`Not if I kill it first,' said Rebus, winking as he raised the glass to his lips.
The taxi driver wouldn't take him as far as the Churchill Estate. `I'll drop you off a couple of streets away and show you where to go, but there's no way I'm going in there.'
`Fair enough,' said Rebus.
So he took the taxi as far as the taxi would take him, then walked the remaining distance. It didn't look so' bad. He'd seen worse on the outskirts of Edinburgh. A lot of dull concrete, nuggets of glass underfoot, boarded windows and spray-painted gang names on every wall. Jeez Posse seemed to be the main gang, though there were other names so fantastically contrived that he could not make them out. Young boys skateboarded through an arena constructed from milk-crates, wooden planks and bricks. You couldn't muzzle the creative mind. Rebus stopped to watch for a moment; it only took a moment to appreciate that these boys were masters of their craft.
Rebus came to the entrance of one of the estate's four high-rises. He was busy looking for an identifying mark when something went splat on the pavement beside him. He looked down. It was a sandwich, a salami sandwich by the look of it. He craned his neck to look up at the various levels of the tower block, just in time to catch sight of something large and dark growing larger and darker as it hurtled towards him.
`Jesus Christ!' He leapt into the safety of the block's entrance hall, just as the TV set landed, flattening itself with an explosion of plastic, metal and glass. From their arena, the boys cheered. Rebus moved outside again, but more warily now, and craned his neck. There was no one to be seen. He whistled under his breath. He was impressed, and a little scared. Despite the thunderous sound, nobody seemed curious or interested.
He wondered which television show had so angered the person somewhere above him. `Everyone's a critic,' he said. And then: `FYTP '
He heard a lift opening. A young woman, greasy dyed-blonde hair, gold stud in her nose and three in each ear; spider-web tattoo across her throat. She wheeled a push?chair out onto the concrete. Seconds earlier she would have been beneath the television.'
`Excuse me,' said Rebus above the noise of her wailing passenger.
`Yeah?'
`Is this Pedro Tower?'
`Over there,' she said, pointing a sharpened fingernail towards one of the remaining blocks.
`Thank you.'
She glanced towards where the television had landed'. `It's the kids,' she said. `They break into a flat, and throw a sandwich out of the window, A dog comes to eat it, and they chuck a telly after it. Makes a helluva mess.' She sounded almost amused. Almost.
`Lucky I don't like salami,' Rebus said.
But she was already manoeuvring the pushchair past the fresh debris. `If you don't shut up I'll fucking kill, you!' she yelled at her child. Rebus walked on unsteady legs towards Pedro Tower.
Why was he here?
It had all seemed to make sense, had seemed logical. But now that he stood in the sour-smelling ground-floor hallway of Pedro Tower he found that he had no reason at all to be here. Rhona had said that Sammy was out with Kenny. The chances of them choosing to spend the evening in Pedro Tower must be slim, mustn't they?
Even supposing Kenny were here, how would Rebus locate the flat? The locals would sniff an enquiring copper from fifty paces. Questions would go unanswered, knocked doors would stay unopened. Was this what intellectuals called an impasse? He could, always wait, of course. Kenny would be sure to return at some point. But wait where? In here? Too conspicuous, too unappealing. Outside? Too cold, too open, too many armchair critics high above him in the now dark sky.
Which left him where precisely? Yes, this probably was an impasse. He walked from the block, his eyes on the windows above' him, and was about to make off in the direction of the skateboarders when a scream split the air from the other side of Pedro Tower. He walked quickly towards the source of the sound and was in time to see the butt-end of a burning argument. The woman—no more than a girl really, seventeen, eighteen—hit the bedenimed man with a good right-hand, sending him spinning. Then she stalked off as he, holding one side of his face, tried to hurl obscenities at her while at the same time feeling in his mouth for damaged teeth.
They did not interest Rebus particularly. He was looking past them to a low-built, dimly-illuminated building, a prefabricated construction surrounded by grass and dirt. A weathered board, lit by a single bulb, proclaimed it The Fighting Cock. A pub? Here? That was no place for a policeman, no place for a Scots policeman. But what if . . .? No, it couldn't be so simple. Sammy and Kenny couldn't be in. there wouldn't be, in there.' His daughter deserved better. Deserved the best
But then she reckoned Kenny Watkiss was the best. And maybe he was. Rebus stopped dead. Just what the hell was he doing? Okay, so he didn't like Kenny. And when he had seen Kenny cheering in the Old Bailey, he had put two and two together and come to the conclusion that Kenny was in deep with Tommy Watkiss. But now it turned out the two were related in some way and that would explain the cheer, wouldn't it?
The psychology books told him that coppers read the worst into every situation. It was true. He didn't like the fact that Kenny Watkiss was dating his daughter. If Kenny had been heir apparent to the throne, Rebus would still have been suspicious. She was his daughter. He'd hardly seen her since she had entered her teens. In his mind she was still a child, a thing to be cosseted, loved, and protected. But she was a big girl now, with ambition, drive, good, looks and a grown-up, body. She was grown-up, there was no escaping it, and it scared him. Scared him because she was Sammy, his Sammy. Scared him because he hadn't been there all these years to warn her, to tell her how to cope, what to do.
Scared because he was getting old.
There, it was out. He was growing old. He had a sixteen-year old daughter and she was old enough to leave school and get a job, to have sex, to get married. Not old enough to go into pubs, but that wouldn't stop her. Not old enough for street-wise eighteen-year-olds like Kenny Watkiss. But grown-up all the same, grown up without him, and now he too was old.
And by God he felt it.
He plunged his left hand deep into his pocket, his right hand still wrapped around the handle of the carrier-bag, and turned from the pub. There was a bus stop near where the taxi had dropped him. He'd go where the bus would take him. The skateboarders were coming along the path in front of him. One of them seemed very proficient, weaving without losing balance. As the boy approached, he suddenly flipped the board up so that it spun in the air, in front of him. Both hands neatly grabbed the board by its running tail and swung the board itself in a backward arc. Too late, Rebus saw the manoeuvre for what it was. He tried to duck but the heavy wooden board hit the side of his head with a sharp crack.
He staggered, dropped to his knees. They were on him immediately, seven or eight of them, hands gouging into his pockets.
'Fuckin’ split my board, man. Lookatit. Fuckin’ six inch split.'
A training shoe caught Rebus on the chin and sent him flying. He was concentrating on not losing consciousness, so much so that he forgot to fight or to scream or to defend himself. Then a loud voice.
'Oi! What the fuck d'you think you're up to?'
And they ran, rolling their boards until they had gained enough speed, the hard wheels crackling on the tarmac as they fled. Like a posse in an old western, Rebus thought with a smile. Like a posse.
`You all right, mate? Come on, let's get you up.'
The man helped Rebus to his feet. When his eyes regained their powers of focus, he saw, blood on the man's lip, smeared across his, chin. The man noticed him looking.