10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (311 page)

At Fettes, Claverhouse and Colquhoun were already waiting. Rebus handed over the note and photo.

‘As I said, Inspector,’ Colquhoun stated, ‘addresses.’

‘Ask her what they mean,’ Claverhouse demanded. They were in the same room as before. Candice knew her place, and was already seated, her arms still folded, showing cream-coloured bandages and pink plasters. Colquhoun asked, but it was as though he’d ceased to exist. Candice stared at the wall in front of her, unblinking, her only motion a slight rocking to and fro.

‘Ask her again,’ Claverhouse said. But Rebus interrupted before Colquhoun could start.

‘Ask her if people she knows live there, people who are important to her.’

As Colquhoun formed the question, the rocking grew slightly in intensity. There were fresh tears in her eyes.

‘Her mother and father? Brothers and sisters?’

Colquhoun translated. Candice tried to stop her mouth trembling.

‘Maybe she left a kid behind . . .’

As Colquhoun asked, Candice flew from her chair, shouting and screaming. Ormiston tried to grab her, but she kicked out at him. When she’d calmed, she subsided in a corner of the room, arms over her head.

‘She’s not going to tell us anything,’ Colquhoun translated. ‘She was stupid to believe us. She just wants to go now. There’s nothing she can help us with.’

Rebus and Claverhouse shared a look.

‘We can’t hold her, John, not if she wants to leave. It’s
been dodgy enough keeping her away from a lawyer. Once she starts asking to go . . .’ He shrugged.

‘Come on, man,’ Rebus hissed, ‘she’s shit-scared, and with good reason. And now you’ve got all you’re going to get out of her, you’re just going to hand her back to Telford?’

‘Look, it’s not a question of –’

‘He’ll kill her, you know he will.’

‘If he was going to kill her, she’d be dead.’ Claverhouse paused. ‘He’s cleverer than that. He knows damned well all he had to do was give her a fright. He
knows
her. It sticks in my craw, too, but what can we do?’

‘Just keep her a few days, see if we can’t . . .’

‘Can’t what? You want to hand her over to Immigration?’

‘It’s an idea. Get her the hell away from here.’

Claverhouse pondered this, then turned to Colquhoun. ‘Ask her if she wants to go back to Sarajevo.’

Colquhoun asked. She slurred some answer, choking back tears.

‘She says if she goes back, they’ll kill everyone.’

Silence in the room. They were all looking at her. Four men, men with jobs, family ties, men with lives of their own. In the scheme of things, they seldom realised how well off they were. And now they realised something else: how helpless they were.

‘Tell her,’ Claverhouse said quietly, ‘she’s free to walk out of here at any time, if that’s what she really wants. If she stays, we’ll do our damnedest to help her . . .’

So Colquhoun spoke to her, and she listened, and when he’d finished she pushed herself back on to her feet and looked at them. Then she wiped her nose on her bandages, pushed the hair out of her eyes, and walked to the door.

‘Don’t go, Candice,’ Rebus said.

She half-turned towards him. ‘Okay,’ she said.

Then she opened the door and was gone.

Rebus grabbed Claverhouse’s arm. ‘We’ve got to pull Telford in, warn him not to touch her.’

‘You think he needs telling?’

‘You think he’d listen?’ Ormiston added.

‘I can’t believe this. He scared her half to death, and as a result we let her walk? I really can’t get my head round this.’

‘She could always have gone to Fife,’ Colquhoun said. With Candice out of the room, he seemed to have perked up a bit.

‘Bit late now,’ Ormiston said.

‘He beat us this time, that’s all,’ Claverhouse said, his eyes on Rebus. ‘But we’ll take him down, don’t worry.’ He managed a thin, humourless smile. ‘Don’t think we’re giving up, John. It’s not our style. Early days yet, pal. Early days . . .’

She was waiting for him out in the car park, standing by the passenger-door of his battered Saab 900.

‘Okay?’ she said.

‘Okay,’ he agreed, smiling with relief as he unlocked the car. He could think of only one place to take her. As he drove through The Meadows, she nodded, recognising the tree-lined playing fields.

‘You’ve been here before?’

She said a few words, nodded again as Rebus turned into Arden Street. He parked the car and turned to her.

‘You’ve been
here
?’

She pointed upwards, fingers curled into the shape of binoculars.

‘With Telford?’

‘Telford,’ she said. She made a show of writing something down, and Rebus took out his notebook and pen, handed them over. She drew a teddy bear.

‘You came in Telford’s car?’ Rebus interpreted. ‘And he
watched one of the flats up there?’ He pointed to his own flat.

‘Yes, yes.’

‘When was this?’ She didn’t understand the question. ‘I need a phrasebook,’ he muttered. Then he opened his door, got out and looked around. The cars around him were all empty. No Range Rovers. He signalled for Candice to get out and follow him.

She seemed to like his living-room, went straight to the record collection but couldn’t find anything she recognised. Rebus went into the kitchen to make coffee and to think. He couldn’t keep her here, not if Telford knew about the place. Telford . . . why had he been watching Rebus’s flat? The answer was obvious: he knew the detective was linked to Cafferty, and therefore a potential threat. He thought Rebus was in Cafferty’s pocket. Know your enemy: it was another rule Telford had learned.

Rebus phoned a contact from the
Scotland on Sunday
business section.

‘Japanese companies,’ Rebus said. ‘Rumours pertaining to.’

‘Can you narrow that down?’

‘New sites around Edinburgh, maybe Livingston.’

Rebus could hear the reporter shuffling papers on his desk. ‘There’s a whisper going round about a microprocessor plant.’

‘In Livingston?’

‘That’s one possibility.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Nope. Why the interest?’

‘Cheers, Tony.’ Rebus put down the receiver, looked across at Candice. He couldn’t think where else to take her. Hotels weren’t safe. One place came to mind, but it would be risky . . . Well, not so very risky. He made the call.

‘Sammy?’ he said. ‘Any chance you could do me a favour . . . ?’

Sammy lived in a ‘colonies’ flat in Shandon. Parking was almost impossible on the narrow street outside. Rebus got as close as he could.

Sammy was waiting for them in the narrow hallway, and led them into the cramped living-room. There was a guitar on a wicker chair and Candice lifted it, setting herself on the chair and strumming a chord.

‘Sammy,’ Rebus said, ‘this is Candice.’

‘Hello there,’ Sammy said. ‘Happy Halloween.’ Candice was putting chords together now. ‘Hey, that’s Oasis.’

Candice looked up, smiled. ‘Oasis,’ she echoed.

‘I’ve got the CD somewhere . . .’ Sammy examined a tower of CDs next to the hi-fi. ‘Here it is. Shall I put it on?’

‘Yes, yes.’

Sammy switched the hi-fi on, told Candice she was going to make some coffee, and beckoned for Rebus to follow her into the kitchen.

‘So who is she?’ The kitchen was tiny. Rebus stayed in the doorway.

‘She’s a prostitute. Against her will. I don’t want her pimp getting her.’

‘Where’s she from again?’

‘Sarajevo.’

‘And she doesn’t have much English?’

‘How’s your Serbo-Croat?’

‘Rusty.’

Rebus looked around. ‘Where’s your boyfriend?’

‘Out working.’

‘On the book?’ Rebus didn’t like Ned Farlowe. Partly it was that name: ‘Neds’ were what the
Sunday Post
called hooligans. They robbed old ladies of their pension books
and walking-frames. Those were the Neds of this world. And Farlowe meant Chris Farlowe: ‘Out of Time’, a number one that should have belonged to the Stones. Farlowe was researching a history of organised crime in Scotland.

‘Sod’s law,’ Sammy said. ‘He needs money to buy the time to write the thing.’

‘So what’s he doing?’

‘Just some freelance stuff. How long am I babysitting?’

‘A couple of days at most. Just till I find somewhere else.’

‘What will he do if he finds her?’

‘I’m not that keen to find out.’

Sammy finished rinsing the mugs. ‘She looks like me, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes, she does.’

‘I’ve got some time off coming. Maybe I’ll phone in, see if I can stay here with her. What’s her real name?’

‘She hasn’t told me.’

‘Has she any clothes?’

‘At a hotel. I’ll get a patrol car to bring them.’

‘She’s really in danger?’

‘She might be.’

Sammy looked at him. ‘But I’m not?’

‘No,’ her father said. ‘Because it’ll be our secret.’

‘And what do I tell Ned?’

‘Keep it short, just say you’re doing your dad a favour.’

‘You think a journalist’s going to be content with that?’

‘If he loves you.’

The kettle boiled, clicked off. Sammy poured water into three mugs. Through in the living-room, Candice’s interest had shifted to a pile of American comic books.

Rebus drank his coffee, then left them to their music and their comics. Instead of going home, he made for Young Street and the Ox, ordering a mug of instant. Fifty pee.
Pretty good deal, when you thought about it. Fifty pence for . . . what, half a pint? A pound a pint? Cheap at twice the price. Well, one-point-seven times the price, which would take it to the price of a beer . . . give or take.

Not that Rebus was counting.

The back room was quiet, just somebody scribbling away at the table nearest the fire. He was a regular, a journalist of some kind. Rebus thought of Ned Farlowe, who would want to know about Candice, but if anyone could keep him at bay, Sammy could. Rebus took out his mobile, phoned Colquhoun’s office.

‘Sorry to bother you again,’ he said.

‘What is it now?’ The lecturer sounded thoroughly exasperated.

‘Those refugees you mentioned. Any chance you could have a word with them?’

‘Well, I . . .’ Colquhoun cleared his throat. ‘Yes, I suppose I could talk to them. Does that mean . . .?’

‘Candice is safe.’

‘I don’t have their number here.’ Colquhoun sounded fuddled again. ‘Can it wait till I go home?’

‘Phone me when you’ve talked to them. And thanks.’

Rebus rang off, finished his coffee, and called Siobhan Clarke at home.

‘I need a favour,’ he said, feeling like a broken record.

‘How much trouble will it get me in?’

‘Almost none.’

‘Can I have that in writing?’

‘Think I’m stupid?’ Rebus smiled. ‘I want to see the files on Telford.’

‘Why not just ask Claverhouse?’

‘I’d rather ask you.’

‘It’s a lot of stuff. Do you want photocopies?’

‘Whatever.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Voices were raised in the front bar. ‘You’re not in the Ox, are you?’

‘As it happens, yes.’

‘Drinking?’

‘A mug of coffee.’

She laughed in disbelief and told him to take care. Rebus ended the call and stared at his mug. People like Siobhan Clarke, they could drive a man to drink.

It was 7 a.m. when the buzzer sounded, telling him there was someone at his tenement’s main door. He staggered along the hall to the intercom, and asked who the bloody hell it was.

‘The croissant man,’ a rough English voice replied.

‘The what?’

‘Come on, dick-brain, wakey-wakey. Memory’s not so hot these days, eh?’

A name tilted into Rebus’s head. ‘Abernethy?’

‘Now open up, it’s perishing down here.’

Rebus pushed the buzzer to let Abernethy in, then jogged back to the bedroom to put on some clothes. His mind felt numb. Abernethy was a DI in Special Branch, London. The last time he’d been in Edinburgh had been to chase terrorists. Rebus wondered what the hell he was doing here now.

When the doorbell sounded, Rebus tucked in his shirt and walked back down the hall. True to his word, Abernethy was carrying a bag of croissants. He hadn’t changed much: same faded denims and black leather bomber, same cropped brown hair spiked with gel. His face was heavy, pockmarked, and his eyes an unnerving, psychopath’s blue.

‘How’ve you been, mate?’ Abernethy slapped Rebus’s shoulder and marched past him into the kitchen. ‘Get the kettle on then.’ Like they did this every day of the week. Like they didn’t live four hundred miles apart.

‘Abernethy, what the hell are you doing here?’

‘Feeding you, of course, same thing the English have always done for the Jocks. Got any butter?’

‘Try the butter-dish.’

‘Plates?’

Rebus pointed to a cupboard.

‘Bet you drink instant: am I right?’

‘Abernethy . . .’

‘Let’s get this ready first, then talk, okay?’

‘The kettle boils quicker if you switch it on at the plug.’

‘Right.’

‘And I think there’s some jam.’

‘Any honey?’

‘Do I look like a bee?’

Abernethy smirked. ‘Old Georgie Flight sends his love, by the way. Word is, he’ll be retiring soon.’

George Flight: another ghost from Rebus’s past. Abernethy had unscrewed the top from the coffee jar and was sniffing the granules.

‘How fresh is this?’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘No class, John.’

‘Unlike you, you mean? When did you get here?’

‘Hit town half an hour ago.’

‘From London?’

‘Stopped a couple of hours in a lay-by, got my head down. That A1 is murder though. North of Newcastle, it’s like coming into a third-world country.’

‘Did you drive four hundred miles just to insult me?’

They took everything through to the table in the living-room, Rebus shoving aside books and notepads, stuff about the Second World War.

‘So,’ he said, as they sat down, ‘I’m assuming this isn’t a social call?’

‘Actually it is, in a way. I could have just telephoned, but I suddenly thought: wonder how the old devil’s getting on?
Next thing I knew, I was in the car and heading for the North Circular.’

‘I’m touched.’