your report.”
Rebus stopped. “What report?”
“Everything you know.”
“Everything? Even the little chat you wanted me to have with the Weasel?”
“Strathern already knows about it, John,” Ormiston told him.
“And he knows about the late-night visit the Weasel paid to you,” Claverhouse added, grim satisfaction bringing the ghost of a smile to his pale lips.
Just then, one of the doors to Strathern’s car opened and Carswell stepped out, crossing briskly to the gatehouse.
“Your turn,” he told Rebus.
The smile was lingering on Claverhouse’s face.
“You didn’t think it worth telling me any of this?” Strathern said. He held a notebook open on his lap, tapping it with a silver pen. They were seated in the back of his car. It smelled of leather and polished wood. Strathern looked annoyed, and his cheeks were tinged red. Rebus knew he was going to be a lot more annoyed by the end of their talk . . .
“Sorry for that, sir.”
“What’s this about Cafferty’s man?”
“DI Claverhouse asked me to speak with him.”
“Why you?”
Rebus shrugged. “I suppose because I’ve had a few run-ins with him in the past.”
“Claverhouse thinks you’re in Cafferty’s pocket.”
“He’s entitled to his opinion. It happens to be untrue.” Rebus watched as the SDEA men, accompanied by Carswell, disappeared inside the warehouse again.
“You didn’t say anything to Cafferty’s man?”
“Nothing DI Claverhouse didn’t want me to say.”
“But he sought you out?”
“He came to my home, yes. We spoke for a few minutes.”
“About what?”
“He was still worried about his son.”
“And thought you could help?”
“I’m not really sure, sir.”
Strathern looked over some handwritten notes. “You visited the warehouse twice?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And your second visit was . . . ?”
“Thursday, sir.”
“Why were you there? Claverhouse says you weren’t invited.”
“That’s not strictly true, sir. I went to HQ to speak to him. He was at the warehouse, and DS Ormiston was headed down here . . . DI Claverhouse knew I was coming. I think he was pleased at the prospect. It meant he could show off his little idea.”
“The crates? Bloody idiotic . . .” Strathern paused. “He says you came to offer an apology. Doesn’t sound like you, John.”
“It isn’t,” Rebus said. His stomach tightened. Things were about to get uncomfortable. “It was a pretext.”
“A pretext?”
“I’d come to the warehouse because Gray, McCullough and Ward asked me to.”
There was a long silence. The two men fixed eyes. Strathern twisted in his seat, trying to face Rebus as best he could in the cramped confines.
“Proceed,” he said.
So Rebus told him. The planned heist . . . his way into the gang . . . how it was never meant to come to anything . . . the way they’d dumped him once he’d gone cold on the idea.
“They knew about the crates?” Strathern asked, voice ominously quiet.
“Yes.”
“Because you told them?”
“I was trying to make them see how impossible the whole thing was . . .”
Strathern leaned forward, placed his head in his hands. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. Then he sat back up, took a deep breath.
“There were five of them,” Rebus said as Strathern struggled to regain his composure. “Maybe even six.”
“What?”
“Four men in the van . . . the CCTV footage. Plus at least one other in the second van.”
“So?”
“So who were the others?”
“Maybe one of them was you, John. Maybe that’s why I’m getting this story. You’re setting up your co-conspirators.”
“I was at a hotel on the west coast.”
“Convenient alibi. Girlfriend with you?” Rebus nodded. “Just the two of you, alone in the room all night? As I say, a convenient alibi.”
“Sir . . . supposing I was involved, why would I have told you any of it?”
“To set them up.”
“Fine,” Rebus said grimly. “It was you and your cronies who wanted them . . . go get them. And arrest me while you’re at it.” Rebus opened his door.
“We’ve not finished here, DI Rebus . . .”
But Rebus was already out of the car. He leaned back down into it. “Better to get the air cleared, sir. Let’s have all of it out in the open: the Bernie Johns case . . . bent cops . . . dope kept hidden from Customs . . . and a coven of chief constables who managed to fuck everything up!”
Rebus slammed the door closed after him and stalked towards his own car, then thought better of it. He needed a pee, so walked around the side of the warehouse. There, in the narrow, weed-filled conduit between the security fence and corrugated-aluminum wall, he saw a distant figure. The man was at the far corner of the building, hands in pockets, head bowed forward as his whole body seemed to convulse.
It was Colin Carswell, the assistant chief constable.
Kicking the fence with all his might.
28
“You’re not going to get away with it.”
Monday morning at Tulliallan. While parking his Saab, Rebus had seen McCullough getting out of his own car. McCullough had been reaching into the backseat for his carryall. He turned at the sound of Rebus’s voice, but then decided to ignore him. There was a folder he wanted, farther along the backseat. He stretched for it.