Rebus - Naughts And Crosses Part 15

'But it's cracked, isn't it?' Stevens' heart jumped.

'Is it?' he heard himself say. 'Well, don't you know?'

'Yes, of course, but we have to get all the details-'

'From everyone concerned. Yes, so you said. Look, can I see your identificafion again? Just to be on the safe side.'

There was the sound of a key prodding at the front door. Christ, thought Stevens, they're back already. 'Listen,' he said through his teeth, 'we know all about your little drugs-racket. Now tell us who's behind it or else we'll put you behind bars for a hundred years, sonny!'

Michael's face went light-blue, then grey. His mouth seemed ready to drop open with a word, the one word Stevens needed.

But then one of the gorillas was in the room, propelling Stevens out of his chair.

'I've not finished my coffee yet!' he protested.

'You're lucky I don't break your flaming neck, pal,' replied the policeman.

Michael Rebus stood up, too, but he was saying nothing. 'A name!' cried Stevens. 'Just give me the name! This'll be 136 spread right across the front pages, my friend, if you don't co-operate! Give me the name!'

He kept up his cries all the way down the stairwell. Right down to the last step.

'All right, I'm going,' he said eventually, breaking free of the heavy grip on his arm. 'I'm going. You were a bit slack there, boys, weren't you? I'll keep it quiet this time, but next time you better be ready. Okay?'

'Get to f.u.c.k out of here,' said one gorilla.

Stevens got to f.u.c.k. He slid into his car, feeling more frustrated and more curious than ever. G.o.d, he'd been close. But what did the hypnotist mean by that? The case was cracked. Was it? If so, he wanted to be there with the first details. He was not used to being so far behind in the game. Usually, games were played by his rules. No, he was not used to this, and he did not like it at all.

He loved it.

But, jf the case was cracked, then time was tight. And if you could not get what you wanted from one brother, then go to the other. He thought he knew where John Rebus would be. His intuition ran high today. He felt inspired.

xxv 'Well, John, this all seems quite fantastical, but I'm sure it's a possibility. Certainly, it's the best lead we've got, though I find it hard to conceive of a man with so much hate that he would murder four innocent girls just to give you the clues as to his ultimate victim.'

Chief Superintendent Wallace looked from Rebus to Gill Templer and back again. To Rebus's left sat Anderson. Wallace's hands lay like dead fish on his desk, a pen in front of him. The room was large and uncluttered, a self-a.s.sured oasis. Here, problems were always solved, decisions were made-always correctly.

'The problem now is finding him. If we make this thing public, then that might scare him off, endangering your daughter's life in the process. On the other hand, a public appeal would be by far the quickest way of finding him.'

'37 'You can't possibly . . .!' It was Gill Templer who, in that quiet room, was on the verge of exploding, but Wallace silenced her with a wave of his hand.

'I am merely thinking aloud at this stage, Inspector Templer, merely casting stones into a pond.'

Anderson sat like a corpse, his eyes to the floor. He was on leave now officially and in mourning, but he had insisted on keeping in touch with the case and Superintendent Wallace had acquiesced.

'Of course, John,' Wallace was saying, 'it's impossible for you to remain on the case.'

Rebus rose to his feet.

'Sit down, John, please.' The Super's eyes were hard and honest, the eyes of a real copper, one of the old school. Rebus sat down again. 'Now I know how you must feel, believe it or believe it not. But there's too much at stake here. Too much for all of us.You're far too involved to be of any objective use,and the public would cry out about vigilante tactics. You must see that.'

'All I see is that without me Reeve will stop at nothing. It's me he wants.'

'Exactly. And wouldn't we be stupid to hand you over to him on a plate? We'll do everything we can, as much as you could do. Leave it to us.'

'The Army won't tell you anything, you know.'

'They'll have to.' Wallace began to toy with his pen, as though it were there for that very purpose. 'Ultimately, they've got the same boss we have. They'll be made to tell.'

Rebus shook his head.

'They're a law unto themselves. The SAS is hardly even a part of the Army. If they don't want to tell you, then believe me, they won't tell you a b.l.o.o.d.y thing.' Rebus's hand came down onto the desk. 'Not a b.l.o.o.d.y thing.'

'John.' Gill's hand squeezed his shoulder, asking him to be calm. She herself looked like a fury, but she knew when~to keep quiet and let looks alone transmit her anger and her displeasure. For Rebus, however, it was actions that counted. He'd been sitting outside reality for way too long.

He rose from his small chair like a pure force, no longer human, and left the room in silence. The superintendent looked at Gill.

138 'He's off the case, Gill. He must be made to realise that. I believe that you,' he paused while opening and shutting a drawer, 'that you and he have an understanding. That, at least, is how we used to phrase it in my day. Perhaps you should make him aware of his position. We'll get this man, but not with Rebus hanging around intent on revenge.' Wallace looked towards Anderson, who stared drily at him. 'We don't want vigilante tactics,' he went on. 'Not in Edinburgh. What would the tourists say?' Then his face broke into a cold smile. He looked from Anderson to Gill, then rose from his chair. 'This is all becoming extremely 'Internecine?' suggested Gill.

'I was going to say incestuous. What with Chief Inspector Anderson here, his son and Rebus's wife, yourself and Rebus, Rebus and this man Reeve, Reeve and Rebus's daughter. I hope the press don't get wind of this. You'll be responsible for seeing that they don't, and for punis.h.i.+ng any that do. Am I making myself clear?'

Gill Templer nodded, stiffing a sudden yawn.

'Good.' The Super nodded across to Anderson. 'Now see that Chief Inspector Anderson gets home safely, will you?'

William Anderson, seated in the back of the car, went through his mental list of informants and friends. He knew a couple of people who might know about the Special Air Squadron. Certainly, something like the Rebu~Reeve case could not have been hushed up totally, though it might well have been struck from the records. The soldiers would have known about it though. Grapevines existed everywhere, and especially where you would least expect them. He might need to twist a few arms and lay out a few tenners, but he would find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d if it was his last action on G.o.d's earth.

Or he would be there when Rebus did.

Rebus had left the HQ by a back entrance, as Stevens had hoped. He followed Rebus as the policeman, looking the worse for wear, stalked away. What was it all about? No matter. As long as he stuck to Rebus, he could be sure of getting his story, and what a story it promised to be. Stevens kept checking behind him, but there seemed to be no tail on Rebus. No police 139 I.

tail, that was. It seemed strange to him that they would allow Rebus to go off on his own when there was no telling what a man would do whose daughter had been abducted. Stevens was hoping for the ultimate plot: he was hoping that Rebus would lead him straight to the big boys behind this new drugs ring. If not one brother, then the other.

Like a brother to me, and I to him. What happened? He knew what was to blame at heart. The method, that was the cause of all of this. The caging and the breaking and then the patching up. The patching up had not been a success, had it? They were both broken men in their own ways. That knowledge wouldn't stop him from shearing Reeve's head from its shoulders though. Nothing would stop that. But he had to find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d yet, and he had no idea where to start. He could feel the city closing in on him, bringing to bear all of its historical weight, smothering him. Dissent, rationalism, enlightenment: Edinburgh had specialized in all three, and now he too would need these charms. He needed to work on his own, quickly, yet methodically, using ingenuity and every tool at his disposal. Most of all he needed instinct.

After five minutes, he knew he was being followed, and the hair stood up at the back of his neck. It was not the usual police tail. That would not have been so easy to spot. But was it.

Could he be so close. . . At a bus-stop, he stopped and turned suddenly, as though checking to see if a bus was coming. He saw the man dodge into a doorway. It wasn't Gordon Reeve. It was that b.l.o.o.d.y reporter.

Rebus listened to his heart slow again, but the adrenalin was already pumping through him, filling him with a desire to run, to take off along this long straight road and run into the strongest head-wind imaginable. But then a bus came trundling round the corner, and he boarded that instead.

From the back window, he saw the reporter jump out of the doorway and desperately flag down a taxi-cab. Rebus had no time to be bothered with the man. He had some thinking to do, thinking about how in the world he could find Reeve. The possibility haunted him: he'll find me. I don't need to chase. But somehow that scared him most of all.

140.

'You can't possibly . . .!' It was Gill Templer who, in that quiet room, was on the verge of exploding, but Wallace silenced her with a wave of his hand.

'I am merely thinking aloud at this stage, Inspector Templer, merely casting stones into a pond.'

Anderson sat like a corpse, his eyes to the floor. He was on leave now officially and in mourning, but he had insisted on keeping in touch with the case and Superintendent Wallace had acquiesced.

'Of course, John,' Wallace was saying, 'it's impossible for you to remain on the case.'

Rebus rose to his feet.

'Sit down, John, please.' The Super's eyes were hard and honest, the eyes of a real copper, one of the old school. Rebus sat down again. 'Now I know how you must feel, believe it or believe it not. But there's too much at stake here. Too much for all of us. You're far too involved to be of any objective use, and the public would cry out about vigilante tactics. You must see that.'

'All I see is that without me Reeve will stop at nothing. It's me he wants.'

'Exactly. And wouldn't we be stupid to hand you over to him on a plate? We'll do everything we can, as much as you could do. Leave it to us.'

'The Army won't tell you anything, you know.'

'They'll have to.' Wallace began to toy with his pen, as though it were there for that very purpose. 'Ultimately, they've got the same boss we have. They'll be made to tell.'

Rebus shook his head.

'They're a law unto themselves. The SAS is hardly even a part of the Army. If they don't want to tell you, then believe me, they won't tell you a b.l.o.o.d.y thing.' Rebus's hand came down onto the desk. 'Not a b.l.o.o.d.y thing.'

'John.' Gill's hand squeezed his shoulder, asking him to be calm. She herself looked like a fury, but she knew wheri to keep quiet and let looks alone transmit her anger and her displeasure. For Rebus, however, it was actions that counted. He'd been sitting outside reality for way too long.

He rose from his small chair like a pure force, no longer human, and left the room in silence. The superintendent looked at Gill.

138 'He's off the case, Gill. He must be made to realise that. I believe that you,' he paused while opening and shutting a drawer, 'that you and he have an understanding. That, at least, is how we used to phrase it in my day. Perhaps you should make him aware of his position. We'll get this man, but not with Rebus hanging around intent on revenge.' Wallace looked towards Anderson, who stared drily at him. 'We don't want vigilante tactics,' he went on. 'Not in Edinburgh. What would the tourists say?' Then his face broke into a cold smile. He looked from Anderson to Gill, then rose from his chair. 'This is all becoming extremely 'Internecine?' suggested Gill.

'I was going to say incestuous. What with Chief Inspector Anderson here, his son and Rebus's wife, yourself and Rebus, Rebus and this man Reeve, Reeve and Rebus's daughter. I hope the press don't get wind of this. You'll be responsible for seeing that they don't, and for punis.h.i.+ng any that do. Am I making myself clear?'

Gill templer nodded, stiiling a sudden yawn.

'Good.' The Super nodded across to Anderson. 'Now see that Chief Inspector Anderson gets home safely, will you?'

William Anderson, seated in the back of the car, went through his mental list of informants and friends. He knew a couple of people who might know about the Special Air Squadron. Certainly, something like the Rebu~Reeve case could not have been hushed up totally, though it might well have been struck from the records. The soldiers would have known about it though. Grapevines existed everywhere, and especially where you would least expect them. He might need to twist a few arms and lay out a few tenners, but he would find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d if it was his last action on G.o.d's earth.

Or he would be there when Rebus did.

Rebus had left the HQ by a back entrance, as Stevens had hoped. He followed Rebus as the policeman, looking the worse for wear, stalked away. What was it all about? No matter. As long as he stuck to Rebus, he could be sure of getting his story, and what a story it promised to be. Stevens kept checking behind him, but there seemed to be no tail on Rebus. No police '39 tail, that was. It seemed strange to him that they would allow Rebus to go off on his own when there was no telling what a man would do whose daughter had been abducted. Stevens was hoping for the ultimate plot: he was hoping that Rebus would lead him straight to the big boys behind this new drugs ring. If not one brother, then the other.

Like a brother to me, and I to him. What happened? He knew what was to blame at heart. The method, that was the cause of all of this. The caging and the breaking and then the patching up. The patching up had not been a success, had it? They were both broken men in their own ways. That knowledge wouldn't stop him from shearing Reeve's head from its shoulders though. Nothing would stop that. But he had to find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d yet, and he had no idea where to start. He could feel the city closing in on him, bringing to bear all of its historical weight, smothering him. Dissent, rationalism, enlightenment: Edinburgh had specialized in all three, and now he too would need these charms. He needed to work on his own, quickly, yet methodically, using ingenuity and every tool at his disposal. Most of all he needed instinct.

After five minutes, he knew he was being followed, and the hair stood up at the back of his neck. It was not the usual police tail. That would not have been so easy to spot. But was it.

Could he be so close. . . At a bus-stop, he stopped and turned suddenly, as though checking to see if a bus was coming. He saw the man dodge into a doorway. It wasn't Gordon Reeve. It was that b.l.o.o.d.y reporter.

Rebus listened to his heart slow again, but the adrenalin was already pumping through him, filling him with a desire to run, to take off along this long straight road and run into the strongest head-wind imaginable. But then a bus came trundling round the corner, and he boarded that instead.

From the back window, he saw the reporter jump ot.i.t of the doorway and desperately flag down a taxi-cab. Rebus had no time to be bothered with the man. He had some thinking to do, thinking about how in the world he could find Reeve. The possibility haunted him: he'll find me. I don't need to chase. But somehow that scared him most of all.

140 Gill Templer could not find Rebus. He had disappeared as though he had been a shadow merely and not a man at all. She telephoned and hunted and asked and did all the things a good copper should do, but she was confronted by the fact of a man who was not only a good copper himself, but had been one of the best in the SAS to boot. He might have been hiding under her feet, under her desk, in her clothes, and she would never have found him. So he stayed hidden.

He stayed hidden, she surmised, because he was on the move, swiftly and methodically moving through the streets and bars of Edinburgh in search of his prey, knowing that when found, the prey would turn hunter once more.

But Gill went on trying, s.h.i.+vering now and then when she thought of her lover's grim and horrific past, and of the mentality of those who decided that such things were necessary. Poor John. What would she have done? She would have walked right out of that cell and kept on walking, just as he had done. And yet she would have felt guilty, too, just as he had felt guilt, and she would have put it all behind her, scarred invisibly.

Why did the men in her life have to be such complicated, fraught, screwed-up b.a.s.t.a.r.ds? Did she attract the soiled goods only? It might have been humorous, but then there was Samantha to think about, and that wasn't funny at all. Where did you start looking if you wanted to find a needle? She remembered Superintendent Wallace's words: they've got the same boss we have. That was a truth well worth contemplating in all its complexity. For if they had the same boss, then perhaps a cover-up could be arranged at this end, now that the ancient and terrible truth had suffaced again. If this got into the papers, all h.e.l.l would be let loose at every level of the service. Perhaps they would want to co-operate in hus.h.i.+ng it up. Perhaps they would want Rebus silenced. My G.o.d, what if they should want John Rebus silenced? That would mean silencing Anderson, too, and herself. It would mean bribes or a total wipe-out. She would have to be very careful indeed. One false move now might mean her dismissal from the force, and that would not do at all. Justice had to be seen to be done. There could be no cover-ups. The Boss, whoever or whatever that anonymous term was meant to imply, would not have his or its day. There '4' had to be truth, or the whole thing was a sham, and so were its actors.

And what of her feelings towards John Rebus himself, spotlit on the reddened stage? She hardly knew what to think. The notion still niggled at her that, no matter how absurd it might appear, John was somehow behind this whole thing: no Reeve, the notes sent to himself, jealousy leading him to kill his wife's lover, his daughter now hidden somewhere~somewhere like that locked room.

It was hardly to be contemplated, which, considering the way the whole thing had gone thus far, was why Gill contemplated it very hard indeed. And rejected it, rejected it for no other reason than that John Rebus had once made love to her, once bared his soul to her, once clasped her hand beneath a hospital blanket. Would a man with something to hide have become involved with a policewoman? No, it seemed wholly unlikely.

So, again, it became a possibility, joining the others. Gill's head began to pulse. Where the h.e.l.l was John? And what if Reeve found him before they found Reeve? If John Rebus was a walking beacon to his enemy, then wasn't it crazy for him to be out there on his own, wherever he was? Of course it was stupid. It had been stupid to let him walk out of the room, out of the building, vanis.h.i.+ng like a whisper. s.h.i.+t. She picked up the telephone again and dialled his flat.

XXVI.

John Rebus was moving through the jungle of the city, that jungle the tourists never saw, being too busy snapping away at the ancient golden temples, temples long since gone but still evident as shadows. This jungle closed in on the tourists relentlessly but unseen, a natural force, the force of dissipation and destruction.

Edinburgh's an easy beat, his colleagues from the west coast would say. Try Partick for a night and tell me that it's not. But Rebus knew different. He knew that Edinburgh was all appear ances, which made the crime less easy to spot, but no less evident. Edinburgh was a schizophrenic city, the place of Jekyll & Hyde sure enough, the city of Deacon Brodie, of fur coats 142 and no knickers (as they said in the west). But it was a small city, too, and that would be to Rebus's advantage.

He hunted in the hard-man's drinking dens, in the housing estates where heroin and unemployment were the totem kings, for he knew that somewhere in this anonymity a hard man could hide and could plan and could survive. He was trying to get inside Gordon Reeve's skin. It was a skin sloughed many times, and Rebus had to admit, finally, that he was further away from his insane, murderous blood-brother than ever before. If he had turned his back on Gordon Reeve, then Reeve was refusing to show himself anyway. Perhaps there would be another note, another teasing clue. Oh, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. Please G.o.d let her live, let her live.

Gordon Reeve had levitated right out of Rebus's world. He was floating overhead, floating and gloating in his new-found power. It had taken him fifteen years to accomplish his trick, but my G.o.d what a trick. Fifteen years within which time he had probably changed his name and appearance, taken on a menial job, researched Rebus's life. How long had this man been watching him? Watching and hating and scheming? All those times that he had felt his flesh creep for no reason, that the telephone had rung without a voice behind it, that small, easily forgotten accidents had occurred. And Reeve, grinning above him, a little G.o.d over Rebus's destiny. Rebus, s.h.i.+vering, entered a pub for the h.e.l.l of it and ordered a triple whisky.

'It's quarter-gills in here, pal. Are you sure you want a treble?'

'Sure.'

What the h.e.l.l. It was all one. If G.o.d swirled in his heaven, leaning down to touch his creatures, then it was a curious touch indeed that he gave them. Looking around, Rebus stared into a heart of desperation. Old men sat with their half-pint gla.s.ses, staring emptily towards the front door. Were they wondering what was outside? Or were they just scared that whatever was out there would one day force its way in, pus.h.i.+ng into their dark corners and cowered glances with the wrath of some Old Testament monster, some behemoth, some flood of destruction? Rebus could not see behind their eyes, just as they could not see behind his. That ability not to share the sufferings of others was all that kept the ma.s.s of humanity rolling on, '43 I.

concentrating on the 'me', shunning the beggars and their folded arms. Rebus, behind his eyes, was begging now, begging to that strange G.o.d of his to allow him to find Reeve, to explain himself to the madman. G.o.d did not answer. The TV blared out some ba.n.a.l quiz show.

'Fight Imperialism, fight Racism.'

A young girl wearing a mock-leather coat and little round gla.s.ses stood behind Rebus. He turned to her. She had a collecting tin in one hand and a pile of newspapers in the other.

'Fight Imperialism, fight Racism.'

'So you said.' Even now he could feel the alcohol working on his jaw muscles, freeing them of stiffness. 'Who are you from?'

'Workers Revolutionary Party. The only way to smash the Imperialist system is for the workers to unite and smash racism. Racism is the backbone of repression.'

'Oh? Aren't you confusing two entirely different arguments there, love?'

She bristled, but was ready to argue. They always were.

'The two are inextricable. Capitalism was built on slave labour and is maintained by slave labour.'

'You don't sound much like a slave, dear. Where did you get that accent? Cheltenham?'