Dead Souls (4 page)

Other family members nestled close to the parents, seeking comfort or ready to offer support – Rebus couldn’t tell which.

‘Nice family,’ the Farmer was whispering. Rebus almost perceived a whiff of envy. ‘Hannah’s won competitions.’

Hannah being the daughter. She was eight, Rebus learned. Blue-eyed like her father and perfect-skinned. The widow’s name was Katherine.

‘Dear Lord, the sheer waste.’

Rebus thought of the Farmer’s photographs, of the way individuals met and interlaced, forming a pattern which drew in others, colours merging or taking on discernible contrasts. You made friends, married into a new family, you had children who played with the children of other parents. You went to work, met colleagues who became friends. Bit by bit your identity became subsumed, no longer an individual and yet stronger somehow as a result.

Except it didn’t always work that way. Conflicts could arise: work perhaps, or the slow realisation that you’d made a wrong decision some time back. Rebus had seen it in his own life, had chosen profession over marriage, pushing his wife away. She’d taken their daughter with her. He felt now that he’d made the right choice for the wrong reasons, that he should have owned up to his
failings from the start. His work had merely given him a reasonable excuse for bailing out.

He wondered about Jim Margolies, who had thrown himself to his death in the dark. He wondered what had driven him to that final stark decision. No one seemed to have a clue. Rebus had come across plenty of suicides over the years, from bungled to assisted and all points in between. But there had always been some kind of explanation, some breaking point reached, some deep-seated sense of loss or failure or foreboding. Leaf Hound: ‘Drowned My Life in Fear’.

But when it came to Jim Margolies … nothing clicked. There was no sense to it. His widow, parents, workmates … no one had been able to offer the first hint of an explanation. He’d been declared A1 fit. Things had been fine on the work front and at home. He loved his wife, his daughter. Money was not a problem.

But something had been a problem.

Dear Lord, the sheer waste
.

And the cruelty of it: to leave everyone not only grieving but questioning, wondering if they were somehow to blame.

To erase your own life when life was so precious.

Looking towards the trees, Rebus saw Jack Morton standing there, seeming as young as when the two had first met.

Earth was being tossed down on to the coffin lid, a final futile wake-up call. The Farmer started walking away, hands clasped behind his back.

‘As long as I live,’ he said, ‘I’ll never understand it.’

‘You never know your luck,’ said Rebus.

He stood atop Salisbury Crags. There was a fierce wind blowing, and he turned up the collar of his coat. He’d been home to change out of his funeral clothes and should have been heading back for the station – he could see St Leonard’s from here – but something had made him take this detour.

Behind and above him, a few hardy souls had achieved the summit of Arthur’s Seat. Their reward: the panoramic view, plus ears that would sting for hours. With his fear of heights, Rebus didn’t get too close to the edge. The landscape was extraordinary. It was as though God had slapped his hand down on to Holyrood Park, flattening part of it but leaving this sheer face of rock, a reminder of the city’s origins.

Jim Margolies had jumped from here. Or a sudden gust had taken him: that was the less plausible, but more easily digested alternative. His widow had stated her belief that he’d been ‘walking, just walking’, and had lost his footing in the dark. But this raised unanswerable questions. What would take him from his bed in the middle of the night? If he had worries, why did he need to think them out at the top of Salisbury Crags, several miles from his home? He lived in The Grange, in what had been his wife’s parents’ house. It was raining that night, yet he didn’t take the car. Would a desperate man notice he was getting soaked …?

Looking down, Rebus saw the site of the old brewery, where they were going to build the new Scottish parliament. The first in three hundred years, and sited next to a
theme park. Nearby stood the Greenfield housing scheme, a compact maze of high-rise blocks and sheltered accommodation. He wondered why the Crags should be so much more impressive than the man-made ingenuity of high-rises, then reached into his pocket for a folded piece of paper. He checked an address, looked back down on to Greenfield, and knew he had one more detour to make.

Greenfield’s flat-roofed tower blocks had been built in the mid-1960s and were showing their age. Dark stains bloomed on the discoloured harling. Overflow pipes dripped water on to cracked paving slabs. Rotting wood was flaking from the window surrounds. The wall of one ground-floor flat, its windows boarded up, had been painted to identify the one-time tenant as ‘Junky Scum’.

No council planner had ever lived here. No director of housing or community architect. All the council had done was move in problem tenants and tell everyone central heating was on its way. The estate had been built on the flat bottom of a bowl of land, so that Salisbury Crags loomed monstrously over the whole. Rebus rechecked the address on the paper. He’d had dealings in Greenfield before. It was far from the worst of the city’s estates, but still had its troubles. It was early afternoon now, and the streets were quiet. Someone had left a bicycle, missing its front wheel, in the middle of the road. Further along stood a pair of shopping trolleys, nose to nose as though deep in local gossip. In the midst of the six eleven-storey blocks stood four neat rows of terraced bungalows, complete with pocket-handkerchief gardens and low wooden fences. Net curtains covered most of the windows, and above each door a burglar alarm had been secured to the wall.

Part of the tarmac arena between the tower blocks had been given over to a play area. One boy was pulling another along on a sledge, imagining snow as the runners scraped across the ground. Rebus called out the words ‘Cragside Court’ and the boy on the sledge waved in the
direction of one of the blocks. When Rebus got up close to it, he saw that a sign on the wall identifying the building had been defaced so that ‘Cragside’ read ‘Crap-site’. A window on the second floor swung open.

‘You needn’t bother,’ a woman’s voice boomed. ‘He’s not here.’

Rebus stood back and angled his head upwards.

‘Who is it I’m supposed to be looking for?’

‘Trying to be smart?’

‘No, I just didn’t know there was a clairvoyant on the premises. Is it your husband or your boyfriend I’m after?’

The woman stared down at him, made up her mind that she’d spoken too soon. ‘Never mind,’ she said, pulling her head back in and closing the window.

There was an intercom system, but only the numbers of flats, no names. He pulled at the door; it was unlocked anyway. He waited a couple of minutes for the lift to come, then let it shudder its way slowly up to the fifth floor. A walkway, open to the elements, led him past the front doors of half a dozen flats until he was standing outside 5/14 Cragside Court. There was a window, but curtained with what looked like a frayed blue bedsheet. The door showed signs of abuse: failed break-ins maybe, or just people kicking at it because there was no bell or knocker. No nameplate, but that didn’t matter. Rebus knew who lived here.

Darren Rough.

The address was new to Rebus. When he’d helped build the case against Rough four years before, Rough had been living in a flat on Buccleuch Street. Now he was back in Edinburgh, and Rebus was keen for him to know just how welcome he was. Besides, he had a couple of questions for Darren Rough, questions about Jim Margolies …

The only problem was, he got the feeling the flat was empty. He tried one half-hearted thump at both door and window. When there was no response, he leaned down to peer through the letterbox, but found it had been blocked
from inside. Either Rough didn’t want anyone looking in, or else he’d been getting unwelcome deliveries. Straightening up, Rebus turned and rested his arms on the balcony railing. He found himself staring straight down on to the kids’ playground. Kids: an estate like Greenfield would be full of kids. He turned back to study Rough’s abode. No graffiti on walls or door, nothing to identify the tenant as ‘Pervo Scum’. Down at ground level, the sledge had taken a corner too fast, throwing off its rider. A window below Rebus opened noisily.

‘I saw you, Billy Horman! You did that on purpose!’ The same woman, her words aimed at the boy who’d been pulling the sledge.

‘Never did!’ he yelled back.

‘You fucking did! I’ll murder you.’ Then, tone changing: ‘Are you all right, Jamie? I’ve told you before about playing with that wee bastard. Now get in here!’

The injured boy rubbed a hand beneath his nose – as close as he was going to get to defiance – then made his way towards the tower block, glancing back at his friend. Their shared look lasted only a second or two, but it managed to convey that they were still friends, that the adult world could never break that bond.

Rebus watched the sledge-puller, Billy Horman, shuffle away, then walked down three floors. The woman’s flat was easy to find. He could hear her shouting from thirty yards away. He wondered if she constituted a problem tenant; got the feeling few would dare to complain to her face …

The door was solid, recently painted dark blue, and boasting a spy-hole. Net curtains at the window. They twitched as the woman checked who her caller was. When she opened the door, her son darted back out and along the walkway.

‘Just going to the shop, Mum!’

‘Come back here, you!’

But he was pretending not to have heard; disappeared around a corner.

‘Give me the strength to wring his neck,’ she said.

‘I’m sure you love him really.’

She stared hard at him. ‘Do we have any business?’

‘You never answered my question: husband or boyfriend?’

She folded her arms. ‘Eldest son, if you must know.’

‘And you thought I was here to see him?’

‘You’re the police, aren’t you?’ She snorted when he said nothing.

‘Should I know him then?’

‘Calumn Brady,’ she said.

‘You’re Cal’s mum?’ Rebus nodded slowly. He knew Cal Brady by reputation: regal chancer. He’d heard of Cal’s mother, too.

She stood about five feet eight in her sheepskin slippers. Heavily built, with thick arms and wrists, her face had decided long ago that make-up wasn’t going to cure anything. Her hair, thick and platinum-coloured, brown at the roots, fell from a centre parting. She was dressed in regulation satin-look shell suit, blue with a silver stripe up the arms and legs.

‘You’re not here for Cal then?’ she said.

Rebus shook his head. ‘Not unless you think he’s done something.’

‘So what
are
you doing here?’

‘Ever have any dealings with one of your neighbours, youngish lad called Darren Rough?’

‘Which flat’s he in?’ Rebus didn’t answer. ‘We get a lot of coming and going. Social Work stuff them in here for a couple of weeks. Christ knows what happens to them, they go AWOL or get shifted.’ She sniffed. ‘What’s he look like?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Rebus said. Jamie was back down in the playground, no sign of his friend. He ran in circles,
pulling the sledge. Rebus got the idea he could run like that all day.

‘Jamie’s not in school today?’ he asked, turning back towards the door.

‘None of your bloody business,’ Mrs Brady said, closing it in his face.

Back at St Leonard’s police station, Rebus looked up Calumn Brady on the computer. At age seventeen, Cal already had impressive form: assault, shoplifting, drunk and disorderly. There was no sign as yet that Jamie was following in his footsteps, but the mother, Vanessa Brady, known as ‘Van’, had been in trouble. Disputes with neighbours had become violent, and she’d been caught giving Cal a false alibi for one of his assault charges. No mention anywhere of a husband. Whistling ‘We Are Family’, Rebus went to ask the desk sergeant if he knew who the community officer was for Greenfield.

‘Tom Jackson,’ he was told. ‘And I know where he is, because I saw him not two minutes ago.’

Tom Jackson was in the car park at the back of the station, finishing a cigarette. Rebus joined him, lit one for himself and made the offer. Jackson shook his head.

‘Got to pace myself, sir,’ he said.

Jackson was in his mid-forties, barrel-chested and silver-haired with matching moustache. His eyes were dark, so that he always looked sceptical. He saw this as a decided bonus, since all he had to do was keep quiet and suspects would offer up more than they wanted to, just to appease that look.

‘I hear you’re still working Greenfield, Tom.’

‘For my sins.’ Jackson flicked ash from his cigarette, then brushed a few flecks from his uniform. ‘I was due a transfer in January.’

‘What happened?’

‘The locals needed a Santa for their Christmas do. They
have one every year at the church. Underprivileged kids. They asked muggins here.’

‘And?’

‘And I did it. Some of those kids … poor wee bastards. Almost had me in tears.’ The memory stopped him for a moment. ‘Some of the locals came up afterwards, started whispering.’ He smiled. ‘It was like the confessional. See, the only way they could think to thank me was to furnish a few tip-offs.’

Rebus smiled. ‘Shopping their neighbours.’

‘As a result of which, my clear-up rate got a sudden lift. Bugger is, they’ve decided to keep me there, seeing how I’m suddenly so clever.’

‘A victim of your own success, Tom.’ Rebus inhaled, holding the smoke as he examined the tip of his cigarette. Exhaling, he shook his head. ‘Christ, I love smoking.’

‘Not me. Interviewing some kid, warning him off drugs, and all the time I’m gasping for a draw.’ He shook his head. ‘Wish I could give it up.’

‘Have you tried patches?’

‘No good, they kept slipping off my eye.’

They shared a laugh at that.

‘I’m assuming you’ll get round to it eventually,’ Jackson said.

‘What, trying a patch?’

‘No, telling me what it is you’re after.’